Is the phrase, a government “of the people, by the people, for the people” in the constitution? Popular belief is yes, but it is not actually in the constitution. Rather, this phrase comes from President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address. It is probably a concept that should have been incorporated into the constitution and certainly Lincoln included it to remind citizens that it is their country. I think politicians, and even some of us, forget that it is OUR government and the politicians are OUR employees; they are supposed to be working in OUR best interests.

Business interests are fond of complaining about the jury system and regularly claim that it is “broken”, it needs to be “fixed”. Perhaps the best word is, in fact, “fixed”; they would like to fix the civil justice system so that it can be better influenced in their direction. Should we hold it against them because they work to achieve an unfair playing field? We should not hate Big Corporations for this, but should we allow them to achieve it? Absolutely not!

I think the jury system our founding fathers borrowed from English common law works just fine in protecting the rights of individual citizens. Frankly, I want six of my fellow citizens sitting and listening to evidence in my case. I want six regular people considering what makes sense and what does not make sense. I do not want a special panel appointed to hear my case, as has been promoted by many business “political parrots”. I do not want the government inserting itself into the civil justice system anymore than they already do. I trust an impartial panel of my fellow citizens to fairly weigh the evidence and reach a decision that makes sense.

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Concerns about the safety of toys manufactured in China continued to grow today as seven (that’s right - SEVEN) separate recalls were announced today by the Consumer Product Safety Commission in the United States. Metal jewelry, puppet theaters, gardening tools and toy trains comprise this week’s “main attractions” at what has become weekly announcements of tens of thousands of affected products.

Although undoubtedly the store shelves will not be empty during the upcoming holiday shopping season, the sheer number of products geared entirely toward children, which have now been deemed unsafe, almost all of whom violate the lead paint standards for U.S. products, may be overwhelming for people trying to make educated, safe decisions when purchasing toys for children.

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News of the bridge collapse in Minneapolis and the mine failures in Utah are just the most recent reminders that issues of safety and accountability affect us all. Corporations with a profit motive have often and consistently acted like those profits were more important than the lives of the people we love. This has played itself out in an ominous fashion over the past 10 years as we’ve seen a coordinated effort by corporate interests to limit, or in some cases eliminate, your individual right to a jury trial. During that time those same corporations have made no effort to limit their own access to the courts.

Recently we’ve also seen the case of Melenna Del Valle who was killed in the interstate 90 tunnel collapse in Boston. In that matter the National Transportation Safety Board has just reported that the failure related to the design and materials utilized in the construction. The finding has brought forth a criminal indictment of at least one firm involved in the project. Unfortunately the criminal statute provides for only a $1,000 dollar penalty. I think most would agree that this is insufficient to inspire accountability or a change of heart on the part of a major corporation.

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They don’t actually live in Indiana - they live in neighboring Illinois. But 45,000 conservation advocates have signed petitions asking Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels to be a good neighbor and rescind permission granted a BP refinery to dump additional pollutants into their common back yard, Lake Michigan. (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/31)

The brouhaha comes after billions of dollars have been spent rehabilitating the Great Lakes, says Cameron Davis, one of the petition drive’s initiators and president of the Alliance for the Great Lakes. “Indiana’s Department of Environmental Management found as many loopholes in the law as they could find, and stretched them to the max to let BP walk through,” he adds (http://www.greatlakes.org/.

If you’re wondering why Indiana government officials would even think of increasing the amount of permissible ammonia and suspended solids dumped into the lake, here’s their story: Governor Daniels and the business community are backing a $3 billion expansion of the refinery because, they say, it will create more than 2,000 jobs.

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