Corporate Punishment

One of these days, soon, I am going to sneak out of the garret and go see Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story. That despite how I believe -- without having seen it, mind you -- that it's probably mistitled.

It really should be called Corporatism: A Love Story.

The reason I raise this is my friend Carolyn sent me this link, about how 30 Republican senators in the US voted in favour of covering up gang rape (PDF), and protecting a corporation from any liability.

In 2005, Jamie Leigh Jones was gang-raped by her co-workers while she was working for Halliburton/KBR in Baghdad. She was detained in a shipping container for at least 24 hours without food, water, or a bed, and “warned her that if she left Iraq for medical treatment, she’d be out of a job.” (Jones was not an isolated case.) Jones was prevented from bringing charges in court against KBR because her employment contract stipulated that sexual assault allegations would only be heard in private arbitration.

Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) proposed an amendment to the 2010 Defense Appropriations bill that would withhold defense contracts from companies like KBR “if they restrict their employees from taking workplace sexual assault, battery and discrimination cases to court.” Speaking on the Senate floor yesterday, Franken said:

The constitution gives everybody the right to due process of law … And today, defense contractors are using fine print in their contracts do deny women like Jamie Leigh Jones their day in court. … The victims of rape and discrimination deserve their day in court [and] Congress plainly has the constitutional power to make that happen.

But, to Sen. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions (R-Alabama) allowing rape victims access to legal reprisals is nothing but a "political attack" on Halliburton, the corporation that profited most handsomely from the Iraq invasion and occupation.

Sessions had support from 29 others, all Republican men, who voted against Franken's amendment.

That's almost one-third of the US Senate.

I bet these guys think government is too intrusive.

Which is why I want to bring to your attention the following quote which is on my Facebook profile. It's by Andrew Jackson, the seventh president of the US:

''Unless you become more watchful in your states and check this spirit of monopoly and thirst for exclusive privileges, you will in the end find that the most important powers of government have been given or bartered away, and the control of your dearest interests have been passed into the hands of these corporations.''

Too late, I think.

Comments

[...pat.]

I don't think I could live in a country that would allow such clauses in an employment contract.

Are they not obliged to say, at some point in the contract, that if any of the clauses are found invalid in law, the individual clauses are invalid without invalidating the entire contract? If so, that would be an escape clause. If not, shame on Halliburton and anyone in the US government who grants them contracts.

[Anne JW]

It's interesting ... a number of years ago I came up with (for my own conversations) the term "corporatism". I guess I'm glad to know that it wasn't just my idea -- but terribly sad to see that wiser folk than I also see it as a reality.