Articles
SLAPPs Article from NIMBY (1994)
(The following is from my 1994 book, Not In My Back Yard: The Handbook (Silvercat Publications). It’s dated but still accurate. The references are no longer current.) Watch Out for SLAPPs SLAPP, a term coined in 1988, refers to a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation. A Wall St. Journal article, referencing consumer advocate Ralph Nader, …
SLAPPs In Depth
SLAPPs: Effects, Defenses, Preventions This paper on SLAPPs is written for non-lawyers by a non-lawyer. It is an attempt to familiarize the interested layperson with the nature of SLAPPs, defenses against them, and ways to prevent them. Special attention is given to provisions that may be effective in state legislation designed to protect the rights …
Corporate Law Secrets Exposed By Anthropologist (1998/2015)
A Short Preface: The View from 2015… The piece below, once available as a pamphlet, was written in 1998 to try to induce “activists” to pierce the invisible force field that seems to keep them from reading the history of corporate law. Whether or not it succeeds in that sense, it offers a perspective on …
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State “Laboratories of Democracy” Threatened, Overlooked (2007)
by Jane Anne Morris How to be sure that toy under the holiday tree has no lead paint? With only a month of shopping days remaining, the public depends–more than at any other time–on our federal regulatory agencies’ ability to protect us from health and safety risks from toys, clothing, and other goods. So when …
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Homo Metallicus: Is Recycling the New Garbage? (2008)
by Jane Anne Morris The history of Homo metallicus mirrors more than technological prowess: consequences may be closer than they appear. And, they are coming from our blind spot. Before humans started hammering portable copper mirrors about five thousand years ago, the only mirrors were pools of clear still water, reflecting trees and sky. A …
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Why a Green Future is “Unconstitutional” and What to Do About It (2008)
By Jane Anne Morris Working in tandem with a cooperative Supreme Court, corporate lawyers have insinuated themselves into the US Constitution like retroviruses, rewriting Constitutional code so that instead of protecting human persons from an oppressive government, the Constitution has been twisted to shield corporate persons (corporations) from control by the governments that create them.
The Energy Nightmare of Web Server Farms (2008)
by Jane Anne Morris One distracted click during my Internet research for this article gave me instant access to 936 photos of Brad Pitt. According to people who know, that click activated some 7000 computers in the search, and perhaps twice as many more trying to induce me to buy something or type in my …
Corporate “Personhood” Must Be Challenged (2009)
by Jane Anne Morris When the “Hillary Clinton film” case is decided, headlines should declare, “Supreme Court affirms corporate personhood.” Instead, most media will call it a free speech decision. “First Amendment rights” will play the Trojan horse hauling corporate freight.
Look to Congress for Supreme Court Fix (2010)
by Jane Anne Morris How is it unconstitutional for a state to require place-of-origin labels on meat? Regulate sale of its water? Establish worker protections stricter than federal standards? Where does the US Constitution say that states cannot require that toxic waste be sorted and labeled? Cannot include labor standards in state purchasing policy? Cannot …