"ExxonMobil is our energy policy. If you have a beef with that, you misunderstand the system."

[krispos42]

So I was reading the October issue of "Automobile" magazine today, and this regular feature called "Noise, Harshness, and Vibration" by Jamie Kitman caught my eye.

Now remember, this is the October issue, so it was delivered in September and probably written in July or August.

It's exhausting to hear the chattering classes blame our lack of a coherent and forward-thinking energy policy (or just about any other policy) on a broad systemic dysfunction. "The system is not working!" they whimper, shaking their heads in disbelief, saying it's another example of the decline of sense and civility in our public discourse. Critics rail against policies brazenly favoring the oil industry -- tax breaks, subsidies, and a regulatory climate just this side of whoopee -- making it sound like environmental degradation was part of the founders' original intent. This makes the critics one part sad, one part angry, and three parts ripped off, not unlike the way my son Milo behaves when a battery-powered toy craps out at an inopportune moment.

<snip>

But, of course, it was always thus -- the good old days were bad, counterproductive policies prevailed, and politicians always employed civility sparingly. If one takes a step back from the action -- or inaction, as it were -- you see not that the system isn't working, but rather that it is working. It's just that some folks think the system aims to achieve goals that it does not.

Take energy policy. While the Constitution enshrines the pursuit of happiness as a basic right, a long line of Supreme Court rulings has also established the notion of corporate personhood. So, although no one has said before that the pursuit of ExxonMobil's happiness is a goal of our society, they needn't bother. Everything ExxonMobil needs done is done. Everything ExxonMobil needs not done is not done. ExxonMobil is our energy policy. If you have a beef with that, you misunderstand the system.

<snip>

If you thought the goal of the system was to keep our air clean and to improve human health, guess again. If you thought the goal was to protect accumulated wealth and nourish the bank accounts of our largest corporations and our military industrial complex, with all the wars that may entail, then go to the head of the class.

<more>

http://www.automobilemag.com/features/columns/1110_nois...

Weeks before OWS, this was coming out in a freakin' CAR MAGAZINE.


This was becoming a major issue, a mainstream issue, even before OWS.

Don't lose hope.

[varelse]

1. K&R

[Scuba]

2. K&R The People are awake now.

[msongs]

3. Pursuit of Happiness = Declaration Independence, NOT constitution - nt

[NYC_SKP]

4. ha ha ha, the comments in response to that piece, plenty of RW crap.

But I'm also glad that they published something as progressive as this:

",,,If you thought the goal of the system was to keep our air clean and to improve human health, guess again. If you thought the goal was to protect accumulated wealth and nourish the bank accounts of our largest corporations and our military industrial complex, with all the wars that may entail, then go to the head of the class.

And, surely, counterintuitive trends in executive compensation are more proof of the system working as intended. With the American economy still in the dumpster, and with unemployment and pay cuts rampant, what else explains the pay of top auto-industry executives? Results of a survey prepared for Automotive News showed that the median salary of CEOs from thirty-five publicly traded U.S. automakers, dealership groups, suppliers, and automotive-services companies rose 90 percent in 2010.

Take TRW CEO John Plant, whose total compensation of $41.1 million represented a 510 percent increase over the paltry $6.7 million with which he was forced to make do in 2009. Or Ford CEO Alan Mulally, whose 524 percent raise will surely help take his mind off the $14 billion in outstanding debt Ford is still digging out from underneath. Stephen Roell, Johnson Controls? Up 424 percent. (Note to Editor: I will settle for a mere 324 percent raise.)

Read more: http://www.automobilemag.com/features/columns/1110_nois...
..."

[krispos42]

5. Yeah, I was a bit flabbergasted to read that in a car magazine! n/t

[blindpig]

6. That is correct.

The problem is Capitalism. The entire structure of our government is made that the ruling class retains control. Our democracy is a sham, there are so many checks to the popular will, Electoral College, Senate, Supreme Court and powerful Executive. Add that to the persuasive presence of serious money and we haven't got a chance, they will have their way. We must take politics away from them by practicing politics by other means, the politics of the street.

[highplainsdem]

7. K&R

[Selatius]

8. Let's ignore the fucking fact that the first 100 years saw insanely tight regulations on...

corporations. Few corporations in that time frame were even chartered, and if they were, they were chartered by the state legislature directly and often included a life-time limit and limits on its activities and area it is to operate.

This tight control of corporations was a direct consequence of the American Revolution. One of the bigger reasons that led to the American Revolution was British Parliament, after much corporate lobbying in London, granting the British East India Company a monopoly on the sale of tea in the American colonies on top of the tax that the colonists also had to pay on the tea, part of which was used to enforce the corporate monopoly.

So if Jamie Kitman wants to continue to be willfully ignorant of history, then he is a fucking moron. If he knows history well and continues to peddle the lie, then he is a bastard collaborator with the very same people who've bankrupted this once-great Republic.

[Ichingcarpenter]

9. +1 n/t

[krispos42]

10. "Unequal Protection" by Thom Hartmann

<snip>

However, the Supreme Court justices' 1886 decision did not, in fact, establish corporate personhood, according to author Thom Hartmann. In his recent book, Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights, Mr. Hartmann documents how corporations claimed the Constitutional rights of personhood under the Fourteenth Amendment almost immediately after the amendment was passed. The Fourteenth Amendment extended Constitutional rights to slaves freed after the U.S. Civil War.

The first Supreme Court justice to write an opinion on a case where a corporation claimed personhood under the Fourteenth Amendment "minced no words in chastising corporations for trying to claim the rights of human beings," writes Mr. Hartmann.

Attorneys learn in law school that the 1886 Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company case established corporate personhood. However, when Mr. Hartmann read the actual decision, he found that the justices had ruled on specific tax laws and explicitly excluded the issue of corporate personhood. Baffled by this apparent contradiction, Mr. Hartmann looked up the case in Volume 118 of United States Reports: Cases Adjudged in The Supreme Court at October Term 1885 and October Term 1886 at the Vermont Supreme Court law library.

Mr. Hartmann discovered that the headnotes, which are the court reporter's summary of the case, asserted that "corporations are persons within the intent . . . of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution ...," an opinion the justices did not state in the ruling.

<more>

http://www.socialfunds.com/news/article.cgi/1044.html

Interesting reading indeed.

[Selatius]

11. It is a tenuous claim at best by them, but so much time had passed that it's hard to reverse. nt