Corporations Given *Human Rights*; Humans Are Denied Them

If you haven't seen it yet, you can now watch the documentary "The Corporation" on line (see link below).<br><br> About the documentary:<br><br> <b>A legal “Person”</b><br><br> In the mid-1800s the corporation emerged as a legal “person.” Imbued with a “personality” of pure self-interest, the next 100 years saw the corporation’s rise to dominance. The corporation created unprecedented wealth but at what cost? The remorseless rationale of “externalities” (as Milton Friedman explains, the unintended consequences of a transaction between two parties on a third) is responsible for countless cases of illness, death, poverty, pollution, exploitation and lies.<br><br> <b>The pathology of commerce: Case histories</b><br><br> Corporate PsychologyTo assess the “personality” of the corporate “person,” a checklist is employed, using diagnostic criteria of the World Health Organization and the standard diagnostic tool of psychiatrists and psychologists. The operational principles of the corporation give it a highly anti-social “personality”: it is self-interested, inherently amoral, callous and deceitful; it breaches social and legal standards to get its way; it does not suffer from guilt, yet it can mimic the human qualities of empathy, caring and altruism. Four case studies, drawn from a universe of corporate activity, clearly demonstrate harm to workers, human health, animals and the biosphere. Concluding this point-by-point analysis, a disturbing diagnosis is delivered: the institutional embodiment of laissez-faire capitalism fully meets the diagnostic criteria of a “psychopath.”<br><br> SNIP<br><br> <b>Planet Inc.</b><br><br> Patenting Life: You’d think that things like disasters, or the purity of childhood, or even milk, let alone water or air, would be sacred. But no. Corporations have no built-in limits on what, who, or how much they can exploit for profit. In the fifteenth century, the enclosure movement began to put fences around public grazing lands so that they might be privately owned and exploited. Today, every molecule on the planet is up for grabs. In a bid to own it all, corporations are patenting animals, plants, even your DNA.<br><br> Around things too precious, vulnerable, sacred or important to the public interest, governments have, in the past, drawn protective boundaries against corporate exploitation. Today, governments are inviting corporations into domains from which they were previously barred.<br><br> <b>Perception management</b><br><br> The Initiative Corporation spends $22 billion worldwide placing its clients’ advertising in every imaginable - and some unimaginable - media. One new medium: very young children. Their “Nag Factor” study dropped jaws in the world of child psychiatry. It was designed not to help parents cope with their children’s nagging, but to help corporations formulate their ads and promotions so that children would nag for their products more effectively. Initiative Vice President Lucy Hughes elaborates: “You can manipulate consumers into wanting, and therefore buying your products. It’s a game.”<br><br> Today people can become brands (Martha Stewart). And brands can build cities (Celebration, Florida). And university students can pay for their educations by shilling on national television for a credit card company (Chris and Luke). And a corporation even owns the rights to the popular song “Happy Birthday” (a division of AOL-Time-Warner). Do you ever get the feeling it’s all a bit much?<br><br> Corporations have invested billions to shape public and political opinion. When they own everything, who will stand for the public good?<br><br> SNIP<br><br> <b>The price of whistleblowing</b><br><br> Gagging WhistleblowersIt turns out that standing for the public good is an expensive proposition. Ask Jane Akre and Steve Wilson, two investigative reporters fired by Fox News after they refused to water down a story on rBGH, a controversial synthetic hormone widely used in the United States (but banned in Europe and Canada) to rev up cows’ metabolism and boost their milk production. Because of the increased production, the cows suffer from mastitis, a painful infection of the udders. Antibiotics must then be injected, which find their way into the milk, and ultimately reduce people’s resistance to disease.<br><br> Fox demanded that they rewrite the story, and ultimately fired Akre and Wilson. Akre and Wilson subsequently sued Fox under Florida’s whistle-blower statute. They proved to a jury that the version of the story Fox would have had them put on the air was false, distorted or slanted. Akre was awarded $425,000. Then Fox appealed, the verdict was overturned on a technicality, and Akre lost her award. [For an update on the case see Disc 2 where we learn that at one point, Jane and Steve became liable for Fox’s $1.8 million court costs, later to be reduced to $200,000.]<br><br> <b>Democracy LTD.</b><br><br> Democracy is a value that the corporation just doesn’t understand. In fact, corporations have often tried to undo democracy if it is an obstacle to their single-minded drive for profit. From a 1934 business-backed plot to install a military dictator in the White House (undone by the integrity of one U.S. Marine Corps General, Smedley Darlington Butler) to present-day law-drafting, corporations have bought military might, political muscle and public opinion.<br><br> And corporations do not hesitate to take advantage of democracy’s absence either. One of the most shocking stories of the twentieth century is Edwin Black’s recounting IBM’s strategic alliance with Nazi Germany-one that began in 1933 in the first weeks that Hitler came to power and continued well into World War II.<br><br> <a href="http://www.clarksvilleonline.com/2008/01/07/watch-the-corporation/">About The Corporation</a> <br><br> Above link also contains an embedded video of the documentary The Corporation (just page down to the bottom of the page).<br><br> It's also posted on Youtube.com as a series of short clips totalling 23 episodes in all. Here's the link to the Youtube videos:<br><br> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=FA50FBC214A6CE87">The Corporation on Youtube</a>

"Both sides have been seeing only part of the same elephant. What’s happening is a merger of corporations and state."

Precisely.

From the commondreams link, I read this comment: <br><br> <blockquote> Greg R February 8th, 2008 12:58 pm <br><br> Corporations have been given judicial ‘person’ status, but they can live forever in multiple nations at the same time and they have no feelings. However, a person without feelings is usually called insane. I think we should give corporations a different judicial status, perhaps “The Undead.” I believe attempting to regulate corporate crime is in our best interest, but some say, no, capital flight will make things worse. So, they say, it’s best to just let them have their way with us, but increasingly they will take their pound of flesh. And do not expect any “activist judges” to ride to the rescue (this is The Bush Legacy, after all). Populism was gnawed to the bone. Consumption was a disease when I was born. Now it’s the leading driver of our economy. We used to manufacture useful items. Now we manufacture sophisticated ponzi schemes of sub-prime mortgage repackaged derivative moneymaking miracle assets and even gift-wrapped with AAA ratings, all at no extra charge. Many Americans are near bankruptcy. Add in the national debt and each one of us owes an additional $30,000. This has yet to metastasize, but it will. We spit blood in the Middle East. We ship bales of hundred dollar bills to Iraq and lose track of them; and so the dollar plummets (the remainder of The Legacy). It’s been reported (unsubstantiated) that American oil companies are offering $5 million per vote in the Iraqi legislature to get a new oil law in place that is highly favorable for these corporations. Oil companies in Canada are piping in natural gas to heat tar sands to separate oil and an ungodly byproduct mess. Resurrection and redemption are possible, but I fear silver bullets have become too precious. </blockquote>

"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini