... is a vote to complete the takeover of America by big corporations. Consider the place we call home: Earth. Consider also the storm called Sandy.
Mitt Romney says that corporations are people. That is legalistic, self-serving nonsense. The consequences of this nonsense are many and overwhelmingly bad. The most obvious current example is the Supreme Court's assertion that because corporations are people and people are entitled to free speech and money is speech (an appalling chain of logic), corporations can spend whatever they want to make America a vassal state to their corporate interests.
In 2011 Exxon Mobile had $41 billion in profits; Chevron had almost $37 billion. In their view, petroleum is good for you. Warming the Earth's climate is an insignificant consequence of enriching themselves and their shareholders. Predictably, they invest heavily in forcing our government's view to match theirs. Politicians are a business expense.
There are a few large organizations which have come to view global climate change as a genuine problem. The U.S. Department of Defense is one. The insurance industry is another. Still, most big corporations see the status quo as just fine and very profitable. To protect their economic interests they routinely invest in politicians and policies which support that perspective.
Mr. Romney wants more CO and other toxins in our atmosphere, though he prefers that they be made-in-America pollutants. He mocks the idea that Americans might somehow be at risk. Republicans never much liked New Orleans or New York. New Jersey? well, that's just collateral damage. No need for FEMA to get involved. In fact, there's no need for FEMA.
Rising sea levels, of course, directly affect only those living on the coasts who are barely a majority of our population. Damage to commerce, resettlement of weather refugees, construction of new business centers and other necessary adjustments will offer all kinds of profit-making opportunities to those choosing to stick around and not move the remainder of their corporate presences off-shore (assuming they can distinguish where the shore really is). For better or worse, Washington, D.C. will briefly return to the swamp it was before entering the mythical realm of Atlantis. Presumably Nevada and Kansas will enjoy their swelling populations, though the absence of potable water will present some unpleasant challenges.
Corporations focus on short-term greed; it's in their DNA. Mr. Romney views short-term greed as America's (short-term) destiny. He's wrong.