The Attorney General of California has begun an investigation into plastics and Big Oil. Exxon is one of the biggest contributors to the global plastics pandemic. It is also the poster child for everything that is wrong with capitalism as it has evolved over the past 50 years. It has come to stand for the proposition that corporations owe no duty to the society in which they operate, that they have an unlimited license to lie, cheat, and steal, and have no obligation other than to make money for their shareholders with no thought for the Earth or its inhabitants.
How can such a perversion come to be? Much of it can be traced to the law firms that grew fat by advising the tobacco companies how to dodge and weave their way out of responsibility for the fact that their products kill some of their customers and place an outsize burden on the community to care for the illnesses associated with smoking. The US Supreme Court weaponized this distortion of economic theory when it ruled in Citizens United that corporations have the same right to free speech as ordinary people. What the court failed to realize is that people with a 10 million watt amplifier at their disposal have a significant advantage over a single person on a soapbox trying to be heard above the din of everyday life.
Exxon has been sued by a number of state, county, and municipal officials who claim the company knew as early as 50 years ago that burning its products would lead inexorably to a warming planet, but...
A popular social media conspiracy theory about a recent cluster of hantavirus cases claims that the word “hanta” means “scam,” “fraud,” or “nonsense” in “Hebrew slang.” That’s more or less where t...