In my email today I got a response form Congressman Ron Klein for a letter I wrote

in defense of animals regarding animal toxicity testing–a practice that exposes animals

to toxic chemicals to see how they react, clinically and pathological.  Umm, well, chemicals are bad, em-k, bad–

they do hurt us.  Anyway, he directed me to his website, as they do, and I read some of his issues that he is currently

touting.  And while I sympathize with one issue in particular, I was struck by the ambiguous nature of it.  It surges

with irony and dishonesty.  But there is also something here, something bigger that needs to be revealed and enforced

on a much greater scale.   The truth must out!  And so then I wrote him a letter.   I posted it below.  And this is what it

says on his website: (www.klein.house.gov)

http://www.klein.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=236&sectiontree=23,236&itemid=1262

Klein Introduces Bill Demanding Corporate Responsibility, Holocaust Accountability
Washington, D.C. – Congressman Ron Klein (FL-22) today announced that he will introduce

legislation demanding corporate responsibility from companies that had a role in the Nazi Holocaust.

Congressman Klein’s legislation, developed with the help of Holocaust survivors and their families, is in

direct response to controversial high-speed rail projects pending in Florida and California.

Klein’s legislation, the Holocaust Accountability and Corporate Responsibility Act, would require companies

who are competing for high speed rail contracts to disclose their participation in Holocaust-era deportations

to Nazi concentration camps and death camps.
My hope is that he wants to expose all nefarious companies, and not just the SNFC, a French

transportation company that submitted bids for lucrative high-speed rail projects in Florida.

Holocaust survivors are outraged because the company was involved in the human slaughter at

death camps, and rightly so, but I am skeptical of the motivation behind this, and fear it wont apply

to the greater truth, nor will it go far enough.

I wrote:

Dear Sir,

I want to commend you in your stand against the French rail company. On your website,

you and some of your constituents say, “I wrote this legislation to provide a national solution

to an issue that has already cropped up in several states. We need to make clear that as Americans,

we hold companies to a high standard of accountability, and more so than ever when that company

had a direct role in the atrocities of the Nazi Holocaust. No company whose trains carried innocent

victims to death camps should have the right to lay the first inch of track in this country.”

However, I feel it is a little disingenuous.  Do these people have French prejudices or foreign

or is just crony capitalism?  Consider, that many, many well-known American companies supported

the Nazi war-effort and Holocaust including Chase Bank, Dupont, Ford, GM, GE…the Bush crime

(terror) family…and prominent American newspapers supported their efforts by accommodating

them and propagated the New Wave of Fascism and called for support for Mussolini–newspapers

such as ‘Time’ and the ‘NY Times’ and the ‘Christian Science Monitor’.   In fact, most if not all American

newspapers were complicit in their business crimes associated with Nazi fascist American-corporations.

The only newspaper that shouted down the fascists and the Nazis was ‘The Nation.’

These American-Nazi companies such as Ford, Dupont, GM, and many others had manufacturing plants

in Germany and Europe producing weapons of war for Nazis that killed Jewish people, other Europeans,

and American soldiers in an evil plot to take over he world, in a genocide against gypsies, Serbians, mixed

races, disabled people, intellectuals, and other races as well as ethnic groups such as Jews.  The government

ordered American forces NOT to attack these death plants (plants manufacturing weapons of mass destruction

and/or supplies).  Hmmm.

These same American-Nazi companies are involved in the war-effort today which is responsible for crimes

against humanity–infanticide in Iraq, environmental destruction and murder and rape in preemptive Nazi-

like invasions that torture and black bag people making them disappear.  Who knows what villainy is systematically

proscribed in dark holes where human soldiers don’t go.

Will you call for protests against these major corporations prominent in our capitalist culture, guilty of war-

crimes, guilty of crimes against humanity, today, and then–during the Holocaust?  Will you stop doing business

with them?  Never buy a Ford car or get on a bus that might be manufactured by Ford, and never buy a GE product

–it makes their slogan ‘we bring good things to life’ a sinister irony don’t you think?–and what of all the businesses

connected to these evil-corporations?  Will you draw attention to this on the Hill and in the media?   If you can do that,

I can get behind this protest against the French rail service. Otherwise, its just a lot of malarkey.  ‘Hold these companies to

a high-standard of accountability…’

I should have asked–do you ever make a phone call, do you ever use the Internet?  Telecommunication

companies and families were directly or indirectly related to the Nazi war effort and profited off this death machine,

this M-machine, this Moloch!   And still do profit in Iraq, and Afghanistan, and countless other hapless countries, colonies,

and client states of the USA, which Americans can’t find on a map…exploiting totalitarian nations that support slave labor and sex-tourism such as in China and the East–satanic mills, dirty manufacturing platforms.

The leviathan has many heads.   What then is this about?

Is this just fanatical zealotry on the part of Jewish groups with a certain victimization syndrome?

Is it a Trojan Horse?  A ploy to disparage the bid for the French outfit in order to hire an American

company or some other company, a Jewish company?   Is it crony-capitalism?   Is it just wrongheaded?

I sympathize with the grievance, I do, but its seems misguided, and either out of ignorance or just deliberate

denial and suppression, chooses to ignore the countless American companies guilty of treason, guilty of

genocide, guilty of terrortainment, guilty of genocide, guilty of war-mongering, guilty for Holocaust crimes.

I would much rather see a small American company–in fact it should be an American company building the

high-speed rail, but it seems to me, there are few American companies with this technology. America is competent;

it has brilliant engineers and scientists and the will, but no support.  I digress.  Truthout.  This is most likely a ploy to

derail the high-speed rail and what better way to do it than stir up the impassioned ignorance of a community that all

too often plays the victim card to shut down progress.   The irony is, these same people, often have fascist tendencies.

Perhaps, they are financed by Big Oil, or the Koch Brothers?  My hope is that this Act will will go deep and hard–a long

deep cavity search.   And as a voter, I demand it.

His website is (www.klein.house.gov)

Support high-speed rail.  Support ethical American companies.  Demand corporate accountability!

Support local communities, local businesses.  Support Fair Trade.  Go organic, go green.

In response to

Abe Louise Young, The Nation
Posted on July 23, 2010, Printed on July 24, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/147620/

i have created a petition at Care2.

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/make-BP-execs-shovel-toxic-sludge

→ Corporations and thus the elite have no accountability.

Corporations and thus the elite commit crimes and acts of terror

without fear of reprisal or justice, time and time again, but instead of any semblance of real accountability

and punishment, receive rewards and bail-outs while common Americans

–the serfs and dead peasantry –

suffer and die due to corporate actions and government inaction!

Therefore, after mounting evidence of flagrant violations by BP against humanity,

the earth, the Gulf Coast region, the poor and the under-privileged,

We the undersigned ask that the Administration

(represented by the people of these United States

(and NOT BP–not the shareholders, and NOT corporations united in deceit and silence)

to hold BP and any parties aiding and abetting BP responsible

for this deliberate act of violent greed, neglect, destruction

and disdain for law, earth, wildlife and humankind by:

~ forcing all BP executives to labor in the sun, shoveling

toxic sludge off the shores of America,

under the supervision and authority of independent local

fisherman, workers, and

wildlife management personnel–paid by BP to act as wardens in the clean-up.

~ The BP executives shall be forced to hard labor

a minimum of twelve hours day/six days a week

until the coastal waters are clean and deemed safe

by an ad hoc group of independent monitors

formed by ordinary citizens.

~ This citizen warden-patrol of local workers and fisherman

shall be paid by BP to supervise

and jail them in barred shipping containers–

“jails to go” as are the enslaved inmates, for the duration

of the clean-up for a minimum of 1- 2 years

or until the independent board deems the spill is over and

clean-up is fulfilled.

~ The said wardens, paid by BP, shall be paid

a minimum of twenty dollars an hour.

~ The BP executives will not be paid, but shall pay

the clean-up wardens, and pay for all the costs of clean-up and recovery,

while jailed in shipping containers.  This is a prison sentence.

~ We the undersigned believe this is justice where justice

is due in a world where the elite never pay

and the underclass always pays.

~ We the undersigned believe one should be

accountable for one’s crimes.  And this is a crime.

~ We the undersigned believe all corporate

criminals should pay for their crimes, and that

new green laws

should be enforced to make corporate criminals

and industrial criminals pay for  heinous acts of degradation and human suffering.

Please start drafting such laws now!

Current trends are not sustainable!

~ Make the BP executives shovel toxic sludge today

and everyday until relief is granted under fair

and balanced scrutiny

by local, regional, and global independent regulators.

This is one of the only fair solutions to the complex problems in the gulf.

Thirty-second rant…

The health-care  plan in Washington is outrageous.  It expands our dependency on the corporate-aristocracy.  Everyone will be forced to buy health-insurance from private corporations, the same death panels that sentence thousands upon thousands to their deaths. Why should we give them more money?  What Obama and the rapists in Washington don’t understand is that the reason so many people do not have coverage is because they cannot afford it.  Forcing low income households to buy into a fraudulent system will make them even poorer.  Where will they find the money to pay these inhumane greedy gluttonous fascist totalitarian organizations?   The Democrats claim their will be assistance, health coupons or some nonsense.  It doesn’t matter.  We will still have to pay into a corrupt system we cannot afford. A system that unapologeticly kills people.  We the dead peasants.

We need single-payer universal health care.  The fact that it is not on the agenda, the fact that it is flippantly dismissed makes it loud and clear–Washington does NOT care about you, or me or any dead peasant.

There is no plan for the people. It serves the status qou.  It expands corporate power and infringes on your rights by forcing you to buy into  a death panel–not the death panels of Palin and neo-con storm troopers–but the death panels she supports and calls the best care in the world.

We have to get in the street and march on Washington for single-payer health care.  They dont care about our letters and petitions.  They don’t give a shit!  Obama was elected by progressives.  He needs to act like it and use the bully pulpit for the American people who got him elected.

What the Republicans say does not matter.  We did not elect Cheney or McCain.  America needs a parliamentary system.  Government should not be allowed to be shut down like this.

We elect a progressive, or a Democrat (whatever that is) and whatever bill the leader puts down should be voted on by that party and no other, as long as that leader is supported by the people.  We elected progressives and democrats–not Neo-cons.   Decisions need to be made.  When the leader, senator, or president no longer serves the needs of the people we need a direct vote on NO Confidence.   We need to hold these criminals accountable.

It’s not a perfect system; it may not be the best system, but it’s certainly better than the system we’ve got.  We need a constitutional convention to outlaw soft money, lobbyists, and private contributions to campaign finance.  Each candidate should be allotted an equal share by the people and all candidates should be made to have equal time on all airwaves, and all candidates made to debate–not just the fascist democrats and Republicans.  When real debate is allowed in this country the people will decide and I assure you they will NOT vote Democrat or Republican.

I wrote an article a few weeks ago supporting Obama.  I have gone back and forth on this man for a long time.   He is not strong enough.  I rescind my support.  He should have arrested Cheney and company for crimes against humanity.  Instead he has made every law ever created a pointless sham.  An illusion for the plebeians.  Laws are made to keep the mob under control.  Laws are not made for senators and presidents–our dear leaders, our lords and masters.   Ironically, that means even Saddam should not have been punished or killed.  We should have put it behind us.  Hell, Osama Bin Laden made a mistake–we should put it behind us and let the man get on with his life (well, that’s what they did.  Osama Bin Laden was hired by the Cheney and Bush terror network).  Because its okay to slaughter poor people, just not wealthy people, just not gilded aristocrats.

We need to get in the streets now and start advocating third parties, wherever you stand: Independent, Green, Libertarian, Constitutional, progressive, Socialist… it’s better than Democrat or Republican (The Democratic-Republicans–the fascist party).

Do not vote Democrat or Republican.  Its time to unseat hem.  It’s time for a coup.   We the people.

The health-care plan these criminals propose is outlandish and wrong.  I will not pay into this system.   But I will gladly give half my pay-check, if that’s what it requires (which it would not) to  a universal single-payer health plan–health-care for all.

If I was Obama I would sit on evidence to incriminate Cheney and Bush until maybe my second term when health care and jobs and other much needed reforms were made (which he hasn’t done enough of..as we see with health-care), and then I would throw my cards down on the table-all the photos and memos and anything else I could dig up, and re-open investigations into 911, and Cheney and the Bush family for crimes against humanity.  I would make it my crowning achievement in my second term.   If I thought I couldn’t get re-elected, I would begin the process in my third year.  All he had to do was pass a single-payer health plan and would have, no doubt in my mind, secured a second term.  If he begins the criminal justice process against Cheney and Bush associates he will no doubt win the favor of Americans and the world and get re-elected.  Hell, Americans might even demand he stay for a third term as we did with George Washington.

But that only happens in democracies.  We don’t live in a democracy.  Get in the streets and win back your country.  Shame Democrats and Republicans wherever they hide–smoke them out of their holes and humiliate them in public.  Stalk them.  Tape them.  Interview them when its most uncomfortable for them.  Ask the hard questions.  Make truthful statements.  Block traffic.  Take over insurance buildings as they do in France. (Don’t hurt anybody–don’t lower yourself to their putrid level). Vote third parties and independent.  Leave religion out of it.  Democracy by nature can only be secular.

 In a recent article, China’s Silicon Ceiling: Beijing/Google skirmish is a reminder that free markets require free minds, posted on Slate January 16, some disturbing realities the way some companies and some countries do business should make us question who we are, who we say we, and what we profess to want for our future, and those who inherit the wind. 

 Daniel Gross uses a touch of irony to make a good point:  that some governments and some companies have no ethical principle, that maybe business is not just business, or that it shouldn’t be—just business as usual.  When we do business, we deal with people, we affect their lives, livelihoods and their health—and sometimes even whether they live or die.  But there are some countries that openly admit they do not believe in ethical business—that business is business, and all for profit—NOT principles, morals, ethics, NOT humanity—humanity has no place in the economics of some regimes.  What rational, humanistic, benign country would openly admit it doesn’t care about humanity?

 China.

 There’s one thing, above all, in the China principle that needs our special attention and should worry every human being on the planet.  Daniel Gross reminds us that “As a group, the Fortune 500 have overlooked or come to terms with the lack of political freedom [in China]. After all, General Motors and KFC are in the business of selling stuff, not principles. And they have to be in China because that’s where the action is.  If you don’t come to the Chinese markets, other countries will,” said Zheng Zeguang,” a mouthpiece for the totalitarian regime.

 The Fortune Five hundred is in the business of selling stuff—not principles?  We should remember that big business is of the people and by the people—it draws from the earth that sustains us and the communities that nourish us.  After all, people make corporations work.  Above everything, industries must be in the business of principles, especially as corporations come to define us and our lives more and more in a super-capitalist zeitgeist.  Principles and business should be inseparable and inalienable. 

 The Coca-Cola Company dries up personal drinking wells, and water tables, contaminates water systems that small everyday people rely on.  Factories from GM deplete resources, exacerbate war and pollute our air (delaying and preventing greener technology)—blackening our lungs and contributing to kidney failure and other ailments and malformations, etc.—and KFC and McDonald’s deplete our nutrient-rich soil by harmful industrial agricultural practices to feed factory-farmed beef and chicken laced with chemicals, steroids, hormones, pesticides, and antibiotics, all practices, policies, and principles leading to disease in humans, malformation, cancer, growth-disorders, imperfect immune systems, groundwater contamination, eutrophication in lakes and streams (increase in the concentration of chemical nutrients in ecosystems; a dense green bloom of cyanobacteria resulting in severe anoxia, reduction in water quality, harm to fish and animals: dead water), global warming, pandemic-diseases such as SARS, Bird Flu, Swine Flu, H1N1, and whatever killer is coming next.  This is what they sell us; this is what we are buying.  When we support these companies, when we support poor business ethics destructive to our biosphere and our health we support destructive principles—anti-human principles.  What China is saying is that ‘China have no business-ethics; China have no principles—if you don’t like it—stay the F**k out!’

 But even more worrying is the fact that China is exporting these non-principles of anti-humanism to the world, expanding its financial and industrial empire all over the globe.  So when the Chinese continually reiterate—“Why do fear China?”  I say you have almost 2 billion people.  I say you don’t believe in individual freedom.  You don’t believe in community-freedom.  You do not believe in humanistic principles (at least in a business sense).  You have none (in a business sense).  You do not care about human health, rights, or self-determination.  You do not show any empathy to the human race.  Harsh as it may sound—actions speak much louder than words—empty rhetoric and your words match your actions (in a business sense), at least part of the time: the other times it’s just lip-service (they do not regulate industries in the protection of the environment, or regulate themselves; quite the contrary).

The other worrying thing is that China increasing feels it doesn’t have to listen to or compromise with the International community—it sees itself as an emergent superpower, an empire.  In fact this has been its long history, one defined by ethnocentrism and extreme nationalism, pride and prejudice.  If a Chinese actress performs in a Japanese film, she is banished from public favor and ‘Han-Chinese nationality/race’, at least in their minds and their words.  She is hated, almost ravenously.  And the Chinese regime demonstrates its arrogance and haughty pride when it declares—if you don’t like it, well, so what—other counties will bend a knee and pay tribute to anti-human principles if you do not.  Should we do business with a country that purports not to have business-ethics and principles? I hope other companies follow Google’s’ path.  Do no evil.

 China’s ceiling in context:

 For the last 30 years, China has been testing a new, inverted model: breakneck economic development while retaining strict limits on personal liberty. The Communist Party has wrenched the nation into the 21^st century. The hardware is certainly impressive—the maglev trains, shiny new airports, and modern skyscrapers. China has displaced the United States as the world’s largest car market and is about to surpass longtime rival Japan as the second-largest economy. Such growth has attracted American companies, which inevitably make a series of trade-offs when they decide to head east. They accept local joint-venture partners and the risk of intellectual property theft, and learn to negotiate a commercial culture in which the government may arrest and jail a key executive, as happened with Australian mining giant Rio Tinto. As a group, the Fortune 500 have overlooked or come to terms with the lack of political freedom. After all, General Motors and KFC are in the business of selling stuff, not principles. And they have to be in China because that’s where the action is. “If you don’t come to the Chinese markets, other countries will,” said Zheng Zeguang,

 Superfusion: How China and America Became One Economy.

 Daniel Gross also notes that “[Google] sells access to information. Its business model requires freedom of linking, surfing, and expression. And that’s why it, along with other media and New Economy companies, hasn’t done well in China.”

 I disagree with him.  Here’s why.  Google did pretty well in China and its share of the market would have kept growing dramatically.  There are a lot of English learners in China—more than any place in the world— and “Our China” hungry for outside information.  Even though a considerable amount of information—critical of the totalitarian regime—is censored and blocked, there is still a wealth of cultural, educational, entertainment, infotainment, and news available on Google that many Chinese citizens, students, and teachers desire.  But most Chinese will also use Baidu because it has a format—while distasteful to me—they are more comfortable with [including an overload of flashing advertisements]. Things Chinese youth like.  And the engine is scripted in Chinese.  Google can be accessed in Chinese as well, but for a nationalistic, country with a growing pride, they sometimes prefer Chinese products—can anyone blame them?  In addition, the centralized State-power heavily subsidizes and assists domestic business.  One can’t really blame them for that either, less one throws rocks at glass houses.  Though, it is a wee-bit unfair, considering they expect American and European domestic markets to be completely open to them, while they throw up obstacles to the West at every turn.  And they endorse, and no doubt, subsidize cyber espionage and asymmetrical warfare.  Right or wrong, why should Google or any other company subject themselves to harassment, and/or practice harmful business ethics and non-principles at the same time—just for profit and selling stuff? 

 I don’t want to decouple the economy.  I don’t want to completely stop business and trade with China.  I just think that China should behave responsibly in the business world, in the consumer world, and with humanity in general, Chinese citizens and world citizens alike.  I think that America and other countries should behave in equally responsible ways.  And above all, I think all commercial and non-commercial industries need to practice humanistic business ethics—including policies that are open to and support principles of self-determination and free information.  So, I’d like to coin a new phrase, a new proverb.  Be like Google.

 Daniel Gross writes:  “Google’s software engineers became billionaires by devising a democratic algorithm.  China, too, is led by engineers, but civil engineers. They believe the nation is getting richer precisely because they are keeping democratic tendencies in check.”

 At the heart of this controversy is the very future of the world.  Do we continue to practice and nourish democratic principles or do we move backwards toward China’s principles—fascism, totalitarianism, martial law, jealously guarding/wielding power used to manipulate the public, control the public, and incarcerate imagination?

  Be like Google.

I recently viewed President Barrack Obama’s discussion with the Democratic Caucus at the White House blog and I noticed some disorientating and perplexing political and interpersonal contradictions imbued in his responses, his actions, and his policies.

 Politics as usual? 

 He said as president he must deal with a lot of criticism—some of it probably unfair and that he just doesn’t listen to it—he doesn’t read the blogs, he doesn’t watch the news. And he asked his caucus not to either.  Now, I don’t want to take this out of context—he was certainly, I think, referring to the neo-con media, the conservatives, the Tea-baggers and the KKK, but at the same time he champions net-neutrality, transparent democracy, initiates You-tube forums and online discussions with the President—himself—and posts videos on his Whitehouse blog and mentions time and time again how we should all listen to each other, and he professes to listen to the people in an effort to open democracy and bring government back to the people, but then implies that there is nothing worthwhile in the blogosphere or in the independent media for that matter.  So is he listening or isn’t he?  

 There are plenty of his supporters in the blogosphere who in all fairness just want to dialogue on some issues with their President, and supporters who have honest reasonable criticism of some policies coming out of his administration, supporters who have doubts about some of the non-policies coming out of Washington, who question local governments, who praise local governments and want to share a good idea that they think the Federal Government should emulate.  There are many supporters who are desperate for all that ‘change’ mired in petty politics.  There is such a thing as constructive criticism.  And there are plenty of good positive ideas in the blogosphere that deserve consideration.  So when he makes a statement like that I think its fair to assume some people will it take out of context or try to put it into some other context.        

 And when Senator Arlen Specter asked about American jobs vanishing and re-appearing in China President Obama had a clipped dismissive response.  Specter spoke of the incredible imbalance in trade deficit between China and the US, about China’s violations of the WTO treaties—China offsetting trade with huge subsidies for essentially all their domestic and export industries, inconsistencies, labor rights.  He said:

We have lost 2.3 million jobs as a result of the trade imbalance with China between 2001 and 2007… We have China violating international law with subsidies and dumping — really, a form of international banditry.  They take our money and then they lend it back to us and own now a big part of the United States.

And then he asked a two part question:

  The first part of my question is, would you support more effective remedies to allow injured parties — unions which lose jobs, companies which lose profits — by endorsing a judicial remedy, if not in U.S. courts perhaps in an international court, and eliminate the aspect of having the ITC decisions overruled by the President — done four times in 2003 to 2005, at a cost of a tremendous number of jobs on the basis of the national interest.  And if we have an issue on the national interest, let the nation pay for it, as opposed to the steel industry or the United Steel Workers.

 And the second part of the question, related, is when China got into the World Trade Organization, a matter that 15 of us in this body opposed, there were bilateral treaties.  And China has not lived up to its obligations to have its markets open to us, but take our markets and take our jobs.  Would you support an effort to revise, perhaps even revoke, those — that bilateral treaty, which gives China such an unfair trade advantage?

 Obama addressed some of the realities—and I’m paraphrasing, ‘We need China’ he says, ‘I don’t think it’s a good idea to isolate ourselves from China.  China is an enormous market with a lot of consumers. We need to take advantage of that. The rest of the world will be selling goods to China and it would be a bad idea to get left behind.’

Arlen, I would not be in favor of revoking the trade relationships that we’ve established with China.  I have shown myself during the course of this year more than willing to enforce our trade agreements in a much more serious way.  And at times I’ve been criticized for it.  There was a case involving foreign tires that were being sent in here, and I said this was an example of where we’ve got to put our foot down and show that we’re serious about enforcement.  And it caused the usual fuss at the international level, but it was the right thing to do.

 Having said that, I also believe that our future is going to be tied up with our ability to sell products all around the world, and China is going to be one of our biggest markets, and Asia is going to be one of our biggest markets.  And for us to close ourselves off from that market would be a mistake.

 The point you’re making, Arlen, which is the right one, is it’s got to be reciprocal.  So if we have established agreements in which both sides are supposed to open up their markets, we do so and then the other side is imposing a whole set of non-tariff barriers in place, that’s a problem.  And it has to be squarely confronted.

 So the approach that we’re taking is to try to get much tougher about enforcement of existing rules, putting constant pressure on China and other countries to open up their markets in reciprocal ways. 

One of the challenges that we’ve got to address internationally is currency rates and how they match up to make sure that our goods are not artificially inflated in price and their goods are artificially deflated in price.  That puts us at a huge competitive disadvantage.

But what I don’t want to do is for us as a country, or as a party, to shy away from the prospects of international competition, because I think we’ve got the best workers on Earth, we’ve got the most innovative products on Earth, and if we are able to compete on an even playing field, nobody can beat us.  And by the way, that will create jobs here in the United States.

If we just increased our exports to Asia by a percentage point, by a fraction, it would mean hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of jobs here in the United States.  And it’s easily doable.

And that’s why we are going to be putting a much bigger emphasis on export promotion over the next several years.  And that includes, by the way, export promotion not just for large companies but also for medium-size and small companies…

 Trade imbalances have to be squarely confronted, he said, but he didn’t really answer the question.  China has an enormous briar patch of non-tariff trade barriers, including State funded corporations.  In fact, pretty much all of their major companies benefit from state sponsorship and even state-control like China Mobile or Baidu.  And Obama avoided speaking about the giant sucking sound –in the words of Ross Perot—the sound of American jobs going overseas.  And whilst he did address the trade disputes and his efforts to create many new jobs in the Recovery Act—with renewable energy and the upcoming high-speed rail—all of which I think are triumphal steps crucial to our progress, he did not address the reality that manufacturing jobs, IT jobs, and other white collar jobs are vanishing and that when corporations vacate to developing countries they go to reap the awards of cheap labor—a euphemism for slave labor, the complete absence of worker’s rights, and the absence of strong environmental regulation.  

 We should not only be concerned about jobs, competitiveness and American pre-eminence, but also about eco-justice.  While the Chinese government is investing significantly in solar, wind, and even some weatherization of new infrastructure, most buildings’ and homes in China are energy vacuums, and China continues to invest enormously in coal, building five new dirty coal plants a day, while it’s localalized industries blatantly contaminate water systems, soil, and air profusely and without any fear of consequences.  There are none.  At least not in a legal sense.  Rivers run inky black.  The sun is lost in syrupy yellow smog.  Once fertile lands, are scorched, paved over, and flooded with toxic tailings of industry at an ever-growing rate.  And concerned citizens are unjustly jailed, beaten, marginalized, harassed, and even killed by police and hired-thugs.  So most keep quiet and unconcerned.

 President Obama plans to address these issues case by case and that is the only way to do it in a democratic world.  Another kind of man might talk in absolutes.  We know what that leads to.  But I think Obama needs to say this—that free trade is slave trade and cheap labor is slavery—out loud and in public over and over again to make it a reality in the minds of government officials, in the minds of corporate shills and corporate overseers, and in the minds of the people.  He wants to work with China, not against it.  I agree with that, as long we work with China to end slavery, clean-up the environment, cap emissions, and stop supporting genocidal regimes around the world.  And we should set the example, or it’s all meaningless. 

 Slave labor?  We’ve all heard that rhetoric before.  But it’s less rhetorical than ‘cheap labor’.  The fact is, Chinese factory workers, while they can make more money than they can at tilling the land, the meager wages they earn are hardly enough to get by on, and there are no benefits.  In fact sometimes they don’t get paid.  They work 12-18 hour days, six or seven days a week, work in hazardous unsanitary environments and are often mistreated.  But the really sad thing is most of these factory workers never consider their situation; indifferent, ignorant or apathetic, they believe that their lives have improved and they are rising in socio-economic status—though this is mostly unarticulated.  I’m not saying anything most of you don’t know all ready, but we don’t hear elected officials saying it, and we haven’t heard Obama say it.  Free trade is a concept that grew out of the southern United States—out of the slave trade, the Civil War was partly fought over this issue.  The South wanted free trade and was vociferous about it, and the North needed to protect its nascent industry from highly developed European industries in order to compete and to grow.  The South wanted to import everything from abroad—they had no industry and relied on slave labor to produce the few agricultural commodities that fueled their economy.  Ironically, it is true of our past as well as the present and the rhetoric it conveniently covers up—the fact that free trade equals slave trade and cheap labor equals wage-slave and that our industries are abandoning local communities in all 50 states to legally but inhumanely exploit this slavery, and thereby exonerating it. 

 These corporations benefit very few people—it’s not honest to speak of them contributing so much to our economy and our livelihoods if they treat us as cheap and expendable, and if only a small number of boardmembers reap any of the riches gained from outsourcing and off-shoring.  The key issue here is its dishonest, unethical, and I would say resembles something very close to treason, except that it is doing irreparable harm not only to American economy and livelihoods, but also a great deal of injustice and maltreatment is committed on behalf of our fellow travelers in nations all over the world and to the biosphere.  The fact is –it’s not sustainable, whether we are talking about fairness, and equality, human rights, climate change, or pollution.  When we export jobs to China, we export not only our wealth but our morality and therefore our credibility. 

 Why do we accept the disparity between corporate executive wealth and the ever-increasing poverty of the workers and laborers who produce that wealth?  Shouldn’t we get a fair deal?  They constantly extol the virtues of exporting jobs to China for ‘cheap labor’—for cheap humans—and the benefits of that master-slave economic relationship, and expect us to accept it, without ever drawing the plain and simple fact that this is slavery.  And it is sanctioned not only by China, but every industrial nation in the world.  The truth is the owners of these companies would still make huge profits, and still be rich if they paid workers reasonable wages, and gave them free health-care and substantial pensions, even if they paid them considerable sums.  There are co-operative models of business that do exceedingly well, in which all the workers are equal owners.  The Mondragon system in Spain is a model example, and in Michael Moore’s new film Capitalism we are introduced to a cooperative company manufacturing highly-advanced microchips.  Cooperatives are democratic systems, whereas the traditional corporation’s are in fact feudal systems, and totalitarian.  Why do we insist on democracy in our daily public life, but not in our workplace?  It is not compatible with the democratic values we profess to support.  But let’s forget I even mentioned it.  Even if we accept the feudal system it remains a fact that American jobs are going and going fast, and that all the new green jobs we manufacture will not sustain us very long and will not replace the millions of jobs we are creating in China.   

 So the president won’t challenge Free trade directly? 

 Okay, while I agree that we need to trade with all countries to sustain a certain quality of life; we need much more Fair Trade and less of the Status Quo.  Trading products, goods, and services is one thing, but trading jobs is another.  Giving away jobs is something else completely.  All the rhetoric about capitalism lifting people up is meaningless if owners don’t support their workers with handsome wages and benefits or actively improve their quality of life.  Free Trade increases poverty.  In this system we are beasts of burden.

 Perhaps the President misspoke, or more probably, with all the imbroglio of politics and the enormous problems he is charged with it just slipped his mind and came out in a confused heap.  But I don’t think so.  He is smart, and chooses his words carefully.  I think it’s time he addresses this issue by asking corporations first—to start paying benefits and greater shares of the profit to employees, and secondly, demanding it.  If fewer taxes for small business encourage growth, maybe other incentives can be developed for big companies that increase employee benefits dramatically, and for staying home (I think he may be doing some of that now).  

 Now it must be said that I support many of the President’s initiatives.  I did not vote in the elections because I’m neither a Democratic or a Republican and when I asked for an absentee ballot, many times, because I’m in China, I didn’t get one, so my vote was abandoned.  However, I do support the President on many issues, and I believe—belief is an act of faith—and I feel that he is an honest man with integrity, forbearance, honor, commitment, and courage; I believe he’s probably done more for this country in one year or two if you count his campaign than any president in the second half of the twentieth century and more than many prior to America’s default-ascent to power (the world destroyed itself in WWII giving America the opportunity to dominate).  I say that because he has made an effort to open the House to scrutiny, and to talk, and to listen, and to funnel money in the right directions, such as inner city development, mass transit, education, small business, green reform, etc—things that no other administration made a real effort to do.  I’m not saying it’s enough.  It’s not.  But listening to this President I feel a sense of closeness.  I feel like the country is a lot smaller and democratic.  I see him fighting tooth and nail with Democrats in his own party and with obstructionists on the right.  I see him making compromises, which we all have to do in a democracy.  I see a man who has to deal with a corrupt and fascist system of government.  I see a man who has to maneuver through omnipresent, omnipotent corporations.  I see a man who in face of hillbilly racism and a constant barrage of slanderous drivel never slumps his shoulders in defeat or shame but holds his head up, walking tall.  I see a strong man.  I see a man who, if he had the choice, would choose to be President in a direct-democracy instead of this dilapidated and corrupt plutocracy, this threadbare State.  I see a man trying to repair a house without any hammer or nails.  The robber barons have been stealing for fifty years, and more so in the last thirty, and even more so in the last eight.  His tool box is empty.  And he needs us to lend him a hand.  And I see him gathering new tools and using them in innovative ways.  I feel better now about him than I’ve ever felt about any President or government in out history, in my history. 

 Under Bush/Cheney I felt atomized, criminalized, and afraid.  That was an administration, a regime that felt to me terribly powerful—backed by Saudi Arabia, special interests, Big Oil, corporate heritage, and wealth.  They were small minded hostile people with a big agenda.  Bush and Cheney snarled on TV and shut down democracy.  They were far away from me.  Wielding dark powers.  They treated us like peasants—their friends in the banks referred to us as ‘dead peasants’ because they take-out life insurance policies on workers—making human death, and human tragedy profitable.  To banks and big business you are worth more dead than alive.   These evils still exist.  But at least now, I feel like they are problems that exist in a democracy and not the total reality.  Obama talks with the people and to the people but not at them, not over them.  I criticize my President, I challenge him, but I still support him, and even more so than I did before.  He may even get my vote in 2012.  In fact, he probably will.  I wish he chose Dennis Kucinich, Nader or Edwards, or even Ron Paul to be his Vice, or his Secretary of State, or that he brought them into his cabinet, close to his ear.  He didn’t. 

 Business as usual?     

 Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.

A Corporate Paradigm

A Shenzhen English rag recently reported (in the 2010-02-03 issue available online) that several consumers were made ill by contaminated products.  In the blurb ‘Coca-Cola investigates mercury poisoning cases’ it states  that the sugar-drink giant believes that mercury found in the product may have been intentionally added by a third party after the canning process.  I was shocked to read this, but these findings should be no surprise.

This report deserves more than a blotter under the fold.  There is a lot more going on here, a lot more at stake than a simple case of negligence on the part of Coca-Cola, or Chinese bottling plants, or Chinese regulatory commissions, or even foul play by invisible actors and should be seen as a glaring red warning light, like the idiot-light blinking in the console under the steering wheel that tells us our engine needs care and maintenance.  Something isn’t  right under the hood.  Something isn’t right in the corporate paradigm.

There are several problems here beyond human error, corporate error, the lack of will in the Chinese government, or malice.   We should be asking a lot more questions of companies like Coca-Cola, and holding them accountable; after all, it’s their product and their responsibility to govern plants under their name whether in America, Europe, or Asia.  We need to be more aware of the roles multinational companies play in our lives, in economics, in politics, and dissemination of information available to the public.  Some of these multi-national companies wield buying power greater than many nations combined.  That makes them almost as powerful as governments, and sometimes as powerful or more powerful.  For instance, they can conscript private security firms, and borrow police to quell dissent and public outrage and even hire private mercantile armies like Blackwater to facilitate market penetration.  The problem is we have very few ways to hold them accountable.

Moreover, everyone is aware, for example that in China, there are many–no, countless– incidents of food, drink, and product contamination.  Take for example, the melamine milk scandal, incidents of opium and road-salt being used as seasoning, or lead in toys which exacerbate trade rows, which are less about politics, free trade. fair trade, trade deficits, and balance and more about  business and community ethics, trust, integrity, and health.  Consumer trust has diminished all over the world, not just over products emanating from China but over International products like Coke and Pepsi.  I drink a lot of Pepsi.  One reason is I love carbonated drinks, but I also choose Pepsi over Coke because Coca-cola has an appalling record of business-ethics.  But lately, I’ve been drinking Pepsi bought in local shops here in China, on many occasions and over an extended period of time, which seems to be contaminated with fungal bacteria—it has that taste that one gets at a bar from unclean lines, when bacteria and residue builds up in the rubber hose.  This isn’t healthy.  And it suggests there is a problem on some level in the canning process at Chinese distributors which leads me to believe that similar problems exist at Coca-Cola plants in China, so when Coke claims its manufacturing procedures fulfill the country’s [China] food regulations I do not feel any comfort from that statement.

Why?  I think we know why.

Perhaps, the country’s food regulations are not strict enough, local workers and authorities are not careful enough, or negligent in their regulatory practices, or maybe multinational companies are not truly concerned about public-health.  Concerning safe, clean, and edible products China certainly has some issues to work-out, but I think people need to be more aware of the Coke corporate paradigm as well.

The Coke corporate paradigm?  Appalling business-ethics?

[The following facts and figures, and some of the rhetoric is borrowed from Green Party Literature www.greenparty.org ]

Americans have had a century old love affair with a sugar laden, caffeine laced carbonated drink called Coke, and now China is being mesmerized by the wave.  While it took the Universe 15 billion years to produce the human race, the Coca-Cola Company has penetrated every continent on the globe in less than a century.  Coke is a model for all multinational corporate domination.  Coke uses clout to bully governments.  It is one of the largest Foreign Direct Investors in India, ranking with GM, Ford, and Hugh electronics.  It pressured the Indian government to allow it to sell 49% of its Indian companies to local shareholders while keeping 100% of voting rights.  Coca-Cola controls bottlers via presence on local boards and by its financial power, but keeps its stakes at less than 50% to protect the mother company from debts and liabilities, such as mercury contamination.

And Coke depletes massive amounts of groundwater in poor countries.  Villagers in Plachimada and Mehdiganj India charge Coke with draining personal wells, drying up ponds, and destroying livelihoods.  The bottling plant in Mehdiganj, India drains hundreds of thousands of liters daily, lowering the groundwater level by 40 feet.  Additionally, Coca-Cola pollutes water resources in Mexico, Ghana and India.  The plant near Benares, India outraged citizens by disposing its waste into fields and mango groves.  Over 20 acres were destroyed and stagnant water created a mosquito epidemic.  These impoverished people have no clout in which to fight back, or affect their own lives, and Coke takes advantage of their powerlessness.  But speaking of epidemics…

Obesity is perhaps the number one health problem in the U.S.  Millions of health care dollars are spent on Diabetes Mellitus every year.  This looks like it might be a growing problem in China as well.  Coca-Cola leads the junk food industry in manipulating people into eating unhealthy refined-sugar products.  Over consumption of sugar is associated with obesity, diabetes and tooth decay.  A 12oz. can of Coke contains 39g of sugar (about 9 teaspoons).  And a 12oz. Can of Diet Coke has 46.5mg of caffeine.  Caffeine is addictive.  Caffeine plus sugar is particularly habit forming.  Caffeine acts on the central nervous system and can make children hyperactive.  Why am I so concerned?  Everybody loves the occasional sweet treat, right?

Because the insidious Coca-Cola Company has used its colossal wealth to manipulate, buy, and inveigle its way into the mainstream diet.  The Coca-Cola Company is a driving force in persuading school boards in the West to compromise children’s health by bringing soft drink vending machines into schools.  The same vending machines placed to prey on school children pollute government buildings, private workplaces and union halls.  Let a treat be a treat.  It shouldn’t be so convenient.  There should, at least, be a healthy alternative beside the Coke machine.  But Coke routinely shoulders out the competition in these public arenas, like a bully on the playground.  I know the dining-halls and canteens on the University campus I work at here in Nanchang, China, Nanchang University, is plastered  with Coca-Cola signs, and Pepsi is not available (except in small privately-owned shops).

In addition to toxic discharges, groundwater theft, and health-issues, Coke has a reputation for racial discrimination and persecution of workers who raise safety issues. The Colombian union SINALTRAINAL has sued Coca-Cola in the US, saying local bottlers hired death squads to kill union organizers.  SINALTRAINAL charges that in March 2004, administrators in Cucuta and Cartagena trapped workers in bottling plants to pressure them to renounce contracts (similar incidents have occurred in China at other US manufacturing plants).  The factory workers died.

And Coke buys sugar from at least four plantations that use child labor.  In El Salvador, thousands of children as young as eight use machetes and sharp knives up to nine hours a day to harvest sugar cane.

Every time we buy Coke or Coke products we support this kind of callous and destructive behavior.  Every can of Coke you buy is a Yes Vote for environmental pollution, waste, violations of human health, dignity, rights, and the persecution of workers.  One way we can hold multinational corporations accountable for their unethical actions is by not buying their products.  If we continue to buy these products we say, essentially, we don’t care about these issues, about our brothers and sisters, our lonely planet, and so un-ethical companies like Coca-Cola have no incentive to change—they continue to destroy livelihoods with your blessing.

A world boycott of Coca-Cola was started July 22, 2003 to protest the killing of SINALTRAINAL union members in Coca-Cola bottling plants in Columbia.  Many institutions for a greener, more harmonious world have joined this boycott.  Say no to Coke—Don’t bring Coke in here. Only when a multinational company that practices unethical behavior demonstrates commitment to harmony should we lift any bans on their products.  That is what we must do with Coke.  As consumers, united, we have great strength.  Don’t  ignore this blinking idiot-light.  Remember that ‘Where there is a will, there is a way.’

What can you do?

Don’t drink Coke.  Persuade friends, neighbors, and co-workers to boycott Coke.  If you belong to a school, local business, VFW, a Union Hall, a church, private or public institution, work with it to cancel the contract.  Buy Pepsi.  Buy local or organic soft-drinks.  Buy some local fruit and juice it.  Buy a thermos or canteen and carry your home-grown home-made juice to school and work.  Ask your college or university to cancel Coke contracts.  End Coke’s rule.

Joshua Bigley

Nanchang, Jiangxi China

View the following link to read:

an Extract from What Kind of God: A Survey of the Current Safety of China’s Food (Reportage Literature, 2004)

part I:

http://www.chinadialogue.net/article…fears-part-one-

http://www.forumsforums.com/3_9/showthread.php?t=12765

Part II:

http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/379

Below is the blurb in Shenzhen Daily