What are the consequences of allowing Corporations to regulate themselves?
January 17, 2012 in 2012 Elections, Wall Street
Another example of the “doubling-down head-banging logic” is the nonsense that deregulation of corporations is what we need. All you need to do is take a look at their current records and remember that this is their behavior even in the face of the half-assed regulations that we currently have and ask yourself: What would it look like with no regulations?
For example, consider the history of human and environmental abuse of just one of these hundreds of multinational corporation: Chevron
They pollute the environment and ruin the health of people in other nations.
The petrochemical company Chevron is guilty of some of the worst environmental and human rights abuses in the world. From 1964 to 1992, Texaco (which transferred operations to Chevron after being bought out in 2001) unleashed a toxic “Rainforest Chernobyl” in Ecuador by leaving more than 600 unlined oil pits in pristine northern Amazon rainforest and dumping 18 billion gallons of toxic production water into rivers used for bathing water. The toxic crude oil and formation water seeped into the subsoil, contaminating surrounding freshwater and farmland. As a result, local communities have suffered severe health effects, including cancer, skin lesions, birth defects, and spontaneous abortions. Indigenous communities have been dispossessed of their lands, and millions of hectares of rainforest have been destroyed to make way for the company’s pipelines and oil wells.
There is evidence that they even murder to protect their profits.
Chevron is also responsible for the violent repression of nonviolent opposition to oil extraction. In Nigeria, Chevron has collaborated with the Nigerian police and military who have opened fire on peaceful protestors who oppose oil extraction in the Niger Delta. In 1998, two indigenous Ilaje activists were killed by Nigerian military officers flown in by the company while protesting at an oil platform in Ondo state. In 1999, two people from Opia village were killed by military personnel paid by Chevron, after soliciting a meeting to complain about the company’s harmful effects on local fishing. And in 2005, Nigerian soldiers fired upon protestors at Escravos oil terminal, leaving one protestor dead.
The harm they do is not limited to people outside the USA. They destroy the environment and the health of Americans as well.
Additionally Chevron is responsible for widespread health problems in Richmond, California, where one of Chevron’s largest refineries is located. Processing 350,000 barrels of oil a day, the Richmond refinery produces oil flares and toxic waste in the Richmond area. As a result, local residents suffer from high rates of lupus, skin rashes, rheumatic fever, liver problems, kidney problems, tumors, cancer, asthma, and eye problems.
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Where, I ask you, is the evidence that corporations like Chevron would act better if they were given free reign to do as they please to people and the environment?
Seriously, what the hell makes anyone think that deregulating and lifting the legal responsibility for corporations to adhere to human and environmental responsibilities would make them better citizens when in fact, giving them free rein to be even worse criminals than they already are will most likely make them worse criminals than they already are.
As Americans and as citizens of the world, we need to start asking important questions because its a cinch that members of Congress and the Corporate sponsored pundits are not going to ask them.
But asking the important questions is just the first step. We must answer them and then take action accordingly.
Here is another important question that Americans should be asking: Based on their voting records for the past 20 years which have consistently been for Wall Street and the rich, what the hell makes you think that voting for a Democrat or a Republican will bring you anything other than more of the same?
