STWR - Share The World's Resources

Some companies see Democrats having more sway in Washington after upcoming elections

Some big companies are boosting their share of campaign contributions to Democrats this year, a sign that executives may be starting to hedge their political bets after a decade of supporting congressional Republicans.

The shift includes backers of the Republican Party in the insurance, pharmaceuticals and tobacco industries, such as American International Group Inc., Wyeth, and Reynolds American Inc., according to PoliticalMoneyLine, a nonpartisan tracker of campaign contributions.

Most companies say they give political donations to candidates who support their businesses, regardless of party affiliation. But corporations also tend to channel funds to politicians they think will hold power. So any shift in corporate campaign giving toward Democrats could signal that businesses believe Democrats will have more sway in Washington after the 2006 midterm elections or the 2008 presidential contest.

For a company that claims to have moved "beyond petroleum", BP has managed to spill an awful lot of it on to the tundra in Alaska.

Last week, after the news was leaked to journalists, it admitted to investors that it is facing criminal charges for allowing 270,000 gallons of crude oil to seep across one of the world's most sensitive habitats. The incident was so serious that some of its staff could be sent to prison.

Had this been Exxon, the epitome of sneering corporate brutality, the news would have surprised no one. But BP's rebranding, like Shell's, has been so effective that you could be forgiven for believing that it had become an environmental pressure group. These companies have used the vast profits from their petroleum business to create the impression that they are abandoning it.

Shell's adverts feature photos of its technologists in open-necked shirts and showing perfect teeth (which proves they can't be real greens). They tell stories of their brave experiments with wind power, hydrogen, biofuels and natural gas. The chairman of Shell UK was one of the 14 signatories to a letter sent by businesses to Tony Blair a week ago, calling for the government to exercise "bold leadership on domestic climate change policy" in order to speed "the transition to a low-carbon economy".

I'd like to begin my commentary on David Sirota's important new book Hostile Takeover with my strong endorsement of his fine work. Everyone should read it to learn what's really going on around us that affects us all in the most important ways I know and which most people at best only vaguely understand on many if not most of the major issues.

Those who read it will learn in stunning and graphic detail how large corporations in league with government at all levels serving their interests and not ours are destroying the democratic pillars of our society. The result now evident when we know the facts David presents is a great irreversible harm to the great majority unless we can collectively act in time to reverse the destructive path and economically downward trajectory we're now on - all planned and implemented by our elected officials in service to their generous corporate benefactors. In his important book, David lucidly explains the problem in detail and gives us an action plan to fight back.

Large transnational corporations are clearly the dominant institution of our time. They're preeminent throughout the world but especially in the Global North and its epicenter in the US.

They control or greatly influence what we eat and drink, where we live, what we wear, how we get most of our essential services like health care and even what we're taught in schools up to the highest levels. They create and control our sources of information and greatly influence how we think and our view of the world and them. They even now own patents on our genetic code, the most basic elements of human life, and are likely planning to manipulate and control them as just another commodity to exploit for profit in their brave new world that should concern everyone. They also carefully craft their image and use catchy slogans to convince us of their benefit to society and the world, like: "better things for better living through chemistry" (if you don't mind toxic air, water and soil), "we bring good things to life" (for them, not us), and "all the news that's fit to print" (only if you love state and corporate friendly disinformation and propaganda). The slogans are clever, but the truth is ugly.

Corporations also decide who will govern and how. We may think we do, but it's not so and never was. Those national elections, especially the last two, only looked legitimate to most people, but not to those who know and understand how the system works. Here's how it really works. The "power elite" or privileged class C. Wright Mills wrote about 50 years ago in his classic book by that title are the real king and decision makers. He wrote how corporate, government and military elites formed a trinity of power after WW II and that the "power elite" were those "who decide whatever is decided" of importance. The holy trinity Mills wrote about still exists but today in the shape of a triangle with the transnational giants clearly on top and government, the military and all other institutions of importance there to serve their interests. These corporations have become so large and dominant they run our lives and the world, and in a zero sum world and the chips that count most in their stack, they do it for their continuing gain and at our increasing expense. Something is way out of whack, and in this essay I'll try to explain what it is and why we better understand it.

The Dubai Ports World deal is waking Americans up to a painful reality: So-called "conservatives" and "flat world" globalists have bankrupted our nation for their own bag of silver, and in the process are selling off America.

Through a combination of the "Fast Track" authority pushed for by Reagan and GHW Bush, sweetheart trade deals involving "most favored nation status" for dictatorships like China, and Clinton pushing us into NAFTA and the WTO (via GATT), we've abandoned the principles of tariff-based trade that built American industry and kept us strong for over 200 years.

The old concept was that if there was a dollar's worth of labor in a pair of shoes made in the USA, and somebody wanted to import shoes from China where there may only be ten cents worth of labor in those shoes, we'd level the playing field for labor by putting a 90-cent import tariff on each pair of shoes. Companies could choose to make their products here or overseas, but the ultimate cost of labor would be the same.

Academics and the media have failed dismally to ask the crucial question of scientists' claims: who is paying you?

Three weeks ago, while looking for something else, I came across one of the most extraordinary documents I have ever read. It relates to an organisation called Arise (Associates for Research into the Science of Enjoyment). Though largely forgotten today, in the 1990s it was one of the world's most influential public-health groups. First I should explain what it claimed to stand for.

Arise, founded in 1988, seems to have been active until 2004. It described itself as "a worldwide association of eminent scientists who act as independent commentators". Its purpose, these eminent scientists said, was to show how "everyday pleasures, such as eating chocolate, smoking, drinking tea, coffee and alcohol, contribute to the quality of life".

Three weeks ago, while looking for something else, I came across one of the most extraordinary documents I have ever read. It relates to an organisation called Arise (Associates for Research into the Science of Enjoyment). Though largely forgotten today, in the 1990s it was one of the world's most influential public-health groups. First I should explain what it claimed to stand for.