The dance at Capital Hill yesterday with Tony Hayward (can he sound anymore British and thus like an elitist idiot) painfully exposes the problems with capitalism—the unregulated, unfettered kind apoplectically endorsed by the GOP. The GOP argument goes something like this: corporations should not have to pay its fair share of taxes or deal with regulations lest those burdens stifle innovation, profits and hiring. The argument assumes that corporations, in the best interest of the consumer, will regulate themselves as the best manner to maintain and increase profitability. This unregulated environment creates the conditions to hire the people. This mantra is echoed throughout the GOP and its retarded progeny—Tea Party old, white jerk-offs. The argument goes further by stating that the problem with American is government, that government somehow makes the lives of Americans worse. Has anyone noticed what Enron did to people; BP; Lehman Bros.? It takes a willful intellectual neglect to conclude that government and not corporations create and sustain an unbearable burden for people. But, then again, intellectualism is in short supply.
This self-regulation notion has been entirely proven to be a fantasy, to be a fallacious argument, more correct in Superman’s bizzaro world than the one in which regular people live. Indeed, it is hardly ever the case that the corporation will ‘self-regulate.’ BP is the most evident example, but one need not look too far in the past to find clear, evident, conspicuous evidence: Enron, Lehman Brothers, WorldCom, Exxon-Valdez, Toyota, GM, (insert any health-care provider) and on and one the list goes. These corporate individuals have maimed and killed many an American in the course of business per usual. Strident regulations might well have prevented many a death, but, as free-market (an absurdly incorrect designation) capitalists, our representatives have permitted and even sanctioned these crimes. If one kills someone, he goes to jail--OJ Simpson notwithstanding. Not, of course, if the individual corporation does the same thing with its chemcicals, design flaws, and short cuts to profitability. It lives on, most of the time. Although Lehman Brothers died, as did Enron, so in extreme cases, the corporation can die. But the death hardly seems just.
So as Tony-I-don’t-recall-and-I-wasn’t-part-of-the-decision-Hayward blatantly lies about the culpability of his individual corporation BP, one is not surprised. He is protecting his family, so to speak, and thus must lie about its cruel and irresponsible behavior. Did anyone watching truly believe him? Did anyone believe that he has no idea what happened, that he had no part in the decision, that BP’s safety record played no role in the slow death of part of America? No reasonable person believed him, except Joe Barton and his ilke, who have sympathy for BP and the mess it now finds itself in. Go GOP protect BP, try to generate sympathy for it. Good luck.
We have created an environment where the truth is evaded and destroyed. Profits, the very sustenance of the individual corporation, must be protected and sustained, hence the evasiveness by Hayward. But he’s just the latest to protect his family. Every corporate CEO does the same thing: lies so as to protect his individual corporation.
Perhaps some brilliant team of attorneys can over turn the 1886 Supreme Court decision that established corporate personhood for 14th Amendment protection. The problem is that a century of cruel and inhumane law has been established and thus needs to be navigated. But it’s time to strip corporations of individual rights. A corporation is a thing and does not deserve any protection provided by our constitution—that was written for people—not a collection of people running a business. This is obvious, and yet, despite the clarity of that fact, we still allow this bizarre and illogical reality to persist. Until we expunge corporate personhood, corporations will continue to kill the world and the living things in it for profits. In the interim though, we can start by killing BP--kill it I say, and take all its profits to pay for the damage. Kill it. Chop its head off by siezing its capital assets. Kill it. Before it kills us.
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