Avoiding Corporate Liability, by Ralph Nader

[Echo In Light]

Avoiding Corporate Liability
by Ralph Nader

<snip>

...Since corporations were artificial legal entities and not human, these lawmakers feared that without some strong leashes, they could be creating Frankensteins. Over the following two hundred years, these ever larger corporations and their attorneys have been driving relentlessly, dynamically to erect systems of privileges and immunities that give the corporations themselves limited liability. Their first big move was to take the chartering authority from the state legislature and place it inside an executive agency where chartering became automatic, shorn of the conditions the lawmakers once imposed.

Once chartering became automatic, perpetual and open-ended, corporate lawyers moved to have the courts - not the legislatures - turn corporations into "persons" for purposes of constitutional rights.

Their big breakthrough came with the Santa Clara case in 1886 when the U.S. Supreme Court allowed its summary headnotes to declare that the railroad in the case was a "person" for purposes of the 14th amendment. Through elaborations in later Supreme Court decisions, that meant that companies like Aetna, General Electric, Exxon and Lockheed had most of the same constitutional rights as real people like you. Soon it was off to the races and the promised land of no-fault corporate behavior. Early in the 20th century, companies erected "no-fault" workers compensation schemes limiting damages for the horrors of worker injuries and workplace diseases in those mines, factories, and foundries.

Then came the steady erosion of shareholder rights and power, notwithstanding the securities acts of 1933 and 1934 which emphasized disclosure and anti-fraud rules. As owners, the shareholders have had little control over the corporations they "own". The split between ownership by the stockholders and control by the corporate bosses, and their rubber stamp boards of directors, is now wider than the Grand Canyon.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/05/28

[Echo In Light]

1. Another lonely thread bumped

[Joanne98]

2. K&R

[Luminous Animal]

3. Kick.

[SalviaBlue]

4. K&R

[Ron Green]

5. K&R

[mdmc]

6. hear it!

[Vidar]

7. K&R.

[jgraz]

8. Nader doing what Nader does best

And, thankfully, not what he does worst. K&R.

[G_j]

9. K&R a must read...

[pnorman]

10. Where are the knee-jerk Nader-bashers?

I sorta miss them (sigh!)

pnorman

[Occam Bandage]

11. What's there to bash? He's mostly correct here. nt

[jwirr]

36. Well for one my knee does not jerk when he does what I remember

him for - advocacy. This when I truly love this guy.

[pnorman]

39. I actively supported Nader in 2000, and have yet to offer any apology for it.

That was a "safe" move in Washington state, but I probably wouldn't have done so in a state like Florida. The (responsible) object of voting for a Third Party, is to register the STRONGEST possible "protest" vote, without "throwing" it to to (most!) corporate-friendly candidate. But such things don't always work out as planned. But in the end, the team of Lieberman & Gore actually WON, but few here realized to what lengths that PNAC gang would go to nullify that and get Cheney & Bush in the White House.

pnorman

[Echo In Light]

41. Exactly. The 'blame Nader' crowd were the same conspiracy deniers who saw PNAC as "coincidental."

Not

[onehandle]

43. So you believe that you're better than the 90k+ that voted for Ralph in Florida.

Well Bully for You! Your "conscious" is "clean."

[pnorman]

58. I always try to make a meaningful response to whoever takes exception to my opinions.

But when their self-righteous spleen renders them almost incomprehensible, what's there to say?

pnorman

[rhett o rick]

12. k & r

[cascadiance]

13. Forget "judicial activism"... This case shows that "court clerk activism" rules us all!

Especially a court clerk that was a former board member of a railroad company!

[omega minimo]

14. There aren't any "centrists" or "moderates" reading this

:hi:

[Echo In Light]

15. Not surprisingly, many of my threads have very low view counts

[leftstreet]

16. You have to put PORN in the title

:hi:

K&R

[Echo In Light]

20. But it sorta blows the "leftists have taken over DU!" rhetoric outta the water, eh?

[omega minimo]

22. IMHO the attitude toward/awareness of corporate government is the mark b/w "left/center/moderate"

[Echo In Light]

23. Precisely. It's not about which media personas one "likes."

[omega minimo]

24. I would bet that a lot of "centrists" "moderates" WILL acknowledge

corporate control (it's an open secret fer gawd's sake) but want to ignore and go back to a Reaganistic happy face bubble. Even as shitty as things have gotten!!!!!!!!!!!! :wow:

"People will care when it affects them....." WHEN IS THAT POINT?

[Echo In Light]

25. Likely sooner than later, if I had to break out the Magic 8 Ball

[omega minimo]

26. so far the line seems to be

the gas line

[Echo In Light]

27. Ha...check

[omega minimo]

28. epitome of lo tech

Magic 8 Ball :evilgrin:

[jwirr]

37. Or a foreclosure.

[destes]

53. ""People will care when it affects them

....." WHEN IS THAT POINT?"

Probably when they're rounded up with other herds of homeless people and placed in for-profit "camps".......or worse.

How long before this "recession" bears the following headline or one similar?:
FOR THE COMMON GOOD, ALL PERSONS WITHOUT PERMANENT ADDRESS OF RESIDENCE ARE REQUIRED TO PRESENT THEMSELVES TO THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY FOR PROCESSING. FAILURE TO DO SO WILL BE A VIOLATION OF SPECIAL ORDER **** AND WILL BE PUNISHABLE BY LAW.

[Fumesucker]

55. "People will care when it affects them....." WHEN IS THAT POINT?

IMO, it is when the cable TV gets shut off for non payment.

The television is a direct conduit of corporate propaganda into your home and your mind, when that gets shut off then independent thought can occur.

[omega minimo]

21. rhetorical question preferable referring to DU or "us"

[rcrush]

19. Cause too many people shit on Ralph Nader

Theres always 100 people waiting to yell that Ralph Nader was secretly working to get W elected in 2000 and thats why he ran. Basically he's guilty cause he was the third party candidate. Hooray for our two party shit system.

[Aragorn]

38. to elaborate

When the difference between democrat and republican is so small (and isn't that a concern with Obama - or H Clinton?) then someone like Ralph Nader would have been a better president.

Nader did not send gwb to the white house. People who voted for gwb or Gore or Kerry kept Nader OUT of the white house.

I still think the country would be a lot better off with him from 00-08.

We voters need a good choice. Not the lesser of two corporatist evils.

Kucinich is the only one now. Kucinich '12 !

[lonestarnot]

54. Tah Dah!

:applause:

[malaise]

44. Ding ding

We have a winner

[onehandle]

49. Nader wanted Bush to win. This is common knowledge.

"If California tips Green enough, Bush could win the state and the whole damn election.

Which, Nader confided to Outside in June, wouldn't be so bad. When asked if someone put a gun to his head and told him to vote for either Gore or Bush, which he would choose, Nader answered without hesitation: "Bush." Not that he actually thinks the man he calls "Bush Inc." deserves to be elected: "He'll do whatever industry wants done." The rumpled crusader clearly prefers to sink his righteous teeth into Al Gore, however: "He's totally betrayed his 1992 book," Nader says. "It's all rhetoric." Gore "groveled openly" to automakers, charges Nader, who concludes with the sotto voce realpolitik of a ward heeler: "If you want the parties to diverge from one another, have Bush win."

Outside magazine, August 2000

_______________________


Why Ralph Nader wanted to see Gore lose in 2000

No, Nader and the idiots who voted for him were not solely responsible for putting George W. Bush into the White House. A number of other factors also strengthened Bush and weakened Gore (including a few self-inflicted wounds by the Gore campaign), and even so Gore still did come out ahead of Bush in the popular vote. Without the thousands of votes that Nader took away from Gore in Florida (where Nader got 97,000 votes!), Gore would have carried the state without ambiguity, even after the "accidental" Republican purge of black voters from the rolls and the butterfly ballot fiasco, and gotten the electoral votes necessary to put him over the top. But it seems clear that if there had been a fair recount in Florida, Gore would have (just barely) won the state anyway. Many groups and individuals in the US share responsibility for letting the Republicans steal that election. We shouldn't blame only Ralph Nader.

On the other hand, Nader shouldn't be allowed to escape his responsibility for the outcome either. Given everything else, there is no question that the spectacularly ill-advised Nader campaign played a crucial role in determining the outcome. If Nader had not siphoned votes away from Gore in crucial battleground states, then with everything else being equal, Gore would have won, and Bush would have lost. The result of the Nader campaign was to help put Bush in the White House. Nader and many of his supporters have gone through various logical contortions since 2000 to try to pretend this wasn't true, but anyone who is fooled by these arguments is just not facing reality.

http://jeffweintraub.blogspot.com/2006/10/why-ralph-nader-wanted-to-see-gore.html

[Luminous Animal]

59. "If you want the parties to diverge from one another, have Bush win."

That was Nader's answer. If you heard the man speak, you would understand that it was a sardonic swipe at the corporate controlled Democratic party.

By the way, if 10 million Democrats hadn't voted for Bush, Gore would have won.

[Uncle Joe]

17. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Echo In Light.

[fascisthunter]

18. Corporate Personhood is a Sham

and always has been.

[Echo In Light]

29. More info: Corporate watch

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Corporations/Corporate_watch.html

[Grinchie]

30. I guess nobody realizes that Corporations have the same rights to take the 5th

despite the fact that they (A large number of connected individuals involved in the day to day operation of the Corporation) knowingly poison, pollute and lay waste to vast tracts of land, kill hundreds of thousands of people annually, and scheme to rake money from the Government by purchasing favorable legislation from their very own government officials.

In the old days, they would be known as the Mafia. Now they are known as Corporations.

These are the equivalent of a virus that has learned to exploited a complex system and subvert it to creat more of itself. At this point, the U.S. Government has had it's DNA rewritten to produce more Corporate behavior, and the plebicytes are left out in the cold to wither and die off.

[Echo In Light]

31. Good post ... and yes, it's a crime syndicate that uses our "democracy" to thrive and profit

Profit$ of Doom

[Wednesdays]

32. K&R

:kick:

[slay]

33. Great post as usual Echo In Light

I love Nader. I feel it unfortunate that he got involved politically during Gore/Bush. He could only detract from Dem voters and would never get repubs (even though it didn't really matter in the end). But he is right - we have a one party system - the corporate party - and they control everything - regardless as to whether or not there is a (D) or an (R) beside the current figurehead's name. At any rate, thanks for posting this. :hi:

[Larry Ogg]

34. Thanks for posting this Echo

The rise of corporate power it is a part of our history that is at the core of Democracies undoing, which means that it needs to be undone more than anything; hopefully that will happen while the planet can still support life…

Either way, people need to learn the truth and elect leaders who will fight too knock down these monoliths of evil or suffer the consequences wrought by blissful ignorance.

Which reminds me, I wrote a small metaphor that explains this view a little more; I posted it on another thread so I will just give you link, hopefully it makes sense…

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5741289&mesg_id=5745862

K&R
Larry

[Joe the Liberal]

35. k&r. n/t

[dreamnightwind]

40. Thanks,...

K & R!

[onehandle]

42. Avoiding American Tragedy, by Ralph Nader

...would have been Not Campaigning in Florida in 2000.

He could have been a Powerful Voice in Congress, but no. He has to satisfy his ego by "running for President."

Fuck you, Ralph.

[Echo In Light]

45. Quack

:thumbsdown:

[Umbral]

52. Wow, made it all the way to 42 posts before someone lobbed an 'FU' at Nader's effigy.

That's some improvement.

[sellitman]

46. Too late Ralph.

I stopped caring what you thought about anything years ago.

Go crawl back into your little hole and get ready to draw away more progressive votes away in the next election.



*edited to say: FUCK YOU NADER!

[Echo In Light]

47. Maybe if the dem party wasn't a such a FUCKING JOKE, he wouldn't 'draw' them away

[sellitman]

48. Maybe if he would of worked to make them better...

We wouldn't have ever had 8 years of Bushco?


*edited to say FUCK YOU NADER!

[Echo In Light]

50. PNAC? Ring any bells? Nader had ZERO to do w/Bushies "victory"

And what does this article have to do with the Bush/Gore "election" anyway?

Another ZERO

[sellitman]

51. I thought only Republicans tried to ignore history.

I guess Florida's Nader's numbers were overstated huh?

Your Liberal God has only been involved with making news not changing the Democratic Party.

He has done more to harm America than anyone else on our side and yet you apologists will never stop deifying the man.

He is yesterdays news, on that you are right.

[CanSocDem]

56. Speaking of "...ignoring history..."

Where were you when Nader created Public Citizen?


.

[sammythecat]

57. This whole idea of corporate personhood

is something I need to educate myself about. I know it's important and I know it's bad, but I don't know enough to make an argument. Your post reminded me of that, so, thanks.