Pfizer to New London: Fuck You

Some of you might remember the 2005 Supreme Court case in which it was determined, 5-4, that state and local governments are permitted to use eminent domain laws to confiscate private property and hand it over to private developers. It's an outrageous and alarming decision, and interestingly the dissenting votes were from the four conservative justices, who made their decision out of respect for private property rights -- an object lesson in the dangers of corporate liberalism. I've spent some time in New London due to my two O'Neill residencies and my teaching gig at the National Theater Institute, and have seen the story unfold a little bit, mostly in the form of protest signs and visible devastation of a neighborhood.

Well, the NYT reports that Pfizer, the private company for whom the city of New London forcibly relocated its residents under threat of the removal 1,400 jobs, has decided to leave anyway, a powerful signal that corporate welfare is based on lies about job creation and economic growth (I'd also use this as a rebuttal to anyone who says "the arts should be more like private business," unless they literally mean that we should demand multibillion dollar subsidies and then do whatever we want). We are quite literally facing a choice between the collapse of our civilization within the next century (due to climate change, resource shortages, and massive systemic inequities) and reigning in inordinately powerful corporations. For more on this, see Douglas Rushkoff's excellent book Life, Inc.

Here's some more heartbreaking video from Democracy Now: