Gooey Black Corporate Greed (by David Swanson)

OpEdNews - Article: Gooey Black Corporate Greed

And why is nothing done? Juhasz describes the bottomless and indeterminate flow of Big Oil cash into political parties and candidacies, and the vastly greater funding of lobbying efforts, much of it laundered through that best friend of corporate persons, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

If you turn on a television you'll never suspect that we, the people, own the air waves. Nor will it occur to you that we own the oil on public land and under public waters, that we give it away, that we subsidize the greedy beasts (excuse me, persons) that consume it, and that we neglect to even tax them. This is what money buys. BP's even trying to buy off victims for $5,000 each.

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Juhasz offers several useful steps to pursue:

1. Re-bust the Standard Oil trust, which has effectively reconstituted its monopoly. We know it can be done, because we did it before.
2. Get the money out of the elections. This will now require amending the Constitution, but that's being pursued at http://freespeechforpeople.org and http://movetoamend.org
3. Stop subsidizing the bastards and tax them.
4. Regulate what they are doing.
5. Shut down secret oils futures markets.
6. Keep gasoline prices high, but direct the funds into renewable energy, not just corporate profits.
7. Reduce consumption.
8. Take public control of our resources.
9. Stop fighting oil-consuming wars for oil.

I would add another: allow unionizing in any dangerous operations so that workers can object to dangers without losing their jobs. Do this in coal mines and nuclear plants as well.

And what about the whole idea that corporations are persons whose money is speech? Well, check out this resolution that has now been passed by Hawaii and Oregon calling for a constitutional amendment. Something's brewing in some coastal states. Perhaps they'll call for a constitutional convention next.

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Beginnings of rumblings of minor tweaks to the system are coming from Capitol Hill, which has the Chamber of Commerce furious. The Wisconsin Senate and other state legislatures have already passed a similar reform requiring disclosure of which corporate persons are funding our indoctrination. There's a similar bill in Minnesota. But will this reform cover the new lack of rules for parties when/if the Republicans get it? (The most I can say is: it's a step. People did notice the effect on National Public Radio when it began announcing Wal-Mart's sponsorship, but they didn't stop listening.)