“Slavery is the legal fiction that a person is property. Corporate personhood is the legal fiction that property is a person.” -- Anonymous
In 2010 the
NeoConservative, pro-corporate, anti-democratic Roberts’ 5/4 Supreme
Court’s decided in the Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission
ruling to grant personhood to corporations by allowing unlimited,
anonymous monetary contributions to political campaigns and candidates.
This ruling, called by many to be the worst Supreme Court decision of
the past century, has emboldened the already powerful and corruptible
multinational corporations (that now have achieved dominion over US
politics as well as the economy) to “buy” any number of politicians and
brain-wash voters by multi-million dollar ad campaigns that the rest of
us can’t afford to counter in state and national elections.
The US Supreme Court has thus made legal the absurd notion that
inanimate corporations like PolyMet and GTac (potential despoilers of
northern Minnesota and northern Wisconsin’s irreplaceable wetlands,
aquifers and aboriginal land and water rights) deserve the same
privileges (but not the same responsibilities) as living humans.
After the ruling came down, there was only a brief bit of outrage
from the so-called national leadership of our essentially “one-party
system” (one-party, that is, when it comes to the GOP and Democratic
Party’s corporate and militarist agendas). What outrage was expressed
was quickly drowned out by a well-timed, mainstream media-orchestrated
“tempest in a teapot”, namely Toyota’s recall of tens of thousands of
accelerator pedals (that had only infrequently been the cause of
significant accidents).
What Should be the Punishment for Corporate Entities That Plunder and Pillage?
The following question about the consequences of the Supreme Court’s democracy-threatening decision must be asked:
If corporations are given the privileges
of personhood, shouldn’t they also bear the same responsibilities and
incur the same punishments as individuals when they commit crimes,
poison the water and air or rape the land?
Peace and justice activists applauded when the citizens of
Shapleigh, Maine protected their water rights last year from the
insatiable water-extracting corporate giant Nestle. (See video and more
information on this episode at: (
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/40335).
Nestle, one of the many multinational corporate exploiters, has no
allegiance to Maine, Minnesota or Wisconsin or any other state where
this foreign entity tries to extract water or minerals that never were
theirs to begin with. But when the minerals have been depleted and the
water has been polluted or drained, Nestle, PolyMet and GTac will be
gone, and so will Exxon/Mobil, British Petroleum, Halliburton, Deep
Water Horizon, British Petroleum, Coca-Cola, Perrier or whatever other
corporate intruder that ruthlessly extracts or poisons the people’s
resources — all for the economic benefit of their faceless investors,
shareholders and CEOs at their out-of-state corporate headquarters, none
of whom will have to live with the poisoned environment that they have
left behind.
The good citizens of Shapleigh recognized the foxes that tried to get
inside their henhouse, and they did the right thing by vigorously
resisting; and another underdog David — with a lot of justice, a lot of
pluck and a little luck on his side — won a rare victory against another
evil giant.
Move to Amend: Overturning Citizens United
That small victory against injustice should illustrate what must be
done if American democracy is ever to thrive again. The outrageous
Citizens United decision must be overturned with a constitutional
amendment. (See
www.movetoamend.org for more.) The
future of the nation, our children, the planet, our drinking water,
natural habitat and aboriginal rights are all at stake. And exploitative
corporations, just like other sociopathic entities, don’t seem to care.
It is important to understand that the allegiance of big corporations
is to its investors, shareholders, executives and management teams, and
not to the people whose lives and health depend on the sustainability
of the land, water, air and food supplies. Most corporate shareholders
and executives from multinational corporations that are part of Big
Pharma, Big Food, Big Agribusiness, Big Oil, Big Finance, etc are
motivated by profits and not the common good, and therefore they are not
concerned when local resources are used up and the struggling, degraded
communities are left behind to fend for themselves (after being fooled
into trusting non-human corporations that are inherently untrustworthy
[see below]).
”Trust us: We’re the Experts; Toxic Sludge is Good for You; We’ll Clean up After Ourselves” — and Other Corporate Lies
Conscienceless mega-corporations that swoop down on unsuspecting
people and naïve governmental bodies, usually ask them to “trust us” and
that — at some time in the uncertain future – they will un-poison the
often permanently-toxified environment that they secretly intend to just
leave behind. The people, understandably desperate for jobs, are
usually fooled into believing well-crafted disinformation that is
cunningly delivered — until it is too late and the mess that is left
behind is no longer the sneaky corporation’s problem. It’s an old con.
Promises made during the courtship phase are likely to be broken with
impunity when these foreign corporations are forced to pull-out, merge
with other entities or file for bankruptcy. Silver-tongued experts from
out of state are very good at getting us rubes up north all starry-eyed
over temporary jobs, jobs, jobs while discounting the huge risks of
permanent dead and dying zones being created because of their poisonous
chemicals.
Wal-Mart, Coca-Cola and Union Carbide/Dow Chemical and Henry Kissinger
A good example of the many tax-avoiding American mega-corporations is
Wal-Mart. A large portion of its profits go to a handful of Walton
family billionaires in Arkansas. Wal-Mart successfully — and legally —
avoids paying for healthcare insurance and other benefits for most of
their exploited, underpaid, part-time employees, who are also victims of
the corporation’s notorious union-busting policies.
US taxpayers are left holding the bag while Wal-Mart legally avoids
what should ethically be their corporate responsibility: to be fair to
their employees. Wal-Mart’s notorious below-subsistence level wages
forces many of their workers to work a second or third job and also seek
welfare benefits — a cunning cost-shifting tactic that places economic
burdens on the tax-paying public.
Another example is Coca-Cola. Coke depends on water that it extracts
from any water source or aquifer from which the corporation can
economically extract it, including, as a particularly egregious example,
the aquifers that are situated beneath thirsty, struggling, starving
(and then suicidal) farmers who are losing their farms in newly
drought-stricken India.
Millions of gallons of water, that have traditionally been used for
farmland irrigation systems, are being depleted by Coca-Cola in order to
meet the artificial demand that has been created for the sweet, sugary,
caffeinated (and therefore addictive), nutritionally useless,
obesity-inducing and diabetes-producing soft drink that contains a few
cents worth of ingredients and then is sold to poor people everywhere
for as much as the market will bear.
Coke’s predation of poor people in India and elsewhere brings to mind
another corporate crime that has never been brought to justice. The
infamous 1984 Union Carbide cyanide catastrophe in Bhopal, India that
killed 25,000 slum-dwellers, left 100,000 permanently poisoned victims
whose lives were ruined, and has left uncounted numbers of people living
on poisoned soil, drinking poisoned water and breathing poisoned air.
Every person that has been exposed to the Union Carbide cyanide plant
environs is chronically ill, and Indian mothers are still delivering
malformed babies and dead fetuses because of the pesticide residues that
cannot be detoxified. Union Carbide, the American corporation
responsible for the disaster, has consistently shirked, just like most
criminal entities, its moral responsibilities to the suffering victims.
Carbide eventually sold itself to the equally infamous Dow Chemical, the
company that brought us Agent Orange, immune-destroying silicone breast
implants and a multitude of other highly profitable but very poisonous
products.
Carbide’s corporate executives have been repeatedly subpoenaed to
appear in Indian courts for their crimes. But the US has not honored the
extradition treaties it has with India. These executives have
repeatedly refused to appear and are therefore in contempt of court.
There are warrants out for their arrests in India, just as there are
warrants out for the arrest of Citizen Henry Kissinger for his part in
international war crimes and crimes against humanity in Chile, East
Timor, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, etc. All of these accused criminals
remain at large, harbored by America’s Big Business-friendly,
corporate-controlled nation.
Sociopathy and the DSM: The Common Denominator Linking Human and Corporate Criminals
There are a number of common denominators that link human criminals
and the multinational corporations that populate the Fortune 500 and/or
Dow 30 Industrial Average lists (like Wal-Mart, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola,
Dow, Chevron, Exxon/Mobil, du Pont, British Petroleum, Halliburton
Monsanto, Merck, Pfizer, Proctor and Gamble, Nestle, Perrier, Nike,
Goldman Sachs, J P Morgan Chase, Enron, etc, etc). For one, the
corporations, being just as afraid of facing the music as were Henry
Kissinger, Bernie Madoff, Ken Lay and the other multibillionaires of
their ilk (that are rich enough to employ rafts of cunning defense
lawyers). Be certain that they will use any means necessary to evade or
delay justice. Similarly, none of them can be expected to show any
genuine remorse for the human suffering that their actions have caused.
There are checklist diagnoses for various personality disorders in
the billing and diagnostic manual for psychiatrists (the Diagnostic and
Statistical Manuel [DSM] which, by the way, contains no statistics – go
figure). One of the 374 disorders that are listed in the 4
th
edition of the DSM is antisocial personality disorder (code number
301.7), which identifies chronic pathological liars, cheaters,
extortionists, abusers, thieves and killers whose lack of morals, ethics
or consciences commonly enables them to avoid being caught or punished
for crimes and misdeeds.
These “sociopaths” (aka psychopaths) typically refuse to accept blame
or responsibility for their actions. In the case of sociopathic
mega-corporations that are occasionally successfully sued in court,
business-friendly judges will often allow a gag rule to be imposed
against the plaintiff and may also allow the corporation to deny any
wrong-doing even as it accepts the penalty!
Those supposedly “human” corporate entities can easily meet the
criteria of antisocial personality disorder, and thus they seem to be
incapable of showing genuine remorse if or when they are caught or
convicted for their crimes. (Learn more about corporate sociopathy at
http://www.thecorporation.com/ or by watching the 2003 Canadian documentary titled The Corporation at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHrhqtY2khc.)
Below are seven diagnostic criteria that are used to diagnose
antisocial (aka, sociopathic or psychopathic) personality disorder in
humans (be mindful that only three of the seven are needed for a
positive diagnosis):
1) callous disregard for the feelings of other people
2) the incapacity to maintain human relationships
3) reckless disregard for the safety of others
4) aggressiveness
5) deceitfulness (repeated lying and conning others for profit)
6) incapacity to experience guilt and
7) the failure to conform to social norms and respect for the law.
Other common traits manifested by sociopaths include:
Lack of conscience
Lack of remorse for evils done to others
Indifference to the suffering of its victims
Rationalizes (makes excuses for) having hurt, mistreated or stolen from others
Willingness to exploit, seduce or manipulate others
No sign of delusional or irrational thinking
Cunning, clever
Usually above average intelligence
Always looking for ways to make money or achieve fame or notoriety
Willing to cause or contribute to the financial ruin of others
Untrustworthy
Cannot be trusted to adhere to conventional standards of morality.
We are talking about criminality in individuals that are not
considered mentally ill. Sadly, sociopaths are, for all intents and
purposes, totally sane but are also incurable of their personality
disorder. These individuals make up at least 4% of the US population,
although certain professions, such as the killing professions, tend to
attract larger percentages of them (read The Sociopath Next Door: The
Ruthless Versus the Rest of Us, by Martha Stout, PhD – buy it at:
https://www.google.com/#q=The+Sociopath+next+door).
Actually the exact number of sociopaths — humans or their corporate
counterparts — is not precisely known, but, lacking a conscience,
neither truly feels guilty about their misdeeds. And therefore they
never truly try to change. Believing that there is nothing wrong with
them, human sociopaths rarely ask for help, and corporations are no
different, especially when the law and the markets are on their side.
If and when human sociopaths are court-ordered to submit to
evaluation and “treatment”, they typically only pretend to change until
the pressure is off and their unethical or criminal activities look
doable again. Academic psychologists tell us that attempts to
rehabilitate full-fledged sociopaths are useless, although the often
charming, charismatic, silver-tongued sociopath will commonly fool the
treatment team into thinking progress is being made.
And sociopathic corporations don’t seem to have much trouble seducing
regulatory agencies, local governmental entities and desperate
underemployed workers by promising jobs and a secret un-tested plan to
prevent environmental catastrophes. Only when it’s too late and the
megacorporation has skipped the country with the loot will all the
painful truths come out.
What Should be the
Punishment for Sociopathic Corporations When They Lie, Cheat, Advertise
Falsely, Act Unethically, Poison or Rape the Environment or Commit
Crimes?
Experienced psychologists tell us that sociopathic individuals that
have committed crimes have to be locked away to protect society from
them.
So a number of questions need to be asked, “what needs to be done
with corporate entities that meet three of the seven criteria above?
What needs to be done with corporations that have a history of
deceiving, lying, cheating, raping the land, poisoning the water,
fouling the air or otherwise acting unethically?
Given the anti-constitutional 2010 Roberts’ Supreme Court ruling
granting personhood to corporations (Citizens United), shouldn’t
sociopathic corporations be dealt with just like their human
counterparts when they act criminally? Shouldn’t long prison sentences
be given to the CEOs, Boards of Directors and management teams?
Shouldn’t there be confiscation of property or even capital punishment
in the case of egregious cases including mass deaths as in the cases of
Union Carbide, Coca-Cola and Merck (examples: the Vioxx and Gardisil
deaths)?
I hasten to add that I am against capital punishment for humans, but
any person with a conscience and more than a double digit IQ knows that
corporations are not really human. Corporations don’t bleed and don’t
cry out in pain during the execution process, although they may plead
for mercy while shedding insincere crocodile tears. Capital punishment
for corporations, contrary to the data on capital punishment for humans,
would prevent a lot of future sociopathic behaviors.
What about the crime of rape as applied to corporations? Rape has
several definitions, including the following ones that are in my
dictionary:
1) Any violent seizure or hostile action against a weaker opponent;
2) to rob or plunder;
3) the act of seizing and carrying off by force;
4) the crime of having forcible sexual intercourse without consent.
Corporations that plunder, pollute or poison Mother Earth (or do
hostile mergers and acquisitions of weaker companies) meet most of the
above definitions for rape. Shouldn’t our society punish corporate
rapists/plunderers as severely as we punish human rapists?
And what about the serial corporate predators, poisoners and killers
of the earth and the creatures that should have every right to co-exist
on our threatened planet?
What about the known lethal poisons that thousands of unregulated
chemical corporations knowingly discharge into the water, air, soil and
food? Should their acts of desecration be regarded as premeditated
murder? Their homicidal or ecocidal actions have already caused a
multitude of die-offs of thousands of species (eventually, perhaps even
humans), in the increasing numbers of dead zones in aquifers, wetlands,
rivers, lakes, rivers and oceans.
What about the extractive mining companies that, with their poisonous
explosives, blow the tops off mountains in Appalachia or the
Philippines (and are now planned by GTac for the Penokee Mountain range
of northern Wisconsin) in order to more economically extract the
non-renewable mineral resources beneath? Does it make any sense
whatsoever to believe them when they then claim innocence when living
things downwind and downstream are sickened or die off from the poisoned
water, air and toxic sludge that contaminates the previously pristine
streams and aquifers that once provided safe drinking water and a
healthy natural environment for fish, wildlife and humans (especially
the aboriginal First Nation brothers and sisters that had their lands
and livelihoods stolen from them a century or two ago)?
Zero Tolerance for Corporate Predators; Stop Them Before They do it Again!
How many strikes should any out-of-state corporate
predator be allowed before they are called out and thrown off the land
and out of the game? Shouldn’t exploitive intruders be stopped before
they despoil even one more aquifer, one more stream, one more lake, one
more mountain or this one planet? Shouldn’t cunning,
politically-connected corporate exploiters be banned, arrested, tried
and punished just like the human predators that normal civilized people
need to stay away from? And shouldn’t there be generous monetary
restitution to the victims of past corporate crimes?
Shouldn’t corporate thieves, liars, rapists and killers be treated
the same as human thieves, liars, rapists and killers? Shouldn’t we
refuse to trust untrustworthy corporations that have lied in the past,
even if they have spent millions of dollars on powerful, multicolored
Power Point presentations, feel-good commercials, “green-washed”
billboards or highly-paid lobbyists that bribe politicians and the media
to be on their side?
What about corporate junkies, those executives that are addicted to
their wealth, profits, prestige, corporate jets, vacation homes and
quarterly bonuses? We regularly intervene for society’s human addicts
who need help overcoming their gambling or drug addictions who are a
danger to themselves and others. Shouldn’t there be interventions
planned for these wealth addicts before they do any more damage to us or
their families?
The answer, in a fair society, should be yes to all these questions,
no matter how often the smiley-faced, well-dressed corporate executives —
in their most cunning damage-control mode — try to convince us that
their companies are “responsible citizens”. We star-struck
celebrity-worshippers of high profile corporations and CEOs seem to
sucker for that line again and again. But the stakes are higher this
time. The survival and sustainability of the planet and its creatures is
at stake.
Perhaps Corporations Should be Judged Guilty Until Proven Innocent
One wonders what should be the best approach for dealing with
cold-blooded, criminal, corporate entities. Rather than applying the
standard American constitutional guarantee for human citizens to be
judged innocent until proven guilty, shouldn’t we be judging dangerous
non-human entities as guilty until proven innocent?
I like that notion. I have often advised my psychologically
traumatized patients (falsely diagnosed, by the way, of having a mental
illnesses of unknown etiology) who were physically, sexually,
emotionally or spiritually abused in childhood by parent figures to only
give respect and forgiveness to those abusive adults when they have
truly earned it, have sincerely and contritely asked to be forgiven and
therefore deserve to be respected and forgiven. Psychologically
speaking, not obeying — and also not respecting — one’s victimizers
(even if they were parents) should be the norm in interpersonal
relationships. Psychologically speaking, the existence of significant
parental neglect or abuse in a family should be one of the exceptions to
the 4th commandment rule (that commands children to unconditionally
honor their father and their mother). Likewise, we should only do
business with companies that have earned and truly deserve our respect.
Being suspicious of sociopathic entities is an important strategy to
follow if one is to protect oneself from getting cheated or abused.
Staying out of a sociopath’s grasp is the proper thing to do, even if
the person or corporation appears on the surface to be charming or
honorable, for both traits can be easily faked. Staying clear of anybody
or anything that one suspects has no conscience makes tremendous sense,
since conscienceless entities are also likely to be liars and thieves
and are thus fully capable of rape, pillage and even murder if they can
get away with such crimes.
Staying away from (boycotting) corporations that have behaved
unethically in the past is one thing a person can do to combat corporate
sociopathy. Guilty corporations hate it when the nonviolent tactic of
economic boycott is used, but in our largely brainwashed,
advertised-into-submission culture, only small minorities of people
recognize — until it is too late — that they are being chumped.
Has the Corporate Coup d’etat Been Completed?
The concept of corporate power and privilege has massively benefited
Big Businesses at the expense of the “consuming” public, but the reality
is that it has been going on for generations. Multinational
corporations and multibillionaires are increasingly in control of the
White House, the US Congress and the court system, especially since
Citizens United. Both political parties have been seduced by corporate
campaign money/bribes.
And now, sadly, it appears that a majority of the judicial branch of
the federal government has been bought off — and it appears that they
are staying bought. It is not just the politicians that are controlled
by corporate money anymore.
Actually, the mythical “unbiased”, “non-politicized” US Supreme Court
has always been heavily influenced by corporate power. Throughout US
history, it has always been wealthy corporations, wealthy businessmen,
wealthy politicians, wealthy judges and wealthy attorneys that have been
installed in federal judgeships by equally wealthy presidents — many of
whom have been members of the same bipartisan “old boy’s clubs” such as
Yale University’s elite, secretive Skull and Bones. America’s courts
have always had judges that were in bed with capitalist, racist and
union-busting ruling class folks who have never held the common good as a
high priority.
Say Hello to Friendly American Fascism
The Italian dictator Benito Mussolini is often quoted as having said
that “fascism should rightly be called corporatism as it is a merger of
state and corporate power:” He should know, he invented the term and the
concept. Italy’s anti-worker, union-busting corporations loved him as
much as most 1930s German corporations loved and supported Hitler.
Fascism is a right-wing, nationalistic, authoritarian political
ideology that rules the people with military and police state power,
backed up by a secretive national security apparatus, aggressive
propaganda, control of the media and by suppression of trade unions.
Therefore Big Businesses, notably the weapons industries and other
war-related or police state industries thrive in fascist nations.
Fascist nations commonly violate the human rights of their own
citizens (not to mention the rights of the nations that they invade and
colonize). Fascists leaders try to unify the people by creating enemies,
scapegoating those enemies and then, usually via false flag operations,
going to war against them. Dissent is not tolerated in fascist nations
and often elections are fraudulent. Oftentimes there is some sort of a
merger of church and state and the fostering of
anti-intellectual/anti-scientific attitudes. And there is always an
obsession with law and order (police state tactics).
Sadly, there has been a slow, rolling corporate coup d’etat that has
gradually overthrown America’s one person/one vote republic. America has
all the marks of a plutocracy (rule by the wealthy privileged class).
Wealthy corporations and their plutocratic billionaires appear to be
in charge of both major political parties, the economy and even foreign
and domestic policy. And now they have their privatizing eyes on our
water, our land, our breathable air and even our food (as Bob Dylan sang
in Union Sundown, “I can see the day comin’ when even your home garden
is gonna be against the law”.).
Elections will continue, although the choice of candidates, the
orchestrated “debates” (that excludes minor party candidates), the
speechifying and the value of small monetary donations will be
increasingly meaningless. There will be fewer viable, courageously
anti-establishment candidates like Paul Wellstone (or a Green Party or a
Democratic Socialist Party candidate) for whom to cast votes. The
American dream (that “you have to be asleep to believe in”, as George
Carlin told us) appears to have vanished. And we sheep were asleep at
the wheel when it disappeared.
Corporate Rights vs. Corporate Responsibilities
It is the greedy, non-human, conscienceless, under-regulated
corporations (and NOT “man”) that have poisoned the planet’s ecosystems.
It has been nonhuman corporations that have caused the economic and
environmental crises — including the global weather changes. And,
because they rarely get indicted, much less punished for their misdeeds,
they are continuing to try to get away with planetary murder — and they
don’t seem to care. Their motto seems to be: “grab everything you can
steal by any means necessary; enrich your CEOs, your boards of
directors, your shareholders, spokespersons, lawyers, lobbyists,
legislators and judges; don’t get caught; hunker down in your gated
communities with your chauffeurs and your bodyguards; hope nobody
revolts; and let the devil take the hindmost.”
Wrist slaps seem to be the norm for corporations and the superrich
when they are eventually “brought to justice” for their crimes. If there
are any consequences for reckless or destructive business practices at
all, the company usually gets assessed a relatively small, very
affordable fine. For large corporations, fines are now just an
affordable part of doing business. Sometimes though, a corporation about
to be brought to justice will threaten to move its headquarters or its
operations to another state, leaving their smelly and toxic messes to be
cleaned up by somebody else, just as one would expect of a
conscienceless sociopath.
The brazen action of the Roberts’ court in Citizens United might be
one of the final nails in the coffin of America’s mortally wounded
democracy. Given the fact that the myth of corporate personhood is now
the law, it is past time that the 99% and its representatives in
Congress insist that the 1% be punished as severely as are human
criminals. The 99% needs to exercise its duty to preserve and defend the
constitution (and the planet) from all enemies, foreign or domestic,
human or corporate, even if the corporate criminals are hiding behind
boardroom walls during the day or living the celebrity high life at
night.
We must identify and courageously name America’s domestic enemies
even if they are members of the executive, legislative or judicial
branches of our federal and state governments. Naming the evil-doers
(and naming the evil that they do) must be done in order to effectively
confront them. Simultaneously, we need to demand that our basic human
right to have access to uncontaminated water, food, soil and air (and
access to affordable health care) be safe-guarded from the greedy
exploiters and predators in the plutocratic classes who want to extract
the wealth and resources from whomever they can. The fate of our
children, grandchildren and planet Earth depends on those safe-guards.
Among the first of the
many steps that must be taken if we are to reverse the multinational
corporate takeover/privatization of the planet is to demand that our
local, state and federal legislators reverse the Citizens United ruling
and correct the damage done. (See www.movetoamend.org for more information.)
Dr Kohls
is involved in peace, nonviolence and justice issues and therefore
writes about fascism, corporatism, militarism, racism, imperialism,
totalitarianism, economic oppression, anti-environmentalism and other
violent, unsustainable, anti-democratic movements.
