Corporate Morality

They Were Obeying Orders

Where: A bus tunnel in Seattle

When: Recently

Who: Three security guards, a 15-year-old girl, a gang of teen thugs, immobile bystanders.

What: The girl, frightened and pursued by the gang of thugs, asks the three guards to protect her. They refuse. The gang of thugs advances and proceeds to beat the bejesus out of the girl. No one moves to her aid. One of the security people calls police.

How: How could this happen? That’s what I’d like to know.

Why: They, the security guards, were obeying corporate orders to do nothing, to "observe." The orders are uniform in virtually every security company in the United States. Obey the rules or be fired. And, good luck finding another job.

Mere human beings no longer have the right to make moral decisions. Mere human beings are no longer free to determine what is right and what is wrong.

Mere human beings in the United States are, by and large, owned by corporations.

Corporations determine where the mere human beings shall live, how well they shall live, what they shall eat, what they shall work at and how much their wages will be.

Corporations have very successfully outsourced millions of good-paying American jobs so that they will have a pliant population of mere human beings in danger of being unemployed, in danger of starving and losing shelter. We mere human beings are constantly reminded of this whenever we see the hordes of hungry and homeless mere human beings who have arisen since the time of the presidency of Ronald Reagan.

Corporations do not have morals. Corporations do not exist as a moral entity. Corporations exist to make money, to create profits, to constantly keep an eye on the bottom line.

And, the bottom line is that mere human beings are expendable.

And, unfortunately, these amoral entities, corporations, now rule the United States of America. Our corporate Supreme Court has ruled that it is so.

Our corporate Supreme Court has ruled that the unnatural person of the corporation shall have all of the rights guaranteed by our nation’s founders to natural persons, mere human beings.

Our nation’s founders were good men who wrote the Declaration of Independence on behalf of mere human beings.

Our nation’s founders were good men who argued and pondered over the wording of the Constitution for the new nation they were founding, all of this on behalf of natural persons, mere human beings.

Unfortunately, they forgot to use the term "natural person," and the corporate Supreme Court leaped upon the lack of this singular word to grant to unnatural persons, corporations, all of the rights, freedoms and liberties granted to natural persons, mere human beings.

But mere human beings and corporations are not equal.

Mere human beings are mortal. They fall ill. They can experience pain and physical injury, they die, they are not immortal as corporations can be.

They do not have the collective power of corporations to amass power and money and the money and wealth of a single mere human being will never be the equal of the money and wealth held by many major corporations.

And the pure, raw power and wealth of these unnatural persons, corporations – immortality, the collective ability to amass huge amounts of power and wealth, to wield that power, to influence the laws of mere human beings, to meddle in the lives of mere human beings, to rule their existence – has been enormously magnified by the recent decision of the corporate Supreme Court.

We have just witnessed how that decision will fall out on our society in the recent incident in a bus tunnel, in Seattle, a small group of actors, the leads played by a frightened 15-year-old girl, three security guards, immobile bystanders, a collection of mere human beings who have lost the will to be moral – because corporate will has prised this most basic and valued mere human quality out of the mere humans they now own.

The Unexamined Faith

As Socrates has said:

The unexamined life is not worth living

so it is that

The unexamined faith is not worth having.

This last is attributed to so many different people it is rather difficult to determine who originally wrote or spoke the words.

If I make statements about the religious majority on the United States Supreme Court and speculate as to how much of a role their religious beliefs may have made on their decisions, their beliefs about corporatism and human rights, I should think that any thinking believer might first say:

Hmmm, I wonder about that. It sounds extreme but...

Rather the kneejerk reaction has been to leap instantly to the attack and heap all to sorts of ad hominem attacks upon me for my speculation. Because of the instantaneousness of these attacks, forgive me for wondering if any thinking was done before the attacks were made.

Is one’s faith not to be examined? I suppose that if one believes, one believes that the faith is ordained by God and must never be questioned.

Fine. But keep your unquestioning beliefs out of my nation’s politics. And do not impose your unquestioning beliefs on others who like to question what they believe in on a daily basis, who even dare to question authority.

Surprisingly, I find a great many worthy beliefs in the teachings of one Jesus Christ. I admit to having a problem with driving demons into a herd of hogs and sending the herd to drown in the Sea of Galilee. For one thing, there’s the idea of Jesus trafficking with demons and hearing their pleas. I happen to find that section of the bible one of those questionable ones where the author might have been high on something. Or other.

It is interesting to note that there are three scriptural citings of Jesus and the unclean spirits and a herd of swine: Matthew 8:28-34; Mark 5:1-20; Luke 8:26-39. Group high anyone?

But to get back to the main message of Christ, his exhortations to not seek wealth above all else, his admonitions to look after the sick, take care of the wounded, visit those who are in prison, seek out the lowly, the dispossessed and lend them aid.

This same Jesus Christ has said nothing about the fetus in the womb. Nevertheless, many who claim to be his followers seem to think that the rights of the fetus reign above the rights of the individual woman.

And I wonder at the response of Roman Catholic Italy in the early part of the 20th century, their embracing of corporatism in the form of fascism. I’m trying to figure out where that is in the bible.

Fetuses.

Corporations.

Did Jesus discuss these things in his Sermon on the Mount?

No. Jesus mentions the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness – justice?, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers (not the little gun, folks), those who are persecuted for righteousness sake – would that include “whistleblowers”? Because those folks, for sure, aren’t getting any justice, those who are reviled, persecuted and have all manner of evil things falsely said against them for the sake of Jesus.

The concept, “for the sake of Jesus,” is a tad vague.

Does that refer to Jesus the Savior, focusing on the thing of salvation vs. damnation?

Or does it refer to the social teachings of Jesus, being fair to the little guy, the meek, those who seek justice, those who seek peace?

For the sake of Jesus? Corporations? Fetuses? Do they figure in that “for the sake of Jesus” thing?

Hossein Shariatmadari

What do you get when you rip the toenails and fingernails off some guy? What happens when you kick in all his teeth, beat the soles of his feet, taser him, imprison him for life? Under the U.S.-imposed reign of the Shah in Iran?

Whadya suppose you get, chump?

You get, when this guy is finally released from life imprisonment, after the much feared and hated (in the U.S.A. at least) Ayatollah Seyyed Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini overthrows the much-hated U.S.-supported regime of the Shah, you get one very nasty and mean dude. Wooh! Is this guy ever, like, the supreme interrogator of Iranian intelligence.

And, you suppose this guy loves the U.S. and Israel? Huh, Chump? Ya think that?

So, Chumpy Boy, ya wanna use the Constitution of the United States for toilet paper, huh?

The concept of Habeas Corpus is quaint. The Geneva Conventions are piffle. So you say, Chumpy Boy, so you say.

Don’t your knuckles get sore from having to drag them on the ground all the time?

You know, that constant drooling from your slack jaws, that saliva is leaving ugly red marks on your cheeks and chin, all that drooling spit isn’t good for your skin, it kind of eats it up like acid.

You say you can’t help it? You’re just a helpless Republican? And you worship George Dubya Bush as the God and King of All?

And you are totally clueless as to what happens long term when you abandon civilization? Yeah dude, you are one stupid, barbaric, worthless bastard, and clueless about what happens when you dump the basic values of America, the things that I see every damned time I see the American flag, you don’t see those things. Yeah, you’re just a Republican and you’re too damned blind to see those things.

And we’ve got this guy, Hossein Shariatmadari, to deal with because of stupid bastards like you. Yeah, you, you stupid bastard.

And he is one damned smart and tricky and cunning son-of-a-bitch and we’ve got to figure out how to outsmart him.

So you, you damned, stupid, nincompoop Republicans! Get your worthless asses out of the way while we grownups with values figure out how to deal with your god damned mess.

Republican "Values"

After the events of the past few weeks, not to mention the events of the past few months and years, I do not want to hear one word from Republicans about “values.”

The word “values” has been thoroughly devalued and trod into a misshapen clump by a drunken herd of rogue elephants.

To begin, there was the ongoing shell game about weapons of mass destruction and mushroom clouds from a smoking gun which, at a command from Supreme Wizard Karl Rove’s occult wand and a number of mumbled curses, was transformed into “democracy” for the Middle East.

I felt that the Iraqi invasion was quite enough, and I did not think that the thing known as “values” could get any more murkier and deformed.

But, alas, we have just been exposed to the follies of Mark Foley, which passed through a phase of denial to blaming it on alcoholism (although no one could ever remember Foley with an alcoholic beverage in his hand), through a childhood molestation experience with a priest.

And, unfortunately, Foley’s sins pale to insignificance beside the ongoing efforts of those who should know better — Republican leaders such as House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois, Congressmen John Shimkus of Illinois, John Boehner of Ohio, Rodney Alexander of Lousiana and Tom Reynolds of New York — to keep the Foley situation under wraps.

Of course, the reputation of the legislative branch of our federal government, already low, sank even lower.

The media performed no better in this charade of “values.”

Fox News — famously known as Faux News — falsely labeled Foley as a Democrat, hoping to blunt the public’s ongoing disenchantment with Republican “values.”

Various right-wing pundits blamed the pages for inciting Foley’s lust, as well as leftist liberals for setting poor dear Mr. Foley up and making more of the matter than need be made.

Never mind that Democratic members of the various ethics committees were never privy to the shenanigans of poor little persecuted Congressman Foley.

Frankly, this leftist liberal was utterly dumbfoundedly speechless. I must confess that I was even slack-jawed in shock at all the goings-on of the right wing of our federal legislative body.

Added to this is the fury of Christian fundamentalists. They, of course, are not very happy about the behavior of Congressman Foley.

And, in the course of the media frenzy over congressional pages and congressmen, David Kuo, who was part of President Bush’s White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, released his new book “Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction” published just this month.
According to Kuo, some of the nation’s most prominent evangelical leaders were known in the office of presidential political strategist Karl Rove as “the nuts.”

These leaders were greeted with hugs and kisses, but behind their backs they were described as “ridiculous,” “out of control” and just plain “goofy.”

Kuo goes on to charge Ken Mehlman, who headed White House political affairs, with a scheme to use Kuo’s office and taxpayer funds to create supposedly “nonpartisan” events that had a very partisan goal of mobilizing religious voters in 20 targeted races.

Nineteen of the 20 of these races were won by the Republicans.

Some of the other books making note of the Republican religious hypocrisy include titles such as:

• Jesus Rode a Donkey: Why Republicans Don’t Have the Corner on Christ by Dr. Linda Seger

• The Left Hand of God: Taking Back Our Country from the Religious Right by Rabbi Michael Lerner

• Thy Kingdom Come: How the Religious Right Distorts the Faith and Threatens America - an Evangelical’s Lament by Randall Herbert Balmer, Ph.D.

• Blowing the Whistle on the Christian Church in America: The Hypocrisy and Double Standards Exposed by Pastor Henry L. Bechtold

One could not go wrong in placing several of these volumes under various Christmas trees in the coming season.

Books by Rush Limbaugh’s brother and Charles Colson are to be shunned, by the way.

This was published in the Federal Way Mirror on October 26, 2006.

Magna Carta Undone

The Bush/Cheney/Gonzales gang of thugs is absolutely breathtaking in its vicious rape of nearly 800 years of civilized jurisprudence. On June 19, 1215, King John of England, under duress from the more powerful feudal lords of England, signed into law the following provisions in articles 38 and 39 of the Magna Carta:

38 In future no official shall place a man on trial upon his own unsupported statement, without producing credible witnesses to the truth of it.

39 No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land.

At that point in time, only the higher ranked lords of the land held this position of being able to face down their accusers in a court of law, but it was the beginning. More freedoms were added in the 1620s when five knights were thrown into jail by King Charles I for not paying their taxes. The knights sued, on the basis of habeas corpus, on their right to remain free unless convicted of a crime. King Charlie took it upon his kingly self to say that, “By golly, I’m the King and I get to toss into jail anyone I want to (unless you’re a pretty wealthy sort of fellow).” This sure sounds like the kind of thing that is happening right now, in the year 2006.

But the Parliament, comparable to our Congress, had more gumption in those days and they got mad at the King’s presumption of power. In 1628, Parliament passed the "Petition of Right" law, which restated Articles 38 and 39 of the Magna Carta and added that "writs of habeas corpus, [are] there to undergo and receive [only] as the court should order." It was later strengthened with the "Habeas Corpus Act of 1640" and a second "Habeas Corpus Act of 1679." The basic meaning of the 1679 law was that individuals cannot be imprisoned just because the King finds it inconvenient to have them running around, mouthing off and flipping their thumbs at his Royal Majesty. My thanks to John Hemming’s weblog for so nicely compacting several centuries of jurisprudence.

All of these acts of legislative courage were undone on the historic day of September 28, 2006. On that dark day, like another dark day in September of 2001, we cast off our flimsy garments of civilization and lurched back in time more than a thousand years, slack-jawed, knuckles dragging.

The concept of habeas corpus appears to have sturdy Anglo-Saxon roots and it was a brilliant stroke to foist these old laws of the land upon the descendants of the Norman usurper, William the Bastard, whose great, great grandson, John, held the crown and almost all the power of England. Bush and his people, despite their antipathy to France and persons of French heritage, are the now the agents of our own Norman Conquest.

Other far more modern legal concepts were nullified on September 28 of this year by the radically new and broad definition of the term “Enemy Combatant.” Bush can now freely designate legal residents of the United States, as well as foreign citizens living in their own countries as “enemy combatants,” subject to summary arrest and indefinite detention with no hope of appeal. These so-called “enemy combatants”could then, under the terms of this bill be subjected to coerced evidence–translate that into pure and simple torture. This trampling of rights also nullifies a precept of our first president, George Washington. After capturing 1,000 Hessians in the Battle of Trenton, he ordered that enemy prisoners be treated with the same rights for which our young nation was fighting. In an order covering prisoners taken in the Battle of Princeton, Washington wrote: "Treat them with humanity, and let them have no reason to Complain of our Copying the brutal example of the British Army in their treatment of our unfortunate brethren…. Provide everything necessary for them on the road." So recalls young Robert F. Kennedy in a December 17, 2005 article in the Los Angeles Times.

Then, there’s the Geneva Conventions, finally codified in 1949, now to be repudiated a half century later. As well as the use of “Secret Evidence,” which has the sweaty fingerprints of Mr. Richard Bruce Cheney all over it. How Mr. Cheney loves his little dark secrets.

Other sweet little provisions of this new law are dispensing with judicial review. Courts would have no review powers, except for verdicts by military tribunals. Appeals and legal actions based on the Geneva Conventions would be extremely limited in their scope. Bush could simply declare someone an illegal combatant and have that person locked up forever, without trial.

Oh, and rape and sexual assault? A totally acceptable form of torture.

I don’t know about you, but I guess I have to stock up on some smelly old bearskins and go hunting around for some nice clubs for my little cave arsenal. I know that I will not look well in ratty old bearskins and I’m not too keen on eating rotten, raw meat, but it goes with the new rules of the game, ala Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld.

This was pubished on October 4, 2006, in the Federal Way Mirror.

Iran: Can't We Talk to the Bastards. . .

Instead of bombing them?

The Hitler in our White House is privately calling Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, Iran's hard-liner, "the new Hitler." This according to Seymour Hersh, who has written a series of articles on Bush's conduct in Iraq and the Bush/Cheney plans for broadening conflict to Iran.

Bush himself, in a speech to the 89th Annual National Convention of the American Legion in Reno, Nevada, Tuesday, August 28, 2007, says:

. . . . Iran's actions threaten the security of nations everywhere. And that is why the United States is rallying friends and allies around the world to isolate the regime, to impose economic sanctions. We will confront this danger before it is too late. (Applause.)

I want our fellow citizens to consider what would happen if these forces of radicalism and extremism are allowed to drive us out of the Middle East. The region would be dramatically transformed in a way that could imperil the civilized world. Extremists of all strains would be emboldened by the knowledge that they forced America to retreat. Terrorists could have more safe havens to conduct attacks on Americans and our friends and allies. Iran could conclude that we were weak -- and could not stop them from gaining nuclear weapons. And once Iran had nuclear weapons, it would set off a nuclear arms race in the region.

Extremists would control a key part of the world's energy supply, could blackmail and sabotage the global economy. They could use billions of dollars of oil revenues to buy weapons and pursue their deadly ambitions. Our allies in the region would be under greater siege by the enemies of freedom. Early movements toward democracy in the region would be violently reversed. This scenario would be a disaster for the people of the Middle East, a danger to our friends and allies, and a direct threat to American peace and security. This is what the extremists plan. For the sake of our own security, we'll pursue our enemies, we'll persevere and we will prevail. (Applause.)

In the short-term, we're using all elements of American power to protect the American people by taking the fight to the enemy. Our troops are carrying out operations day by day to bring the terrorists to justice. We're keeping the pressure on them. We're forcing them to move. Our law enforcement and intelligence professionals are working to cut off terrorist financing and disrupt their networks. Our diplomats are rallying our friends and allies throughout the region to share intelligence and to tighten security and to rout out the extremists hiding in their midst. Every day we work to protect the American people. Our strategy is this: We will fight them over there so we do not have to face them in the United States of America. (Applause.)

. . . . Some say Iran's leaders are not aware of what members of their own regime are doing. Others say Iran's leaders are actively seeking to provoke the West. Either way, they cannot escape responsibility for aiding attacks against coalition forces and the murder of innocent Iraqis. The Iranian regime must halt these actions. And until it does, I will take actions necessary to protect our troops. I have authorized our military commanders in Iraq to confront Tehran's murderous activities. (Applause.) . . .

Bush says he is rallying "friends and allies around the world."

What friends and allies do we have left in the world after six years of Bush's cowboy sixshooter diplomacy?

Also, he has "authorized our military commanders in Iraq to confront Tehran's murderous activities."

What military do these commanders have left to command? Our military has been torn to shreds by Bush's foolhardy conduct in warfare. The combined efforts of the fools Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld has reduced our military to a ragged band of still valiant fighters, but these valiant warriors have never gotten the support they needed to prosecute a decent war in terms of numbers of personnel, appropriate tools and support and the complete lack of recognition that our dead and wounded deserve when they return from the war zone.

We keep the returning flag-draped coffins carefully hidden from the media and the American public as if these coffins are a badge of shame. This is according to the dictates of Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld because they well known that if there is any shame in those coffins it only belongs to Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld who sent these young warriors into a quagmire where they were denied everything that a true leader of warriors would extend to his army.

But, Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld never have been warriors, have always done all that they could to avoid service in combat, and they know nothing of true warfare. They are the cowards, the niggardly cringing cowards who have always had others to go to combat in their place.

But, at the same time, they strut around as if they are warriors instead of cowards, make vain boasts about using warfare instead of diplomacy.

I cannot tell you how much I hate these cowering, quivering, quailing, despicably pitiful specimens of manhood, Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld, words simply fail me.

The Legacy of George W. Bush

One wonders how the forthcoming books discussing the presidency of Mr. Bush will be titled.

I do have a suggestion:

That Bastard in the White House
The Illegitimate President: George W. Bush (2001-2009)

It will, of course, look in great detail upon events in the State of Florida, from the pre-election activities of Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, at the design of voter ballots in that state, examine charges of voter intimidation, voter "caging," the riots staged by then Congressman Tom DeLay of Texas at vote counting sites, the Florida Supreme Court, the election-surge led by Antonin Scalia of the U.S. Supreme Court to protect the interests of Mr. Bush, a one-time ruling applicable to no other candidate, no other election.

There have already been a number of books published about Florida and the 2000 presidential election, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy by Greg Palast, The Betrayal of America: How the Supreme Court Undermined the Constitution and Chose Our President by Vincent Bugliosi, Supreme Injustice: How the High Court Hijacked Election 2000 by Alan Dershowitz, Too Close to Call: The Thirty-Six Day Battle to Decide the 2000 Election by Jeffrey Toobin, among others, surely to be cited in the bibliography of this book.

But then, there is the larger matter, the presidency and the administration of it itself. It may take several years for the dust to settle on the various chapters, for sound analysis. So many things: Iraq, Dick Cheney, the politicization of the U.S. Supreme Court, the Unitary Executive Theory of the Presidency engendered by Sam Alito (rewarded with a position on the U.S. Supreme Court), Katrina, the failure to secure national security, the deliberate dismantling of America's infrastructure, the destruction of the U.S. military forces, the gross betrayal of military veterans returning from Iraq, the Neo-Con movement and their imperialist Project for the New American Century, so much to write about, the next ten years are going to be very interesting as Bush's administration is discussed and reviewed.

The question remains, however: Will America learn any lasting lessons from the horrible mistakes made in elections in 2000 and 2004?