Monkeys on a Stick

The grotesque dance of corporate legislators

November 15^th 2009

One of the early fallouts of “tort reform”, the ongoing drive by corporations to put themselves beyond the reach of the law, has been the widespread use of waivers mandating private arbitration in the event of any dispute. Corporations have then slipped this language into employment and service contracts, and would-be employees and customers often sign this waiver unwittingly, but in any event, if they don't sign, they don't get the employment or service they wanted.

How widespread is it? If you have health insurance, even if it's through your employer, then you've probably signed this waiver. Nearly all health insurance companies have such a waiver, and it mandates that in the event of dispute (as, for instance, when the company decides you aren't worth the trouble and arbitrarily decides not to pay your claim), you take it to private arbitration, the board of which is selected by the insurance company. In forty-nine states, you aren't even allowed to discuss the results of the arbitration with anyone, and may not even reveal if you prevailed or not. California is the exception, since the state passed a sunshine law requiring the companies to publicly show the ratio of wins and losses of consumers who go through their arbitration process. The only real surprise is that the insurance companies only prevailed 95% of the time. Maybe the members of the panels would toss small bones to the most deserving, so they could go home and night and assure themselves that they weren't total whores.

In the meantime, if you have health insurance, you're pretty much reduced to hoping your company treats you honestly and fairly. You've signed away your First Amendment Right to Redress to an outfit that sees you as nothing more than a vehicle to maximizing profits. In other words (Representative Grayson's), just hope you don't get sick, and if you do, die quickly.

Kellogg-Brown Root, the former subsidiary of Halliburton and now spun off and known as KBR, Inc., had such a waiver as part of its terms of employ. Now, normally, that protects the company from civil suits, but not criminal complaints. You can't sign away your right to redress under criminal law. But a lot of employees got sent over as part of the mercenary forces taking part in the occupation of Iraq.

First, because of Coalition Provisional Authority Order 17, employees of American firms over there were not subject to Iraqi legal authority unless they were acting outside the specifics of their job descriptions. The order reads, “Contractors shall not be subject to Iraqi laws or regulations in matters relating to the terms and conditions of their Contracts, including licensing and registering employees, businesses and corporations; provided, however, that Contractors shall comply with such applicable licensing and registration laws and regulations if engaging in business or transactions in Iraq other than Contracts.”

So all a Halliburton employee had to do if someone thought they were doing anything criminal was show it was just part of their job, and the local authorities couldn't touch them.

Well, what did you expect from an occupying force? Justice?

CPA 17 was abolished after a bunch of Halliburton contractors slaughtered a dozen or so civilians at a busy down-town intersection, apparently for sport. The US was given a choice by furious Iraqis: annul that order and get the mercenaries the fuck out of there, or have the whole country blow up in their faces.

Now, there is a section of the US Code, Title 18, Part I, Chapter 1, § 7, called "Special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States defined”, which gives the federal government jurisdiction over crimes committed against American nationals where no other law applies. This was meant to protect Americans on the high seas, but could be applied to occupied Iraq. But the Bush administration's Justice Department wasn't about to enforce any laws against Dick Cheney's former and future meal ticket.

So when Jamie Leigh Jones “found her body naked and severely bruised, with lacerations to her vagina and anus, blood running down her leg, her breast implants ruptured, and her pectoral muscles torn – which would later require reconstructive surgery” the only place she could turn to to complain about the drugging and subsequent gang rape she suffered from her coworkers, was Kellogg Brown Root itself. Armed with the rape kit she obtained from an army doctor, she approached the brass of KBR at Camp Hope in Iraq with the evidence of the assault upon her. They responded by locking her up in a storage shed with only a cot until she agreed to drop the complaint. In the meantime, the rape kit vanished.

Remember, it's entirely possible that there are people in the employ of KBR Inc., who are not amoral human filth. It's entirely possible.

That left her with no recourse at all. No criminal law could be applied, and she discovered, when she tried to sue, that the waiver she signed also included such on the job injuries as gang rape and sexual mutilation. Great stuff, that tort reform.

Fortunately, the 5th Circuit Court got the case anyway, and decided that justice superseded the right of corporations to evade justice. Her suit proceeded.

But freshman Senator Al Franken, when he heard about the case, realized that those waivers were a big part of the problem.

There may come a time when the vast majority of Republicans in Congress and far too many of the Democrats stop being monkeys on a stick, dancing for the corporations, but it isn't today. Franken reached for what was in his grasp. He got an amendment through on a bill that allowed the government to refuse federal funds for companies that forced their employees or customers to sign such waivers.

Given the circumstances, a truly horrific rape followed by an even more horrific denial of justice, it's hard to imagine that anyone would not support such an amendment. But 30 Senators, the following, voted against it: Alexander (R-TN) Barrasso (R-WY) Bond (R-MO) Brownback (R-KS) Bunning (R-KY) Burr (R-NC) Chambliss (R-GA) Coburn (R-OK) Cochran (R-MS) Corker (R-TN) Cornyn (R-TX) Crapo (R-ID) DeMint (R-SC) Ensign (R-NV) Enzi (R-WY) Graham (R-SC) Gregg (R-NH) Inhofe (R-OK) Isakson (R-GA) Johanns (R-NE) Kyl (R-AZ) McCain (R-AZ) McConnell (R-KY) Risch (R-ID) Roberts (R-KS) Sessions (R-AL) Shelby (R-AL) Thune (R-SD) Vitter (R-LA) Wicker (R-MS)

Yup. All Republican. All men. The four Republican women in the Senate voted for it. A lot of people were furious at those 30 Senators.

A viral video of David “Diapers” Vitter, stalwart champion against sexual misbehavior, running away from a young woman and self-described rape victim who demanded he account for his vote against the amendment kept the vote in in the public eye, and a month later, Republican Senators were astounded by the fact that they were still getting political blowback over it. One of them, Thune, even whined that they only wanted to protect Halliburton/KBR from the vile liberal machinations of Franken. (The legislation does not mention Halliburton/KBR).

A Think Progress article marveling over the Republican tone deafness quoted one of their bloggers, BarbinMD as writing, “Seriously? They voted against an amendment that was prompted by the brutal gang-rape of a young woman by her co-workers while she was working for a company under contract for the United States government, after which she was locked in a shipping container without food or water, threatened if she left to seek medical treatment, and was then prevented from bringing criminal charges against her assailants. And they failed to anticipate the political consequences?”

Well, Thune, like his 29 fellow Senators, is just a monkey on a stick.

I wonder what he would think of similar legislation that went a little beyond requiring companies doing contractual work for the government to not have that waiver clause. This legislation, passed several days earlier, cuts off federal funding immediately for any organization that has been accused of any of the following:

1. Any organization that has been indicted for a violation under any Federal or State law governing the financing of a campaign for election for public office or any law governing the administration of an election for public office, including a law relating to voter registration.

2. Any organization that had its State corporate charter terminated due to its failure to comply with Federal or State lobbying disclosure requirements.

3. Any organization that has filed a fraudulent form with any Federal or State regulatory agency.

4. Any organization that (A) employs any applicable individual, in a permanent or temporary capacity; (B) has under contract or retains any applicable individual; or (C) has any applicable individual acting on the organization’s behalf or with the express or apparent authority of the organization.

Well, that would certainly eliminate Halliburton/KBR from any federal funding. Halliburton/KBR are under indictment for murder, rape, torture, endangering American troops, poisoning American troops, and selling arms to the insurgents.

In fact, it's a tad broad. You could apply it to nearly every private contractor doing business with the government. Certainly every major military contractor would be disallowed under those provisions. Most of them haven't just been accused of such items, but indicted and convicted. There are outfits that have been fined hundreds of millions of dollars for committing fraud against the government who are still doing business with the government, and getting billions of tax dollars, often so they can lie to and cheat the taxpayers even more.

But so far, it's only been applied to one contractor, a real tiny one that only got a measly $25 million a year from the Feds. And it wasn't convicted of anything; in fact, it hasn't even been indicted.

That outfit, of course, was the dread ACORN. They got their funding cut in what was supposed to be “one-armed blind man” legislation (H. R. 3571) that in fact, was written so broadly that it can be used to eliminate the entire military industrial complex. All because an ACORN volunteer got caught groping on a highly suspect video for an answer to an outlandish question about the tax status of child prostitution.

I think you'll agree that's right up there with drugging, gang-rape, false imprisonment and destroying evidence, wouldn't you?

So where were the thirty Republicans who were incensed at legislation designed to make sure that companies getting tax dollars respect the legal rights of their customers and employees?

Oh, they all supported it, of course.

Monkeys on a stick.

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A rightwinger, petrified that some of the Gitmo prisoners might face trial and be acquitted, wrote:

“Why should [we] have faith in a system designed to try civilians who knock over stop-n-robs when it it applied to wartime enemies of the United States, during wartime? ”

Nothing like faith in the legal system, huh?