In February 1990, a group of British relatives [of Lockerbie victims] went to the American embassy in London for a meeting with the seven members of the President’s commission on aviation security and terrorism. Martin Cadman remembers: ‘After we’d had our say, the meeting broke up and we moved towards the door. As we got there, I found myself talking to two members of the Commission – I think they were senators. One of them said “Your government and our government know exactly what happened at Lockerbie. But they are not going to tell you.” (Paul Foot (1937-2004), Private Eye, May, 2001)

In Shakespearean tragedy a small incident often leads, step by step, to major tragedy. Although the shooting down by the US warship Vincennes of an Iran Air Flight 655 on July 3, 1988, killing all of its 290 passengers and crew, was not a small incident, by comparison to the tragedy that it initiated, is seems as such. The US claimed it was an accident, but as the Vincennes was in Iranian waters and the event precipitated an Iranian stand-down against US ally Saddam Hussein, it can at least be said that it was … convenient.

Imagine the aftermath:

Officials in the Iranian and Syrian governments, incensed by the event and the arrogance by which a major power like the US can commit such a crime with impunity, seek revenge.

Using Palestinians not connected to the PLO, they arrange for a bomb to be placed aboard a Pan Am flight from London to New York on December 21, 1988. The plane blows up over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all 259 aboard and 11 people on the ground.
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Obama won’t hesitate to use force to “defend US.”

C’mon people, please. How is this guy in any way different from his predecessor?

That aside, we know now, due to some real journalism, that Isreali insider sources say that Iran’s nuclear program is compromised. Secondly, countries do not commit suicide, so that Iran’s only intent in procuring a bomb is as a deterrent.

We have our share of lunatics in power, as does Israel. But more and more as time goes on I am thinking that the whole purpose of the current war scare is to stop Iran from doing something that might seriously jeopardize the interests of our Mullahs, our Wall Street overlords. And the only thing that comes to mind is preservation of the dollar as the reserve currency for trading world oil – the petrodollar.

But it is about a real threat to power, so that an unprovoked attack on Iran is not out of the question. The most frightening aspect is that to achieve a quick and decisive victory, the War Department might decide that nukes are in order. They would use Israel for that purpose, of course, but there are so many unknown unknowns in such a strategy that civilization might be in serious jeopardy.

Or not. Who really knows?

In their fine documentary “The Corporation, Mark Achbar, Jennifer Abbott and Joel Bakan have taken modern law at its word and ask, “If the corporation were a person, what sort of person would it be?” …The American Psychiatric Association classifies psychopaths and sociopaths under the general diagnosis of “antisocial personality disorder,” and to be diagnosed with the disorder, the patient needs to meet three of out these seven criteria:

1. Failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest;
   
2. Deceitfulness, as initiated by repeated lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure;
   
3. Impulsivity or failure to plan ahead;
   
4. Irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults;
   
5. Reckless disregard for safety of self or others;
   
6. Consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behavior or honor financial obligations;
   
7. Lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another.
   

The filmmakers find that corporations do indeed behave in these ways, breaking the laws if they can, dissembling and hiding their behavior, sacrificing long-term welfare for short-term profit, being aggressively litigious, flouting health and safety codes, welching on payments to suppliers and workers and never once feeling a pang of remorse. (Raj Patel, The Value of Nothing, Page 41)

I might add that the qualities above are pathological – that is – no matter who is at the helm of a corporation, that person cannot change these behaviors and so is not even aware that these behaviors even exist. For instance, oil, gas and pipeline companies that contribute to global warming have run a propaganda campaign, a highly successful one, to convince Americans that it is not a problem. The CEO’s of these corporations surely know better, and yet cannot change their behavior because they know that if they acknowledge the problem, the group that sponsors the position that the CEO’s occupy will expel them.

It is group pathology, and so cannot remedy itself. For that reason, corporations need to be heavily regulated and subordinated in law to the status of servant of the public, and not a legal person.