“I ate breakfast last week with the president of a network news division and he told me that during non-election years, 70% of the advertising revenues for his news division come from pharmaceutical ads.  And if you go on TV any night and watch the network news, you’llsee they become just a vehicle for selling pharmaceuticals. He also told me that he would fire a host who brought onto his station a guest who lost him a pharmaceutical account.”-- Robert F. Kennedy Jr. - See more at:http://annedachel.com/2015/05/25/21560/#sthash.H39UDGx9.dpuf

"Slavery is the legal fiction that a person is property. Corporate personhood is the legal fiction that property is a person."-- Anonymous

“Most corporations have a history of doing whatever they think they can get away with, showing no regard for the human suffering or the environmental degradation caused by their destructive acts.” -- Molly Pedersen

In 2010 the NeoConservative, pro-corporate, anti-democratic Roberts’ 5/4 Supreme Court decided, in the 2010 Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commissionruling, to grant personhood to corporations by allowing unlimited, anonymous monetary contributions to political campaigns and candidates. This ruling, called by many to be the worst US Supreme Court decision of the past century, has emboldened the already wealthy, powerful and corruptible multinational corporations (that now have achieved dominion over US politics as well as the economy) to “buy” every bribable politician and brain-wash us naive voters by their multi-million dollar ad/propaganda campaigns that the rest of us can’t afford to counter at the equally “bribed” mainstream media market.

The US Supreme Court has thus made legal the absurd notion that inanimate, greedy, foreign corporations like Switzerland’s Glencore (PolyMet), Chile’s Antofagasta (Twin Metals) and Canada’s Enbridge (all potential foreign despoilers of northern Minnesota and northern Wisconsin’s irreplaceable wetlands, aquifers, rivers, lakes, forests and enduring aboriginal land and water rights) deserve the same privileges (but not the same responsibilities) as living humans.

After the Citizen’s United ruling came down, there was only a brief bit of outrage from the so-called national leadership of our essentially “one-party system” (one-party, that is, when it comes to the GOP and Democratic Party’s pro-corporate and pro-militarist agendas). Potential outrage over the British Columbia accident was quickly drowned out by the seriously co-opted mainstream media’s refusal to do follow-up stories on the causes and long-term consequences of the accident. 

If corporations are given the privileges of personhood, shouldn’t they also bear the same responsibilities and incur the same punishments as individuals when they commit crimes, poison the water and air or rape the land?

It is important to understand that the allegiance of big corporations is to their shareholders, executives and management teams, but NOT to the people whose lives and health depend on the sustainability of the land, water, air and food supplies. Most wealthy corporate shareholders and executives from multinational corporations hold shares in other sociopathic entities like Big Pharma, Big Food, Big Agribusiness, Big Oil, Big Finance, Big Media, Big Tech, etc, and are only motivated by potential future profits and not the common good. Therefore, they are not concerned when local resources are used up and the struggling, degraded communities that are left behind have to fend for themselves.

”Trust us: We’re the Experts”; “Toxic Sludge is Good for You”; “We’ll Clean up After Ourselves” -- and Other Corporate Lies

Conscienceless mega-corporations that swoop down on unsuspecting people and naïve governmental bodies (like the EPA, the Forest Service and the DNR), usually ask everybody to “trust us” and that -- at some time in the uncertain future – they will un-poison the permanently-toxified environment that they secretly intend to just leave behind. The people, understandably desperate for jobs, are easily bamboozled into believing the well-crafted disinformation that is cunningly delivered -- until it is too late and the mess that will be left behind will no longer be the sneaky corporation’s problem. It’s an old con that works over and over again, especially when used on desperate people who are unable or unwilling to look into the future.

Promises made by conscienceless corporations during the courtship phase of a business transaction are likely to be broken with impunity when they pull out, merge with other corporations or file for bankruptcy. Silver-tongued corporate lawyers are very good at getting us rubes all starry-eyed over temporary” jobs, jobs, jobs” while discounting the huge risks of permanent dead zones being created because of their inevitably poisonous chemicals that are part of the extraction or manufacturing process.

Sociopathy and the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manuel – AKA The Psychiatrist’s Bible: Diagnosing Both Human and Corporate Criminals

There are a number of common denominators that link human criminals and the multinational corporate criminals that occupy the Fortune 500 list (like Wal-Mart, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola, Dow, Chevron, Exxon/Mobil, du Pont, British Petroleum, Enron, Halliburton, Monsanto/Bayer, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Proctor and Gamble, Nestle, Perrier, Nike, Goldman Sachs, J P Morgan Chase, etc, etc).

Note that every corporation (plus hundreds more) listed above hires costly full-time lawyers and lobbyists that wine and dine and bribe every politician and media group that they can influence with campaign “contributions” and paid commercials.) The corporate executives of these companies are also just as afraid of facing the music as were Henry Kissinger, Bernie Madoff, Ken Lay and the other multibillionaires of their ilk that are rich enough to employ just enough defense lawyers to keep them out of jail. Be certain that they will use any means necessary to evade or delay justice. Similarly, none of them can be expected to show any genuine remorse for the human suffering that their actions have caused.

There are checklist diagnoses for various personality disorders in the billing and diagnostic manual for psychiatrists (the DSM] which, by the way, contains no statistics!). One of the 374 disorders that are listed in the 4th edition is Antisocial Personality Disorder (code number 301.7), which identifies chronic pathological liars, cheaters, extortionists, abusers, thieves and killers whose lack of morals, ethics or consciences commonly enables these very often charismatic individuals to avoid being caught or punished for their crimes.

These “sociopaths” (aka psychopaths) typically refuse to accept blame or responsibility for their actions. However, in the case of sociopathic corporations that do occasionally get their wrists slapped in court, business-friendly judges will often still allow a gag rule to be imposed on the wounded, winning plaintiff -- which will allow the losing corporation to deny wrong-doing even as it secretly pays the penalty!

Most corporations meet the criteria of antisocial personality disorder. Just like the human kind of sociopath, they seem to be incapable of showing genuine remorse when they are caught or convicted of their crimes. (Learn more about corporate sociopathy by watching the powerful 2003 documentary, “The Corporation”,at http://www.thecorporation.com/.

Below are seven diagnostic criteria that are used to diagnose antisocial (aka, sociopathic or psychopathic) personality disorder in humans (be mindful that only three of the seven are needed to make the diagnosis):

1) callous disregard for the feelings of other people

2) the incapacity to maintain human relationships

3) reckless disregard for the safety of others

4) aggressiveness

5) deceitfulness (repeated lying and conning others for profit)

6) incapacity to experience guilt and

7) the failure to conform to social norms and respect for the law. 

Other common traits manifested by sociopaths include:

Lack of conscience

Lack of remorse for evils done to others

Indifference to the suffering of its victims

Rationalizes (makes excuses for) having hurt, mistreated or stolen from others

Willingness to exploit, seduce or manipulate others

No sign of delusional or irrational thinking

Cunning, clever

Usually above average intelligence

Always looking for ways to make money or achieve fame or notoriety

Willing to cause or contribute to the financial ruin of others

Untrustworthy

Cannot be trusted to adhere to conventional standards of morality.

Sadly, sociopaths are, for all intents and purposes, totally sane but are also incurable of their personality disorder. These individuals make up at least 4% of the US population, although certain professions, such as the killing professions, tend to attract larger percentages of them (read The Sociopath Next Door: The Ruthless Versus the Rest of Us, by Martha Stout, PhD.

Actually the exact number of sociopaths -- humans or their corporate counterparts -- is not precisely known, but both varieties lack a functioning conscience, so neither kind ever feels guilty about their cheating, exaggerating or criminal misdeeds. And therefore they never truly try to change. Believing that there is nothing wrong with them, human sociopaths rarely ask for help. Corporations are no different, but they can be responsible for mass murder and yet are never given the death penalty.

If and when human sociopaths are court-ordered to submit to evaluation and “treatment”, they typically only pretend to change until the pressure is off and their unethical or criminal activities look doable again. Academic mental health practitioners tell us that attempts to rehabilitate full-fledged sociopaths are useless, although the often charming, charismatic, silver-tongued sociopath will commonly fool the treatment team into thinking progress is being made.

And sociopathic corporations like the multitude of polluting Big Mining corporations don’t seem to have much trouble seducing regulatory agencies and desperate underemployed workers by promising jobs and a secret un-tested plan to prevent environmental catastrophes. Only when it’s too late and the mining company has skipped the country with the loot will all the painful truths come out.

What Should be the Punishment for Sociopathic Corporations When They Lie, Cheat, Advertise Falsely, Act Unethically, Poison or Rape the Environment or Commit Crimes – and then Feel no Remorse?

Experienced psychologists tell us that sociopathic individuals that have committed crimes have to be locked away to protect society from them. Psychotropic drugs are totally unhelpful, indeed counter-productive.

Given the fact that human sociopaths need to be avoided, marginalized or locked up, we need to ask what needs to be done with non-human corporate entities that meet three of the seven criteria above? What needs to be done with corporations that have a history of deceiving, lying, cheating, raping the land, poisoning the water, fouling the air or otherwise acting unethically?

Given the anti-constitutional Supreme Court ruling granting personhood to corporations, shouldn’t sociopathic corporations be dealt with just like their human sociopathic counterparts when they repeatedly act criminally? Shouldn’t long prison sentences be given to the CEOs, Boards of Directors and management teams? Shouldn’t there be confiscation of property or even capital punishment in the case of egregious cases including mass deaths as in the cases of Merck’s crimes in the massoveVioxx and Gardisil deaths and disabilities)?  

What about the known lethal poisons that thousands of unregulated chemical corporations knowingly discharge into the water, air, soil and food? Should their acts of desecration be regarded as premeditated murder? Their homicidal or ecocidal actions have already caused a multitude of die-offs of thousands of species in the increasing numbers of planetary dead zones in aquifers, wetlands, rivers, lakes and oceans. What about the dead zones in human brains from the long-term  use of neurotoxic pharmaceuticals that were allowed on the market before being tested for long-term safety?

What about the extractive mining companies that, with their poisonous explosives, blow the tops off mountains in Appalachia or the Philippines? Does it make any sense to believe corporate mining officials and their lobbyists when they claim innocence when living things downwind and downstream from their plants are sickened or die off from the poisoned water, air and toxic sludge (euphemism for “tailings)? Who should be responsible for the toxins that contaminate the previously pristine streams and aquifers that once provided safe drinking water and a healthy natural environment for fish, wildlife, wild rice and humans (especially our First Nation brothers and sisters that had their lands and livelihoods stolen from them centuries ago)?

Zero Tolerance for Corporate Predators and Rapists; But Stop Them Before They Become Repeat Offenders!

How many strikes should any out-of-state extractive industries be allowed before they are called out for the predators that they are, kept off the land and thrown out of the game? Shouldn’t non-human intruders that exploit be stopped before they despoil even one more aquifer, one more stream, one more lake, one more mountain or this one planet? Shouldn’t cunning, politically-connected corporate exploiters be banned, arrested, tried and punished just like the human predators that relentlessly stalk their prey? And shouldn’t there be generous monetary restitution to the victims of past corporate criminals?

Shouldn’t industrial thieves, liars, rapists and killers be treated the same as human thieves, liars, rapists and killers? Shouldn’t we be suspicious of untrustworthy corporations that have lied to us in the past, even if they have spent millions of dollars on Power Point presentations, feel-good commercials, “green-washed” billboards or highly-paid lobbyists that bribe politicians and the media to not oppose them?

What about those executives that are addicted to their wealth, profits, prestige, corporate jets, vacation homes and quarterly bonuses?

We regularly intervene for society’s human addicts who need help overcoming their gambling or drug addictions and who are a danger to themselves or others. Shouldn’t there be interventions planned for these wealth and power addicts before they do any more damage to the planet?

The answer, in a fair society, should be yes to all these questions, no matter how often the smiley-faced, well-dressed corporate spokespersons -- in their most cunning damage-control mode -- try to convince us that their companies are "responsible citizens". We star-struck celebrity-worshippers of high-profile corporations and CEOs seem to sucker for that line again and again.

Say Hello to Friendly American Fascism

The Italian dictator Benito Mussolini is said to have proclaimed that "fascism should rightly be called corporatism as it is a merger of state and corporate power:”He should know, he invented the term and the concept. Italy’s right-wing, anti-worker, union-busting corporations loved and supported him as much as most 1930s global corporations invested in and  supported Hitler.

Fascism is a right-wing, nationalistic, authoritarian political ideology that rules with military discipline and police state power, backed up by a secretive national security apparatus, control of the media and suppression of trade unions. Therefore, Big Businesses, notably the weapons industries and other war-related or police state industries thrive in fascist nations that suppress workers and keeps workers’ wages low.

Fascist nations commonly violate the human rights of their own citizens as well as the rights of the nations that they invade and occupy. Fascist leaders try to unify the people by creating enemies, scapegoating them and then, usually via false flag operations, going to war against them. Dissent is not tolerated in fascist nations and often elections are fraudulent. Oftentimes there is some sort of a merger of church and state and the fostering of anti-intellectual/anti-scientific attitudes, thus appealing to the ignorant or uneducated. And there is always an obsession with law and order (police state tactics).

Who can deny that there has been a slow, rolling corporate, quasi-fascist coup d’etat that has gradually overthrown America’s one person/one vote democracy? America has all the marks of a plutocracy (rule by the wealthy privileged class) that prefers fascist rule and favors corporatism.

Who can deny that wealthy corporations and their plutocratic billionaires have inordinate control over the economy, foreign and domestic policy; and both major political parties? And now these inhuman entities have their privatizing eyes on our water, our land, our breathable air, our Social Security, our Medicare and even our food (as Bob Dylan sang in Union Sundown, “I can see the day comin’ when even your home garden is gonna be against the law”.).

But wrist slaps seem to be the norm for multinational corporations and the superrich if and when they are “brought to justice” for their crimes. If there are any consequences for reckless or destructive business practices at all, the company usually gets assessed a relatively small and very affordable fine. For large corporations, punitive fines for criminality are just a part of doing business. Big Pharma shareholders barely reacted when Pfizer was fined $2.3 billion for its fraudulent marketing policies. The same reaction occurred with the $2.2 billion fine against Johnson & Johnson/Janssen Pharmaceuticals for illegally marketing the antipsychotic drug Risperdal.

Just remember, the survival of the planet and its creatures are at stake.