Comments on: FDL Book Salon Welcomes Dr. Riki Ott: Not One Drop

By: Riki Ott

Riki Ott — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 03:10:02 +0000

Okay, I’m done with my homework!

Thanks, everyone, that was fun. Nice to be online with thinking people. Keep the faith, spread the word, share ideas with me (www.rikiott.com) and others, check out the video (4-minutes on 28th on the Chelsea Green website) and –

REMEMBER THE EXXON VALDEZ

Courage!
Riki

By: Riki Ott

Riki Ott — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 03:02:42 +0000

Forgot to mention: the circle of crazy laws that lead nowhere for sick workers is documented in my first oil spill book, Sound Truth and Corporate Myths. You might want to check that out (Toby).

By: Riki Ott

Riki Ott — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 03:00:21 +0000

See comment 33. Thom Hartman kind of leads people astray with his interpretation of how this came about. Really, this was a concerted effort by corporations for usurpation of rights intended for natural persons. This was not an accident, no matter if it was a footnote or a law clerk. For a much more thorough synopsis of this corporate personhood nonsense, please go to www.celdf.org and poke around. Especially check out “model legal brief” and the sample ordinances. Several townships in Pennsylvania and a county in California have passed local ordinances stripping corporations of personhood. The ordinances are being challenged by corporations. And the corporations will win — until we pass the 28th.

By: Riki Ott

Riki Ott — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 02:49:59 +0000

The trouble is corporations exist for shareholder primacy, according to a state court decision [Dodge v. Ford Motor Co. 170 N.W. 668 (1919)]. This is still the most often cited lawsuit. It’s what allows corporations to make profits while using the legal system to stall (or reduce) payment to plaintiffs. For example, the EVOS case accrued interest at a federally mandated rate of 5.9%. The stock market in the late 1990s was paying at 18%. Exxon pocketed the difference by stalling. If the company hadn’t stalled, I suppose it could have been sued by its shareholders. The legal system needs a few changes to at least level the playing field, which now tilts precipitously towards corporate advantage. (See chapter 14 of Not One Drop).

By: Riki Ott

Riki Ott — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 02:39:48 +0000

Hey, thanks for the compassion wishes to Cordova. It’s a cool community. Just before book tour, people were coming up and asking me, “There’s a rumor that you’ve found a way forward . . . ?” So when word got out about overturning the SCOTUS EVOS case (like the oil boys overturned the fishermen’s lawsuit over blocking the TAPS terminus from being built in Port Valdez), and about the 28th, people started hugging me in the library, on the street, in the grocery story. People see this as bigger than us in Cordova. THis is about you and YOUR community. And Cordovans want to work for that bigger vision. Seems like all of you do, too. I can’t wait to tell them.

By: Riki Ott

Riki Ott — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 02:38:38 +0000

I’m not sure it’s “pesky.” We need to make it work for us. As the people foresaw over 200 years ago, a fundamental concept of our legal system is trial by our peers, not elite educated lawyers. Unfortunately, what we’ve got now is 4 (I think) SCOTUS judges who’ve never had trial experience. This is like scientists who have all their experience in the lab and extrapolate to the field. Lab scientists and non-trial lawyers all operate on theory. Problem is the theory often doesn’t work in real life. In these cases, the theory needs to change. Like the world was flat, but now we understand it’s round — and life changed. SCOTUS is operating like the world is still flat. So people need to insist on the 7th and have the SCOTUS back off.

By: readerOfTeaLeaves

readerOfTeaLeaves — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 02:38:09 +0000

and (in South Korea) chromosomal aberrations (DNA damage) from working on oil spills.

As sickening as this is to read about, I have to admit that I respect the Koreans for examining and documenting this; that is miles ahead of what the US government (during the Reagan, then Bush I, then Clinton, then Bush II) did.

And congrats that the book is being printed in Korean.
I’d predict Japanese next.

They understand the value of fisheries resources, that’s for sure.

By: Riki Ott

Riki Ott — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 02:35:40 +0000

Been on “book tour” (= campaign building) for 2.5 months. Lots of ideas collected from lots of places. Heading home to mull about it all and fine tune strategy for launching on “book tour” again in January. Will be on the road until late May. Will have Action Plan posted before I leave including ways for people to network.
Stay tuned.

By: readerOfTeaLeaves

readerOfTeaLeaves — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 02:35:01 +0000

This problem traces all the way to the 1600s, when the British Parliament enabled the ‘Hudson’s Bay Corporation’. The Wikipedia entry states that:

The company was incorporated by British royal charter in 1670 as The Governor and Company of Adventurers of England trading into Hudson’s Bay

That synchs with my recollection of the history, and it was a big, BIG deal because that also later pulled the British Crown into fighting the French all around Hudson’s Bay. So there’s a long history of corporations entangling themselves with nation-states, armies, and military force; the Brits fought the French in North America for over a century, but the British forms of government (and finance) became the modus operandi for most of the continent.

And there’s a long history of claims by corporations that because they could do what government couldn’t (eg., get furs, grab timber…) the government tended to give them a lot of legal heft; certainly more than is now good for any of us in our globalized world.

This notion of the ‘corporation’ being some kind of ’super-being’ was quite embedded in 19th c worldviews in many respects. And the railroads used it to the hilt, as did the mining interests that were grabbing up every bit of land they could claim Out West in the last half of the 1800s.

And we see what it’s led to.
Riki’s book is well worth your time — it’ll really open your eyes to this whole scam.

By: Riki Ott

Riki Ott — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 02:34:02 +0000

Well, well. By the miracle of technology, I’m on the ferry and the air card is working.

FYI, I just returned from South Korea for the 1-year anniversary of the Hebei Spirit oil spill. International gathering. Scientists/medical docs from past spills in Japan, Spain, Phillipines — US missing but represented by me. (!) Respiratory damage, central nervous system damage, and (in South Korea) chromosomal aberrations (DNA damage) from working on oil spills. So — the EVOS shot across the bow of the international shipping community. We had sick workers. Exxon covered it up. I uncovered it in my first spill book, Sound Truth and Corporate Myths (which is being published in Korean). The EVOS is not only going to bite Exxon in the butt, it’s going to bite the entire oil industry in the butt. It’s what Cordova committed to in 1989: if this had to happen in Prince William Sound, let’s at least learn something from it. I’m taking it one step further: let’s DO SOMETHING about it.

Let’s all Remember the Exxon Valdez!