I've been targeted with a vicious corporate counterattack (2021)

Its important to be reminded regularly that there are perfectly legal ways for people with lots of money to endlessly bully people that annoy them. These people&#x2F;companies have lawyers on retainer that they&#x27;re already paying so its essentially free for them to file bogus suits and motions to cause havoc in your life. What are you going to do? Sue them back? Thats the world they live in, and its a world that as a small time person or corporation you can not win in (long term).<p>Look at Gawker and Peter Thiel--no matter how you feel personally about what they did, what they published about him was absolutely legal. As a background task his lawyers destroyed that company by keeping them tied up in court cases and funding any one with an axe to grind against them until they were gone.

I opened up the article mildly curious about which internet personality was about to make the outlandish claim to the biggest victim crown for internet clicks.<p>I&#x27;m heartbroken it was Steven Danziger, they guy that took on big oil, gave them a black eye, and went to (house) jail for it.<p>Even though his case is one I&#x27;ve followed for years, it even escaped my own memory.<p>Also, someone mentioned Snowden and Arrange. for comparison. Although they can be thought as same, remember these two, unlike Danziger, took on the govt, the intelligence apparatus, and its guns. They should have known full well that when you play high stakes poker you are risking a ton.<p>Danziger OTOH, was taking on a private corporation. His case is big, but no too different in scope than say Erin Brokovich&#x27;s case against PG&amp;E &amp; Hinkley(2), or Jan Schlittchmanns case vs WR Grace and Beatrice Foods(1). The plaintiff counsels won in both cases, without consequences to their life or careers.<p>Arrange and Snowden were morally righteous however they probably knew the size of the sacrifice they were about to make and made the decision to proceed anyway. I doubt Danziger had any idea that what he was getting into would cost him his career.<p>(1) <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Anderson_v._Cryovac,_Inc" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Anderson_v._Cryovac,_Inc</a>.<p>(2) <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Hinkley_groundwater_contamination" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Hinkley_groundwater_contamin...</a>

It&#x27;s worth noting that there is another side to the story. As Wikipedia notes (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Steven_Donziger" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Steven_Donziger</a>), significant evidence of Donziger&#x27;s fraud ended up being captured by a friendly documentary crew that had been following him around.<p>The Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague found that the evidence placed before the Court was &quot;the most thorough documentary, video, and testimonial proof of fraud ever put before an arbitral tribunal&quot;, and that [Donziger] did engage in blackmail and bribery of Ecuadorian judges.<p>The situation is complex, and I <i>certainly</i> don&#x27;t have any insight into the true rights and wrongs of the case. And there&#x27;s certainly evidence that points towards Donziger&#x27;s innocence too. But Esquire&#x27;s take is, I think, entirely unbalanced, and discounts out of hand the idea that any of the many, many court cases Donziger has lost (in multiple legal systems and in front of multiple judges) may have been at all correct.

He was released on April 25, 2022. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.democracynow.org&#x2F;2022&#x2F;4&#x2F;26&#x2F;steven_donziger_freedom_chevron_ecuador_amazon" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.democracynow.org&#x2F;2022&#x2F;4&#x2F;26&#x2F;steven_donziger_freed...</a>

The judges need to be jailed. There was a time when tarring&#x2F;feathering was an acceptable practice too.

When I look at how figures like Donziger, Assange and Snowden are treated I cant help but think our society is a lot more like Russia than we think we are - differing mostly by a matter of degree, rather than principle.<p>Furthermore, this is a geopolitical risk. If the west doesnt uphold the principles we purport to represent then our support dwindles and allies who were on the fence will fall against us.

This story is scary and heartbreaking. The guy represented poor people in a foreign country against brutal corporation and now his life and career are ruined

While what happened seems wrong based on the article, it&#x27;s clearly not the &quot;most vicious corporate counterattack in US history.&quot; No Pinkertons, no machine guns, no families.<p>At the end of the day (or house arrest) this is all still legal maneuvering. It may be vicious within that context but there are much bigger and sometimes nastier contexts out there.

Context: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Steven_Donziger#Kaplan&#x27;s_2014_ruling_in_the_RICO_case" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Steven_Donziger#Kaplan&#x27;s_2014_...</a>

A very nice explanation on a functioning democracy. And of course Ecuador is just another vasal state.

Outsourcing violence to the state is probably the single biggest source of suffering in modern society.

I have no means of checking the veracity of this article, but it certainly paints that Kaplan judge as a corrupt crook.<p>Is there anything the general public can do to help? Like, write to a congressman or something?

The real shameful here are the those judges. Those greedy, corrupt, soul-less judges.

Oil is the greatest evil mankind has ever encountered. Change my mind.

[2021]

This kind of stuff happens more often than people want to admit. For example, I have discovered that I have no constitutional right to a trial or due process. A multi year long Federal investigation was done based on a false accusation. My career and everything was taken. I have never been charged with anything and it is implied that there is no crime to even charge me with. I have taken all of this to Twitter recently (link in my profile). The past few weeks I have been asking the state and federal to arrest me, even though I didnt do anything, just so I would have a right to an attorney to be honored and begin the process of defending myself. But they havent even replied now for months.<p>Good luck out there when you run up against real power structures. You do not have the rights you think you do.<p>The Government can and will kill you without even charging you or proving anything to a jury.<p>This isnt even political as both left and right wing controlled states, CO and TN have gone along with it.<p>We simply do not have any rights in the U.S. Truth seems to be based simply on how many political connections and how much money you have.

While the atrocities committed by Texaco and the Ecuador government in Ecuador are heinous, Steven is a class action lawyer that was trying to line his own and his backer&#x27;s pockets. I agree that Chevron and US judges appear to have crossed the line and hope that is prosecuted. But you should really research the whole story before you honor the lawyer&#x27;s actions in any way. And the whole suit was frivolous anyway as the Ecuador government had already absolved Texaco&#x2F;Chevron of all liability. Their own documentary was very damning even before the outtakes where revealed: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=BvrZRvgwBS8" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=BvrZRvgwBS8</a>. This guy is getting way too much mileage out of this 20+ year lawsuit and should stop representing himself as the victim. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;law.stanford.edu&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;2018&#x2F;05&#x2F;boutrous.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;law.stanford.edu&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;2018&#x2F;05&#x2F;boutrous...</a>. &#x27;&quot;Indeed, Maria Aguinda, the lead plaintiff in the Chevron litigation, admitted that when the plaintiffs’ lawyers originally instructed her to sign the litigation papers, she thought she was signing up for free medicine: in her own words, the lawyer told her, “In four months, I will bring medications so you will be healed. But first, sign this paper here.”&#x27;