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Banana giant Chiquita held liable by US court for funding paramilitaries

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Re: Banana giant Chiquita held liable by US court for funding paramilitaries

#281

Post by hi-v-rocknroll »

hi-v-rocknroll wrote: post #212

Merely a sliver of the total suffering through coups, wars, and corporate exploitation imposed on Central and South American countries in the spirit of America's Monroe Doctrine colonialism project spanning 200 years.

Follow-up:

America isn't solely responsible for the decline of the indigenous population of the New World from ~130 million to ~15 million.

Check out what Spanish did a few centuries previously, annihilating ~8 million of indigenous and millions African slaves: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Short_Account_of_the_Destruc...

Lots of blame to go around. It's essential to know all of the uncomfortable parts of history and to avoid repeating them.

Re: Banana giant Chiquita held liable by US court for funding paramilitaries

#283

Post by rvense »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #279
rvense wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Corporations were people in English before many folks of darker skin colour. Etymonline[0] cites phrases like "person corporate" as linguistic precedent this use of the term, but the meaning "individual, human being" goes back to 1200. Legal rights notwithstanding, I don't think you're at all correct if you are suggesting that there was ever a stage of daily English usage where the word would be used to refer equal…

Personhood has obviously applied to humans across languages for millennia. I’m not arguing that usage doesn’t predate corporate personhood in English; I’m saying many common uses of person today post-date corporate personhood. Corporate personhood, and the referring of entities as persons, goes back to ancient Latin and multiple Indian languages for a reason: it’s a natural consequence of (a) collective rights and (b…

I have to admit I find it a little hard to understand what you're trying to say. It seems to me like you're mixing up a few things. In everyday English, the word 'person' primarily refers to an individual human. This is distinct from and (at least in my view of semantics) comes before philosophical and religious discussions about what it might mean to be human; and also distinct from discussions of the legal rights and duties that persons are given which might also be conferred upon non-humans. Even if these give rise to derived (polysemous) usages of the word person.

Re: Banana giant Chiquita held liable by US court for funding paramilitaries

#284

Post by freejazz »

barbarr wrote: post #195
sensanaty wrote: post #194

The punishment being fines is criminal in and of itself. Everyone involved needs to be locked away for a long, long time, not have to pay pennies as "punishment"

Also if you take a step back, it's more like the US is getting a cut of the $, almost like profit sharing.

The legal (il)literacy on HN is astounding. The punishment isn't a fine, it's a civil judgment being awarded to the eight Colombian families that sued... this is the third paragraph in the article:

"Following a civil case brought by eight Colombian families whose relatives were killed by the AUC, Chiquita has been ordered to pay $38.3m (£30m) in damages to the families."

Re: Banana giant Chiquita held liable by US court for funding paramilitaries

#285

Post by freejazz »

rayiner wrote: post #139
advisedwang wrote: post #45

The Alien Tort Statue [1], the reason this case [2] is in the US at all has sometimes been used for significant environmental and social justice global legal activism. Because of this, it is in the sights of the conservative legal movement. Sadly I suspect this case may end up at the supreme court and end up another victim of the removal of redress for the evil of the powerful. [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/ali…

> Because of this, it is in the sights of the conservative legal movement I suspect the problem is more that the statute gives U.S. courts jurisdiction over conduct that happens in foreign countries, and applies incomprehensibly vague standards such as “the law of nations.” It’s a statute that made sense in 1789 when it was enacted by a bunch of people that thought God made universal law applicable to the whole world…

>1789 when it was enacted by a bunch of people that thought God made universal law applicable to the whole world.

Yet they passed legislation... what an absurd comment. By this logic, why regard the constitution at all?

Re: Banana giant Chiquita held liable by US court for funding paramilitaries

#286

Post by freejazz »

somenameforme wrote: post #215
bux93 wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Supreme Court in this case was also not basing their opinion on fact, since there actually was jurisprudence about gun control [1] Also, it doesn't make sense to say laws should perfectly adhere with jurisprudence. Laws are enacted and changed precisely because lawmakers don't like the results the legal framework is giving them up until that point in time. To whit, the Constitution of the United States and the Bi…

You're expressing an extremely common misconception about the Constitution. The Constitution does not grant you e.g. the right to free speech or the right to bear arms. You already naturally have these rights. The way the Constitution works is to instead restrict what laws the government can pass. The government cannot simply say 'times have changed, we're going to pass laws banning speech and guns' because the Const…

That poster didn't express that "extremely common misconception" at all.

Re: Banana giant Chiquita held liable by US court for funding paramilitaries

#287

Post by xvector »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #197
xvector wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, you withdraw from the country. And you watch your employees die? Great, you've saved your business and yourself from legal ramifications, and the people you worked for are dead, and your business is in ashes. Chiquita did actually end up withdrawing from Columbia shortly after this. > Maybe you bring in a hostage negotiator to exfiltrate your staff. This is not how the real world works. If you try this stuff wi…

> watch your employees die? If a gunman comes to your office, what do you do? You defer to competent authority. Same here. Particularly when it comes to scheduled foreign terrorists, there is no (legal) excuse. (Moreover, if the gunman comes to your office every Monday.) > If you try this stuff with the AUC in Columbia [ sp ], they will torture and kill your people for fun If you're operating in Colombia without K&R…

> when it comes to scheduled foreign terrorists, there is no (legal) excuse

Okay, how - as a human being - will you reconcile that with the fact that your employees will be tortured to death if you don't pay?

You could stay legally compliant, or you could save your employees' lives. Most moral people would do the latter.

> If you're operating in Colombia without K&R (or, apparently, basic OpSec), that's on you.

Hindsight is 20/20. You are correct, but this statement is fundamentally unhelpful when the AUC is already at your doorstep.

Re: Banana giant Chiquita held liable by US court for funding paramilitaries

#288

Post by whateveracct »

freejazz wrote: post #284
barbarr wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also if you take a step back, it's more like the US is getting a cut of the $, almost like profit sharing.

The legal (il)literacy on HN is astounding. The punishment isn't a fine, it's a civil judgment being awarded to the eight Colombian families that sued... this is the third paragraph in the article: "Following a civil case brought by eight Colombian families whose relatives were killed by the AUC, Chiquita has been ordered to pay $38.3m (£30m) in damages to the families."

people here don't RTFA when there'a juicy contrarian stuff to say instead

Re: Banana giant Chiquita held liable by US court for funding paramilitaries

#289

Post by bluSCALE4 »

bluSCALE4 wrote: post #168

Lol? What about avocados?

You guys do realize cartels are selling avocados, growing them in protected forrest, killing grounds keepers, all the while murdering majors, governors, judges, police, basically terrorizing the nation and we're worried about 99 cent for a bunch of bananas while avocados are running up to 3 dollars each?

Re: Banana giant Chiquita held liable by US court for funding paramilitaries

#290

Post by JohnClark1337 »

nradov wrote: post #273
sensanaty wrote: post #194

The punishment being fines is criminal in and of itself. Everyone involved needs to be locked away for a long, long time, not have to pay pennies as "punishment"

The court decision requires payment of damages to the plaintiffs, not a fine . This was a civil case. In the US court system, fines are a criminal matter.

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