How About That?

"The government has the same requirement to protect its citizens as corporations have to protect their shareholders." - Nick Clegg, British Deputy Prime Minister, 09/21/2011

What an interesting statement in this day and age.  And how true.

We have been the brunt of a joke for 100+ years as the people.  Virtually nothing which has become the norm has included the people unless they provided something of worth to the corporations, and yet the corporations continued to deprive the people of something of worth.

He later followed with "when birth is justice" which strikes a particular note with me because such an idea personifies why we should question who is drawing the lines, but also why should anyone think there are lines to be drawn in the first place? 

The concept of birth being justice supposes that there are lines to be drawn by the haves against the have nots.  It creates a faux position of rights which don't exist.  They cannot exist because there never was a reason for them to exist.  The haves have, but the concept of the depression of the have nots by the haves isn't a foregone conclusion.  In fact, it is one of the inevitable conclusions based on the predator/prey concept of life. 

It is an abdication of responsibility by the government to protect the people from the wealthy, the corporations, and the laws designed by the wealthy, the corporations, which gives them the ability to advance whilst shutting down the ability of the people to advance.

The score card has been tallied, the figures published, the concepts called into question and rejected, and we only have the final battle of whether the government is the advocate of the people, or the instigators of desires by the wealthy.

I never would have believed that I would have to lend my ear to Nick Clegg to find the right words, for I thought I had tried them all.  Perhaps I was just shouting into a wet sponge, and the hours, days, years, spent were for naught because there was no one there to hear.

We have allies in the governments of the world.  We just need to learn where to look for them.

Face it, if we can have major social change, economical adjustments, and bailouts across the world, all in the name of globalization, then the US Supreme Court's suggestion that foreign laws cannot influence our court system, even being designed by foreign law, is flawed.

For if corporations of global expanse have the ability to operate upon all the laws of the world, then the United States has to recognize that globalization has, in fact, already affected how we should interpret law.

And so the people of the world need to use this new right to their advantage.  If an American company does damage to another country's environment, then via the same laws that they do business in this country, we all have a stake in the outcome.  By going global all corporations actually create an environment whereby they have to abide by all laws.  They have misinterpreted their ability to abuse law.

I'm sorry, but if you apply simple logic, then the one (corporations) cannot become global whilst the other (countries) remain sovereign and assailable by corporate special interests.

And in this combative assault against the interests of the people, even with the help of government, they have created an environment where the people are now the ones requiring protection.

Perhaps we need a Horton Hears a Who moment, where the very existence of somebody other than corporations becomes recognized.

I have suggested a 14 million unemployed march upon Washington, DC, because I believe in peaceful protest, and I believe that when 14 million people are out of work, then they have to time to protest.  In fact, should be taking the time to protest.

Numbers mean a lot of things, but one that means most is tens of millions of people asking the government to do their job in protecting the rights of its citizens just as corporations protect the rights of their shareholders.

We are all shareholders of the United States of America.  We should demand no less.

Comments

[Bill Perkins]

How about that indeed. What Clegg actually said was "The government must guard the public interest as assiduously as Mr. Murdock guards his shareholder interests." I suppose one hears what one wants to hear in a speech, but if you're going to put statements in quotes, it ought to be accurate, don't you think?

So Clegg thinks governments should guard public interests as earnestly as Mr. Murdock guards his shareholders. Sounds like a compliment to Mr. Murdock don't you think. Clegg makes no equivalency of citizen rights to corporate shareholder rights. I certainly don't argue that government must be diligent in upholding public interest, but today's political debate is exactly what are the "public interests" federal government should be upholding.

At least you are consistent. Clegg also did not say "birth is justice", which is nonsensical on its face. In his defense of equal opportunity for children of all income strata, he stated that there is "a deep injustice when birth is destiny." That I understand, and it is an important principle of our country's founding in our Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Liberty the government should provide, and we darn well expect it to. The rest is up to the citizens to do for themselves.

To the extent corporations choose to operate in foreign countries, then they are obligated to follow that country's law. Take Gibson Guitars recent example. But there is not universal global law. You seem to be imputing "legal relativism" of some sort. I don't equate Russia's laws to ours any more than I equate the UN's pronouncements the equivalent of our constitution or laws. You seem to want to give up the very documents that have made this country so unique.

[Roger W. Norman]

Let's see if I can type today.

Hello Bill,

I'm not going to answer all of this other than to say if I paraphrased I should have said so. I make the wild hair assumption that if government needs to protect its citizens as well as Murdoch protects its shareholders, than extrapolation to all corporations must ensue.

I'll jump to my music background and say that Gibson has violated import laws on unsustainable wood products for years now and has paid fines for such infractions.

Don't get me wrong, I've been a Gibson fan for 40 years or more, and have had a number over the years, but there are sustainable avenues towards good sounding wood and Gibson isn't following the laws of either country. Wood from Madagascar is not sustainable and prohibited from export. Yet Gibson has imported the same wood.

If you break a law because you can, then the law has no weight unless it also has teeth. I'll support Gibson again when they support sustainable wood for guitar manufacturing.

Of course there are some elements that make a difference. For instance, Stradivarius probably wouldn't have made such fine violins if we hadn't had the "little ice age". The trees that experienced the cold slowed down their summer development and had far greater density of rings, offering an unequaled sound in his instruments.

So its not just the sustainability of wood but the circumstances in which it grows. I can imagine that old forest redwoods would probably make some indestructible decks, but I'm not willing to find out.

Gibson shouldn't be taking advantage of the ability to purchase wood that is proscribed for sale, and then they wouldn't have any problems.

Corporations bring this stuff upon themselves, but how many times do they continue to suck others into their inability to abide by the laws?

Corporations are like little black holes, floating around and generally not hurting anyone until they come into contact that makes money for the Corporation. When that happens the gravity increases and grabs all of the flotsam in the general area, including people who have bought Gibson guitars made of proscribed materials.

You see, this is the point. I might want to have a Gibson guitar of a certain wood, but I have to assume that they have paid attention to the law, and if they don't, then by my purchase I have also infringed upon the law. No different than buying marijuana in California with a prescription. I would have to assume that the purveyor purchased legally distributable pot. If not, I'm part of the problem. I give rise to the profit motive corporations have to break the laws.

Roger

[Bill Perkins]

Reading between your lines, I take it you believe that government needs to protect people from corporations. Sounds like the OWS mantra, if they have one. Since they can't verbalize anything coherent, I guess I'm assuming that's their thought.

As a forensic accountant, Certified Fraud Examiner and court-appointed fiduciary in matters involving fraud, I am very familiar with corporate malfeasance and have done my part in assisting various courts in putting fraudsters into federal penitentiaries. Outright fraudsters abound, like Madoff, and they usually hurt a lot of gullible, but innocent people. Rules, regulations and laws against such activities also abound. Harry Markopolus tried to convince the SEC many years prior to the collapse of Madoff's funds that Madoff was a crook. Either no one there could comprehend what they were being told, or no one wanted to upset the apple cart.

In any case, most businesses, whether corporations, partnerships or sole proprietors, like most people, are law-abiding and trying their best to present a product or service that the consumer will accept at a price at which they can make a profit. In the course of that, they employ everyone and provide either directly or indirectly the taxes that support government functions. Corporations are run by and owned (ultimately) by people, and therefore will demonstrate all the foibles people, such as management, employees and the board of directors, might utilize the corporate structure to accomplish. Legal entities are not evil, it's the people within that sometimes create that result.

But it's not governments job to make all our decisions, invest all our money, decide what our education will be, decide what career we'll choose, decide who we should marry or not, how many kids we should have or not, decide how much effort and money we'll invest, etc. We have to stand on our own feet. Subject to a crime being committed against us, being a casualty of war, or having an inherited disability, 95% of the time we are responsible for our state of being. Corporations are not our enemy. We are our own worst enemy.

[Roger W. Norman]

New drug, new day, I'll try to answer tomorrow.

Roger