A few days ago, I was watching the Ghana-United States soccer (or, as I like to call it, anti-American football) game at my in-laws' house, with various members of my wife's family around and about, with my brother-in-laws Mark and Patrick and I following the game pretty much from start to finish. None of us are what you would call avid fans of the world's most popular game. We're all passionate Saints and LSU football supporters. Mark also gets pretty nuts for college basketball, I'm probably the most diehard baseball fan, and Patrick, from what I hear, really developed an affinity for curling while watching the most recent Winter Olympics.
Second round of the World Cup, single elimination, loser goes home round, featuring two relative upstarts on a stage typically reserved for Europeans and South Americans, not Africans and North Americans. I casually mention that I'm rooting for Ghana, for a variety of historical and political reasons (only African team left from the first World Cup hosted by an African country, first African colony to declare independence in 1957, their team name [the Black Stars] is a reference to Harlem Renaissace-era black nationalist Marcus Garvey). They know me, right, they know that even my sports loyalties are informed by politics to a greater degree than most. But my rooting for the team playing the United States, even in a sport that commands minimal attention from them, really seemed to cross a line of disbelief for them. It wasn't hostility, mind you, just a palpable sense of a lack of understanding on their part. I mulled it over for a while, and this is what I'm thinking.
My geo-cultural identification operates on two levels, I believe. I am a citizen of the Greater New Orleans area, which is both an insular world unto itself and, I would argue the hub of a region that extends north of Lake Ponchartrain, west almost to Baton Rouge, east into the Missippi Gulf Coast and south to the Gulf of Mexico. I am also a proud Louisianan, born and raised and then left briefly and then cam back and then left for a long while and then came back again. Lived in the major cities as well as Frierson and Gueydan and Haughton. I am fiercely, passonately ambivalent about the legacy of Huey Long. Jim Garrison, too. But I sure as hell hope Governor Bobby Jindal and Attorney General Buddy Caldwell can tap into their persistence and sense of moral outrage in the coming months and years of the showdown at BP Corral.
So, to return to the sports theme, my love for the Saints and (to a much lesser degree) LSU is obviously tied in with this love of New Orleans/Louisiana as place and region. Wear the t-shirt, wave the flag, jump and down and scare my daughter because I have instantly lost my rudimentary knowledge of basic physics and am personally attempting to recover the fumble I see in the televised game from....Buffalo, for instance. I think that experience is similar to what many Americans feel as patriotism, and what certainly will be defined as so by the right-wing pundits looking to score quick, button-pushing political points. More benignly, my two brothers-in-law, not right-wing zealots at all, just seemed flabbergasted that I was not embracing the U.S. soccer team in the same way we all do the Saints and LSU, as our natural birthright.
I hope your seatbelt was on, because we swerve over into politics again. As regular readers of this blog (hi, Mom!) know, I have been preoccupied, perhaps obsessed, with the idea of the revocation of the BP's corporate charter as punishment for the ongoing spill for which they have publicly acknowledged full responsibility. This would be in addition to criminal prosecution, pending the results of criminal investigations. It is my understanding that corporations are chartered in each state in which they operate, and it seems like the state legislatures of at least Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida would take the bold step of charter revocation. But on the website greenchange.org (which may or not be an arm of the Green Party), writer Gary Ruskin advocates for the revocation of BP's federal charter, which is filed with the state of Delaware. Therefore, the legislature of the first state to ratify the United States Constitution (on Decenber 7, 1787) has the power to apply the death penalty to this sociopathic corporate criminal. And let us not forgot that the attorney general of Delaware is Beau Biden, son of the notorious loose cannon who is the proverbial heartbeat away from the Oval Office, Vice President Joe Biden. Sure, he is bought and sold by the multinational financial interests which make Delaware the go-to state for polluting, tax-dodging, downsizing megacorporations, but anyone is subsceptible to grassroots agitatin', especially given the gravity of this situation and the anemic response to this point by the Obama Administration.
Still, it would be a shame if the momentum had to shift completely to the federal level, effectively acknowledging that Louisiana legislators and prosecutors are unable or unwilling to take on such a crucial constituency. Here in New Orleans, concerned citizens have cheered as U.S. Attorney Jim Letten has successfully investigated and prosecuted one crooked politician and criminal police officer after another. But it highlights the inability of local and state officials to do the same, time after time after time.
So here's a modest proposal. They say hair keeps growing after death, right? How about if the bodies of Huey Long and Jim Garrison are exhumed, the accumulated hair cut and stuffed into oil-fighting boom, accompanied by clipped hair from every statewide office-holder and state legislator, as well as local and parish officials from the most affected areas (sorry Mitch, I forgot you're a bit tonsorially challenged). That single boom, held as high as the Vince Lombardi trophy in Sean Payton's arms, will be the single symbolic fetish object for the corporate charter revocation movement, and, who knows, maybe the post-corporate revolution that follows.
Happy 4th of July, folks. But, at the same time, Go Black Stars!
Monday, June 28, 2010
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Where y'acht, Tony, you fricking piece of.....
I had the distinct bittersweet pleasure of listening to much of the Congressional hearing last week featuring the grilling of, and occasional apology to, BP CEO Tony Hayward. Depending on the end result of this series of investigations, and (hopefully) eventual prosecutions and convictions, I think it may possibly be something we, the citizens, will be able to look on with, oh, I don't know, maybe... pride. Congressman Barton notwithstanding, there were passionate denouncements of the company's actions (and lack thereof) by the likes of Henry Waxman, Bart Stupak, and even my very own representative, Republican Steve Scalise. Hayward, meanwhile, seemed like he was preparing for an eventual criminal trial and oh-so carefully trying not to incriminate himself. Of course, he may just have been distracted by the yacht races he attended over the weekend. Oh, excuse me one moment while I check my guillotine auction on Ebay.
Another issue that I believe bears examination is the assertion by London mayor Boris Johnson, among others, that criticism of the largest company in Great Britain is "a matter of national concern," given the importance of BP's contributions to British pension funds at a time when the UK's economy is seen as one of the most fragile in Europe. As you almost certainly know, BP has suspended the payment of dividends as part of the agreement with/shakedown by the Obama Administration. Thus, some observers legitimately fear a meltdown on the order of those suffered by the economies of Greece and Iceland in recent years. Therefore, following the logic of corporate capitalism, criticism of BP's responsibility for and handling of the most serious enivironmental catastrophe in United States history should be muted, for the good of the global economic order as a whole.
That, in a nutshell, my friends, is the logical and moral framework of corporate capitalism. Surely you would agree that the normal, natural human emotion regarding those most affected by the disaster to this point (the families of the 11 killed in the original explosion, those whose livelihoods are directly affected by the closing of fisheries and beaches) is one of compassion and empathy, joined by outrage at those responsible. But what if your pension fund or 401(K) is dependent upon the financial well-being of BP? Are those natural, normal feelings now distorted and twisted by what seem like completely valid feelings of self-interest? This is what the perverted logic of corporate capitalism leads to, the unhealthy denial of the best, most compassionate, most just instincts in each of us.
And let me make it crystal clear that the phenomenon I am describing is meaningless without both the adjective and the noun. Corporate. capitalism. I am not opposed to capitalism as such. As a fiercely indpendent guerrilla bookseller, I participate in two fairly free-wheeling markets, on the street level in New Orleans and online through the corporate entity Amazon.com. At the street markets, I pay a set fee in order to display and sell my wares, often through negotiation of the stated prices, building relationships, responding to trends, tailoring my stock to the customer base. On Amazon.com, I pay a fee in order to take advantage of the website's international presence, allowing me to sell my stock to customers in New York City, Ithaca, Fresno, Eugene, or Rio de Janeiro, to take the last week as an example. Customer feedback is available to browsers, prices can be compared and changed according to supply and demand for a particular book. In short, there is a rather impressive kind of self-regulating free market purity which the free market fundamentalists would like to project onto the system as a whole, if, as they would argue, the government would just stay out of the way. However, my very occasional mistakes lead only to an unhappy customer who is out of the book he or she ordered. There is no constant stream of printer's ink pouring out of my garage/book room, fouling my neighborhood and putting my neighbors out of work.
I would therefore argue that, in my experience, commerce can take place, on a local, regional, national, and even international level, without exploitation (although one could validly argue that the customer is choosing not to support the independent bookseller right there in Ithaca or Eugene), if the scale of the relationship is appropriate. Although Amazon is operating on a gigantic scale compared to the Broad Flea market on the second Saturday of the month in New Orleans, the service they are providing me is the facilitation of a one-on-one relationship with that customer in Ithaca. Is that a genuinely responsible use of the available communications technology to facilitate sustainable commerce (I am, after all, recycling the books I sell), or I am engaged in self-serving rationalization in order to justify my own relationship with a multinational corporation that is not committing the most egregious crimes, compared to BP, but may be perpetuating the overall corporate culture that makes those crimes possible, or even inevitable? I think I'll have to chew that cud a while longer.
Of course, BP would like nothing better than for conscientious citizens to lose themselves in self-paralyzing navel-gazing, unable to act until we've purged ourselves of all petroleum-based products in our homes and garages. Despite what the Bible advocates, , I refuse to remove the Scion from my eye before I criticize the yacht I'd like to shove up Tony Heyward's a.......
More to come, and maybe even some book talk again one of these days.
Another issue that I believe bears examination is the assertion by London mayor Boris Johnson, among others, that criticism of the largest company in Great Britain is "a matter of national concern," given the importance of BP's contributions to British pension funds at a time when the UK's economy is seen as one of the most fragile in Europe. As you almost certainly know, BP has suspended the payment of dividends as part of the agreement with/shakedown by the Obama Administration. Thus, some observers legitimately fear a meltdown on the order of those suffered by the economies of Greece and Iceland in recent years. Therefore, following the logic of corporate capitalism, criticism of BP's responsibility for and handling of the most serious enivironmental catastrophe in United States history should be muted, for the good of the global economic order as a whole.
That, in a nutshell, my friends, is the logical and moral framework of corporate capitalism. Surely you would agree that the normal, natural human emotion regarding those most affected by the disaster to this point (the families of the 11 killed in the original explosion, those whose livelihoods are directly affected by the closing of fisheries and beaches) is one of compassion and empathy, joined by outrage at those responsible. But what if your pension fund or 401(K) is dependent upon the financial well-being of BP? Are those natural, normal feelings now distorted and twisted by what seem like completely valid feelings of self-interest? This is what the perverted logic of corporate capitalism leads to, the unhealthy denial of the best, most compassionate, most just instincts in each of us.
And let me make it crystal clear that the phenomenon I am describing is meaningless without both the adjective and the noun. Corporate. capitalism. I am not opposed to capitalism as such. As a fiercely indpendent guerrilla bookseller, I participate in two fairly free-wheeling markets, on the street level in New Orleans and online through the corporate entity Amazon.com. At the street markets, I pay a set fee in order to display and sell my wares, often through negotiation of the stated prices, building relationships, responding to trends, tailoring my stock to the customer base. On Amazon.com, I pay a fee in order to take advantage of the website's international presence, allowing me to sell my stock to customers in New York City, Ithaca, Fresno, Eugene, or Rio de Janeiro, to take the last week as an example. Customer feedback is available to browsers, prices can be compared and changed according to supply and demand for a particular book. In short, there is a rather impressive kind of self-regulating free market purity which the free market fundamentalists would like to project onto the system as a whole, if, as they would argue, the government would just stay out of the way. However, my very occasional mistakes lead only to an unhappy customer who is out of the book he or she ordered. There is no constant stream of printer's ink pouring out of my garage/book room, fouling my neighborhood and putting my neighbors out of work.
I would therefore argue that, in my experience, commerce can take place, on a local, regional, national, and even international level, without exploitation (although one could validly argue that the customer is choosing not to support the independent bookseller right there in Ithaca or Eugene), if the scale of the relationship is appropriate. Although Amazon is operating on a gigantic scale compared to the Broad Flea market on the second Saturday of the month in New Orleans, the service they are providing me is the facilitation of a one-on-one relationship with that customer in Ithaca. Is that a genuinely responsible use of the available communications technology to facilitate sustainable commerce (I am, after all, recycling the books I sell), or I am engaged in self-serving rationalization in order to justify my own relationship with a multinational corporation that is not committing the most egregious crimes, compared to BP, but may be perpetuating the overall corporate culture that makes those crimes possible, or even inevitable? I think I'll have to chew that cud a while longer.
Of course, BP would like nothing better than for conscientious citizens to lose themselves in self-paralyzing navel-gazing, unable to act until we've purged ourselves of all petroleum-based products in our homes and garages. Despite what the Bible advocates, , I refuse to remove the Scion from my eye before I criticize the yacht I'd like to shove up Tony Heyward's a.......
More to come, and maybe even some book talk again one of these days.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Connecting the Dots From B to P
In his article from the June 11-13 edition of counterpunch.org, the brilliant, iconoclastic journalist Alexander Cockburn points out a fascinating tidbit from the history of the oil company previously known as British Petroleum. It turns out that, like your typical common criminal, BP has had a few aliases over the years, including that of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, an institution that figures prominently in one of the more immoral episodes in modern American history.
In 1953, the CIA organized a coup d'etat against Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh as retaliation for his nationalization of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, after fruitless negotiations attempting to alter the one-sided and decidedly colonialist relationship between the company and a nation asserting its sovereign rights as a fledgling democracy in the wake of World War II. This assertion did not sit well with either the British or American governments, and the administration of Dwight Eisenhower, one of the military heroes of the struggle against fascism and (presumably) for democracy, decided to make an example of the brash upstart.
Let's connect the dots, shall we? Democratically-elected Mossadegh out, the autocratic Shah of Iran back in power, a slavish ally of Western interests in the Middle East throughout the Cold War, ably assisted by his notorious secret police, the SAVAK. He is finally overthrown in 1979 by a coalition of secular and Islamic revolutionaries. Unfortunately, the Islamists prevail, and President Jimmy Carter, as committed to the short-sighted Machiavellianism of cynical realpolitick as his predecessors, supports the Shah up to and beyond the bitter end, facilitating his cushy exile. The American Embassy was stormed, and the Carter presidency was doomed.
Along with the founding of the state of Israel in 1948, the removal of Mossadegh did much to squander any moral authority the United States had in the Middle East after the Allied victory. And, as with United Fruit in Guatemala and ITT in Chile, among others, the CIA asserted its role as a corporate-friendly mercenary army. Anglo-Iranian/British Petroleum and other oil companies in the region found common cause with various strongmen in the region, and the bonds between Islamic fundamentalism and apocalyptic terrorism grew stronger.
I'm not asserting any direct link between the historical actions of BP and 9/11, of course, but there is a definite sequence of events and consequences once the dots are connected. The 1953 coup has done monumental harm to the prospects for democracy in Iran and throughout the Middle East, and was planned and executed with the tacit approval of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. The corporate institution which currently goes by the name BP thus has a history of criminal behavior far predating April 20, and I believe the appropriate actions to be taken by the attorney general and state legislature of Louisiana are (a) aggressive criminal and civil investigations, followed by appropriate prosecutions, and (b) the revocation of BP's corporate charter in Louisiana. In other words, the corporate death penalty for this homicidal, career corporate criminal.
In 1953, the CIA organized a coup d'etat against Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh as retaliation for his nationalization of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, after fruitless negotiations attempting to alter the one-sided and decidedly colonialist relationship between the company and a nation asserting its sovereign rights as a fledgling democracy in the wake of World War II. This assertion did not sit well with either the British or American governments, and the administration of Dwight Eisenhower, one of the military heroes of the struggle against fascism and (presumably) for democracy, decided to make an example of the brash upstart.
Let's connect the dots, shall we? Democratically-elected Mossadegh out, the autocratic Shah of Iran back in power, a slavish ally of Western interests in the Middle East throughout the Cold War, ably assisted by his notorious secret police, the SAVAK. He is finally overthrown in 1979 by a coalition of secular and Islamic revolutionaries. Unfortunately, the Islamists prevail, and President Jimmy Carter, as committed to the short-sighted Machiavellianism of cynical realpolitick as his predecessors, supports the Shah up to and beyond the bitter end, facilitating his cushy exile. The American Embassy was stormed, and the Carter presidency was doomed.
Along with the founding of the state of Israel in 1948, the removal of Mossadegh did much to squander any moral authority the United States had in the Middle East after the Allied victory. And, as with United Fruit in Guatemala and ITT in Chile, among others, the CIA asserted its role as a corporate-friendly mercenary army. Anglo-Iranian/British Petroleum and other oil companies in the region found common cause with various strongmen in the region, and the bonds between Islamic fundamentalism and apocalyptic terrorism grew stronger.
I'm not asserting any direct link between the historical actions of BP and 9/11, of course, but there is a definite sequence of events and consequences once the dots are connected. The 1953 coup has done monumental harm to the prospects for democracy in Iran and throughout the Middle East, and was planned and executed with the tacit approval of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. The corporate institution which currently goes by the name BP thus has a history of criminal behavior far predating April 20, and I believe the appropriate actions to be taken by the attorney general and state legislature of Louisiana are (a) aggressive criminal and civil investigations, followed by appropriate prosecutions, and (b) the revocation of BP's corporate charter in Louisiana. In other words, the corporate death penalty for this homicidal, career corporate criminal.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
The Dignity of Pelicans, Corporate Personhood and Citizenship
When I glanced just now at the last time I posted something on this blog, I read the date April 20, the date of the explosion which claimed the lives of 11 oil rig workers and began the ordeal which continues to poison the Gulf of Mexico. I have tried more than once to collect my thoughts about it, but nothing has rung true to this point. The anger and outrage are there, and I feel I can express them with a certain degree of eloquence and empathy. I've jotted down notes describing my intense feelings for the pelican, for instance, whose maternal image graces the Louisiana state flag, nurturing young union, justice and confidence until the day when they will eventually take flight.
And what flight! A pelican in flight is the embodiment of dignity overcoming adversity, as the elements which appear so awkward on land - tiny head and legs, oversized wings and beak, bottom-heavy body - combine in a seeminglyl effortless ballet, wings barely moving, eyes purposefully set straight ahead, until the moment of the plunge, followed by the return to the air, the twitch of the fresh catch discernible within the beak. The stubbornness of such a creature, daring to defy the gravity which holds back its fellow oddballs the penguin and the ostrich, is to me a true inspiration, and an apt metaphor for our oddball corner of the world. So when I see the images of Mama pelican assaulted by these catastrophic events, I see that corner of the world, with all of its cultural and ecological and economic riches, under assault, and I get fired up to do....what, exactly?
And there it is. The h word. Helpless. What to do? I'm not an engineer, a marine biologist, a member of Congress, a fisherman, an oceanographer, a member of the Coast Guard or the National Guard, someone with a level of expertise which could be brought to bear to deal with the most immediate challenges. I'm not a professional journalist, with the resources and time to devote to covering the story as it unfolds day-to-day, challenging the official spin and unpeeling the onion of corporate deception. What I am is a full-time homeschooling father and husband and part-time independent guerrilla bookseller, and very part-time blogger.
But now that I think about it, I left out one aspect of my personhood in that description. I am a citizen, a citizen of many communities unfolding like concentric circles around me (Old Jefferson, greater New Orleans, southwest Louisiana), in which I engage to the degree that I can. One of the larger of those circles is the United States of America, an often unwieldy, often immature, sometimes visionary community of lofty ideals, many of which are formalized in the United States Constitution, that confoundingly simple yet enigmatically complex document, and the constitutions of the separate states. And as dire as this situation appears, and as ineffectual as the political institutions around us appear in the face of this crisis, there are radical, fundamental steps that can be taken by citizens to hold the guilty parties accountable.
There are three corporations implicated in the Deepwater Horizon explosion and spill: BP, Halliburton and Transocean. BP has received the lion's share of attention, while still attempting to deflect blame for the original explosion. Hopefully, a comprehensive criminal investigation and trial will sort out the blame for the deaths of the 11 workers, and civil litigation will quickly follow. But there is another step that I would argue needs to be taken by citizens and their elected representatives, a step that I think is justified by the heinousness of the crimes: revocation of the charters of the corporations who are found responsible.
In order to operate in a particular state, that state's legislature issues a charter which allows it to perform certain functions for a particular amount of time. If those conditions are violated, the state legislature and attorney general can revoke the charter, and that company can no longer operate in that state. Such rights were asserted often by states in the pre-Civil War period (Andrew Jackson's struggles with the Second Bank of the United States revolved around such issues), after which corporations began to gain the legal upper hand.
A key Rubicon was crossed in 1886, when the Southern Pacific Railroad argued before the Supreme Court that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which freed the slaves after the Civil War, should also be applied to corporations, therefore granting corporations the same rights to engage in politics as individuals. The Court ruled against the railroad, and Chief Justice Morrison Waite handwrote a note saying that there was no decision on the constitutional question. However, the Court Reporter, a former railroad president, rewrote the note to state just the opposite, and the Chief Justice died before the altered notes were published. Thus, a precedent was born, out of dishonesty and lies (the story is well-told by Thom Hartmann in We the People: A Call to Take Back America, 2004, Coreway Media, Inc.). Such corporate power grabs have been further institutionalized, most recently with the ruling in Citizens United vs. the Federal Election Commission, in which the Roberts Court ruled that corporate political funding cannot be restricted under the First Amendment.
If corporate personhood is currently entrenched in American law, then we the citizens should frame the crimes of corporations in personal terms. I am opposed to the death penalty for individuals for a number of reasons, but I see no reason to oppose the death penalty for one or more corporations found responsible for causing the deaths of 11 people and cultural and economic calamity for thousands of others, and I have a feeling a critical mass of my fellow citizens could be persuaded to share that view. Unfortunately, legislators in this state tend to have close connections to the industries involved in the explosion and spill, and I would not expect Jindal, Landrieu or Vitter to provide leadership on this issue. Perhaps Congressman Charlie Melancon, who is obviously deeply emotionally affected and whose anemic Senate campaign could use a rousing shot in the arm, or Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nunngesser, who seems to be emerging as the public face of the tragedy.
If there is any possible silver lining to this catastrophe, it could be a renewed willingness of citizens to confront the multi-national corporations whose greed and negligence have brought us to this state. We must unite. We must demand justice. And we must be confident in our citizenship. We are all Louisiana. More to come.
And what flight! A pelican in flight is the embodiment of dignity overcoming adversity, as the elements which appear so awkward on land - tiny head and legs, oversized wings and beak, bottom-heavy body - combine in a seeminglyl effortless ballet, wings barely moving, eyes purposefully set straight ahead, until the moment of the plunge, followed by the return to the air, the twitch of the fresh catch discernible within the beak. The stubbornness of such a creature, daring to defy the gravity which holds back its fellow oddballs the penguin and the ostrich, is to me a true inspiration, and an apt metaphor for our oddball corner of the world. So when I see the images of Mama pelican assaulted by these catastrophic events, I see that corner of the world, with all of its cultural and ecological and economic riches, under assault, and I get fired up to do....what, exactly?
And there it is. The h word. Helpless. What to do? I'm not an engineer, a marine biologist, a member of Congress, a fisherman, an oceanographer, a member of the Coast Guard or the National Guard, someone with a level of expertise which could be brought to bear to deal with the most immediate challenges. I'm not a professional journalist, with the resources and time to devote to covering the story as it unfolds day-to-day, challenging the official spin and unpeeling the onion of corporate deception. What I am is a full-time homeschooling father and husband and part-time independent guerrilla bookseller, and very part-time blogger.
But now that I think about it, I left out one aspect of my personhood in that description. I am a citizen, a citizen of many communities unfolding like concentric circles around me (Old Jefferson, greater New Orleans, southwest Louisiana), in which I engage to the degree that I can. One of the larger of those circles is the United States of America, an often unwieldy, often immature, sometimes visionary community of lofty ideals, many of which are formalized in the United States Constitution, that confoundingly simple yet enigmatically complex document, and the constitutions of the separate states. And as dire as this situation appears, and as ineffectual as the political institutions around us appear in the face of this crisis, there are radical, fundamental steps that can be taken by citizens to hold the guilty parties accountable.
There are three corporations implicated in the Deepwater Horizon explosion and spill: BP, Halliburton and Transocean. BP has received the lion's share of attention, while still attempting to deflect blame for the original explosion. Hopefully, a comprehensive criminal investigation and trial will sort out the blame for the deaths of the 11 workers, and civil litigation will quickly follow. But there is another step that I would argue needs to be taken by citizens and their elected representatives, a step that I think is justified by the heinousness of the crimes: revocation of the charters of the corporations who are found responsible.
In order to operate in a particular state, that state's legislature issues a charter which allows it to perform certain functions for a particular amount of time. If those conditions are violated, the state legislature and attorney general can revoke the charter, and that company can no longer operate in that state. Such rights were asserted often by states in the pre-Civil War period (Andrew Jackson's struggles with the Second Bank of the United States revolved around such issues), after which corporations began to gain the legal upper hand.
A key Rubicon was crossed in 1886, when the Southern Pacific Railroad argued before the Supreme Court that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which freed the slaves after the Civil War, should also be applied to corporations, therefore granting corporations the same rights to engage in politics as individuals. The Court ruled against the railroad, and Chief Justice Morrison Waite handwrote a note saying that there was no decision on the constitutional question. However, the Court Reporter, a former railroad president, rewrote the note to state just the opposite, and the Chief Justice died before the altered notes were published. Thus, a precedent was born, out of dishonesty and lies (the story is well-told by Thom Hartmann in We the People: A Call to Take Back America, 2004, Coreway Media, Inc.). Such corporate power grabs have been further institutionalized, most recently with the ruling in Citizens United vs. the Federal Election Commission, in which the Roberts Court ruled that corporate political funding cannot be restricted under the First Amendment.
If corporate personhood is currently entrenched in American law, then we the citizens should frame the crimes of corporations in personal terms. I am opposed to the death penalty for individuals for a number of reasons, but I see no reason to oppose the death penalty for one or more corporations found responsible for causing the deaths of 11 people and cultural and economic calamity for thousands of others, and I have a feeling a critical mass of my fellow citizens could be persuaded to share that view. Unfortunately, legislators in this state tend to have close connections to the industries involved in the explosion and spill, and I would not expect Jindal, Landrieu or Vitter to provide leadership on this issue. Perhaps Congressman Charlie Melancon, who is obviously deeply emotionally affected and whose anemic Senate campaign could use a rousing shot in the arm, or Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nunngesser, who seems to be emerging as the public face of the tragedy.
If there is any possible silver lining to this catastrophe, it could be a renewed willingness of citizens to confront the multi-national corporations whose greed and negligence have brought us to this state. We must unite. We must demand justice. And we must be confident in our citizenship. We are all Louisiana. More to come.
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