If corporations are people, as the Supreme Court pretends, they certainly are loudmouths, constantly telling us how great they are and broadcasting their brand names everywhere.
Amazingly, though, these corporate creatures have suddenly turned demure, insisting they don’t want to draw any attention to themselves. That’s because, in this case, corporations are not selling, but buying – specifically, trying to buy public office for their pet political candidates by funneling millions of corporate dollars through such front groups as the US Chamber of Commerce. In turn, the corporate fronts use the money to air nasty attack ads that smear the opponents of the pro-corporate candidates.
Why do corporations need a middleman? Because the ads are so partisan and vicious that they would appall and anger millions of customers, employees, and shareholders of the corporation. So, rather than besmirch their own names, the corporate powers have meekly retreated behind the skirt of Republican political outfits like the Chamber.
But don’t front groups at least have to tell election authorities who’s really behind their ads? No. Thanks to the Supreme Court’s infamous Citizen United edict in 2010, such groups can now pour unlimited sums of corporate cash into elections without ever disclosing the names of their funders. This “dark money” channel has essentially established secret political campaigning in America.
That’s why shareholders and other democracy advocates are asking the Securities and Exchange Commission to rule that the corporate giants it regulates must reveal to shareholders all political donations their executives make with corporate funds. After all, that’s shareholder money the executives are using to play political games. It belongs to all shareholders, not just a few CEOs. For more information and action, go to www.CommonCause.org.

“Corporate Donations and the S.E.C.,” The New York Times, April 25, 2013.
“S.E.C. Gets Plea: Force Companies To Air Donations,” The New York Times, April 24, 2013.



Walmart scheme steals from taxpayer and its own workers

Gosh, time flies when it’s pushed along by a jetstream of greed.
It seems like only yesterday that Walmart executives announced with self-congratulatory fanfare that the super-rich retailing colossus was not a scrooge after all. Indeed, while the world’s largest purveyor of stuff was not about to raise its poverty-level wages, it benevolently decided to provide a barebones health insurance plan to its 600,000 part-time employees, who make up nearly half of its total workforce.
But quicker than you can spell avaricious, the $476 billion-a-year giant has now decided to renege, saying that as of January 1st it will terminate coverage for employees who work less than 30 hours a week. Why that particular cutoff? Because, also beginning next January 1st, people working less hours than that can apply for subsidized coverage from the public insurance exchanges created by our country’s new Affordable Care Act. Yes, this means that super-wealthy Walmart is piling the cost of its health care obligations onto the backs of its low-wage workers, who might (or might not) be able to get a bit of a subsidy from us taxpayers.
Walmart’s slick honchos are effectively stealing a benefit meant to help low-income families, perverting it into a benefit for their own profiteering. But don’t think they’re Dickensian Scrooges coldly abandoning their employees. No, no – they say they’re engaging a “health coverage specialist” to guide workers through the process of finding an insurance “alternative.” Of course, that will be the one financed by you and me.
Once again, the Waltons – the exploitative multibillionaire heirs to the Walmart fortune – get the goldmine, while workers and taxpayers get the shaft. As the head of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union said of this latest ripoff, it’s “shameful.” But shameful is a core corporate value at Walmart.

“30,000 Loose Health Care Coverage At Walmart,” The New York Times, October 8, 2014.
“Wal-Mart Lowers Outlook As Profit And Same Store Sales Decline; Could A Family Dollar Acquisition Turn Things Around?” www.forbes.com, February 20, 2014.

Get a whiff of “synthetic biology”

It’s always inspiring to see global corporate giants crush small farmers, stomp on nature, circumvent our laws by hook or crook, and deceive and gouge consumers.
Welcome once again to the phantasmagoric world of DNA manipulators. In particular, this branch of genetic engineering wizardry calls itself “synthetic biology.” Yes, that’s an oxymoron meaning “fake life.” But it’s also moronic in this case, for it’s a crude and costly attempt by high-tech alchemists at such corporate powers as BASF and Cargill to genetically modify micro-organisms to produce something wholly unnecessary: Artificial flavorings and fragrances.
One of their “achievements” is to use a powerful form of gene-altering technology to re-engineer yeast and make synthetic vanilla. Hello – of all the world’s needs, why put so much money and scientific energy into something that’s on every grocery shelf, both in a natural and artificial form? Also, this corporate wizardry creates a massive threat to the livelihoods of thousands of small tropical farmers in developing nations. Madagascar, for example, one of the world’s poorest countries, has 80,000 farmers whose only reliable cash crop is vanilla beans. “I really count on that to make a living,” says one.
Well, sniff the faraway synthetic makers, we can do it cheaper. But “can do” is not the same as “will do.” Even though the lab-made vanilla is not as good as nature’s own, corporations will use their political and marketing muscle to capture the market and jack-up prices. Advertising gimmickry is already in play, for the synthetic biology industry is insisting that its fake stuff is a “natural” product, therefore it need not be labeled as a GMO – even though it is.
To get a bigger whiff of this outrage, go to Friends of the Earth at www.foe.org.