Gaveling Down The Rabble

What other people are saying about Gaveling Down the Rabble

Jane Anne Morris gives us chapter and verse on how the Commerce Clause of the Constitution has undermined local democracy. Here is the inside story of corporate theft of people’s rights. Further she shows how the rights of labor, minorities, women and the environment have been undermined instead of being protected by the courts.

—Howard Zinn, American historian, political scientist, social critic, activist and playwright.

Jane Morris book shows with clear evidence how free trade and democracy cannot coexist. Free trade does not “happen”. It is made to happen. It is not a “natural” phenomena. It is a corporate driven design, based on dismantling every democratic protection that citizens have through policy, through laws, through court decisions.

—Dr. Vandana Shiva is an internationally renowned environmentalist, thinker and radical scientist. She won the Right Livelihood Award in 1993. She directs the Research Foundation for Science, Technology, and Natural Resource Policy in New Delhi, India, and is an Associate Editor of The Ecologist magazine. Before becoming an activist, Shiva was one of India’s leading physicists. Her some 20 books include Water Wars: Privatization, Pollution, and Profit.

From Frederick Douglass down through Susan B. Anthony and Martin Luther King, non-lawyers have contributed some of our most insightful thinking about the Constitution. In Gaveling Down the Rabble, Jane Anne Morris continues this distinguished tradition. She argues that the Supreme Court has transformed the commerce clause of the Constitution (which grants Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce) into a mandate for the Court to indulge its preference for ‘free trade’ over democracy and basic human rights. The argument is lively, cogent, and backed by extensive research. This book will be useful not only to law students, lawyers, and judges, but to anyone who is curious or concerned about the role of the Supreme Court in American politics.

—James Gray Pope, Professor of Law & Sidney Reitman Scholar, Rutgers University School of Law, Newark, NJ.

Jane Anne Morris has written a very important work. Who will control the direction of life on planet earth: mega-corporations and their ultra-rich CEO’s or citizens and the communities they work and live in? Very few books ever touch such important questions, and Ms. Morris does it with originality and gravitas. She demonstrates powerfully how the Supreme Court and the Commerce Clause are undermining local democracy in America. She also has important ideas on how to fight back.

—Carl Mayer, a public interest attorney with the Mayer Law Group in New Jersey and New York, was termed “a populist crusader and maverick lawyer” by the New York Times. Mayer worked on United States Supreme Court case that prevented Nike from using the First Amendment to continue deceiving consumers about sweat-shop labor used in Nike plants. He filed the first lawsuit challenging the domestic spying operation conducted by the Bush White House, the National Security Agency (NSA) and the major phone companies.

Dr. Morris is a skilled deep historian analyzing how corporate control has destroyed and subverted real democracy. This is a very important book.

—John Stauber, co-founder and director of the Center for Media & Democracy and its newsmagazine PR Watch. He has co-authored six books including the 2003 New York Times bestseller, Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush’s War on Iraq.

Ms. Morris provides an extremely valuable and important look into why, despite ongoing efforts to utilize local democracy to better manage our vital legacy for the essential benefits it provides to present and future generations, corporations continue to buy, mutilate, and profit from our commons to the detriment of environmental and public integrity. Morris succeeds admirably in presenting a well-researched Gaveling Down the Rabble offering a historical glimpse into the ironic roots of environmental and social policy.

—Britt Bailey, Executive Director, Environmental Commons and author of Against the Grain: Biotechnology and the Corporate Takeover of Your Food and Senior Editor of Engineering the Farm: the Social and Ethical Aspects of Genetic Engineering.

This is a terrific book. Jane Anne Morris’ meticulously researched book convincingly explains how 21 words in the U.S. Constitution have been used to subvert and hamstring our democracy. Required reading for politicians and citizens alike.

—David Morris, co-founder and vice-president of the Institute for Local Self Reliance. His articles appear in newspapers and journals throughout the country. He is the author of several books on urban development, local self-reliance, energy and the environment, including The Trade Papers.

In delightful and engaging prose, Jane Anne Morris lays out the preponderant force of commerce that defines life in these United States. At a time when establishing sustainable communities is essential, Gaveling Down the Rabble gives us the background to move past commerce and invoke citizenship and democracy as the ruling arbiters of our lives.

—Jim Tarbell, a writer and broadcaster based in Northern California, co-hosts Corporations and Democracy radio show on KZYX and edits the quarterly journal Justice Rising: Grassroots Solutions to Corporate Domination.

Gaveling Down The Rabble dares the reader to think strategically about the political change required to make local democracy real. It’s an utterly vital book … sheaves of research on this crucial subject distilled into a strong medicine to remedy activist frustration and legislative impotence. Who’d-a thunk that an analysis of the Supreme Court’s interpretations of the US Constitution’s Commerce Clause could make a compelling, highly readable book?

—Stephanie Mills, bioregionalist and writer, was named by “Utne Reader” as one of the world’s leading visionaries and a prolific writer and speaker on ecology and social change. Her most recent book is Tough Little Beauties. Mills lives near Maple City Michigan, where she is active in a local currency endeavor.

Jane Anne Morris always has something new and important to teach. Unorthodox, truth-seeking, and yet colorfully readable, Gaveling Down the Rabble removes a century’s worth of legal cobwebs from our eyes. You will learn a great deal from this book; you will think differently once you’ve read it.

—Ben Manski, Attorney at Law and founder, Liberty Tree Foundation for the Democratic Revolution

Morris’s painstaking researched and humorously written book traces the bobbing and weaving of the Supreme Court through its inconsistencies that consistently champion the historic ruling economic elite in the United States. Gaveling Down the Rabble is a must-read book for those who want to replace the Commerce Clause of the Constitution with the General Welfare Clause-those who put people over profit.

—Peter Kellman, President of the Southern Maine Labor Council, AFL-CIO, and author of Building Unions; Divided We Fall: The Story of the Paperworkers’ Union and the Future of Labor; and Pain On Their Faces: Testimonies on the Paper Mill Strike, Jay, Maine, 1987-1988.

Who needs to read a book about the Commerce Clause? Everyone who cares about civil rights, labor issues, the environment and democracy; and wonders why our side never seems to make headway. Gaveling Down the Rabble provides the missing piece in the puzzle of corporate rule.

—Jan Edwards, activist and co-creator of the Timeline of Personhood Rights and Powers and the Tapestry of the Commons; board member of the California Center for Community Democracy; works with the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom; and The Alliance for Democracy.

For those of us trying to establish meaningful democracy, our own unexamined assumptions can be every bit as big an obstacle as undemocratic institutions. Gaveling Down the Rabble is choice reading for anyone who wants to learn about the Commerce Clause, or relearn what they thought they already knew.

—Jeffrey Kaplan, author of The Birth of the White Corporation, reprinted by the Poverty & Race Research Action Council and as book chapters. He is a writer and researcher based in Berkeley, CA.

“Impact of commerce clause on democracy told with wit and solid research”. Comment: Information wish I’d known sooner. Read It ASAP.

—J. M. (Peggy) Baime, Long time peace and justice activist; member of Gray Panthers for 26 years.

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