At 11:40 27-1-01 -0500, Gautam Mukunda wrote:
> > So, for corporations being sued is a *given right*? I'd think
>corporations
> > would consider being sued a problem, not a right.
>
>Yes, they do. You'd think wrong. If you can't sue a corporation, how
>can you hold it accountable to its contracts?
Then the correct phrase would be "corporations have a right to sue others",
rather then "corporations have a right to be sued".
> > How? Certainly not because Bush and his buddies suddenly became
> > environmentalists. It happened because environmentalist
> > organizations
> > became so powerful that the government had no choice but to
> > listen to them.
>
>Why do you care how? What the hell does it matter why they did it?
Because it says a lot about that government. How can you trust a government
if they only do the right thing when they are forced to do it? The fact
that environmental laws were passed only because of sheer pressure from the
population shows that the government itself would happily let the
environment go to hell.
>You're exactly right -
Music to my ears... <grin>
>So what grounds are there, exactly, to
>claim that corporate money dominates the political system?
I assume that is because most of the election campaign funding comes from
corporate donations, which means that politicians will do anything they
can to keep those corporations happy. The environmentalist movements
managed to get pro-environment laws passed anyway, but I can imagine that
those same politicians found a way to compensate the corporations for that
(tax breaks, for instance).
Jeroen
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