This article originally provided by The Charleston Gazette

September 29, 2010

Brothers on nationwide walk rail against Supreme Court election decision

By Paul J. Nyden

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Laird and Robin Monahan, brothers who are both Vietnam veterans, are walking across the country to protest the increasing influence of corporate money in elections.

Their adventure began on May 16 on the Pacific coast in San Francisco, near the Golden Gate Bridge. This week, their journey is taking them along U.S. 50 through West Virginia on their way to Washington.

The Monahan brothers plan to attend the One Nation Working Together rally scheduled on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on Saturday.

When the brothers spoke at the Unitarian-Universalist Church in Charleston on Monday, they had just completed Day 136 of their journey.

"On Jan. 21, the Supreme Court ruled corporations were people, money was speech and corporations may spend as much money as they want in our political process," Laird Monahan said.

"President [Dwight D.] Eisenhower warned us about the military-industrial complex."

Laird, now 70, was criticizing the court's Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission decision allowing private corporations to spend unlimited amounts of their own money to finance political candidates and buy political ads.

Existing laws limit campaign contributions individuals can make to political candidates, but they do not limit the amount of personal money individuals can spend on their own campaigns.

The Citizens United ruling basically reclassifies corporations as "persons."

"Corporations are efficient economic tools. They are essential to our economy. They are efficient manufacturers. They provide investments in research and discovery," Laird said.

"But a Supreme Court that puts an economic tool above human beings will guarantee that 'We The People' will be excluded from representative government."

The Monahan brothers urge Americans to support a Constitutional "Amendment to Abolish Corporate Personhood."

"Before this, we had never been political activists," Laird said. "And today, we have no political agenda, except the restoration of democracy to our people.

"For the last 40 years, we have voted for Republicans and for Democrats. I voted for Ross Perot in 1992," Laird said.

Robin Monahan voted for Barry Goldwater in 1964. "He said he would keep us out of Vietnam. Three years later, I was in Vietnam."

Laird criticized the "present-day war on terror. It is designed to be never-ending. Corporations don't want it to end, because their profits are enormous."

Robin, now 67, said the 3,000-mile trek was possible because "we are both retired and both have working wives.

"We walked from San Francisco to Sacramento and began walking on U.S. Route 50. Together, we walk about 21 miles a day, each of us about 10-and-a-half miles," Robin said.

The brothers have a car with them. Each day, one brother begins walking and the other drives the car a quarter of a mile down the road, then begins his walk, continuing the pattern for about six hours each day.

More information about their adventures can be found at www.lairdandrobin.org, a website that includes a daily blog about their travels and adventures.

In a flier the Monahan brothers hand out, they urge local city councils, county commissions and labor councils to pass resolutions backing a constitutional amendment to limit corporate political spending.

"We have no agenda other than the restoration of our Constitution to 'We the People' and the rescission of the Supreme Court's opinion that corporations are legal persons and entitled to the same rights as human citizens.

"We believe that corporations are economic tools, not people," Laird said.

Laird served in Vietnam with the U.S. Navy in Da Nang from 1965 to 1967, while Robin served with a Marine division between April 1967 and April 1968.

Reach Paul J. Nyden at pjny...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-5164.