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This might have been more succinct, but it does a thorough job of showcasing the history behind corporate dominance in the US and how this has extended to the world-at-large as a clerical "head note" was accepted into law. In all, if you are interested in how corporations have usurped human rights and undermined our legal system, this may be just the place to start.or read more, as the case might be.
That will hopefully be corrected as there is a movement to get a bill passed stating that a corporation is not a natural person. I have several of Thom Hartmann's books and this is one more I just had to have. It's especially helpful to learn the story of how corporations got misguidedly accepted legally as a person. Our country is almost helpless now to the huge corporation's power. Hartmann is an incredible writer explaining it all and makes you feel that you're following and solving a fascinating mystery.
I sued a multinational corporation in 1986 (as next friend) on behalf of my wife who was left with permanent brain damage as a result of malpractice during the delivery of my youngest son.I soon became painfully aware of the uneven playing field provided to plaintiffs pursuing litigation in Federal District Court against a wealthy adversary with unlimited resources and the curious gift of eternal life, namely, the Humana Corporation.Fortunately for my ex-wife, the legal team I assembled prevailed in the litigation in spite of their extensive education in our system of law.I cannot discuss the case at length because the records of the litigation are forever sealed from public and media scrutiny by the hand of a Federal District Judge who is now seated as a Texas Supreme Court Justice, and the settlement agreement is confidential.Apparently there is room to argue that corporations were never conferred equal protection under the law by the Supreme Court.Presumably, the presiding Judge that sealed the records of the action I brought before his court did so out of a concern for the right to privacy of the corporation.A corporation has no right to privacy if it is not a person.Thanks, Thom Hartmann.
While people rightly call for prevention of and protection from visible dangers such as war and street crime, hazards they don't see put them at greater risk because corporations pay bribes (excuse me, I mean to say make campaign contributions) to lawmakers to weaken regulations that would guard the public from toxic waste, unsafe working conditions and other such unseen peril. To put that number in perspective, consider the Vietnam War took 58,000 American lives. Recently I read a statistic that isn't in Thom Hartmann's UNEQUAL PROTECTION: THE RISE OF CORPORATE DOMINANCE AND THE THEFT OF HUMAN RIGHTS but illustrative of the book's central theme: Because of automobile industry lobbying against airbag requirements, 100,000 Americans whose lives airbags would have saved died in car crashes while car company lobbyists held up airbag implementation as standard equipment. As I write this in April 2009, on April 15 divisive organizations staged reenactments of the Boston Tea Party in the name of fighting what they call excessive taxation. Yet which caused people to demonstrate, the Vietnam War or the delay in airbag installations. UNEQUAL PROTECTION covers the sick history of corporate influence in the United States government. As UNEQUAL PROTECTION explains, in reality the Boston Tea Party protested the government giving monopoly status to the East India Tea Company, the Wal-Mart of its time. Read UNEQUAL PROTECTION.
Well Thom Hartmann picked an extremely important topic and exposed the dangers posed by ever expanding corporate power to the point where they are in many ways more powerful than our government.From the truth about what the Boston Tea Party meant to the legal background of corporate personhood to the real consequences of the WTO, IMF, and NAFTA.My only problem with this book is that as a layman, on several occasions I could not follow his logic. I wouldn't say don't get it as I wouldn't know what to suggest in its stead.and the subject is critically important for all americans to understand.and understand well.
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