1/11/05
Here's another clear example of how we are assaulted with republican tag lines. Everyone in the country who speaks of the movement against the lawsuits filed against the corporate assault on civilization will title the movement "frivolous lawsuits" with thanks to the right wing media machine.
This strong title given to this effort to dismantle lawsuits filed against corporations has me thinking. Why all the effort and the plugging away with this skewed tag line, giving the lawsuits a negative connotation immediately without even getting into the details of what's happening. It's sort of how the Patriot Act was given a soft title that really has harsh potential applications against our civil rights. So why all the fuss about these lawsuits? They're spreading it on thick; too thick.
Interesting that if we look back to 1886, we see when corporations used the courts to achieve personhood in order to attain rights granted to citizens of the United States . Rights granted to us because of Amendments like the 4th Amendment that gives us right to privacy that corporations use to keep out the EPA from doing surprise inspections and also abuses of the 1st and 14th Amendments. Corporations had a barrage of lawsuits that pushed their "rights" and ability to influence government with less and less accountability to the public and its employees. Only through labor movements have workers fought corporate conglomerates to organize. Corporations want us to believe unions threaten our economy without giving us a glimpse of how corporations have also organized themselves in effort to gain leverage. Through years of corporate domination we have come to think it normal that corporations can do what they wish in effort to produce a healthy economy while ignoring their pursuit to becoming the largest political contributors and their take over of the agencies that were meant to regulate them. Have they used up all judicial system has to offer? Have they exhausted everything that they are possibly going to gain through the use of corporate lawyers?
It seems clear to me that corporations now have written legislation and lobbied government and used the judicial system to their advantage for so long, that they need to close up these access points that can now hurt their status. I purpose that it's the corporate view that it is time to close off the courts that give us little people access to hold corporations accountable for their abusive actions. It has become a taboo to even think that a lawsuit could force a corporation to dissolve. The opposing argument being: but what about the people who have jobs because of that corporation? I would hope that the loss of jobs is a more than a fair cost to keep companies responsible... wouldn't the cost be greater if we didn't hold corporations feet to the fire?
So the broader point here is that corporations have used up the courts to gain all the advantage that they can muster and now are using our CEO President to do their bidding. Frame those lawsuits "frivolous" George, they ask. And so the administration gets to work and the corporate media follows every moment of the topic on "frivolous" lawsuits. Don't listen to their words... they spew poison on our beloved democracy of We the People.
What needs to be done? No, not socialism, but we need to regain the restraints that were originally imposed on corporations. In countries like Sweden and Germany where corporations are restrained from abusing their powers, CEO's make an average of 13-15 times as much as the average employee. Where as America 's average CEO making an average of 411 times as much as their employees.
There is an evil which ought to be guarded against in the indefinite accumulation of property from the capacity of holding it in perpetuity by... corporations. The power of all corporations ought to be limited in this respect. The growing wealth acquired by them never fails to be a source of abuses. - President James Madison (1809-1817)
Much of the information that is found in this article is borrowed from the book "What Would Jefferson Do" by Thom Hartmann.