Remember Kelo vs. New London?

Yeah... about that...

So, to sum up: Corporate greed thought it knew better and destroyed a few neighborhoods. Then they changed their minds and left a gaping hole in the middle of the town.

Awesome.

Fucking disgusting. Pfizer ought to rebuild the homes and give them back to Kelo, et al. The costs for this can come out of the then-current and future paychecks of the New London city council.

Wow.

That pisses me off to no end.

Just wait, though. Someone is going to come along and blame it all on the Corporatists, even though it was government muscle that enabled the whole sorry affair.

False Dichotomy.

You're right. Pfizer is the victim here.

Pfizer was a catalyst. The victims were the people who lost their homes to government theft.

The article makes it sound like the two were one and the same... which is the problem when Government and Corporations get too big...

Remember that this case was taken all the way to the Supreme Court.

The sad part is this will be seen as an exceptional case and won't have any bearing on future cases.

I'm sympathetic to the idea that if you can get 1,000 acres willingly and easily and one stubborn guy with half an acre in the wrong place can screw it up that you can go to court - albeit even then I'm more sympathetic to the idea that you ought to over-compensate before you run roughshod but...

clearing out an entire neighborhood was always looney tunes.

Beyond the questionable connections.

If you'd have stopped here, you'd have finally made an intelligent post.

Unfortunately you ruined it with this piece if idiocy. I never stated, nor even hinted, at any sort of victim status for Pfizer. They did exactly what the "system" (government) allowed and encouraged them to do.

And they made a bad decision. Not quite seeing the relevance to my statement though.

I didn't present ANY dichotomy.

The relevance is that the Supreme Court didn't have any connection to Pfizer. The process may have gotten rolling due to corporations and government being in bed, but it was blessed by the highest court of law in the land. It was a failure in government.

My bad then. It appeared as if you were saying that Pfizer was not deserving of blame.

A big corporation still can't force an owner to sell.

Only government can do that.

And it shouldn't be allowed to.

And the case only got there b/c of Pfizer and the New London City Council being in bed together.

I see how it can look like I was saying that. They most assuredly DO deserve blame, but they could not have gotten away with it without the machinations of government. That was my only point.

Which is why I said Pfizer was the catalyst. The government was the thief.

Eh... maybe it is just me, but when I think of catalyst, I think of something that starts a process but is not involved in it.

If Pfizer had just said 'we won't move there unless you do x' then it could be considered a catalyst in my mind. But the incestuous relationship with the City Government makes it more participant than catalyst in my mind.

My state just past a proposition in large part due to the Kelo decision.

Eminent domain can still take your land for a road, but it can't take it to build a WalMart.

Even supporters said that it doesn't go far enough in protecting private property rights, but it's a good start.

At the local level that makes sense. The reason I'm classifying it that way is because the case was heard by the Supreme Court. Pfizer was not involved in their decision. Or at least, I certainly hope not.

Smaller-scale similar thing happened in my home town a few decades ago. Big company built a big plant. They managed to build it on previously undeveloped land, but they just HAD to put their driveway exactly where my friend Ed's house was. The house he'd just bought a few years before. So they bought him out and made him move.

Almost 30 years later there's still an empty lot there, 'cause they changed their mind where they wanted the driveway.

That case really pissed, & pisses, me off no end.

The hog judge responsible was Souter yes?

And if Pfizer had followed through and built its facility and created jobs in the region, it would be hailed as a hero of market capitalism regardless of how many people were put out of their homes.

If Pfizer had never been on the scene, and some of those folks had lost their homes to ARMs, it would be their own fault...

No. I consider myself very, very pro-capitalist but that does not mean I consider every desire a corporation might have to be acceptable. Conspiring with government to steal people's homes falls outside of any capitalist doctrine I'm aware of.

There are legitimate reasons you SHOULD lose your home. Failing to pay for it per the agreed terms is one. But a corporation should never be able to get in bed with your local government in order to take it from you...

Hailed as such by...?

Garamet is under the impression we would forgive them for urging the government to steal the land after they had made mega-bucks and hail them as heroes.

As always when it comes to anyone to the right of her politics, she paints with an exceptionally wide brush.

We have no reason to post in this thread. Someone has taken it upon themselves to make up our opinions for us rather than listen to what we actually have to say.

I say we let them continue in their blissful, but ultimately meaningless, ignorance.