Page One. Above the Fold:
Top Iraq contractor skirts US taxes offshore
Shell companies in Cayman Islands allow KBR to avoid Medicare, Social Security deduction
The Boston Globe did me proud this morning with a two page article, starting page one and above the fold, on the exact history of KBR and its transformation of itself from an ordinary multinational to an extra-ordinary supra-national entity. The only thing the article didn't do was link up fully with the other half of this story which is that not only has KBR organized itself to shed all tax liabilities related to workman's comp, social security, and unemployment benefits but that it has also, in effect, become its own judge and jury of all crimes committed by its members on its corporate property and in Iraq. As Attaturk pointed out at Firedoglake just a few days ago workers who sign on for KBR are accidentally and, apprently irretrievably signing on for "arbitration" and "mediation" of their lawful claims of harm against the company and against other workers at the company. Raped by co-workers on company property? Mediation for you, babe. And no unemployment compensation if you are forced to quit your job or if you are terminated for ratting on the boys.
The Globe article is perfectly phrased and positioned to make an intervention here between Bush's witless base who think that "republicans" are for "business" like some kind of "mom and pop" florist or soda fountain that is just being "smothered with regulation." The truth is that big corporations are *not only not mom and pop stores* they are *not even american* at this point. This is something that the Democrats, no doubt, will not hammer home. But unless they do this the long slow process of overturning the primacy of corporate interests and replacing them with citizen interests can not take place. When you talk to the republicans in your life about Republican administrations remember that not only is the "death tax" the "Paris Hilton Permanent Hand Bag Luxury Tithe on Everyone Else" but that Taxes on business are taxes on "Creepy Foreign Entities That Use False Front American Names to Drain Our Precious Bodily Fluids" --oh, wait, not that, but something very like that. Well, you work it out.
aimai
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