The Real Ghouls Among Us

"Core of the Earth", oil

In January the Supreme Court gave corporations official status as "persons" in the law.  They were quick to reap all the advantages.  What seems strangely invisible– very strangely– is that they have been given none of the responsibilities and there is little call for that to happen.  We have allowed our culture to become one where corporations act like organized crime gangs and can take whatever they like (natural resources) at whatever cost (human, social  and environmental destruction of all kinds), while passing the consequences onto the populace.

BP is again turning a profit only 6 months after killing 11 people, destroying local economies and maiming the gulf ecologically for generations.  If you or I did that we'd be in prison for a long time.  We would not stand for an individual murderer to be back to their normal lives of raking in wealth 6 months after a crime of that magnitude.  Not so a corporation,  which as a "person" is totally devoid of a moral soul– a zombie.  We have created monsters.

Now I fear there is no stopping them.  If a multinational has no limits, no responsibilities, and can invisibly influence elections with impunity it will soon grow beyond the scope of the greatest nations– many are now larger than small nations– and overtake the earth like a parasite.  If (when) they find a need to go to war, say with a government they couldn't control (think North Korea, but with real power) they have the ability to command any power they need to prevail.  Is there any difference between that and a world-wide coup by Nazis or Al Qaida or the Mafia or any other evil you can name?