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civil disobedience
No Kings, No Corporations: Rejecting Authoritarian and Corporate Rule
As we protest authoritarianism this Saturday—and legitimately condemn the many anti-democratic and unjust actions of Trump—let us also remember the tyranny of our corporate overlords who have been—perhaps more quietly but not less aggressively—eroding our democracy.
Jun 11, 2025
The “No Kings Day” mass rallies and marches this Saturday across the country will be, hopefully, a political and cultural affirmation of the democratic vision that we should be a self-governing people, a vision that has never been fully realized. The events must not only reject the reemergence and expansion of authoritarianism of Trump from his previous administration. They should also acknowledge the much longer tyranny and authoritarianism of corporate rule.
Speeches, signs, chants, and petitions will undoubtedly address the numerous authoritarian actions by the Trump administration since the election. These include pardons and immunities for loyalists, the use of federal agencies against political opponents, use of disinformation and threats against elected officials, mass deportations and family separation, executive orders that trump local and state governments, government loyalty purges, crackdown on the media and dissent, and militarized response to protests – such as the overreacting deployment of the Marines in response to the largely peaceful protests against ICE immigration raids in Los Angeles.
As we protest authoritarianism this Saturday—and legitimately condemn the many anti-democratic and unjust actions of Trump—let us also remember that tyranny has many symbols. One is a red hat. The other is a corporate logo.
The No Kings Day actions are just the latest and important public resistance to Trump’s tyrannical actions that have included other nationwide demonstrations and civil disobedience, legal challenges, whistleblowers and leaks, mutual aid, sanctuary networks, state and local government pushback, worker and union actions, and campus resistance.
Yet the reality is that Trump and his Project 2025 playbook represent one form of authoritarianism that, while distinct in some respects, intersects with another deeply entrenched form: corporate domination.
Unlike Trump’s style of blatant and unapologetic brute force, intimidation, and open defiance of the rule of law, corporate rule has been a slow, legalistic, never ending, and largely invisible seizure of power — not by individuals, but by artificial legal entities with little public accountability.
Corporations today define nearly every aspect of our lives:
- Our values: Consumerism and its emphasis on profit-first “logic” and primacy of property protection over human rights and the rights to a livable world.
- Our labor: Work hours, wages, and benefits are dictated by corporate interests.
- Our environment: Corporations control production, pollution, extraction, and destruction.
- Our food system: From seeds to supermarkets, agriculture is consolidated and chemically dependent.
- Our technology and data: AI, surveillance, and algorithms are driven by profit and privatization.
- Our politics: Elections, legislation, and regulation are shaped by lobbying and campaign contributions.
- Our culture and information: Entertainment, education, and news are filtered through corporate lenses.
How did this happen? The sword and shield of corporate rule is the U.S. Constitution. Despite corporate entities being originally created and defined by the government as a public tool to provide goods and services, the Supreme Court declared them to be private institutions, out of bounds to public definition and control. What had originally been the state providing mere “privileges” via the granting of charters or licences that could be withdrawn via the revoking of charters that violated the law became constitutional rights deemed beyond the reach of legislatures or individuals.
The Supremes have anointed corporations the constitutional rights of natural persons for more that a century, including:
- First Amendment rights — to spend unlimited money on elections (Citizens United v. FEC being the latest decision), to not to speak, to lie, and even to some extent religious rights
- Fourth Amendment rights — to block health, safety, and environmental inspections.
- Fifth Amendment takings rights — to challenge local and state regulations under the Takings Clause that affect profit.
- Fourteenth Amendment equal protection — to avoid differential treatment in the law, even when such laws protect local businesses and communities over chain stores and other businesses.
Corporate “personhood” is an absurdity, yet humanly, environmentally, and democratically lethal.
While there have been frequent mass actions over single corporate abuses, we don’t see mass protests in the streets about the totality of corporate rule. Why does corporate tyranny go unchallenged?
Corporate rule has been normalized. It is:
- Cultural: So embedded that we barely notice it — from Amazon to Apple to Exxon to BlackRock. Call it the “fish discover water last” syndrome in which it's so much a part of our daily lives that it’s hardly recognized..
- Gradual: It’s happened over a century, one Court decision at a time, which is challenging to understand given the legal complexity and, of course, rarely covered by the corporate press.
- Justified: We’re told corporations bring jobs, innovation, and prosperity — even as economic inequality soars and corporate entities are increasinbly able to shift capital where and when they want to other states or nations.
- Powerful: We’re told that the economic and political power of mega-corporations is inevitable and irreversible – so public focus should remain on elections, statutes, and regulations that merely manage corporate harms and impose minimal guardrails, keeping us perpetually on the defensive, opposing one corporate abuse or company at a time while censoring ourselves from demanding structural change.
- Feared: To criticize corporations is to risk being labeled “anti-American,” a “socialist,” a “Luddite” or worse.
Move to Amend exists to expose and abolish corporate constitutional rights and the doctrine of money as speech through the We the People Amendment (HJR54). This is not about regulating corporations better. It’s about breaking the illegitimate foundation of their power and declaring that we should have the power and right to define corporate actions.
As we protest authoritarianism this Saturday—and legitimately condemn the many anti-democratic and unjust actions of Trump—let us also remember that tyranny has many symbols. One is a red hat. The other is a corporate logo.
So let us all turn out on No Kings Day not only to oppose authoritarian rule, but also as an opportunity to oppose corporate rule, which will remain long after Trump is gone.Keep ReadingShow Less
How Should We Respond to Trump’s National Guard Deployment Against the People of LA?
We cannot be silent in the face of Trump’s dictatorial move. Silence is acquiescence. We must be brave in resisting him. But we must not succumb to violence.
Jun 08, 2025
What is our moral responsibility as citizens of the United States when the President of the United States moves to deploy thousands of American soldiers against us?
President Donald Trump signed a memo late yesterday ordering 2,000 members of the National Guard to be deployed in Los Angeles County after federal immigration agents in riot gear squared off with hundreds of protesters for a second consecutive day.
Trump’s action is extreme although technically legal. California Gov. Gavin Newsom did not call in the Guard. Title 10 of the United States Code allows a president to federalize the National Guard units of states to suppress “any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy.” In a presidential memo, Trump said, “To the extent that protests or acts of violence directly inhibit the execution of the laws, they constitute a form of rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States.”
What better Ground Zero for him to try out his police state than Los Angeles—a city teaming with immigrants, with Hollywood celebrities who demonize him, and wealthy moguls who despise him?
Why is he doing it, and why now?
Because Trump can’t stand to be humiliated—as he has been in the last two weeks. By Senate Republicans’ refusal to quickly enact his so-called One Big Beautiful Bill. By Chinese President Xi Jinping’s refusal to back down on trade (and restrict shipments of China’s rare earths, which American industry depends on). By Russian President Vladimir Putin’s refusal to end the war in Ukraine. By the federal courts pushing back against his immigration policy. And, now, by insults and smears from the richest person in the world, who has a larger social media following than does Trump.
So what does Trump do when he’s humiliated? He deflects public attention. Like any bully, he tries to find another way to display his power—especially over people who are powerless, such as immigrants. Especially over people whom he doesn’t consider “his” people, such as Californians.
He has despised California since the 2016 election when the state overwhelmingly voted against him.
And what better Ground Zero for him to try out his police state than Los Angeles—a city teaming with immigrants, with Hollywood celebrities who demonize him, and wealthy moguls who despise him?
He is calling out the National Guard to provoke violence. As Gov. Newsom said, “that move is purposefully inflammatory and will only escalate tensions.”
Trump wants to escalate tensions. He wants a replay of the violence that occurred in the wake of the George Floyd murder—riots, mayhem, and destruction that allow him to escalate his police state further—imposing curfews, closing down parts of Los Angeles, perhaps seeking to subdue the entire state. And beyond.
Please do not give him this. Don’t fall into his trap.
We cannot be silent in the face of Trump’s dictatorial move. Silence is acquiescence. We must be brave in resisting him. But we must not succumb to violence.
What is needed is peaceful civil disobedience. Americans locking arms to protect those who need protection. Americans sitting in the way of armored cars. Americans singing and chanting in the face of the Americans whom Trump is drafting into his handmade civil war.
Americans who do not attempt to strike back, but who do what many of us did during the Civil Rights and anti-Vietnam War movements—peacefully but unambiguously reject tyranny. To be brave and nonviolent in the face of tyranny, to be strong and restrained, to resist with our hearts filled with anger but not succumb to that anger—is difficult. But Martin Luther King Jr. taught us its importance, and John Lewis taught us how.
A humiliated Trump is the most dangerous Trump. He has manufactured this entire crisis. But he will overreach. He already has. And this overreach will ultimately be his undoing.
As long as we keep our heads.
May we look back on this hellish time and feel proud of what we did.
Be strong. Be safe. Hug your loved ones.
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How Will We Respond to Immoral Laws Targeting Refugees Today?
The Republican Party now seeks to criminalize every aspect of helping a person who has fled a life of torture, violence, and suffering. Will we obey?
May 25, 2025
A person escapes slave labor, torture, rape, and murder, and illegally crosses a border to a land where such crimes are outlawed, to a land where people have the right to work for wages and are protected by the law. Anyone in this “Free Land” who harbors or aides such an escapee is subject to federal prosecution, fines, and imprisonment. Yet to turn them over to federal authorities returns these people to a life of wanton violence and suffering.
This was the United States in 1850 when Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Law, legislation requiring that all escaped slaves be returned to the slave owner and that officials and citizens in free states must cooperate. Aiding or harboring a slave meant prison and steep fines. Habeas corpus was suspended under this law. Citizens were required to return a runaway slave to the chains of bondage or face the wrath of the federal courts.
Americans in 1850 had to decide where they stood, with the newly passed federal law or with their conscience. The risk was great, for both the runaway slaves and those Americans who might help them.
Our choice on such a momentous issue determines not just our place on the right or wrong side of history but determines the fate of people impacted by our decision.
Today, the Republican Party, the very party which grew from the outrage over the wickedness of the Fugitive Slave Act, now seeks to criminalize every aspect of helping a person who has fled a life of torture, violence, and suffering. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 has been updated and amended for the fleeing refugees of 2025.
On April 25, 2025, U.S. officials arrested Hannah Dugan, a Wisconsin judge, and charged her with helping a man in her court evade immigration authorities. It is alleged she hindered immigration agents who appeared in the courthouse to arrest the man without a judicial warrant. She faces numerous federal charges.
We are only four months into Trump’s Second Term of Cruelty. Where will we be a year from now? Two years from now? How draconian will the laws be then?
Americans living in the border states of the 1850s were called upon to answer the question of what they would do when a runaway slave appeared in their community. Would they violate federal law and help, or would they turn the desperate families back over to the slaveholders, to the “manstealers,” as the bounty hunters were then called.
Many in the border state of Pennsylvania—Quakers, Amish, Brethren—followed their faith and funneled these runaways to freedom. In Lancaster County, Republican Congressman Thaddeus Stevens allegedly hid slaves in a cistern in his backyard as he facilitated their road to freedom. He was an oathbound member of Congress violating U.S. law to save lives.
In retrospect, it is easy to know what the right thing to do was in the case of slavery and The Underground Railroad. That issue today is clear for us. We know where we would stand: for freedom, for those fleeing slavery. But back then the issue was not so clear. Our choice on such a momentous issue determines not just our place on the right or wrong side of history but determines the fate of people impacted by our decision.
Will we help or hinder a person in need?
Will we violate immoral law to save a life?
Will we risk fines and imprisonment?
These questions were asked and answered by many Americans in 1850. How will we answer them today?
So often we wish to be part of a moment of great historical importance, a moment when we have to take a risk to save another, to take a stand when others wouldn’t. We feel certain we would know the right thing to do. If only such a moment would come our way.
Today, that moment comes not in the form of storming a beachhead or taking a hill in battle. It is not marching for civil rights in Birmingham or Selma. And it is not hiding a runaway slave in your attic, though the similarities to that particular act of conscience are striking. Today it is whether to provide shelter and safety to a refugee fleeing violence in their home country, a person illegally in the United States.
How will we respond this time? In this century? In this historic moment?
Is a refugee illegally entering this country to flee institutional violence different than a slave illegally entering a free state to escape slavery? Especially when that institutional violence has been precipitated by the U.S. repeatedly intervening and destabilizing the home country of the refugee?
In 1958, legendary peace activist Philip Berrigan asked a youth retreat group the following question: “What's it going to be with you? Are you going to go through life playing both ends against the middle, playing cozy, not committing yourself, sitting on the fence?”
That question is as potent, and as dangerous, today as it was then. For us, and for the victims in the breach.
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