"Corporations are people my friend."

In August of 2011 Mitt Romney, on the first leg of his march to ultimate defeat, blurted out the title quote above, as his unfortunate (at least for him) rebuttal to hecklers at the Iowa state fair.  He got tons of bad press over this and it probably cost him some  votes.  Sadly, he is correct, although not in the context he intended.

How many permutations of the following scenario have each us heard in our lives.  Mr X is caught Diddling Mrs. Y and one or both of them proceeds to deny and lie until their position becomes completely untenable.  Of course the story doesn't always have to be about sex, it can be about drugs, stealing, drinking, beating the dog, child abuse, cheating, the list goes on.   It seems to be a innate part of the human condition, that the first response to any adversity is to protect ones own self interest by denying any wrong doing, even to the point of self denial.  

In April of 1994, Congressman Henry Waxman held a hearing on the regulation of  tobacco products use, where the seven major tobacco company CE Os were asked , under oath, if nicotine is addictive.  Each executive stood up before the congressional committee and denied that nicotine was additive.  The tobacco companies were simply behaving like people, protecting their self-interest regardless of the cost or effects on others.

The greatest and worst example of corporations being people, centers around global warming.  It seems that every company in the country that might lose the least bit of profit by acknowledging the writing on the wall about climate change is hell bent on denying the phenomenon.  Of Course, the oil and gas companies, coal companies, and utilities are the biggest deniers, but they are not the only culprits.

It's really difficult  to understand how a potential long term global disaster of this magnitude can be denied in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.  I suspect that it is as if a ship were sinking without enough life boats for everyone, but the captain has offered seats to the highest bidders, the wealthy simply think they can buy their way out of the rising oceans, and sweltering sky.  They may actually be able to survive for a while as we perish, but ultimately, there is no ark.