No More Profits Over People: Demanding Government Regulation of Corporations

With the ongoing economic crisis and the much debated health care reform, I have been part of and overheard numerous arguments regarding the merits and evils s of government involvement. I have noticed that many Americans fear government regulation. In fact, they fear the government as a whole. They often refer to government as “in bed with corporations,” “trying to limit our freedoms,” “taking over,” etc. Considering the countless cases of war, dictatorships, genocide, and other cases of abuse of political power, I can understand why citizens the world over are to be cautious of government control. However, being that the U.S. practices and promotes democracy, and claims to have a “government of and for the people” these phobic attitudes seem pretty ironic to me.

I believe that part of the problem lies in the fact that the U.S. government has left behind the government of and for the people myth that was once so central to our identity, to become a government for corporations by corporations in which capitalism takes the central role. A la WTO, the U.S. government increasingly stands to protect commerce and profit-making at any cost, rather than to serve and represent the people. What should we call it? Corporacracy? There is no denying that money grants immense political power in capitalist, campaign-sponsoring, lobbying America. I argue that we should start demanding a separation of corporations and state as much as we demand a separation of church and state.

I have to acknowledge that Americans are often poorly informed about issues that affect them and demand very little of their government in terms of action or protective regulations. However, even when considerable numbers of people demand fair trade, mandatory recycling, higher mileage cars, labeling of genetically modified food, or, I don't know, say, accessible health care, initiatives are stifled over and over by powerful capital holders and corporations who would lose profits to such regulations. Furthermore, it seems many Americans, although they may agree with such needs, chose to trust the not-so-almighty market to eventually make their preferences prevail, rather than putting regulations in place themselves to protect people's health, lives, and freedom. Notice that I said putting regulations in place “themselves,” because although they are government regulations, government officials are supposed to be there representing each one of us.

If the people’s will supposedly rules in a democracy, then there should be no such fraction between the concepts of “government’s regulations” and “the interest and wellbeing of citizens”. Nonetheless, Americans seem to have regulation-phobia and a panic of government involvement, even when the goal is to protect themselves. Why are we so afraid of the government overstepping what we consider acceptable boundaries? We are supposed to be able to set those boundaries ourselves every time we vote, every time we write to our representatives, every time we sign a petition. Sadly, countless Americans have done none of those things in their lives. That is, they have never engaged in democracy, and therefore feel powerless “against” a government to which they have no relationship and in which they have no involvement. (Funny they still root for foreign invasions aimed at bringing democracy to others.)
I have come to believe that regulating corporations is a matter of national security. After reading books such as Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and the work of Vandana Shiva, I feel immensely more threatened by the pesticides, hormones, and modified genes in my food and water; by the depletion of our current energy sources; and by the imminent pollution and destruction of the entire biosphere and its precariously balanced ecosystems; than by potential terrorist attacks.

We must remain aware of the fact that corporations are fictional entities created to care only about the bottom line. They have no morals and seek profits without even contemplating their consumer’s health (as long as potential health damages are rare enough or long term enough not to affect their sales), people’s wellbeing (underpaid employees who can barely make a living, displaced populations, families deprived of their livelihoods, etc.), the continuity of life in this planet, or even their own long term sustainability (since often they simply go on for as long as they can until they deplete the natural resources on which they base their own capital making). Because of the for-profit-at-any-cost nature of our market economy, it is imperative that the government regulate corporations, get involved with public health, become more proactive at regulating products (how come asbestos, CFCs, and countless medicines were aloud in the market for so long before their harmful effects rendered them illegal?), require longer term safety studies, limit pollution, make corporations responsible for clean-up and safety, and, among many other things, protect citizens’ freedom. That is, our freedom from being sued for unauthorized used by companies whose patented genetically modified seeds infested our fields without our knowledge (as in the case of Monsanto vs Schmeiser) – as well as our freedom to choose.

In my opinion, perhaps the most important regulation to advocate for is labeling. If we are unaware of what is in the products we purchase, or the processes by which they have been produced, we have no true freedom to choose, even if there are a variety of brands to pick from. Certainly, I wish corporations were not allowed to poison us or the environment (or even take the risk of poisoning if not enough long term research has been conducted). However, I expect that, at least, we should be able to choose which dangerous or even potentially risky substances we ingest or use in our houses or land. Whenever there is a risk involve, no matter how small, we have the right to choose whether to take it or not. In fact, we should be able to do choose by simple personal preference, even if the official claim is that no risks are involved. Therefore, foods containing genetically modified products; as well as meat, milk, and other products from animals that have been administered hormones, should be clearly labeled – so that consumers can opt to be free of them, if they so choose.

We need to pressure the government to protect our interests over the interests of corporations, to protect life over profits. Pressuring for government regulations to safeguard our health and freedom is not allowing government too much control. It is limiting corporations’ freedom if and when it endangers people or other life forms, or limits individual’s freedoms – just like we do with people who do the same to other people. As far as these and many other issues go, a political awakening that brings back empowerment to the people by fostering political engagement and the understanding that we are our government, rather than fearing our government as if it was a dictatorship, is the only way in which we can take action to protect ourselves, the generations to come, and the world we live in.

Round 1: First Wold rips Third World of raw materials. Round 2: First World buries Third World in trash.

Someone brought up the issue of garbage shipped internationally in my Gender, Justice, and Sustainability class. I didn't have a clue of anything related to the topic, so I did a quick online research and here is what I have found.

There are apparently some situations of legal shipping of trash from Europe to developing countries to be recycled by authorized companies that are capable and accountable. However, there are also millions of tons of trash shipped illegally, to non-authorized recipient companies that just burn it or put it on landfills. This stuff has been going on for a while, as developed countries run out of space and options for the immense amounts of trash they produce. However, it became a huge industry when Europe passed regulations that all trash must be recycled or disposes of in a safe way, most dumping in landfills has been prohibited, and safe incineration is expensive and heavily taxed. That became an expensive responsibility for European companies, so they have opted to ship it abroad instead. Thus, in Europe, paper, plastic, metal, and electronics can be exported for recycling abroad. The U.S. has no such laws, so trash can be exported anywhere to whomever regardless of what they will do with it, since we have no regulations within our borders that mandate recycling and safe disposal anyway.

However, there are also international regulations outlawing the exportation of toxic wastes. According to a NY times article on the topic , titled "Smuggling Europe Wastes to Poor Countries" by Elisabeth Rosental (very interseting by the way: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/27/science/earth/27waste.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1) ports are constantly stopping such illegal cargos. In the case of legal exporting-recycling, I found an example of a woman who founded a company based on creating packaging material in China by recycling U.S. cardboard from Los Angeles. (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2003544422_zhang280.html). It has made her very rich. It's a good example of capitalism. I guess some money and jobs are flowing back to China because of this. However, there is also the matter of the energy spent in transporting the cardboard, which monetarily speaking is obviously low enough to still allow for a profit. Nonetheless, I have been reading Vandana Shiva’s work, and learnt to look at the bigger picture and include costs that our market economy does not take into account (such as soil depletion, air and water pollution, sustainability, and the energy spent in creating input materials or substance). Thus, I must point out that we should also acknowledge that long distance transportation would be one less environmental cost if the waste was recycled in situ.

A good example to look at for the transportation issue is the fact that trash is currently shipped from Hawaii (where they have apparently run out of space for landfills) to Washington State, to a Seattle based company (http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2009/09/hawaii_trash_headed_for_northw.html). So, instead of trying to produce less trash to start with, to package less, to use biodegradable materials, to use, and to find viable ways of recycling and incinerating locally, Hawaii ships trash to the U.S. West Coast, and the U.S. West Coast ships trash to China. It would seem to me the only ones that truly benefit from that are the cargo companies and the oil giants who fuel them up. Oh, and the shareholders of the companies involved! That is after all much of the way in which economic “capital” has been created in the past centuries: by moving goods around the world. Raw materials were retrieved from developing countries, shipped to industrialized countries where they were transformed into products, which were shipped by to the original country and other regions of the world for a profit. Money was the fictional profit created by this processes. However, it doesn’t take much to see that it is not sustainable, especially when it depends on irreplaceable natural resources. “Growth” will continue and some will become richer and richer at the expense of others’ poverty only for long enough for us to drawn in our trash and man-made contaminating non0degradable chemicals, and deplete the natural resource upon which humanity and all other living beings depend on.

Going back to the cases in which Third World individuals and companies find an opportunity to capitalize on other countries’ trash, the truth is for every case of legal somewhat positive trash entrepreneurship, there seems to be many more cases of unregulated dumping of millions of tons of trash from U.S. and Europe into landfills in other countries, from dirty pipes to old computers to household trash. Construction debris and other wastes containing asbestos, mercury, and other toxic agents are dismantled by people, sometimes children, at high risk for their help, in Third World countries, where it is often burnt or left to rot, polluting air, soil, and water (Rosental’s article in the NY Times cited above). If that is not imperialism, I don’t what you’d call it.

European and American companies are tempted to export their waste, legally or illegally, because it is “cheaper” than dispensing of it appropriately according to their own regulations. Also, Third World countries may see an opportunity for profit by buying waste and recycling it into new material to be sold, or by charging fees for “taking care” of other countries’ wastes – even if that means contaminating and putting the health of their people at risk. This is a perfect example of what Vandana Shiva repeats over and over in her books: the potential or real economic benefits of these situations are fictional, they only exist from the point of view of a capitalist system, they only hold true if we choose to look exclusively at the monetary income and costs. The truth is, if we, as humans and citizens of the planet, allow for waste to be disposed of in polluting ways in Third World countries, then the regulations against it in Europe have done nothing to help the overall health of our planet. Furthermore, Third World countries continue to carry the heaviest responsibility for the wrongdoing of developed countries, to be abused and exploited, to carry with the consequences of the trash produced by the few who are well off. Ultimately humanity and planet Earth are paying a much higher cost by exporting trash than by recycling it and safely disposing of it locally. While the latter option might be more expensive money wise, exporting trash adds the pollution of long-distance transportation, furthers the disproportions of developed vs developing world relations – and ultimately pollutes the air, the water, and the soil we all share just as much, or worse.

Species Suicide: Poisoning Ourselves

“Man can hardly even recognize the devils of his own creation.”
Albert Schweizer

One of the many unexpected consequences of World War II was the start of the agricultural synthetic chemical industry, in particular pesticides (herbicides, insecticides, and fungicides). For example, although DDT was first synthesized in 1874, its insecticidal properties were not discovered until WWII, when it was used to control mosquitoes and lice among civilians and troops. After the war, it became available to farmers and its use spread like a fire.[1] Pesticide use has increased more than fifty-fold since 1950![2]

The United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has defined the term pesticide as:
"any substance or mixture of substances intended for preventing, destroying or controlling any pest, including vectors of human or animal disease, unwanted species of plants or animals causing harm during or otherwise interfering with the production, processing, storage, transport or marketing of food, agricultural commodities, wood and wood products or animal feedstuffs, or substances which may be administered to animals for the control of insects, arachnids or other pests in or on their bodies. The term includes substances intended for use as a plant growth regulator, defoliant, desiccant or agent for thinning fruit or preventing the premature fall of fruit, and substances applied to crops either before or after harvest to protect the commodity from deterioration during storage and transport."[3]

As clearly stated by that definition, pesticides are intended to kill organisms that have become harmful to humans in one way or another. Nevertheless, they are ultimately poisonous to all life, including our own. In fact, pesticide self-poisoning is the method of choice in one third of suicides worldwide.[4] However, those extreme situations are not the only examples of the harm humans are inflicting upon themselves by using pesticides. Everyday people all over the world consume these toxic substances without being aware of the dangers they pose to their health.
Although government agencies (the Environmental Protection Agency, in the case of the U.S.) conduct research to determine acceptable levels for the use of pesticides to avoid harm to humans, a number of complications must be considered. First of all, many of these chemicals tend to persist in the body (that is, it takes a very long time for them to be broken down). Many also bioaccumulate (that is, build up as residues in the body, especially on fatty tissue)[5]. This means that, for example, even though a certain level of a particular pesticide on a particular fruit may be deemed safe for human consumption, that particular chemical will accumulate in our bodies along with those chemicals present in other foods we consume and the water we drink, not to mention those pesticides we might breathe in or absorb through our skins. We have no real idea of what this accumulation entails to our health. Over time, chronic poisoning might result. Furthermore, we do not know what will happen on the long term as these chemicals interact with each other and degrade over time.

According to Randall Fitzgerald, author of The Hundred Year Lie: How to Protect Yourself from the Chemicals that Are Destroying Your Health,” mixing synthetic chemicals in our bodies has become tantamount to playing with a chemistry set without an instruction manual.” He points out that toxicology experts predict that a third to half of us will be diagnosed with cancer in our lifetime as a result of the chemical experimentation we are conducting on ourselves.[6]

Just to put an example of how many layers of “safe” amounts of pesticides and other chemicals we might be ingesting daily, let’s follow a particular wheat product from the seed to our table. First of all, the soil in which it is to be planed will have likely already accumulated vast amounts of pesticides from many spraying cycles, as well as through underground and rain water which may bring along chemicals from near and far. Second, the actually seeds will have likely been processed with a number of chemicals even before the farmer buys them. Through the growing processes the plant will more than likely be sprayed with insecticides multiple times, as well as with other chemicals such as defoliants. Once the wheat is gathered, it will be treated to look better and to be preserved longer. It will then be processed into a generic food product, such as flour, a process that will add more chemicals, from preservatives to bleaches (or colorants). On its way to the supermarket, and once it’s stored there, it will likely be near pesticides used to control rodents. We will then consume the accumulation of chemicals along with the food we prepare with this flour, and store it with the chemicals from all our other food sources that day, and from every day of our lives – even before birth, since the placenta is no barrier to any of these chemicals and therefore unable to prevent unborn children from exposure to the chemicals present in their mothers’ diets.

But what exactly does this mean? How exactly do these chemicals threaten our health? The World Health Organization and the United Nation’s Environment Programme estimate that 3 million agricultural workers in agriculture in the developing world experience severe poisoning from exposure to pesticides every year. They estimate that 18,000 of those poisoned die.[7] Many more millions suffer mild poisoning, which may include nausea, vision problems, skin reactions, dizziness, vomit, headaches, and many other symptoms. Additionally, many studies have indicated that pesticide exposure is associated with long-term health problems such as respiratory problems, memory disorders,[8] dermatologic conditions[9], anxiety, depression,[10] birth defects, and neurological disorders, such as Parkinson’s. In fact, a Harvard School of Public Health study showed that people exposed to even low levels of pesticides had a 70% greater risk of developing Parkinson’s disease.[11]

It’s been decades already since pesticides were first suspected to cause cancer. In fact, they have been labeled “carcinogens” for decades. However, the general assumption has been, until very recently, that the relationship between pesticides and cancer was no more than an improvable assumption. That dubious connection is no longer the scientific conclusion. Pesticides are known to cause non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, prostate cancer, and many other forms of cancer. Breast cancer, for example, has been linked to exposure to DDT prior to puberty. All these cases are documented in a document titled Environmental and Occupational Causes of Cancer: New Evidence, 2005-2007 which was prepared for the Cancer Working Group of the Collaborative for Health and the Environment. This report chronicled recent epidemiological evidence linking occupational and environmental exposures with cancer through peer-reviewed scientific studies published from January 2005 through June 2007, supplementing their state-of-the-evidence report published in September 2005. The authors argue that the substantial evidence justifies demanding urgent action that would limit exposure to avoidable environmental and occupational carcinogens.[12]

This recommendation is echoed by the American Medical Association:
"Particular uncertainty exists regarding the long-term effects of low-dose pesticide exposures. Current surveillance systems are inadequate to characterize potential exposure problems related either to pesticide usage or pesticide-related illnesses…Considering these data gaps, it is prudent…to limit pesticide exposures…and to use the least toxic chemical pesticide or non-chemical alternative."[13]

Perhaps, a good example to follow is that of Europe, where legislation has recently banned all use of highly toxic pesticides. The ban includes pesticides that are carcinogenic, mutagenic, toxic to reproduction, disruptive of the endocrine system, as well as all of those which are persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic.[14]

Frightening as all these facts may be, the grim picture that pesticides and other types of synthetic chemicals paint for the future of our species is even more complex than the image conjured up by the scope of this paper. I have limited myself to exploring only superficially the direct effects that exposure to pesticides can have on human health – not considering other issues, such as reduction of reproductive ability, environmental pollution, destruction of habitats, and damage to other species. If the reader is as aware as we should all be of the fact that all life in this planet is interdependent, it will be obvious to him or her that, in the long term, these other devastating consequences of the use of pesticides are as threatening to the survival of the human species as direct damage to individuals’ health – or more. As we try to limit our personal exposure to these chemicals by eating organic, avoiding the use of domestic pesticides, and supporting appropriate policy, we are still left to wonder: how much time is there left for humanity as a whole to realize the suicidal qualities of its actions before it’s too late?

[1] International Program on Chemical Safety, DDT and Its Derivates.
http://www.inchem.org/documents/ehc/ehc/ehc009.htm
Retrieved on September 20th, 2009.
[2] Miller, GT (2002). Living in the Environment (12th Ed.). Belmont: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, p. 294
[3] Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2002), International Code of Conduct on the Distribution and Use of Pesticides.
http://www.fao.org/WAICENT/FAOINFO/AGRICULT/AGP/AGPP/Pesticid/Code/Download/code.pdf
Retrieved on September 20th, 2009.
[4] Gunnell D, Eddleston M, Phillips MR, Konradsen F (2007). "The global distribution of fatal pesticide self-poisoning: systematic review". BMC Public Health 7: 357.
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=2262093
Retrieved on September 20th, 2009.
[5] U.S. Geological Survey Toxic Substances Hydrology Program, Bioaccumulation Definition
http://toxics.usgs.gov/definitions/bioaccumulation.html
Retrieved on September 20th, 2009.

[6] Fitzgerald, Randall. “The Hundred-year Lie: How to Protect Yourself from the Chemicals that Are Destroying Your Health”. Penguin Books: London. 2007, p 30.
[7] Miller GT (2004), Sustaining the Earth, 6th edition. Thompson Learning, Inc. Pacific Grove, California. Chapter 9, Pages 211-216.
[8] Arcury TA, Quandt SA, Mellen BG (August 2003). "An exploratory analysis of occupational skin disease among Latino migrant and seasonal farmworkers in North Carolina". J Agric Saf Health 9 (3): 221–32.
[9] O'Malley MA (1997). "Skin reactions to pesticides". Occup Med 12 (2): 327–45.
[10] Beseler CL, Stallones L, Hoppin JA, et al. (December 2008). "Depression and pesticide exposures among private pesticide applicators enrolled in the Agricultural Health Study". Environ. Health Perspect. 116 (12): 1713–9.
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=2599768
Retrieved on September 20th, 2009.
[11] Pesticide exposure raises risk of Parkinson’sAscherio A, Chen H, Weisskopf MG, O'Reilly E, McCullough ML, Calle EE, Schwarzschild MA, Thun MJ (2006). "Pesticide exposure and risk for Parkinson's disease". Annals of Neurology 60 (2): 197–203.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9408-pesticide-exposure-raises-risk-of-parkinsons.html
Retrieved on September 20th, 2009.
[12] The report can be downloaded from:
http://www.sustainableproduction.org/downloads/EnvandOccCausesofCancer-2007Update-DownloadVersion_000.pdf
Retrieved on September 20th, 2009.
[13] Council on Scientific Affairs, American Medical Association. (1997). Educational and Informational Strategies to Reduce Pesticide Risks. Preventive Medicine, Volume 26, Number 2
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/ap/pm/1997/00000026/00000002/art00122%3Bjsessionid=pkwgpommd0xm.alexandra
Retrieved on September 20th, 2009.
[14] Pesticide Legislation Approved last retrieved 13 January 2009
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?language=EN&type=IM-PRESS&reference=20090112IPR45936
Retrieved on September 20th, 2009.

Cannibalism

I grabbed that butcher's knife
from the kitchen counter top
and as you stood there in disbelief
I cut my chest open.
I felt the blade
cut through my flesh,
and ripped my heart out
with my bare hands.
I placed it in front of you
throbbing, still beating,
bleeding away.
You stayed still,
looked away.
I interpreted your silence,
so I took it back
and ate it.
I felt the pain
as my teeth ripped it apart
slowly,
the blood dripping down my throat
mixing with the mute tears.
I swallowed and threw up,
threw up and swallowed.
I didn't want it back.
Somehow it seemed more appropriate
to have a hole now
where my heart once was.

A sol y sombra

Mi sol y mi sombra
mi cielo y mi esquina.
Mi casa, mi tierra, mi patria,
mis ganas de ser.
Si fuese sin ti no sería
feliz sin querer.

Mi manantial y mi estuario,
mi verdad absoluta.
Mi paz en las noches,
mi angustia en el pecho.
Si fuese sin ti no sería
mío mi lecho.

Mi todo, mi nada,
mi siempre estaré.
Mi paso seguro,
mi antes después.
Si fuese sin ti no sería
cálida tanta ultima vez.

Mi cómplice y mi verdugo,
mi libre albedrío.
Mi presente en diferido,
mi volvamos a empezar.
Si fuese sin ti no sería
un principio cada final.

Mi música de fondo,
mi mutua intuición,
Mi fluir por tantos caminos,
mi brújula en cada cruce.
Si fuese sin ti no sería
tu ausencia tan dulce.

Mi pasión incontrolable,
mi cariño sincero.
Mis ansias, mi apego,
mi flor con espinas.
Si fuese sin ti no sería
tan cierta la vida.

Mi viento en popa y mi ancla,
mi muelle, mi marea y mi playa.
Mis días de calor,
mi lluvia secando al sol.
Si fuese sin ti no sería
enteramente yo.

I have

I have
blisters on my feet,
credit card debt and student loans,
scars on my wrists,
hope tattooed on my skin,
and a many times patched-up heart.
I’ve got
secrets and traumas,
theory,
stretch marks.
I’ve been
abused, alone, homeless.
I’ve traveled, nested, escaped.
I’ve felt
blessed.
I’ve achieved and started over,
I have done what needed to be done,
I endured, survived.
I have danced till my feet bled.
I have held on
until I could no longer feel my hands.
And I've learned to let go.
I have loved to death.
I've relocated and adapted,
I've moved on and I have returned.
I have claimed mine,
I've imagined ours.
I have refused and rejected.
In loving arms, I've capitulated.
I've argued when necessary,
and made a point when possible.
I've stared and smelled the ocean,
and kept going,
step by step, always reaching,
so I could get to those roses.