Jigga-What?

Bloomberg reports:

"The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation's largest business lobbying organization, said it will help pay for advertisements suggesting ``dangers'' associated with having trial lawyers aligned with the White House."

On their history web page I read that "on April 12, 1912, President Taft's vision became a reality when a group of 700 delegates from various commercial and trade organizations came together to create a unified body of business interest that today is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce." So I guess following business interests is basically their mission.

But then again, corporations are psychopathic and their impact has risen considerably over the past 100 years.

THE PATHOLOGY OF COMMERCE: CASE HISTORIES
To more precisely assess the “personality“ of the corporate “person,“ a checklist is employed, using actual diagnostic criteria of the World Health Organization and the DSM-IV, the standard diagnostic tool of psychiatrists and psychologists. The operational principles of the corporation give it a highly anti-social “personality”: It is self-interested, inherently amoral, callous and deceitful; it breaches social and legal standards to get its way; it does not suffer from guilt, yet it can mimic the human qualities of empathy, caring and altruism. Four case studies, drawn from a universe of corporate activity, clearly demonstrate harm to workers, human health, animals and the biosphere. Concluding this point-by-point analysis, a disturbing diagnosis is delivered: the institutional embodiment of laissez-faire capitalism fully meets the diagnostic criteria of a “psychopath.”

Hmmm, sounds to me like the trial lawyers could be protecting us all from diagnosed psychopaths. Personally, I love business - old fashioned business. Small, community-oriented, great-way-to-make-a-living-doing-what-you-love business. I'm very sad that the US Chamber of Commerce falls on the psychopathic side.