by Ted Welch
Sat Mar 1st, 2008 at 10:25:28 AM EST
More great journalism from Greg Palast, no confusing objectivity with impartiality for him; instead he states the damning facts - without the "on the other hand - Exxon denies it all" of so much mainstream journalism. He also connects the dots. I strongly recommend reading the whole article:
Nineteen goddamn years is enough. I'm sorry if you don't like my language, but when I think about what they did to Paul Kompkoff, I'm in no mood to nicey-nice words.
Next month marks 19 years since the Exxon Valdez dumped its load of crude oil across the Prince William Sound, Alaska.
...
While cameras rolled, Exxon executives promised they'd compensate everyone. Today, before the US Supreme Court, the big oil company's lawyers argued that they shouldn't have to pay Paul or other fishermen the damages ordered by the courts.
They can't pay Paul anyway. He's dead.
That was part of Exxon's plan. They told me that. In 1990 and 1991, I worked for the Chenega and Chugach Natives of Alaska on trying to get Exxon to pay up to save the remote villages of the Sound. Exxon's response was, "We can hold out in court until you're all dead."
Nice guys. But, hell, they were right, weren't they?
But Exxon didn't do it alone. They had enablers. One was a failed oil driller named "Dubya." Exxon was the second largest contributor to George W. Bush's political career. Enron was first. They were a team, Exxon and Enron.
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What the heck does this have to do with John McCain?
The Senator is what I'd call a `Tort Tart.' Ken Lay's "Law Suit Reform" posse was one of the fronts used by a gaggle of corporate lobbyists waging war on your day in court. Their rallying cry is `Tort Reform,' by which they mean they want to take away the God-given right of any American, rich or poor, to sue the bastards who crush your child's skull through product negligence, make your heart explode with a faulty medical device, siphon off your pension funds, or poison your food supply with spilled oil.
All of the Democratic candidates have seen through this `tort reform' con - and so did a Senator named McCain who, in 2001, for example, voted for the Patients Bill of Rights allowing claims against butchers with scalpels. Then something happened to Senator McCain: the guy who stuck his neck out for litigants got his head chopped off when he ran for President in the Republican Party. One lobbyists' website blasted McCain's "go-it-alone moralism."
So the Senator did what I call, The McCain Hunch. Again and again he grabbed his ankles and apologized to the K Street lobbyists, reversing his positions on, well, you name it.
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In 2003, McCain voted against Bush's Energy Plan, an industry oil-gasm. This week, following Exxon's report that it sucked in $40.6 billion in earnings, the largest profit haul in planetary history, Senators Clinton, Obama and several others in both parties sponsored a bill to require a teeny sliver of oil industry super-profits go to alternative energy sources. Technically, it involved ending a $14 billion tax giveaway granted oil companies by the Bush Administration in 2004. Senator McCain wouldn't support George and his oil patch buddies then. But now, Candidate McCain won't back the repeal of this gawdawful tax break.
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http://www.gregpalast.com/exxon-suxx-mccain-duxx/
cf.:
... Walter Dellinger, an attorney for the oil giant, argued before the justices that ExxonMobil should not be expected to pay billions of dollars in penalties "simply because against its policy rules Mr. Hazelwood left the deck."
But Jeffrey Fisher, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, maintained that the company was responsible for the actions of its employees.
"They can hire fit and competent people," Fisher argued.
Fisher said Hazelwood was an alcoholic who had been drinking on board the tanker, something which Exxon knew about even though it violated their rules.
After the disaster "the captain was fired, but everybody else in the chain of command who allowed this to happen received bonuses," Fisher argued.
"Apart from adopting a policy, they need to implement it," he said.
AFP
In Palast's article he reports some far worse examples of not implementing company policies.
