Rachel's News #842: Can Regulation Succeed?

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Rachel's News #842: Can Regulation Succeed?

Fri, 17 Feb 2006 19:52:47 -0500

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Precaution trainings are now set for Mar. 31-Apr. 2 in New Brunswick,

N.J.; May 19-21 near Chicago; June 23-25 in Seattle; and Sept. 8-10 in

Minneapolis. Some scholarships are available.

 

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Rachel's Democracy & Health News #842

" Environment, health, jobs and justice--Who gets to decide? "

Thursday, February 16, 2006

www.rachel.org -- To make a secure donation,

 

 

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Featured stories in this issue...

 

Is It Possible to Regulate Dangerous Technologies?

The story of Erin Brockovich centered around chromium pollution,

and it seemed to tell of a great victory for people who had been

harmed. But underneath that story lies a deeper tale of the

systematic corruption of science for the purpose of undermining the

U.S. system of chemical regulation -- and this is not a story of

victory by the people. Despite heroic work by dedicated citizen

activists, the corporations may be winning.

Controlling Corporations and Restoring Democracy

The combined impacts of super-sized corporations (companies bigger

than countries) corporate personhood (giving companies the same

constitutional protections as citizens), and money-in-politics

combined with unbridled consumerism can explain the erosion of our

democracy. The solutions proposed here by Lee Drutman and Charlie Cray

would invigorate our democracy, clean up politics with publicly

funded elections and take steps to limit corporate power.

Great Lakes Pollution Is a Bigger Problem Than You Might Think

Despite decades of effort cleaning up the Great Lakes, industrial

discharges of water pollutants into the lakes are rising in both

Canada and the United States, according to a new report from

Environmental Defence and the Canadian Environmental Law Association.

The Global Rise of Chronic Disease

Chronic disease from unhealthy diets, physical inactivity and the

use of tobacco is causing the premature deaths of up to 35 million

people worldwide -- in all social classes -- according to scientists

at a recent conference sponsored by the AAAS (American Association for

the Advancement of Science). In America, 75 percent of us will soon

achieve a body weight that negatively affects our health.

 

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Rachel's Democracy & Health News #842, Feb. 16, 2006

 

IS IT POSSIBLE TO REGULATE DANGEROUS TECHNOLOGIES?

 

By Peter Montague

 

During 2005, in a four-part series of front-page articles, the Wall

Street Journal (WSJ) blew the whistle on the utterly-broken system for

regulating chemicals in the U.S. In recent weeks, we have examined

the first three parts of the WSJ series (see here, here, and

here). Today we examine part 4 -- in many ways the most profoundly

troubling article of all.

 

In part 4 of its series, WSJ reveals that U.S. regulatory standards

for a potent cancer-causing chemical, chromium-6, were substantially

relaxed as a direct result of a 20-year plan devised and carried out

by a small group of " hired gun " consultants who intentionally planted

false information about chromium-6 in the scientific literature,

misled regulators, and violated most of the ethical standards upon

which the credibility of science itself rests. Instead of being

punished for these profoundly anti-social acts, the consultants were

given lucrative contracts by the U.S. Department of Energy and the

president of the firm was appointed to an advisory board of the

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta.

 

This story has been thoroughly investigated and fully documented not

only by Peter Waldman in the Wall Street Journal, but also by hard-

hitting, gutsy reports by the Environmental Working Group in

Washington, D.C., and by the Newark (N.J.) Star-Ledger's top

environmental reporter, Alexander Lane, who broke the story first.

 

The story begins with Erin Brockovitch, the paralegal played by Julia

Roberts in the movie named after her. For years PG & E, a California

utility, dumped large quantities of chromium-6 into unlined pits in

the ground, which subsequently leaked chromium-6 into underground

drinking water supplies in the town of Hinkley. Many people grew ill.

 

Chromium-6 (or " hexavalent chromium " ) is a very toxic form of the

shiny metal ( " chrome " ) used for plating automobile bumpers, making

stainless steel, and so on. The other form, Chromium-3 is a relatively

benign species of chromium (in tiny amounts it is an essential

nutrient for humans). Chromium-6 on the other hand is a potent

carcinogen -- some say it is the second most potent carcinogen after

dioxin, causing lung cancer and perhaps nasal cancer, stomach cancer,

lymph cancer, and cancer of the blood-forming cells.

 

As the Erin Brockovitch story unfolded in California, a related story

unfolded on the other side of the continent, in New Jersey, where

three firms had spent the first half of the 20th century dumping

millions of tons of chromium wastes in Hudson and Essex Counties, just

across the Hudson River from New York City. According to the

companies, these wastes were 86% chromium-3 mixed with 14% chromium-6.

During the '50s and '60s, as awareness of toxic waste began to grow,

the three firms got rid of their toxic problem by donating chromium

waste free to anyone who showed up with a dump truck. As a result,

chromium waste was used to shape foundations, pave roads, fill

wetlands and build sewers. Little league ball fields and school yards

were covered with it. High-end golf courses were contoured with it.

Housing developments were built on it. In Hudson and Essex Counties,

at least 189 sites are contaminated with chromium-6. Many of those

sites are now inhabited by poor people and people of color. Did the

companies know chromium-6 was toxic? Old timers tell how they used to

show new guys a trick -- they would put a dime in one nostril and pull

it out the other. Chromium had eaten away the cartilage between their

nostrils, which a doctor would call " performated nasal septum, " a

classic symptom of chromium poisoning.

 

In the 1990s, thanks in part to Erin Brockovitch, PG & E was facing

hundreds of millions of dollars in liability suits from 650 plaintiffs

who believed they had been made sick by chromium-6. So lawyers for

PG & E hired a man with science degrees -- one would hesitate to call

him a scientist -- named Dennis Paustenbach, who runs a company

called Chemrisk. Chemrisk comes to the aid of large firms when they

get caught poisoning people with toxic chemicals. Across the continent

in New Jersey, the chromium polluters in New Jersey hired the same

Dennis Paustenbach to help them evade liability for their misdeeds.

 

In California, despite Mr. Paustenbach's best efforts, PG & E settled

the case with 650 Hinkley residents for $333 million in 1994. and just

a few weeks ago PG & E settled with a second group of Hinkley

residents for $295 million.

 

But in New Jersey the outcome was different. A 15-year campaign by Mr.

Paustenbach and his colleagues at ChemRisk paid off handsomely for the

polluters and for their friends within N.J. state government, where

the political leadership (both Republican and Democrat) always seemed

to side with the chromium polluters against the citizens, according to

an investigative series by reporter Alex Lane of the Newark Star-

Ledger (available here: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.)

 

When Mr. Paustenbach and his toxic trouble-shooters began work in New

Jersey, the allowable standard for chromium-6 in N.J. soil was 10

parts per million (ppm). When they finished, the N.J. standard was

6,100 parts per million -- the most lax standard anywhere in the U.S.

Mr. Paustenbach proudly estimates that he saved the New Jersey

polluters $1 billion in cleanup costs. In return for this boon, the

three firms only had to contribute $400,000 in perfectly-legal bribes

and blandishments intended to influence N.J. political officials. So

for every dollar invested in corrupting the N.J. political process,

these firms received $2500 in reduced liability for their chromium

wastes. By any measure, this is an excellent return on investment.

 

Some of the politicans involved made out like bandits, too. At the

same time Mr. Paustenbach was buying favors for his three chromium

clients (Honeywell, PPG Industries, and Maxus Energy Corp.) N.J.

officials were using some of Mr. Paustenbach's ideas to devise a

comprehensive plan for dealing with the 12,000 toxic wastes sites that

dot N.J. like a bad case of the measles. Starting with Governor Jim

Florio (Democrat), accelerating under Governor Christie Todd Whitman

(Republican), and continuing under governor James McGreevey

(Democrat), N.J. decided to " solve " its embarrassing and costly toxic

waste problems by " capping " them with a plastic tarp, a thin layer of

asphalt, a sidewalk, a school, a low-cost housing project -- whatever

provided the quickest and cheapest way of hiding toxicants in plain

site. Actual removal of toxicants was out, sweeping toxicants under

the rug was in -- and still is.

 

All the states " developers " were exceedingly grateful for the wisdom

displayed by N.J. state officials and the developers expressed their

gratitude through the perfectly-legal bribes known as " campaign

contributions. " As the " capping " solution to toxics made all kinds of

new land available for re-development, the developers generously cut

the politicians in on their deals. Since leaving office, the two

Democratic ex-governors have been engaged in helping people build on

contaminated sites (which are officially no longer defined as

" contaminated " because the contaminants have been hidden beneath a

plastic tarp or some other fig leaf). And of course the White House

itself recognized Christie Todd Whitman for her service to developers

-- she was appointed head of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

where she reprised her friendly-to-polluters performance on a national

scale. She has since parlayed that prestigious national job into a new

career in N.J. where she is now an " environmental consultant " to

developers. One hand washes the other but the dirt never seems to go

away.

 

Of course such political shenanigans are nothing new. What's new is

the way Dennis Paustenbach's crew chose to change the science of

chromium toxicity. As described by the Wall Street Journal and the

Environmental Working Group, Mr. Paustenbach set out to " salt " the

peer-reviewed scientific literature with falsehoods about chromium,

and he succeeded.

 

The WSJ told the story Dec. 23, 2005:

 

" During China's Cultural Revolution 40 years ago, a city doctor named

Zhang JianDong was banished to the countryside of northeastern China.

He arrived to a public-health emergency.

 

" A giant smelter was spilling large amounts of chromium waste into the

groundwater. Well water was turning yellow. People were developing

mouth sores, nausea and diarrhea. Dr. Zhang spent the next two decades

treating and studying the residents of five villages with chromium-

polluted water.

 

" In 1987, he published a study saying they were dying of cancer at

higher rates than people nearby. He earned a national award in China

for his research. In America, federal scientists translated it into

English, and regulatory agencies began citing it as evidence that a

form of the metal called chromium-6 might cause cancer if ingested.

 

" Then in 1997, Dr. Zhang, in retirement, appeared to retract his

life's work. A " clarification and further analysis " published under

his name in a U.S. medical journal said there was no cancer link to

chromium in the villages after all. This new conclusion, like the

earlier one, soon found its way into U.S. regulatory assessments, as

evidence that ingested chromium wasn't really a cancer risk. "

 

What an extraordinary story -- a Chinese researcher documents cancer

from chromium-6 drinking-water exposures in five villages. He wins an

award from the Chinese government for his work. His study is

translated into English and begins to influence regulatory decisions

in California, New Jersey and Washington, D.C. Then suddenly 10 years

later, without collecting any new data, the Chinese researcher

recants, saying that his data really showed no cancer attributable to

chromium-6 exposures. Gullible U.S. regulators breathe a sigh of

relief because now they can stop worrying about chromium-6

contaminaing drinking water -- a serious concern in at least 37 states

across the U.S.

 

The only problem with this story is that the Chinese researcher did

not write the second study, WSJ tells us, even though it was published

under his name. The second study, recanting the first, was

" conceived, drafted, edited, and submitted to medical journals " by

Chemrisk, Dennis Paustenbach's hired-gun consulting firm.

 

Under the leadership of governor Christie Todd Whitman, New Jersey

environmental officials accepted the bogus study without question, and

went on to give away the store to the chromium polluters, changing New

Jersey's allowable chromium-6 level in soil from 10 ppm to 6100 ppm.

California officials on the other hand smelled a rat. In its study,

" Chrome-Plated Fraud, " the Environmental Working Group (EWG) reports

that a California government scientist, Jay Beaumont, found " several

notable limitations and oddities in the " 1997 recantation paper.

 

Beaumont eventually learned of the whole sorry fraud and itemized 13

ways in which Mr. Paustenbach's Chemrisk firm committed ethical or

scientific breaches, including:

 

** Failure to disclose who wrote the manuscript: The 1997 recantation

was composed by hacks employed by Paustenbach, but Dr. Zhang and and

one of his colleagues were identified as the sole authors.

 

** Failure to disclose that the study was funded by PG & E.

 

** Falsely stating in the published paper that stomach cancer rates

weren't available for the province surrounding the 5 villages. The

data were in fact readily available but they inconveniently showed

that chromium-6 was tightly associated with elevated cancer levels, so

Mr. Paustenbach's minions omitted the data, then lied saying the data

weren't available.

 

** Basing analysis on the level of contamination detected in the wells

in 1965, knowing that by the end of that year the picture of

contamination in the wells had dramatically changed.

 

** Ignoring useful data that were readily available. Misrepresenting

the study design in several ways to make it seem stronger.

 

** Failing to disclose key facts about the data presented.

 

The Environmental Working Group goes on to say, " The lies, errors, and

misrepresentations in the 1997 JOEM [Journal of Occupational and

Environmental Medicine] article don't stop even there. EWG's review of

court documents and depositions show that several of the high

chromium-6 concentrations reported in Zhang's original 1987 study were

left out of the 1997 paper. Worse, a graphic reporting chromium-6

concentrations in the wells of the Chinese village most affected by

chromium contamination also erroneously shows the chromium-6 levels of

the wells in a different, less contaminated village. "

 

Even after the story of the scientific deception broke, New Jersey DEP

failed to act. The then-DEP-Commissioner Bradley Campbell did his

best to keep the lid on. For example, after the Newark Star-Ledger

broke the story of the Paustenbach's scientific deception, Campbell

would not allow reporters to talk to DEP staff responsibile for

chromium cleanups.

 

But eventually citizen pressure built up to intolerable levels and

Campbell had to act. Between them, the Newark Star-Ledger and the

Interfaith Community Organization in Jersey City put such heat on

Campbell that he finally relented and appointed a 24-member scientific

study group to evaluate the chromium mess in northern New Jersey. The

commission eventually concluded that, yes, DEP had allowed the three

chromium polluters to leave unsafe levels of chromium all across

Hudson and Essex Counties. But Campbell then refused to take further

action. It got so bad that two members of the commission lodged a

formal complaint with U.S. EPA [Environmental Protection Agency],

asking the federal government to step in to protect New Jersey

citizens from chromium. Fortunately, when the new governor was

elected, Campbell was not re-hired as DEP Commissioner, so there's

still hope that something can be done to force the chromium polluters

to do a proper cleanup, returning N.J. to natural background levels of

chromium in soil.

 

But of course the issues raised by this sordid tale go far beyond mere

political manipulation of scientific advisory committees. If this

were an isolated story, we might chalk it up to one individual

committed to undermining the scientific enterprise for personal gain.

This would be comforting. But it isn't the case. If you have been

reading a newspaper during the past 5 or 6 years, you know that

scientific fraud has become common. It has now become standard

operating procedure for corporations to ghost-write medical and

scientific papers, then pay scientists or physicians to allow the

work to be poublished under their name. The Food and Drug

Administration (FDA) and the National Institutes of Health are

riddled with scientists who have conflicts of interest -- they are

making money from companies whose financial wellbeing depends on

research being conducted by their agencies. In 2004, the U.S.

Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) received a record number

of complaints of scientific misconduct -- 50% higher than the number

of complaints in 2003. As we documented in Rachel's News #824 and

#825, manipulating scientific information for the purpose of

manufacturing doubt -- intending to paralyze the reglatory system --

is now an industry unto itself.

 

This story raises the possibility that corporate scientific

malfeasance has now grown so bold, so well-financed and so generally-

accepted as standard operating procedure that no unit of government

can muster the will, the staff, the effort or the courage it would

take to set things right. Maybe corporate power has now outstripped

the ability of any government to rein it in.

 

As a result, we must now ask ourselves whether, under modern

conditions, it is possible to imagine a workable system of regulation

to protect public health from the chemical industry -- or any other

industry premised on dangerous technologies (biotech, nanotech,

weapons in space, nuclear power, etc.)

 

Is a workable system of regulation even imaginable under modern

conditions? If you think the answer is " yes, " we'd like to hear your

ideas. If the answer is " No, " then many of us would have to

acknowledge that we have been wasting our time devising new regulatory

approaches that could never, in fact, work within the current

framework of political power. Therefore we would have to admit we have

been -- and are -- working on the wrong problem(s). And I include my

own work in this.

 

This is a troubling prospect, but one supported by a very large and

rapidly growing body of evidence.

 

Return to Table of Contents

 

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In These Times, Feb. 18, 2005

 

THE PEOPLE'S BUSINESS

 

Controlling corporations and restoring democracy

 

By Lee Drutman and Charlie Cray

 

[DHN introduction: This essay is adapted from The People's Business

(ISBN 1576753093) by Lee Drutman (Citizen Works) and Charlie Cray

(Center for Corporate Policy).]

 

One does not have to look far in Washington these days to find

evidence that government policy is being crafted with America's

biggest corporations in mind.

 

For example, the Bush administration's 2006 budget cuts the

enforcement budgets of almost all the major regulatory agencies. If

the gutting of the ergonomics rule, power plant emissions standards

and drug safety programs was not already enough evidence that OSHA,

EPA and FDA are deeply compromised, the slashing of their enforcement

budgets presents the possibility -- indeed, probability -- that these

public agencies will become captives of the private corporations they

are supposed to regulate.

 

This should come as no surprise to anybody familiar with the streams

of corporate money that flowed into Bush campaign coffers (as well as

the Kerry campaign and all races for the House and Senate) in the 2004

election. The old " follow the money " adage leads us to a democracy in

thrall to giant corporations -- a democracy that is a far cry from the

government " of the people, by the people, and for the people " that

Lincoln hailed at Gettysburg.

 

At a time when our democracy appears to be so thoroughly under the

sway of large corporations, it is tempting to give up on politics. We

must resist this temptation. Democracy offers the best solution to

challenging corporate power. We must engage as citizens, not just as

consumers or investors angling for a share of President Bush's

" ownership society. "

 

The problem of corporate power

 

Unfortunately, the destructive power of large corporations today is

not limited to the political sphere. The increasing domination of

corporations over virtually every dimension of our lives -- economic,

political, cultural, even spiritual -- poses a fundamental threat to

the well-being of our society.

 

Corporations have fostered a polarization of wealth that has

undermined our faith in a shared sense of prosperity. A corporate-

driven consumer culture has led millions of Americans into personal

debt, and alienated millions more by convincing them that the only

path to happiness is through the purchase and consumption of ever-

increasing quantities of material goods. The damage to the earth's

life-supporting systems caused by the accelerating extraction of

natural resources and the continued production, use, and disposal of

life-threatening chemicals and greenhouse gases is huge and, in some

respects, irreversible.

 

Today's giant corporations spend billions of dollars a year to project

a positive, friendly and caring image, promoting themselves as

" responsible citizens " and " good neighbors. " They have large marketing

budgets and public relations experts skilled at neutralizing their

critics and diverting attention from any controversy. By 2004,

corporate advertising expenditures were expected to top $250 billion,

enough to bring the average American more than 2,000 commercial

messages a day.

 

The problem of the corporation is at root one of design. Corporations

are not structured to be benevolent institutions; they are structured

to make money. In the pursuit of this one goal, they will freely cast

aside concerns about the societies and ecological systems in which

they operate.

 

When corporations reach the size that they have reached today, they

begin to overwhelm the political institutions that can keep them in

check, eroding key limitations on their destructive capacities.

Internationally, of the 100 largest economies in the world, 51 are

corporations and 49 are nations.

 

How Big Business got to be so big

 

Corporations in the United States began as quasi-government

institutions, business organizations created by deliberate acts of

state governments for distinct public purposes such as building canals

or turnpikes. These corporations were limited in size and had only

those rights and privileges directly written into their charters. As

corporations grew bigger and more independent, their legal status

changed them from creatures of the state to independent entities, from

mere business organizations to " persons " with constitutional rights.

 

The last three decades have represented the most sustained pro-

business period in U.S. history.

 

The corporate sector's game plan for fortifying its power in America

was outlined in a memo written in August 1971 by soon-to-be Supreme

Court Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. at the behest of the U.S. Chamber of

Commerce. The " Powell Memorandum, " drafted in response to rising

popular skepticism about the role of big business and the

unprecedented growth of consumer and environmental protection laws,

was intended as a catalytic plan to spur big business into action.

Powell argued that corporate leaders should single out the campuses,

the courts and the media as key battlegrounds.

 

One of the most significant developments that followed Powell's memo

was the formation of the Business Roundtable in 1972 by Frederick

Borch of General Electric and John Harper of Alcoa. As author Ted Nace

has explained, " The Business Roundtable... functioned as a sort of

senate for the corporate elite, allowing big business as a whole to

set priorities and deploy its resources in a more effective way than

ever before.... The '70s saw the creation of institutions to support

the corporate agenda, including foundations, think tanks, litigation

centers, publications, and increasingly sophisticated public relations

and lobbying agencies. "

 

For example, beer magnate Joseph Coors, moved by Powell's memo,

donated a quarter of a million dollars to the Analysis and Research

Association, the forerunner of the massive font of pro-business and

conservative propaganda known today as the Heritage Foundation.

Meanwhile, existing but tiny conservative think tanks, like the Hoover

Institute and the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy

Research, grew dramatically in the '70s. Today, they are key players

in the pro-business policy apparatus that dominates state and federal

policymaking.

 

According to a 2004 study by the National Committee for Responsive

Philanthropy, between 1999 and 2001, 79 conservative foundations made

more than $252 million in grants to 350 " archconservative policy

nonprofit organizations. " By contrast, the few timid foundations that

have funded liberal causes often seem to act as a " drag anchor " on the

progressive movement, moving from issue to issue like trust fund

children with a serious case of attention-deficit disorder.

 

>From analysis to action

 

The vast majority of people, when asked, believe that corporations

have too much power and are too focused on making a profit. " Business

has gained too much power over too many aspects of American life, "

agreed 82 percent of respondents in a June 2000 Business Week poll, a

year and a half before Enron's collapse. A 2004 Harris poll found that

three-quarters of respondents said that the image of large

corporations was either " not good " or " terrible. "

 

Corporations have achieved their dominant role in society through a

complex power grab that spans the economic, political, legal and

cultural spheres. Any attempt to challenge their power must take all

these areas into account.

 

There is a great need to develop a domestic strategy for challenging

corporate power in the United States, where 185 of the world's 500

largest corporations are headquartered. Although any efforts to

challenge corporations are inevitably bound up in the global justice

movement, there is much to do here in the United States that can have

a profoundly important effect on the global situation.

 

By understanding the origin of the corporation as a creature of the

state, we can better understand how we, as citizens with sovereignty

over our government, ultimately can and must assert our right to hold

corporations accountable. The task is to understand how we can begin

to reestablish true citizen sovereignty in a country where

corporations currently have almost all the power.

 

Developing the movement

 

To free our economy, culture and politics from the grip of giant

corporations, we will have to develop a large, diverse and well-

organized movement. But at what level should we focus our efforts:

local, state, national or global? The answer, we believe, is a balance

of all four.

 

Across the country, many local communities continue to organize in

resistance to giant chain stores like Wal-Mart, predatory lenders,

factory farms, private prisons, incinerators and landfills, the

planting of genetically modified organisms, and nuclear power plants.

Local communities are continuously organizing to strengthen local

businesses, raise the living wage, resist predatory marketing in

schools, cut off corporate welfare and protect essential services such

as water from privatization. Local struggles are crucial for

recruiting citizens to the broader struggle against corporate rule.

 

Unfortunately, examples of grassroots movements that have succeeded in

placing structural restraints on corporations are not as common as

they should be. One of the ways we can accelerate the process is by

organizing a large-scale national network of state and local lawmakers

who are interested in enacting policies that address specific issues

or place broader restraints on corporate power.

 

Just as the corporations have the powerful American Legislative

Exchange Council (ALEC) to distribute and support model legislation in

the states, so we need our own networks to experiment with and advance

different policies that can curb and limit corporate power. The

National Caucus of Environmental Legislators -- a low-budget coalition

of state lawmakers established in 1996 in response to the Republican

takeover of Congress and several state legislatures -- is a model that

could be used to introduce and advance innovative legislative ideas at

the state level. The New Rules Project has also begun to analyze and

compile information on these kinds of laws. Additionally, the U.S.

PIRG network of state public interest research groups and the Center

for Policy Alternatives have worked to promote model progressive

legislation, as has the newly founded American Legislative Issue

Campaign Exchange (ALICE).

 

Moving the movement

 

Despite their many strengths, many major movements of the past few

decades (labor, environmental, consumer) have all suffered from

internal fractures and a lack of connection to the broader society.

The result is that they have been increasingly boxed into " special

interest " roles, despite the fact that the policies they advocate

generally benefit the vast majority of people.

 

Cognitive linguist George Lakoff puts it this way: " Coalitions with

different interest-based messages for different voting blocks [are]

without a general moral vision. Movements, on the other hand, are

based on shared values, values that define who we are. They have a

better chance of being broad-based and lasting. In short, progressives

need to be thinking in terms of a broad-based progressive-values

movement, not in terms of issue coalitions. "

 

If there is one group at the center of the struggle to challenge

corporate power, it is organized labor. As a Century Foundation Task

Force Report on the Future of Unions concluded, " Labor unions have

been the single most important agent for social justice in the United

States. "

 

Labor is at the forefront of efforts to challenge excessive CEO pay,

corporate attempts to move their headquarters offshore to avoid paying

their fair share of taxes, and the outsourcing of jobs. Labor also has

played a leading role in opposing the war in Iraq and exposing war

profiteers benefiting from Iraq reconstruction contracts.

 

As AFL-CIO President John Sweeney has written, unions need to start

" building social movements that reach beyond the workplace into the

entire community and offer working people beyond our ranks the

opportunity to improve their lives and livelihood. " This is beginning

to occur more frequently. Union locals and national labor support

groups like Jobs With Justice have been a key force in building cross-

town alliances around economic justice battles such as living wage

campaigns and the new Fair Taxes for All campaign.

 

These union-led, cross-community alliances have in turn supported some

of the strongest union organizing campaigns, including the nearly two-

decades-old Justice for Janitors campaign that the Service Employees

International Union (SEIU) and its allies successfully organized in

Los Angeles and other cities across the country.

 

Clearly, labor unions, along with community-based organizations and

churches, will be central to the construction of lasting local

coalitions that can serve as organizing clearinghouses to challenge

corporate rule.

 

Constructing a new politics

 

To challenge corporate power we must also value and rebuild the public

sphere, and draw clear lines of resistance against the expansion of

corporate power, such as the current push by Bush to convert Social

Security into individual investment accounts that will allow Wall

Street to rake off billions of dollars in annual brokerage fees. Most

importantly, we must work to change the rules instead of agreeing to

play with a stacked deck.

 

In our hyper-commercialized culture, we spend far more time and energy

thinking about what products we want to buy next instead of thinking

about how we can change our local communities for the better, or

affect the latest debates in Washington, D.C. or the state capitol.

And when so much energy is spent on commercial and material pursuits

instead of on collective and political pursuits, we begin to think of

ourselves as consumers, not citizens, with little understanding of how

or why we are so disempowered.

 

The restoration of democracy requires us to address the backstory

behind this process of psychological colonization. It requires us to

address the public policies and judicial doctrines that treat

advertising as a public good -- a tax-deductible business expense and

a form of speech protected by the First Amendment. It's been so long

since we have seriously addressed such fundamental questions that, as

a result, the average American is now exposed to more than 100

commercial messages per waking hour. As of October 2003, there were

46,438 shopping malls in the United States, covering 5.8 billion

square feet of space, or about 20.2 square feet for every man, woman

and child in the United States. As economist Juliet Schor reports,

" Americans spend three to four times as many hours a year shopping as

their counterparts in Western European countries. Once a purely

utilitarian chore, shopping has been elevated to the status of a

national passion. "

 

A consequence of the hyper-commercialization of our culture is that

instead of organizing collectively, we often buy into the market-based

ideology of individual choice and responsibility and assume that we

can change the world by changing our personal habits of consumption.

The politics of recycling offers a minor but telling example of how

corporations manage to escape blame by utilizing the politics of

personal responsibility. Although recycling is a decent habit, the

message conveyed is that the onus for environmental sustainability

largely rests upon the individual, and that the solutions to pollution

are not to be found further upstream in the industrial system.

 

The personal choices we make are important. But we shouldn't assume

that's the best we can do. We need to understand that it can't truly

be a matter of choice until we get some more say in what our choices

are. True power still resides in the ability to write, enforce and

judge the laws of the land, no matter what the corporations and their

personal-choice, market-centered view of the world instruct us to

believe.

 

Rebuilding the public sphere

 

With increased corporate encroachment upon our schools and

universities, our arts institutions, our houses of worship and even

our elections, we are losing the independent institutions that once

nurtured and developed the values and beliefs necessary to challenge

the corporate worldview. These and other institutions and public

assets should be considered valuable parts of a public " commons " of

our collective heritage and therefore off limits to for-profit

corporations.

 

" The idea of the commons helps us identify and describe the common

values that lie beyond the marketplace, " writes author David Bollier.

" We can begin to develop a more textured appreciation for the

importance of civic commitment, democratic norms, social equity,

cultural and aesthetic concerns, and ecological needs.... A language

of the commons also serves to restore humanistic, democratic concerns

to their proper place in public policy-making. It insists that

citizenship trumps ownership, that the democratic tradition be given

an equal or superior footing vis-a-vis the economic categories of the

market. "

 

Changing the rules Much citizen organizing today focuses on

influencing administrative, legislative and judicial processes that

are set up to favor large corporations from the very start. Put

simply, many of the rules are not fair, and until we can begin to

collectively challenge this fundamental unfairness, we will continue

to fight with one hand tied behind our backs. Instead of providing

opportunities for people to organize collectively to demand real

political solutions and start asking tough questions about how harmful

policies become law in the first place, many community-based

organizations seem content to merely clean up the mess left behind by

failed economic policies and declining social services.

 

The most successful organizing happens when it is focused on specific

demands. Two crucial reforms have great potential to aid the

movement's ability to grow: fundamental campaign finance reform and

media reform. Together, these could serve as a compelling foundation

for a mass movement that challenges corporate power more broadly.

 

The movement for citizen-controlled elections, organized at the local

level with support from national groups such as the Center for Voting

and Democracy and Public Campaign, provides a useful framework for

action for the broad spectrum of people who currently feel shut out of

politics.

 

Media reform is also essential. With growing government secrecy and a

corporate-dominated two-party political system, the role of

independent media is more critical than ever. As Bill Moyers suggested

in his keynote address at the National Conference on Media Reform in

2003, " If free and independent journalism committed to telling the

truth without fear or favor is suffocated, the oxygen goes out of

democracy. "

 

The media have always been and will continue to be the most important

tool for communicating ideas and educating the public about ongoing

problems. Thomas Paine wrote more than 200 years ago:

 

" There is nothing that obtains so general an influence over the

manners and morals of a people as the press; from that as from a

fountain the streams of vice or virtue are poured forth over a

nation. "

 

History is replete with examples that show how critical the media's

role has been in addressing the injustices of our society. For

instance, many Progressive Era reforms came only in response to the

investigative exposes of corporate abuses by muckraking journalists

like Upton Sinclair and Ida Tarbell. Writing in popular magazines like

Collier's and McClure's, these writers provided a powerful public

challenge to the corruption of the Gilded Age.

 

Because of increased corporate consolidation of the media, coverage of

all levels of government has been greatly reduced. When people are

kept ignorant of what is happening in their communities, in their

states, in Washington, D.C. and in the world, it becomes much easier

for large corporations to overwhelm the political process and control

the economy without citizens understanding what is happening. Though

media reform is a complex subject, one approach bears mentioning --

establishing and strengthening nonprofit media outlets.

 

The long-term vision

 

Though campaign finance reform and media reform offer useful starting

points, ultimately, there is much more to be done. We need to get

tough on corporate crime. We need to make sure markets are properly

competitive by breaking up the giant corporate monopolies and

oligarchies. We need to make corporations more accountable to all

stakeholders and less focused on maximizing shareholder profit above

all. We need to stop allowing corporations to claim Bill of Rights

protections to undermine citizen-enacted laws.

 

Ultimately, we need to restore the understanding that in a democracy

the rights of citizens to govern themselves are more important than

the rights of corporations to make money. Since their charters and

licenses are granted by citizen governments, it should be up to the

people to decide how corporations can serve the public good and what

should be done when they don't. As Justices Byron White, William

Brennan and Thurgood Marshall noted in 1978: " Corporations are

artificial entities created by law for the purpose of furthering

certain economic goals... . The State need not permit its own creation

to consume it. "

 

The people's business

 

The many constituencies concerned with the consequences of corporate

power are indeed a diverse group, and although this diversity can be a

source of strength, it also makes it difficult to clearly articulate a

vision for the struggle. What principles, then, can unite us?

 

One abiding faith that almost all of us share is that of citizen

democracy: that citizens should be able to decide how they wish to

live through democratic processes and that big corporations should not

be able to tell citizens how to live their lives and run their

communities. The most effective way to control corporations will be to

restore citizen democracy and to reclaim the once widely accepted

principle that corporations are but creatures of the state, chartered

under the premise that they will serve the public good, and entitled

to only those rights and privileges granted by citizen-controlled

governments. Only by doing so will we be able to create the just and

sustainable economy that we seek, an economy driven by the values of

human life and community and democracy instead of the current suicide

economy driven only by the relentless pursuit of financial profit at

any cost.

 

Therefore, we must work assiduously to challenge the dominant role of

the corporation in our lives and in our politics. We must reestablish

citizen sovereignty, and we must restore the corporations to their

proper role as the servants of the people, not our masters. This is

the people's business.

 

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Toronto Globe and Mail, Feb. 9, 2006

 

POLLUTION IN GREAT LAKES RISING DESPITE CLEANUP EFFORT, STUDY SAYS

 

Industrial releases of toxic materials took off from 1998 to 2002,

data show

 

By Martin Mittelstaedt

 

TORONTO -- Despite decades of effort cleaning up the Great Lakes,

industrial discharges of water pollutants into the lakes are rising in

both Canada and the United States, according to a new report.

 

The upswing has been pronounced, with the amount of dangerous

pollutants soaring 21 per cent between 1998 and 2002. Discharges rose

23 per cent at U.S. companies and 13 per cent at Canadian ones, said

the report by Environmental Defence and the Canadian Environmental

Law Association. In 1998, more than 4,000 tonnes were discharged,

while in 2002, slightly over 5,000 tonnes entered the lakes.

 

The largest releases were of corrosive nitric acid and nitrates,

compounds that trigger algae and seaweed growth. But the discharges

also included ethylene glycol, a poisonous solvent, and metals,

including nickel, chromium and manganese.

 

The finding is unexpected because companies have spent billions of

dollars trying to clean up the environment, and water quality in the

lakes has improved dramatically since the late 1960s and early 1970s.

 

But environmentalists say the new figures suggest that complacency

about the health of the lakes, the largest body of fresh water in the

world and the source of drinking water for about 24 million people, is

misplaced.

 

" We have not solved the water-pollution problem, " said Paul Muldoon of

the Canadian Environmental Law Association.

 

The reasons are not clear. The report, which is being made public

today, suggested its figures underestimated the amount of pollution

entering the lakes because not all companies must divulge their

releases. Because Canada and the United States have different

disclosure laws, the figures did not include emissions from municipal

sewage plants, another large source of contaminants.

 

Mr. Muldoon said a likely factor behind the increase is that

industries released more pollutants as their output grew.

 

He said that if rising economic output is behind the increase,

companies should have to invest some of their extra revenue in

pollution controls.

 

The largest water polluter on the lakes in 2002 was a U.S. Steel Corp.

plant in Gary, Ind., that discharges effluent into Lake Michigan. The

largest Canadian polluter was an Imperial Oil refinery in Sarnia that

discharges into the St. Clair River.

 

The groups say their report is the first comprehensive look at

industrial pollution trends in the Great Lakes region in about a

decade. Environment Canada undertook a similar study based on data

from the early 1990s.

 

Governments stopped extensive monitoring of pollutant releases because

the Great Lakes were believed to be returning to good health. But if

discharges are rising again, the lack of scrutiny is misplaced,

according to one of those who worked on the report.

 

The failure of governments to compile this data is " a real indictment

of the lack of attention being paid to Great Lakes issues, " said Rick

Smith, executive director of Environmental Defence.

 

He said governments should track the pollution trends and not leave

this work to non-profit agencies with limited budgets. The Joyce

Foundation financed the report.

 

Environment Canada officials did not return calls.

 

The pollution trends were based on publicly available data on

discharges of harmful substances that companies must file with the

U.S. and Canadian governments.

 

The largest air polluter on the lakes was Ontario Power Generation's

Nanticoke coal-fired power station on Lake Erie.

 

========================================================

 

Sidebar: Troubling tally

 

A new report finds that the amount of dangerous pollutants being

discharged into the Great Lakes basin is on the rise, soaring 21 per

cent between 1998 and 2002. Discharges rose 23 per cent at U.S.

companies and 13 per cent at Canadian ones.

 

Lake Superior basin

 

Canadian facilities: 3,351

 

United States facilities: 791

 

Lake Huron basin

 

Canadian facilities: 5,778

 

United States facilities: 2,732

 

Lake Ontario basin

 

Canadian facilities: 13,708

 

United States facilities: 7,363

 

Lake Michigan basin

 

Canadian facilities: 0

 

United States facilities: 19,012

 

Lake Erie basin:

 

Canadian facilities: 20,388

 

United States facilities: 26,344

 

The 15 facilities with the largest releases of water pollutants into

the Great Lakes basin, 2002 in descending order

 

1.U.S. Steel Corp., Gary, Ind.

 

2.Anheuser-Busch Inc., Baldwinsville, N.Y.

 

3.Imperial Oil, Sarnia, Ont.

 

4.Eastman Kodak Co., Rochester, N.Y.

 

5.Parmalat Canada, Winchester, Ont.

 

6. Fort James Operating Co., Green Bay, Wis.

 

7.Jungbunzlauer Canada Inc., Port Colborne, Ont.

 

8.Domtar Inc., Espanola, Ont.

 

9.Abitibi-Consolidated Co. of Canada, Thorold, Ont.

 

10.Escanaba Paper Co., Escanaba, Mich.

 

11.Great Lakes Cheese of N.Y. Inc., Adams, N.Y.

 

12.Stelco Inc., Hamilton, Ont.

 

13.Dunkirk Steam Station, Dunkirk, N.Y.

 

14.Huntley Generating Station, Tonawanda, N.Y.

 

15.Cytec Canada Inc., Niagara Falls, Ont.

 

Source: www.pollutionwatch.org

 

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American Association for the Advancement of Science, Dec. 21, 2005

 

EXPERTS PONDER THE GLOBAL RISE OF CHRONIC DISEASE

 

By Paul Recer

 

A growing global epidemic of chronic disease, such as heart disease,

stroke, cancer and diabetes, will cause at least 35 million deaths

this year, costing the world economy billions of dollars, even though

medical science has identified the principal causes and knows ways to

prevent it, experts said at a AAAS seminar in Washington, D.C.

 

Speakers at the first Philip Hauge Abelson Advancing Science Seminar

said that twice as many premature deaths are caused worldwide by

chronic diseases as by all infectious diseases, maternal and perinatal

conditions and nutritional deficiencies combined. And while the toll

from infectious diseases is declining globally, deaths from chronic

disease are expected to increase by 17 percent in the next 10 years.

 

The 8 December seminar included speakers from the World Health

Organization (WHO), from pharmaceutical and medical device

manufacturers and from university research labs. It was the inaugural

event in a series named for Abelson, a researcher in physics, biology

and other sciences, and the editor for 22 years of Science, which is

published by AAAS. Abelson died last year at the age of 91.

 

Alan I. Leshner, AAAS chief executive officer and executive publisher

of Science, said the seminar series would address major societal

challenges and focus on the frontiers of science and technology.

 

Robert Beaglehole, WHO's director of Chronic Diseases and Health

Promotion, said in the keynote address that the toll of premature

death from chronic disease is increasing worldwide principally because

of unhealthy diets, physical inactivity and the use of tobacco and the

aging of populations in almost all countries.

 

Diet and the lack of physical activity is contributing to a growing

pattern of obesity, a key risk factor for diabetes and early heart

disease. And it's not just happening in the rich countries, such as

the United States and South Africa, where recent reports show that 75

percent of women aged 30 and over are overweight. A " very frightening

statistic, " said Beaglehole, is that in countries both rich and poor,

about 22 million children worldwide under the age of five are already

obese.

 

" We've done a lot to observe the emergence of this problem, " he said.

" We have done practically nothing to solve it. "

 

Beaglehole said that common misunderstandings about chronic disease

have affected policy decisions and slowed the worldwide response to

the emerging epidemic.

 

For instance, he said it's widely believed that premature heart

disease, stroke, diabetes and other chronic diseases are mostly a

plague among the elderly and among the rich in high-income countries.

 

Actually, said Beaglehole, 80 percent of deaths from chronic diseases

are in low- and middle-income countries. A WHO report found that poor

people, in all but the least developed countries, are more likely than

the rich to develop chronic diseases and are more likely to die early.

And it is not just the elderly who are victims. The WHO report found

that almost half of the deaths from chronic diseases occur in people

under 70 years old.

 

" A very dangerous misunderstanding is that chronic disease is the

result of unhealthy lifestyles under the control of individuals, "

Beaglehole said. " The reality is that poor people and children have

very limited choices, and it is unfair to blame them for the

environmental conditions in which they suffer. "

 

There's also the belief by many that chronic diseases and premature

deaths cannot be prevented.

 

" The reality is that approximately 80 percent of premature heart

disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes is preventable, as are 40 percent

of all cancers -- many of which result from tobacco consumption, " said

Beaglehole. " A few known risk factors explain the vast majority of

premature chronic disease deaths. "

 

A global effort to attack the causes of chronic disease could reduce

death rates by 2 percent a year and save 36 million lives within a

decade, he said. Ninety percent of the lives saved, said Beaglehole,

would be in low- and middle-income countries. Slowing the epidemic of

premature death from chronic diseases will have to involve policy

issues beyond the health field, he said. For instance, farm subsidies

often affect the type of food available in some countries. An example:

The consumption of full fat milk is encouraged in schools in some

European countries because of subsidies, said Beaglehole. Excessive

fat, sugar and salt in the diet lead to obesity, type 2 diabetes,

heart disease and stroke.

 

Other specialists at the Abelson seminar reported recent findings that

offer new hope for treatment and management of heart disease, high

blood pressure, obesity, diabetes and cancer.

 

Eric J. Topol, provost of the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of

Medicine, said studies of families with heart attack have demonstrated

specific genes that are causative or induce susceptibility. This will

allow strategies of lifestyle and individualized therapy early in life

to prevent heart attacks decades later.

 

The battle against the growing epidemic of obesity will require

fundamental changes in attitudes toward food and exercise, said Holly

Wyatt, the program director at the Centers for Obesity Research and

Education at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. In

American society, she said, " we've had a lot of pressures to not

expend more energy than we have to and we had a lot of pressure to eat

more than we need. "

 

To change the behaviors that lead to obesity will require

encouragement from virtually every element in society -- employers,

schools, churches, community centers and retail stores, she said. Such

programs have worked in the past to discourage tobacco use and

encourage using seat belts in cars. Without such an effort, Wyatt said

that by 2008 about 75 percent of Americans will be at a body weight

that negatively affects health.

 

Basic research on how the kidneys regulate salt in the body has given

medical science a new understanding of the causes of high blood

pressure, a major risk factor for heart attack, stroke and kidney

failure, said Rick Lifton, Sterling Professor and chairman of Genetics

atYale University School of Medicine. He said there are biological

pathways and gene mutations that cause the kidneys to sequester

sodium, leading to increases in blood pressure. Drugs to counter these

effects could lead to dramatically improved treatments for

hypertension, a disorder that affects a billion people world wide and

is linked to about 5 million deaths annually.

 

Dr. Gerald I. Shulman, an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical

Institute and professor of internal medicine and cellular & molecular

physiology at Yale University, said that new, non-invasive studies

using magnetic resonance spectroscopy have demonstrated that the

development of insulin resistance in type 2 diabetes is directly

related to the build-up of fat inside muscle and liver cells where it

disrupts normal insulin signaling and action in these organs. Studies

in transgenic and knockout mice as well as in humans have shown that

removing this excess intracellular fat can restore insulin sensitivity

and cure type 2 diabetes. The results from these studies provide new

targets for novel therapies that might be developed to reduce

intracellular fat levels and reverse insulin resistance in patients

with type 2 diabetes, said Shulman.

 

Copyright 2005. American Association for the Advancement of Science

 

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Rachel's Democracy & Health News (formerly Rachel's Environment &

Health News) highlights the connections between issues that are

often considered separately or not at all.

 

The natural world is deteriorating and human health is declining

because those who make the important decisions aren't the ones who

bear the brunt. Our purpose is to connect the dots between human

health, the destruction of nature, the decline of community, the

rise of economic insecurity and inequalities, growing stress among

workers and families, and the crippling legacies of patriarchy,

intolerance, and racial injustice that allow us to be divided and

therefore ruled by the few.

 

In a democracy, there are no more fundamental questions than, " Who

gets to decide? " And, " How do the few control the many, and what

might be done about it? "

 

As you come across stories that might help people connect the dots,

please Email them to us at dhn.

 

Rachel's Democracy & Health News is published as often as

necessary to provide readers with up-to-date coverage of the

subject.

 

Editors:

Peter Montague - peter

Tim Montague - tim

 

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