Foreign $s Promote Global Warming in US

Now, it's official: European corporations, including BP, are contributing funds to US Senate campaigns--for climate change deniers and candidates who vow to block the cap and trade bill. Total contributions: $240,000, more than Koch Industries pursuing the same agenda. So, BP, for example, having polluted our Gulf of Mexico and killed workers in a refinery fire, now wants to buy politicians--so they can do more of the same, with no government interference.

European corporations are meddling in US politics. That they can, has been made possible by the Supreme Court's decision opening the way for corporate money in campaigns, despite Justice Alito shaking his head when Obama asserted that it would: Obama stated that the Citizens United decision opened election campaigns to foreign funds. Clearly, it has.

The list of corporations revealed by Climate Action Network Europe (CANE), are: BP, Arcelor-Mittal (steel), Solvay (chemicals), LaFarge (cement), GDF-Suez (energy), BASF (chemicals), Bayer (pharmaceuticals) and EON (energy). They are concerned about pollution controls: all are large-scale polluters. Europe has been in the forefront combating climate change, and these corporations have been forced to comply with EC regulations to reduce emissions.

Their thinking: if they can help elect climate change deniers and anti-climate change legislators in the US, then the US will do nothing about climate change, and they can argue that Europe shouldn't handicap itself with "burdensome" and "anti-business" regulations, either.

The same process is going on in California, which has an initiative on its ballot to nullify Schwarzenegger's widely acclaimed climate law. Money pours in from everywhere to nullify the law, but from energy companies especially.

It's fascinating to identify the allies of the Tea Party's American "patriots."

It's also fascinating to see that, so far, participants like stridently "patriotic" Fox News, have made no issue of foreign participation in our elections. In fact, it has been widely reported, but not fully substantiated, that many of the millions spent by the Chamber of Commerce and various other Tea Party groups like Rove's American Crossroads, come from foreign corporations.

It can be argued that this is only fair, since the US, and American corporations have spent money in foreign election campaigns for decades. But it is against US election laws, and it should be an issue in this campaign. Do Americans really want foreign corporations to help decide who governs us, and what policies we pursue?

Further, the funding revealed by CANE is "climate sabotage:" it is aimed at stopping any action to combat, or ameliorate climate change. And it is motivated by one thing only: corporate profits.

America is beginning to look, not so much like a declining empire as a Third World country, where all the (foreign and domestic) corporate heavies make the rules and select the players, for their own global profits.