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Kai. A Black man from Harlem.
A Communist.
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Thursday, June 26, 2008
More Gangsterism: ExxonMobil says fuck your jury...
...and your livelihood and your environment.
Remember the Exxon Valdez supertanker that spilled 11 million gallons of crude oil into Alaskan waters in 1989? Yeah, you remember, the one where the captain of the ship was a known drunk and they let him man the supertanker anyway? Let me refresh your memory:
The Exxon Valdez spill was the worst in American history, damaging 1,300 miles of shoreline, disrupting the lives and livelihoods of [at least 32,000] people in the region and killing hundreds of thousands of birds and marine animals.Yeah, that spill and as usual, the New York Times gives you just enough info so that you think you know what happened, but no clue about how sisnister and diabolical Exxon has been in manipulating that situation over the last 18 years. Gotta love those establishment liberals.
A jury decided in 1994 that Exxon was required to pay about 5 Billion dollars in punitive damages, but when you are a gangster, you don’t wory too much about what jury’s say. Exxon didn’t pay, appealed the ruling, and eventually got it reduced to 2.5 billion in 2006. But even 2.5 billion dollars, which is about 3 weeks of profit for them (seriously), didn’t quite feel right. I think they still felt like their gangster was being tested. They now have the damages reduced to 500 million dollars or about 4 or 5 days worth of profit. In other words, fuck your jury, we pay the lawyers to have the judges fix it how we want it. It would be interesting to compare the percentage of criminal defendants that get this kind of love on appeal to the percentage of corporate defendants. I think it would be an interesting lesson in how money controls allegedly 'impartial' social processes.
You have to also take into account that this payment, which still has not yet been paid, has been fought in court over the course of 19 years!! Can you imagine you were a fisher and had your livelihood destroyed 19 years ago, and the damages you expected to recieve, went from around 165k, to around 80k, to about 16k?!?! What is 16k after you adjust for inflation? It’s a trip to Disney world and a wild night on the town with 2 of best friends. Its also less than $1,000 per year since the spill.
Whittling 5 Billion dollars down to 500 million dollars is a 90% reduction. Just to put that in real world terms, can you remember the last time, or any time you have paid 90% less than the price of something, like say a pair of shoes or a shirt? Let me help you. You can’t!! Not unless you stole it, because 90% off just doesn't exist in our world.
I leave you with a quote from the most comprehensive article on this that I’ve found, (which is in indy media, not the NYTimes btw):
The American justice system is predicated on several underlying assumptions, most of which are not valid...Equal treatment under the law? Not possible when those with money use it to influence the laws and public perception, or manipulate courts of law to make punishment moot.What they have said here is applicable to every aspect of society, the super rich, write the rules and we all have to play by them. Even the slanted rule book they play from isn’t sufficient for the capitalist super-gangsters, who then re-rig and undermine it more to suit their needs. This system is built around the power of capital (hence the name capitalism) and anything else we are trying to make it d, or not do, is at best secondary. This is not a system we should be trying to reform, it is one we should be fighting to replace.
Impartial judges? Not possible when judges are human and often former corporate lawyers.
Decisions based on whole truth and facts? Not even close: Jurors receive only selective information from judges or court masters as gatekeepers, and facts are grossly distorted through corporate-sponsored "science."
Capitalism is Organized Crime.
Labels: Capitalism, Courts, ExxonMobil, Oil Spill, Organized Crime
Sunday, June 22, 2008
American Gangsters
No, not Frank Lucas, and not some young black man who wears his pants below his boxers. These are the real American gangsters, the elite corporate business men who, in this case, sit on the board of directors, of the world's richest, most powerful corporation ExxonMobil. These men make decisions that affect our lives, you will respect their gangster. If you ever doubted that the Iraq war was a war for oil, the following is either the smoking gun, or another really crazy coincidence (depending on how many functioning brain cells you have):
Four Western oil companies are in the final stages of negotiations this month on contracts that will return them to Iraq, 36 years after losing their oil concession to nationalization as Saddam Hussein rose to power… Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP — the original partners in the Iraq Petroleum Company — along with Chevron and a number of smaller oil companies, are in talks with Iraq’s Oil Ministry for no-bid contracts to service Iraq’s largest fields.
And this:
There was suspicion among many in the Arab world and among parts of the American public that the United States had gone to war in Iraq precisely to secure the oil wealth these contracts seek to extract. The Bush administration has said that the war was necessary to combat terrorism. It is not clear what role the United States played in awarding the contracts; there are still American advisers to Iraq’s Oil Ministry.
You’ve got to love the detached way the New York Times reports this, and by detached I mean, from reality. It wasn’t only in the Arab world, and in any event, the biggest anti-war protests in the history of the world should not be characterized as 'suspicion' in the first place. Protesters had a very clear understanding that the war against Iraq was a transparent move by the US ruling class to gain control of the world’s 2nd largest oil reserves, and history has proven us (I was there) correct.
click here to learn more
Who Pays?
The American Working Class finances the war with their tax dollars or 'Public Money"
The American & Iraqi working class with their lives.
Who Profits?
Private Corporations, most notably, ExxonMobil and Haliburton; with no-bid contracts just because they got it like that. So much for the competition you read about in economics class.
Capitalism is Organized Crime.
Labels: Capitalism, Iraq, Organized Crime
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Capitalism is Bananas
I go to the corner store to buy the bananas that I give to my daughters each morning. I pick 2 bananas, give him a dollar and wait for my change but none comes.
Kai: Yo Ak, how much were those bananas?
Clerk: 50 cent each.
Kai: What?!? Is there gold inside them shits? They were 35 cents a week ago and 25 cents before that!
Clerk: They are the best bananas in the world!!
Kai: [skeptical] Where are these bananas from?
Clerk: Kluma.
Kai: Where?
Clerk: Ah-Kluma.
Kai: Where the hell is that?
Clerk: Ah-Klah-Uma
Kai: Oklahoma?
Clerk:Yes!
Kai: They dont grow no fucking bananas in Oklahoma, what they hell are you talking about?
Me, the clerk, and several other people who witnessed the exchange busted out into laughter and I walk out with my high priced bananas, assuming its all about the increase in gas prices.
Its important to realize that we have to be trained to think about where things come from, and how certain relationships have come to exist. When we are younger, we live in the world and think that things must have always been just the way they are now, give or take an iphone and the internets. If we mature in our understanding of the world, we realize that in the United States, most of what we take for granted as normal, is usually the result of some carefully orchestrated corporate plan to infiltrate our lives with their products.
When this process is successful it is usually called development, and I agree with that term, if by development they mean something like the transformation that takes place between HIV and AIDS. Capitalist development is not unlike HIV/AIDS, in that it spreads ever faster and will eventually kill us all if we do not take serious, dramatic measures to eradicate it.
Of course eating Bananas wont kill us, but the profits and politics that surround them have caused many others to die. The New York Times ran an Op-Ed piece by Dan Koeppel that sheds light on the bloody, exploitative history of the fruit my girls love. Here is a highlight:
In that last sentence, labor is contrasted with 'growers' but um...What the hell is a grower? lol. Its a liberal euphemism for boss, capitalist, or owner, but other than that minor quip, I find the information in the article fascinating.
If you were in anyway familiar with the history of the banana trade or capitalism, none of this information about it's turbulent history is shocking, although it is still incredibly outrageous. The more you read, the more you realize that whether its bananas, cotton, cocoa or oil, the history of seemingly benign commodoties, is routinely full of murder, exploitation and corruption. During the course of your studies, you will also inevitably come across many instances of gov't militaries, advancing very-private corporate interests. This, my friends, is what capitalism is, and the sooner we all accept that, the sooner we can get on with the business of replacing it, before we are all gone.
Capitalism really is Bananas.
Kai: Yo Ak, how much were those bananas?
Clerk: 50 cent each.
Kai: What?!? Is there gold inside them shits? They were 35 cents a week ago and 25 cents before that!
Clerk: They are the best bananas in the world!!
Kai: [skeptical] Where are these bananas from?
Clerk: Kluma.
Kai: Where?
Clerk: Ah-Kluma.
Kai: Where the hell is that?
Clerk: Ah-Klah-Uma
Kai: Oklahoma?
Clerk:Yes!
Kai: They dont grow no fucking bananas in Oklahoma, what they hell are you talking about?
Me, the clerk, and several other people who witnessed the exchange busted out into laughter and I walk out with my high priced bananas, assuming its all about the increase in gas prices.
Its important to realize that we have to be trained to think about where things come from, and how certain relationships have come to exist. When we are younger, we live in the world and think that things must have always been just the way they are now, give or take an iphone and the internets. If we mature in our understanding of the world, we realize that in the United States, most of what we take for granted as normal, is usually the result of some carefully orchestrated corporate plan to infiltrate our lives with their products.
When this process is successful it is usually called development, and I agree with that term, if by development they mean something like the transformation that takes place between HIV and AIDS. Capitalist development is not unlike HIV/AIDS, in that it spreads ever faster and will eventually kill us all if we do not take serious, dramatic measures to eradicate it.
Of course eating Bananas wont kill us, but the profits and politics that surround them have caused many others to die. The New York Times ran an Op-Ed piece by Dan Koeppel that sheds light on the bloody, exploitative history of the fruit my girls love. Here is a highlight:
Once bananas had become widely popular, the companies kept costs low by exercising iron-fisted control over the Latin American countries where the fruit was grown. Workers could not be allowed such basic rights as health care, decent wages or the right to congregate. (In 1929, Colombian troops shot down banana workers and their families who were gathered in a town square after church.) Governments could not be anything but utterly pliable. Over and over, banana companies, aided by the American military, intervened whenever there was a chance that any “banana republic” might end its cooperation. (In 1954, United Fruit helped arrange the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Guatemala.) Labor is still cheap in these countries, and growers still resort to heavy-handed tactics.
In that last sentence, labor is contrasted with 'growers' but um...What the hell is a grower? lol. Its a liberal euphemism for boss, capitalist, or owner, but other than that minor quip, I find the information in the article fascinating.
If you were in anyway familiar with the history of the banana trade or capitalism, none of this information about it's turbulent history is shocking, although it is still incredibly outrageous. The more you read, the more you realize that whether its bananas, cotton, cocoa or oil, the history of seemingly benign commodoties, is routinely full of murder, exploitation and corruption. During the course of your studies, you will also inevitably come across many instances of gov't militaries, advancing very-private corporate interests. This, my friends, is what capitalism is, and the sooner we all accept that, the sooner we can get on with the business of replacing it, before we are all gone.
Capitalism really is Bananas.
Labels: Bananas, Capitalism