Posts Tagged by Supreme Court
Robert Reich on Corporate Personhood
| October 21, 2010 | Posted by Craig Shields under Renewables - Politics |
I happened to be driving across the Los Angeles basin yesterday to see a local client when I heard the radio commentary of Robert Reich (Labor Secretary under Bill Clinton) on the exact issue we’ve been discussing here: the implications of the Supreme Court’s decision to allow hundreds of millions of dollars to pour into advertisements for and against candidates — without a trace of where the dollars are coming from.
The transcript is linked above. He’s quite a thinker, IMO.
Is Granting Unintended Rights to Corporations a Part of Capitalism?
| October 19, 2010 | Posted by Craig Shields under Renewables - Politics |
Here’s a discussion I’m having with a reader on the subject of the Supreme Court ruling of January 2010 that grants the rights of real persons to corporations. I hope other folks will join in.
PS: I don’t understand how corporations can “extend their powers” as a result of the Supreme Court ruling you mention.
Craig: It’s fairly simple. Let’s take an example. Chevron made $24 billion profit last year. Now I’m not saying that they will do this, but as of January, 2010, they can spend as much of that as they want influencing our elections, ensuring the victory of a candidate who supports them, who will make things difficult for renewable energy and electric transportation while continuing or expanding favors for oil, which currently include: Read More
Renewables and the US Government
| January 30, 2010 | Posted by Craig Shields under Renewables - Politics |
In response to my rant on a few recent Supreme Court decisions, frequent commenter Dan Conine writes:
“… The government we have is the government we deserve. Though you are correct per se from your point of view, I disagree with both counts to some extent. First, the Supreme Court’s job is to interpret the legality of laws written by Congress, etc.. It is now up to Congress to right the wrong of 100 plus years of corporate personhood. Now that an impotent attempt at campaign finance has been shot down, Congress should look deeper into who the constitution is written to protect: individuals from bullies/mobs. They won’t, though, as long as we keep giving more money to corporations every day than we keep for ourselves (savings) or give to the constitutional power (taxes).”
You always amaze me. You’re 100% right that Congress could do something about this, but won’t — and for the exact reasons you’ve named. That is why this is such a terrible conundrum — and the reason that I blog; without a grassroots effort to call attention to our broken poltical processes, we’re doomed.
Dan continues:
Second: The dependence of renewable energy’s future upon federal government intervention shows that renewable energy proponents are not much different than the corporate power proponents: both are trying to make profits through coercion of the government Gun.
“We will be ready for renewable energy when people stop using so much nonrenewable energy. Not before. Until then, local control of rights-of-way is the only way to counteract corporate control of rights-of-way because the corporations own the federal government. When you advocate for federal decisions over local decisions, you are advocating for the biggest corporation to decide your future. You might as well just go to Little Rock and ask Wal-Mart to start selling power grids.”
Here I’m not so sure.
First, I’m not asking Congress to help renewables — only to level the playing field. Remove the subsidies, force everyone to pay the full price of the power they’re producing and consuming, and see what happens. We’ll have renewable energy in about 10 minutes. Btw, you often mention that you’d like to see less consumption of power overall; this action will achieve that goal in a big way.
Secondly, I point out a matter of political philosophy. Though I felt different about this as a younger man, I’m currently convinced that we need to impute some moral goodness to government — and make sure that goodness happens. Without it, we’re really dead — worse than dead, actually; we have a dystopia along the lines of 1984 or Brave New World. But you’re certainly right in what you said above: we get the government we deserve.
More Bad News from the US Supreme Court
| January 29, 2010 | Posted by Craig Shields under Renewables - Politics |
Earlier this week I wrote a post expressing my disgust over the US Supreme Court’s announcement that it had found major provisions of campaign finance reform to be unconstitutional. This paved the way for corporate and union money to mute the voices of individual citizens like you and me.
Later in the week, the justices dealt another punch to the gut to the forces of progress. This came with the decision that rendered the federal government impotent against state and local decisions regarding rights of way — for things like power lines.
Many of us are — or were — hoping for long-distance transmission of electrical power. This would have made feasible the development of forms of renewable energy that are prevalent in certain areas of the country, e.g., solar thermal in the southwestern desert, wind energy in the plains, and geothermal in the mountains. As of this week, however, such things will require the buy-in of dozens of state and local bureaucracies.
It hasn’t been a good week of news from high court.
