Silly People: Justice Is For Corporations

Corporations are job killers, not job creators.  They are tax avoiders, not tax payers. They are subsidy-suckers, not economy-growers.  And they are criminals who con American citizens out of our rights to seek redress for injury.

 

Tom Sullivan at Hullabaloo:

Which is to say (as I have), the corporate beast has slipped its collar. Now you are wearing it. The beast holds the other end. One of the behind-the-scenes players in the class-action saga? John G. Roberts Jr. By the time the antitrust case of Italian Colors (a restaurant) v. American Express reached the Supreme Court, Roberts was chief justice. In ruling for American Express, Justice Antonin Scalia defended arbitration, noting, “The antitrust laws do not guarantee an affordable procedural path to the vindication of every claim.” Even if class action is the only viable method for individuals to take on a corporation. In other words, puny humans, you are SOL.

Thinking back to George W. Bush and the heyday of agitation for tort reform, it is no wonder that the phrase has all but disappeared on Capitol Hill. The justice system corporations used to complain was out of control a decade ago is working just fine now, so long as it incarcerates poor people in private, for-profit prisons (debtors' prisons, in some cases) and large companies have found a way to bypass it and get favorable judgments behind closed doors. Trial by a jury of peers violates an essential rule of the new power dynamics: corporate persons are your betters, not your peers.

Update: Fight back at faircontracts.org [h/t RP]