THIS IS JIM HIGHTOWER SAYING . . .
Corporate Assault on Local Sovereighty
Time for another Hog Report. These fat porkers are not merely chowing down
at the trough, they're trying to chew up our rights as a sovereign people.
They include such blue-chip corporations as AT&T, Boeing, Caterpillar,
Colgate, Kodak, GM, Mobil, Pepsico-some 600 corporations banded together
in a group called the National Foreign Trade Council. But you have to wonder
what nation this piggish outfit stands for.
The NFTC is suing the sovereign state of Massachusetts in federal court.
The state legislature, you see, has had the audacity to try to direct the
way state agencies spend state money to make purchases.
Specifically, the legislature said no purchases shall be made from corporations
that are doing business with the thuggish, repressive, military dictatorship
that rules Burma. Some 30 U.S. cities have joined Massachusetts in this
principled stand, asserting their sovereign right over their own spending
rules.
But the corporations have howled, claiming that their right to free trade
is superior, and that We the People-through our state and local elected
authorities-must bow down before them. So, using their NFTC front group,
they are asking a federal judge to strike down the Massachusetts law. Their
particular claim is that such local laws are unconstitutional because only
the federal government should have the power to make foreign policy.
In an interesting twist, a foreign government has joined NFTC in this attempt
to overturn local rule inside our borders. The European Community, acting
on behalf of European corporations that do business with the bloody thugs
of Burma, has filed a formal brief with the court asking that the people
of Massachusetts be forced to back down.
Time for another Boston Tea Party. To join the fight for our local rights,
call the New England Burma Roundtable at (617) 423-6655.
The "One World" Corporation
In the past couple of decades, American corporations have metamorphed from
big business to huge conglomerates and now to One-World global empires.
If you think "one world" is a hyperbolic phrase, consider the
new corporate alliance just announced between American Airlines, British
Airways, Canadian Airlines, Quantas Airlines, and Cathay Pacific Airways.
This behemoth combines the largest airlines of North America, England, Australia,
and Hong Kong and is to be called "Oneworld" global air alliance.
Expect more of these one-world combines to come online as corporations eagerly
break their ties to any particular nation, trying to gain a global presence
that's too big and too far flung for We the People to have any control over.
These humongous, multinational mergers have nothing to do with efficiency
and competitiveness and everything to do with raw power and greed, establishing
the corporation as the world's new political sovereign, supreme over nations
and peoples.
Another recent combine is the Chrysler merger with Daimler Benz of Germany.
At the September shareholder meeting to ratify the merger, CEO Robert Eaton
said the end of Chrysler as an American company made him "a little
sad, a little emotional." Don't get too teary-eyed for Bob, though-the
merger that he engineered will put a cool $219 million into his own pocket.
And if this greedy grab for the gold is not incentive enough to take the
American flag off Chrysler, Eaton also had the motivation of creating a
one-world economic and political powerhouse. This merger will establish,
in Eaton's words, "the world's first truly transnational company. And
in that sense, it will change everything."
To learn how you can fight back against global corporate supremacy, contact
the Alliance for Democracy: (781) 259-9395.
Wal-Mart's Made-in-America Lie
Walk into a Wal-Mart store, and you can see banners that proclaim, "Our
Nation: Supporting the American Manufacturers that Support American Jobs."
For customers, this is a heartwarming declaration by the country's largest
retailer that it is, By God, a 100-percent, Red-White-and-Blue company,
offering a store full of Made-in-America goods.
Only, it's a lie.
An investigative report recently released by the National Labor Committee
put the lie to Wal-Mart's marketing hype. This corporate watchdog group
sent investigators into Wal-Mart stores in 13 states to check the country-of-origin
on private-label goods manufactured for Wal-Mart. Some 90,000 pieces of
clothing and shoes were examined. Bottom line: 85 percent of them are NOT
American-made. Even worse, most come from factories in the world's garment
ghettos, where subpoverty wages, dangerous working conditions, and human
exploitation are common.
Take the famous "Kathie Lee" line of women's clothing-the most
popular label sold by Wal-Mart. These goods bear the name of TV sparklie
Kathie Lee Gifford, who made a widely-publicized pledge to avoid sweatshop
production just two years ago. Yet, only 11 percent of her Wal-Mart garments
have a Made-in-the-U.S. label on them today, while 89 percent come from
such notorious sweatshop hellholes as China, Indonesia, and Bangladesh.
Her non-clothing items have a worse record-100 percent of "Kathie Lee"
sunglasses, handbags, and belts come from China.
Meanwhile, Wal-Mart has been running a mutimillion-dollar promotional campaign
urging us consumers to "Bring it home to the USA" by shopping
at its stores. Wouldn't it be nice if the giant retailer were to practice
what it preaches by bringing its manufacturing home to the USA?
To get a summary of the Wal-Mart survey, call the National Labor Committee:
(212) 242-3002.
A Pill for Nuclear Melt-Downs
As you approach a certain bridge in Philadelphia, a sign says: "In
Case of Enemy Attack Do Not Stop, Drive Right Off Bridge." Whoever
was in charge of Philadelphia's evacuation policy when that sign first went
up, must be the same bozo in charge of safety planning for today's Nuclear
Regulatory Commission. This so-called watchdog agency has long been a lapdog
for the nuke-powered utilities it is supposed to regulate, and it keeps
insisting that these nukes are 100-percent, absolutely safe. Trust us.
So, why has the NRC suddenly decided to distribute potassium iodide pills
to families living within a several-mile radius of their friendly neighborhood
nuke? Well, it turns out that one of the results of exposure to nuclear
radiation is thyroid cancer, and experience shows that if people can get
a dose of potassium iodide within a few hours of "an accident,"
then they've got a good chance of avoiding this cancer.
Hmmm. . . let's review the NRC policy as it now stands: one, there is "no
danger" from a nuclear power plant; two, we have pills to protect you
from thyroid cancer just in case (oops!) there is danger after all; and,
three, our plan is for every man, woman, and child to carry a supply of
these pills with them wherever they go from now on-don't leave home without
them!
Oh, one more thing-the pills protect you only from thyroid cancer, not from
the many other cancer-causing, gene-perverting, disfiguring, and deadly
effects of radiation, so if there is an "accident," try hiding
under the bed or something, because we don't know what we're doing.
The only safe approach to nuclear power is to switch it off and use more
affordable alternatives. Then, let's convert those contaminated nuke plants
into retirement condos for the industry executives and NRC officials who
hung this costly and deadly albatross around our necks.
Four News Networks To Become One
When a big industry goes to Congress with a fat legislative package that
it claims is necessary to "modernize" the industry and make it
"more globally competitive" . . . duck because they're shooting
at you. In the case of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, they were shooting
at both your wallet . . . and your democracy. The telephone and cable corporations
promised the Act would "free them" to lower your monthly bills.
Have you checked your bill lately? It's up, not down.
But ultimately the more harmful lie was the assertion by the TV networks
that the Telecommunications Act would allow them to be more competitive
and do a better job of delivering not only entertainment, but also news
and information-the very lifeblood of our democracy. What have they delivered
instead? Consolidation, not competition; infomercials, not information.
Check out the networks: ABC is owned by Disney, CNN by Time Warner, CBS
by Westinghouse, NBC by GE, and Fox by the News Corporation. Far from competing
to bring us more and better news coverage, these conglomerates are cutting
back and merging. CNN and CBS recently announced that they're in talks to
combine their two network news operations into one. Likewise, ABC and NBC
are considering merging some of their news operations into the CNN empire
of Time Warner.
Instead of having these four network news sources independent of each other
and presumably scrambling to out-do each other in delivering news stories
. . . the four would become one, not competing but cooperating-even colluding-on
what they present to us citizens as "the news" of our world. As
former CBS anchor Walter Cronkite put it, "The networks are simply
letting down the American public."
This is Jim Hightower saying . . . If the networks are not going to do their
job, then it's time to turn our airwaves over to groups that really want
to deliver the news we need.
Contact us directly at: hightower@essential.org
Copyright 1998- Hightower and Associates, Inc.