Shareholders: Your Vote DOES NOT COUNT

It’s becoming more and more common for investors to purchase stocks in controversial corporations so they can have a voice in those companies’ decisions. (And make a profit at the same time.) This is a good thing, right?

Well, in theory anyway.

Just when you think you've heard every corporate sleaze story, along comes another one.

Take Massey Energy (please!). They had a recent shareholder vote on whether the company should set goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. There were 25.1 million votes in favor, and 22.2 million votes against. All right! It passed! Stockholders (i.e. the owners) of one of the world’s most cutthroat companies have voted to change that company’s business practices. The system worked!

Well, except for one minor teensy little detail. There were 20.9 million Massey shareholders who didn’t vote. And those non-votes counted. 20.9 million abstainers, plus 22.2 million No votes — hee hee hee, those 25.1 million Yes votes were grossly outnumbered. You lose! Tough luck, treehuggers. Nice try though.

Plum Creek — a Seattle-based timber company — is another company that uses this same “counting” method for tallying shareholder votes.

A more honest CEO said: “The process is tilted in favor of management, yet they still feel the need to lean with their elbow on the scale — it's unbecoming.”

Unbecoming; yup, that it is. I would’ve picked a little harsher term.

Or maybe we could switch to this counting method in political elections. This November, the tens of millions of Americans who don’t vote, PLUS everyone who votes in favor of the Democratic incumbent, will be added up against the Republican votes.

Come to think of it…

Manslaughter Charges Against British Petroleum?

Or Transocean? Or Massey Energy? It’ll never happen of course. But Amy Goodman makes an excellent point.

U.S. law defines manslaughter as “the unlawful killing of a human being without malice…Whoever is guilty of involuntary manslaughter, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six years, or both.”

When one person kills another person through negligence, unintentionally — violating traffic laws, letting a vicious Rottweiler run loose — that person could be charged with manslaughter. (Or worse.) So why is it different when a large corporation saves millions of dollars by cutting corners and ignoring safety regulations?

Twenty-nine miners were killed by the explosion by the Upper Big Branch mine owned by Massey. Eleven workers were killed in the fire at the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, which is owned by Transocean. The drilling operation is handled by BP.

The news has been full of reports on the incredible negligence leading up to both of those tragedies.

Russell Mokhiber, editor of Corporate Crime Reporter, says:

“If I drive my car 90 mph in a 55-mph speed zone, and I accidentally kill someone, I am going to be charged with involuntary manslaughter, for behaving with reckless disregard for those around me. Prosecutors regularly bring these cases. If a corporation operates a workplace with reckless disregard for the safety of the workers, and those workers die as a result, those executives responsible should be prosecuted. That’s why we are calling on the prosecutor of Raleigh County, W.Va., to bring this charge against Massey Energy and its responsible executives.”

Works for me.

America’s Most Effective Weapon Against Iran

Would you believe — a strong carbon cap.

Iran would lose $100 million per day if only the United States would impose a strong cap on carbon. Iran has the world’s second largest oil reserves. Their oil production is worth $120 billion per year.

If we can reduce global warming pollution by 80% by the year 2050, Iran will have lost $1.8 trillion in oil revenue by that date. That’s over $100 million a day.

The same effect — in much smaller dollar amounts of course — would apply to that commie America-hating regime in Venezuela.

If any conservatives were to stumble on the above linked article, their reactions would fall into one of two categories: “Uhh, too many big words. What’s it mean?” or “NOOOOO!!!!!”

So, are there any Democratic spin doctors out there who could take this and run with it? If the Democrats had anybody one tenth as shrewd as Karl Rove or Lee Atwater, America would be bombarded 24/7 with “You’re either in favor of a carbon cap or you’re with the terrorists!” Etc.

Just a thought.

And speaking of “just a thought” — Massey Energy owns that coal mine in West Virginia where scores of people have been killed. And this accident is only about the umpteenth tragedy to occur in one of Massey Energy’s mines. Now, I don’t suppose there’s any sort of connection here, but Massey Energy has also been spending jillions of dollars to defeat any and all efforts at curbing pollution and promoting renewable energy sources.

Now — going waaay out on a limb here — if Don Blankenship, CEO of Massey Energy, had spent just a teensy weensy bit less money trying to squelch clean energy legislation, and a tiny bit more money to upgrade the safety of his mines…

Oh well, anyway…

UPDATE: Please check out this one-minute video. (Hat Tip to TomCat, who provided this link in the comment section.)

This is a very powerful message put out by VoteVets.org and Operation Free, telling us pointblank how our oil addiction is sending billions of dollars to Iran. Clean energy legislation is our only way out of this stranglehold.

I hope you'll link to this video and/or forward it to your friends. This message needs to get out there.

Labor Day: Brought to You by Massey Energy and Verizon Wireless

What’s the most burning issue on your mind right now? If you’re like millions of everyday Americans, you too are just boiling with fury over those environmental extremists and that moonbat “clean energy” legislation that’s threatening America.

If a mining company needs to remove mountaintops in the process of meeting America’s energy needs, then By God those F#$%!&# treehuggers can just get the fuck out of the way. Tens of thousands of Americans feel so strongly about this — on Labor Day they’re going to pull themselves away from their family gatherings and barbecues, and they’re gonna go out there and demonstrate against those environmental wackos.

This public fury has been generated at the grassroots level, and these protests will be completely spontaneous. Well, almost.

They’re getting a little help from Massey Energy, Verizon Wireless and a rightwing anti-science front group calling itself the Science and Public Policy Institute.

This demonstration is called the Friends of America Rally. The purpose of course is to express the general public’s alarm and anger at the pending Waxman-Markey clean energy legislation. Speakers will include Sean Hannity and Ted Nugent.

I know Ted Nugent is somewhere to the right of Genghis Khan, but the one time I ever heard him speak, he was funny and likeable. It was a Politically Incorrect episode that also included Gloria Allred. I was sure those two would be punching each other out before the end of the episode, but they were both friendly and jovial, even while blurting out exactly what they thought (like everyone did on that show).

Verizon likes to pretend they’re a “green” company, but one of their vice presidents is on the board of directors of the ultra-rightwing National Association of Manufacturers.

If you'd like to tell Verizon to get out of bed with the Far Right douchebags of this country, you can do so here.