>Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1999 14:34:34 -0500 >Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Originator: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Precedence: bulk >From: Robert Weissman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >To: Multiple recipients of list CORP-FOCUS <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Subject: The Price We Pay: The 10 Worst Corporations of 1998 >MIME-Version: 1.0 >X-Comment: Please see http://lists.essential.org for help > >What did we learn in 1998? > >Microsoft Chairman and CEO Bill Gates' net wealth -- $51 billion -- is >greater than the combined net worth of the poorest 40 percent of Americans >(106 million people). > >Hundreds of hospitals are "dumping" patients who can't afford to pay. > >The feds are criminally prosecuting big tobacco companies for smuggling >cigarettes into Canada. (Never mind addicting young kids to smoke and thus >condemning them to a certain, albeit, slow, death -- can't criminally >prosecute them for that.) > >There's a bull market in stock fraud. > >Prescription drugs may cause 100,000 deaths a year. > >Two Fox-TV reporters in Florida are fired for trying to report on adverse >health effects associated with genetically engineered foods. > >The U.S. Department of Agriculture proposes that genetically engineered >foods be labelled "organic." > >Coal companies continue to cheat on air quality tests as hundreds of coal >miners continue to die each year from black lung disease. > >The North American Securities Administrators Association estimates that >Americans lose about $1 million a hour to securities fraud. > >Robert Reich says that megamergers threaten democracy. Corporate crime >explodes, but the academic study of corporate crime vanishes. > >Three hundred trade unionists around the world were killed in 1997 for >defending their rights. > >Corporate firms lobbying to cripple the Superfund law outnumber >environmental groups seeking to defend it by 30 to one. > >Down on Nike? Chinese political prisoners allegedly make Adidas products. > >Blue Cross Blue Shield Illinois is a corporate criminal. Chemical >companies are testing pesticides on human beings. > >Senator Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, questions whether the Pentagon's >financial controls have suffered a "complete and utter breakdown." > >Environmental crimes prosecution are down sharply under Clinton/Gore. >Bush/Quayle had a better record. > >Bell Atlantic buys Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are >illustrations to sell telephone products. > >Companies that have workers die on the job continue to be met with fines. >Criminal prosecutions still rare. > >This is the price we pay for living in Corporate America. Wealth >disparity, megamergers and the resulting consolidation of corporate power, >commercialism run amok, rampant corporate crime, death without justice, >pollution, cancer and an unrelenting attack on democracy. > >The 1998 market run-up might make plugged-in America feel good about >itself, but big business is eating out the democratic foundation of the >country, and when the empty shell crumbles, what kind of chaos might we >anticipate? > >If you have justice on your mind, herewith for the tenth consecutive year >is Multinational Monitor's effort to pinpoint those responsible. It is, >admittedly, a short list -- the Ten Worst Corporations of 1998. But it is >a representative list, and as the damage becomes more apparent, as the >outrage at, and contempt for, our fearless leaders grows, surely the list, >too, will grow. > >The Ten Worst Corporations of 1998 are: > >* Chevron, for continuing to do business with a brutal dictatorship in >Nigeria and for alleged complicity in the killing of civilian protesters. > >* Coca-Cola, for hooking America's kids on sugar and soda water. Today, >teenage boys and girls drink twice as much soda pop as milk, whereas 20 >years ago they drank nearly twice as much milk as soda. > >* General Motors, for becoming an integral part of the Nazi war machine, >and then years later, when documented proof emerges, denying it. > >* Loral and its chief executive Bernard Schwartz, for dumping $2.2 million >into Clinton/Gore and Democratic Party coffers. The Clinton administration >responded by approving a human rights waiver to clear the way for >technology transfers to China. > >* Mobil, for supporting the Indonesian military in crushing an indigenous >uprising in Aceh province and allegedly allowing the military to use >company machinery to dig mass graves. > >* Monsanto, for introducing genetically engineered foods into the >foodstream without adequate safety testing and without labeling, thus >exposing consumers to unknown risks. > >* Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, for pleading guilty to felony crimes for >dumping oil in the Atlantic Ocean and then lying to the Coast Guard about >it. > >* Unocal, for engaging in numerous acts of pollution and law violations, >to such a degree that citizens in California petitioned the state's >attorney general to revoke the company's charter. > >* Wal-Mart, for crushing small town America, for paying low, low wages (a >huge percentage of Wal-Mart workers are eligible for food stamps), for >using Asian child labor and for homogenizing the population; and last, but >not least, > >* Warner-Lambert, for marketing a hazardous diabetes drug, Rezulin, which >has been linked to at least 33 deaths due to liver injuries. > >As the millennium approaches, keep your eyes open for nasty corporate >predators in your neck of the woods. Keep a list. Check it twice. Then >send along your nominations for the Ten Worst Corporations of 1999. > >Happy New Year. > >Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime >Reporter. Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based >Multinational Monitor. > >(c) Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman > >Focus on the Corporation is a weekly column written by Russell Mokhiber >and Robert Weissman. Please feel free to forward the column to friends or >repost the column on other lists. If you would like to post the column on >a web site or publish it in print format, we ask that you first contact us >([EMAIL PROTECTED] or [EMAIL PROTECTED]). > >Focus on the Corporation is distributed to individuals on the listserve >[EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe to corp-focus, send an e-mail >message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following all in one line: > >subscribe corp-focus <your name> (no period). > >Focus on the Corporation columns are posted on the Multinational Monitor >web site <www.essential.org/monitor>. > >Postings on corp-focus are limited to the columns. If you would like to >comment on the columns, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or >[EMAIL PROTECTED] >
