We must unite to fight corporate injustices
Hey savvy news reader! Thanks for choosing local.
You are now reading
1 of 3 free articles.
Editor,
Code words to watch out for are, “Environmental justice,” said a recent tea party speaker.
Two mouse clicks reveal the website of Tea Party Patriots, Inc. where local citizens organize protests, helped by Freedomworks, funded by Exxon and oil billionaire Koch. Founder Dick Armey’s corporate lobbyist firm buys politicians in Washington for big oil and gas companies and the UAE.
Messages about Ronan/Polson tea party events are mixed with EPA-bashing statements lifted from another website funded by Exxon.
Pretty slick to use corporate funding to get ordinary locals to help castrate the EPA.
This allows fancy tricks like the Halliburton Exemption that exempts “fracking” from the Safe Drinking Water Act regulations. When pressurized chemicals were injected into the ground to destroy nearby wells, making the tap water flammable - and causing people, livestock and wildlife to sicken and die - some survivors had to walk away, their homes now unsellable due to the contamination. The private property rights didn’t protect individuals, instead they elevated the rights of corporations over those of human citizens.
Unlimited by human lifespan, Exxon appealed to the courts again and again until the punitive damages were reduced to a tenth. Their losses were covered by insurance, leading to the first credit default swap by JP Morgan. Taxpayers now bail them out, and the bailout is counted as profit, distributed as a bonus.
Code word alert: they tell us to blame “big government.”
The companies would rather answer to us in our minority as a small state and not as united with our people in other states as a country. The US is still an entity larger than BP, but if we let them continue to divide us we - unincorporated, real live natural-born human persons - might as well hand it all over to them now.
It is in our interest, and indeed our duty to each other and our posterity, to research, ask hard questions and not let corporate code words substitute for careful, informed human consideration and evaluation based on the facts and long-term consequences. We the people have got to work together for the benefit of we the people.
Cheryl Wolfe
Polson
