Chiquita found liable for financing paramilitary group

Can we finally agree capitalism doesn’t give a fuck about anything but profits and therefore CANNOT self regulate?
- end citizens united -- corporations aren't people
  end lobbying so shell oil doesn't have 10000000X time and money to affect the government as a person does.
  Quit assigning good/bad labels to companies that operate within the law and furious pursue laws that make us more equal, richer and safer overall
  ???
  profit
  
  Force all companies to be worker-owned cooperatives, Richard Wolff-style.
  Also the stock market doesn't really need to exist. It's just gambling with extra steps, and the people who win at that game end up having control over way more than one person should ever have. Also goes along with the above, which is complete worker ownership over companies.
  
  We're ready for suggestions!
- Jon Stewart had an excellent monologue about the myth of corporate morality yesterday.
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWVbZ0WQ3s8
  
  I love how they gave Jon Stewart his show back and he's been using it to burn every single thing he can, including them.
  
  Wait, he's back on the Daily Show?
  
  Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
  https://www.piped.video/watch?v=TWVbZ0WQ3s8
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
- Capitalism does not return the shopping cart.
  
  That's beautiful
- isn't that the point? The corruption has tricked us to believing they can regulate themselves or are even not amoral about social issues. Companies make profit -- that is their singular goal. The laws and regulations control their behavior, not 'good will' or whatever we pretend motivates individuals
- It's the definition of capitalism
- It's money. Every other form of economy has also exploited people for gain.
  
  Money existed before capitalism. Capitalism started in the 1700s. Money far predates capitalism. Plus, my comment is that capitalism must be regulated by outside regulators like governments. Conservatives have pushed deregulation forever and it’s made things worse. Capitalism worked far better in the heavy regulation days after WW2.
  
  So we're just supposed to stop coming up with better ideas?
- In this case, I can believe that Chiquita didn't set out to finance the AUC, but was unfortunate in that their banana plantations fell into AUC-controlled territory, and therefore were extorted for protection money.
  ~~It's like if I owned an Italian restaurant, the mafia comes in and extorts me for protection money, then the feds come and arrest me for financing the mafia. What was I supposed to do?~~
  edit: I didn't know about Chiquita. Thanks for the replies and info!
  
  No, it's like if you owned a massive chain of Italian restaurants that notoriously exploited people, and you were actively paying the mafia to intimidate your workers and to bust unions.
  The judge saw through Chiquita's ridiculous fabrication, I'm disappointed to see you parroting it here.
  
  Chiquita / United Fruit have long been involved in oppressing and destabilizing south America for profit.
  
  There is enough proof in the trials to show they were not unhappily contributing to paramilitary groups.
  
  Chiquita has been bad for a long, long time. Even among the banana companies, they're famously evil.
  
  Not pay the thugs?

Name a more iconic pair than bananas and fascist death squads
- capitalists and pinkertons... oh wait
  
  Financiers and nutmeg? Wait that’s the same too
- Trump and a rolled-up magazine?
  
  Thats implying that trump is like a dog.
  Don't say that. I LIKE dogs!

The fine? $38 million.
Chiquita Brands International's profits in 2023? $3.1 billion.
That's a slap on the wrist if anything. Just the cost of doing business I guess.
- To put that into context:
  if all you had was a $100 USD Note, the equivalent of that “slap on the wrist” fine would be $1.23
  
  I'll do the math when I get home, but that serms high. Gut instinct I thought it would be more like $0.10.

Again?
- Implying they ever stopped.
  You can’t think all of those private military contractors get all of their money from Uncle Sam.
  Corporations have been using mercenaries for hundreds of years, they’ve just refined their PR departments lately.
- We live in a sad world when this kind of thing keeps happening.
  
  .......you new here? And be "here" I mean Earth.

Again?
At this point it's not a surprise, it's when asked to name paramilitary financers, first name that comes up is chiquita.
PEOPLE DIED
PEOPLE NEED TO BE JAILED OVER THIS
- Lol. You and I both know that's not gonna happen.

Damn that's crazy. I've never heard of bananas being associated with violence... anytime in the last 120-140 years...
- It's where the term "banana republic" comes from.
  
  Okay I'll come clean; I literally chose the range "120-140 years" by looking up the year that term was coined (1904) 😂
  
  And then we made it cute by putting it on clothing. What a twist.
- That's bananas

What year is this?!?

Isn't Chiquita the corporate heir to United Fruit?
- yes

Guess they don’t have friends in the CIA or state department like they used to.

Again?
- Exactly my response!!

Is this an article from 70 years ago?
- For Colombians who suffered at the hand of the guerrilla-paramilitary conflict, it was not 70 years ago.
  The paramilitary group mentioned in the article, AUC, disbanded around 2006-2008.
  
  Thank you for pointing that out.

As someone who hates both bananas and corporations financing death squads, I consider this a win.
- You leave the bananas out of this! They're a victim!
  
  They're disgusting radioactive fruit that everyone insists on putting in smoothies.

Again?!
Who's going to post that 2 nickels meme?

War is a racket.

Eh same old same old... Wait they're getting "punished" this time? Well that's new I guess.

Over bananas boys. Bananas.

This is the best summary I could come up with:
A Florida jury on Monday found banana company Chiquita Brands International liable for financing the Colombian paramilitary group Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC).
The jury in the civil case, in federal court in the Southern District of Florida, found that “Chiquita knowingly provided substantial assistance to the AUC to a degree sufficient to create a foreseeable risk of harm to others.”
Chiquita, one of the world’s largest banana producers, has been ordered to pay a total of $38.3 million to the families of eight victims of the AUC, which was a far-right paramilitary group that was designated a terrorist organization by the US.
In 2007, Chiquita pleaded guilty to making over 100 payments to the AUC totaling over $1.7 million despite the group being designated a terrorist organization.
An unnamed company executive had told the Justice Department that the payments had been made under the threat of violence, according to the release.
In a social media post, Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, reacted to the American jury’s Tuesday decision and asked why the same ruling was not made in his home country.
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