Very rarely do I repost an article in it’s entirety. As a rule, I include just enough for you to get the gist of it, and link back so you can read the rest. However, in Moyers’ case, he not only invites, but encourages reposting his work, and in this case, that work is critically important.
At the end of a week that reminds us to be ever vigilant about the dangers of government overreaching its authority, whether by the long arm of the IRS or the Justice Department, we should pause to think about another threat — from too much private power obnoxiously intruding into public life.
All too often, instead of acting as a brake on runaway corporate power and greed, government becomes their enabler, undermining the very rules and regulations intended to keep us safe.
Think of inadequate inspections of food and the food-related infections which kill 3,000 Americans each year and make 48 million sick. A new study from Johns Hopkins shows elevated levels of arsenic — known to increase a person’s risk of cancer — in chicken meat. According to the university’s Center for a Livable Future, “Arsenic-based drugs have been used for decades to make poultry grow faster and improve the pigmentation of the meat. The drugs are also approved to treat and prevent parasites in poultry… Currently in the U.S., there is no federal law prohibiting the sale or use of arsenic-based drugs in poultry feed.”
And here’s a story in The Washington Post about toxic, bacteria-killing chemicals used in poultry plants to clean more chickens more quickly to meet increased demand and make more money. According to Amanda Hitt, director of the Government Accountability Project’s Food Integrity Campaign, “They are mixing chemicals together in these plants, and it’s making people sick. Does it work better at killing off pathogens? Yes, but it also can send someone into respiratory arrest.”
As long as there are insufficient checks and balances on big business and its powerful lobbies, we are at their mercy.
So far, the government has done next to nothing. No research into the possible side effects, no comprehensive record-keeping on illnesses. “Instead,” the Post reports, “they review data provided by chemical manufacturers.” What’s more, the Department of Agriculture is about to allow the production lines to move even faster, by as much as 25 percent, which means more chemicals, more exposure, more sickness.
Think of that and think of the 85,000 industrial chemicals available today – only a handful have been tested for safety. Ian Urbina writes in The New York Times, “Hazardous chemicals have become so ubiquitous that scientists now talk about babies being born pre-polluted, sometimes with hundred s of synthetic chemicals showing up in their blood.”
Think, too, of that horrific explosion of ammonium nitrate in the Texas fertilizer plant. Fifteen people were killed and their little town devastated. The magazine Mother Jones noted, “Inspections are virtually non-existent; regulatory agencies don’t talk to each other; and there’s no such thing as a buffer zone when it comes to constructing plants and storage facilities in populated areas.” For years, the Fertilizer Institute, described as “the nation’s leading lobbying organization of the chemical and agricultural industries,” resisted regulation and legislators went along. People can lose their lives when federal or state government winks at bad corporate practices — 4,500 workplace deaths annually at a cost to America of nearly half a trillion dollars.
An investigator looks over a destroyed fertilizer plant in West, Texas, Thursday, May 2, 2013. (AP Photo/Pool/ LM Otero, Pool)
As Salon’s columnist and author David Sirota observes, “If all this data was about a terrorist threat, the reaction would be swift — negligent federal agencies would be roundly criticized and the specific state’s lax attitude toward security would be lambasted. Yet, after the fertilizer plant explosion, there has been no proactive reaction at all, other than Texas Republican Gov. Rick Perry boasting about his state’s ‘comfort with the amount of oversight’ that already exists.”
Finally, consider this story from ProPublica’s investigative reporter Abrahm Lustgarten about a uranium company that wanted a mining project in Texas that threatened to pollute drinking water. The EPA resisted — until the company hired as its lobbyist the Democratic fundraiser and fixer Heather Podesta, a favorite of the White House. Her firm was paid $400,000, she pulled the strings, and presto, the EPA changed its mind and said yes, go ahead and do your dirty work. In fact, ProPublica found that “the agency has used a little-known provision in the federal Safe Drinking Water Act to issue more than 1,500 exemptions allowing energy and mining companies to pollute aquifers, including many in the driest parts of the country.”
Of course, in a free society we’ll always be debating the role of government and its agencies. What are the limits, when is government oversight necessary and when is it best deterred? But it’s not only government that can go too far. As long as there are insufficient checks and balances on big business and its powerful lobbies, we are at their mercy. Their ability to buy off public officials is an assault on democracy and a threat to our lives and health. When an entire political system persists in producing such gross injustice, it is making inevitable wholesale defiance.
Inserted from <Bill Moyers Journal>
Of course Moyers is spot on. We have one party brought about half the time and the other party owned lock, stock, and barrel by corporate criminals like the Koch Brothers. We need more oversight. To get ity we need to make the Democratic Party more progressive and the Republican Party more extinct.
19 Responses to “Bill Moyers – Enabling Greed”
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1500 exemptions to the Safe Drinking Act is deplorable – there's a reason it's the law. Either modify the law or don't allow the exemptions – period. We have tons of regulations on the books, but if you don't enforce them and grant exemptions, they are worthless. This is just like Obama granting exemptions to the Affordable Care Act to some unions.
Unfortunately, most of the Dems have become the Repubs of the 60's and we all know that they have no spines. Until that changes, progressive legislation will not come about.
I agree that Democrats needf to stand firm againsty such abuses.
This article is TERRIFYING – 1500 exemptions to the Safe Drinking Water Act is unbelievable – and that there are 85,000 chemicals around the place is just petrifying! No wonder half the population is poorly! As for 4,500 annual deaths – oh the suffering to them and their families!
I suspect it's almost as bad on your side of the pond.
Identifying the causes of the kinds of devastation we have occurring now is easy. It is the result of corporate intrusion into the government by way of huge sums of money. How we eradicate the causes is another thing. It will not be easy to extricate the government from the hands of corporate fascists. A good start, in my opinion, would be the further demise of the GOP. Let us hope that we can take back the House. Maybe then we can eradicate Citizen's United and apply some regulation to large industries again.
An gir, in a word… Bingo!
This literally makes me sick. Not to mention pissed off, ready for an overhaul of our entire government and that will only happen when the citizens of this country stop burying their heads in the sand, quit buying into the party line and pull their collective heads out of their asses, stand together and fight for a just and cooperative government that is run by the people FOR THE PEOPLE. Wake up America before you are no longer able to function because you are too sick to do so!
Tamara, I agree up to a point, but for now, the party system is all we have. I choose to be a Democrat, because I can influence that party, as I did by volunteering to help elect Jeff Merkley. The alternative is political irrelavence. For example, while many friends swore by Rocky Anderson and his Justive Party, in the end, he got 0.03% of the vote. That's less than 1/20th of 1%.
shared, shared, shared
Welcome Cheryl. 🙂
Thank you!!
I live in coal country so I know all about exemptions to laws that protect us proles. I still think it is time to pass term limits, get these people out of office after no more than two terms. They won't be able to get so wealthy than by taking corporate bribes. I have not eaten chicken for the last 25 years, so glad now.
Edie, a fellow named Solon tried that circa 600 BC. It failed, because the pols sold out for a cushy job after their terms ended instear of campaign cash.
Sirota is right! Had the Texas fertiliser plant explosion been a terrorist attack, there would have been hell to pay and immediately. Just look at how quickly the Republican/Teabaggers jumped all over Benghazi, and they're STILL jumping and nashing teeth! These too big to fail corporations are corporate terrorists, economic terrorists, enabled by politicians, and not just Republican/Teabaggers.
The name Monsanto comes to mind when talking about chemicals and insufficiently tested products like GMOs.
Where have you heard the phrase and rallying cry "Trust us!"? It seems to be the on-going meme of the Republican /Teabaggers, political whores to the corporations. Now corporations are saying "trust us", we'll monitor our practices; we'll make sure that we don't use dangerous chemicals; we'll make sure that we provide full disclosure; we'll make sure that we don't pollute the aquifers. That's what was said by PG&E in California before the pollution of the water table almost destroyed an entire area, and did destroy many families with disease and death. What about all the instances of flaming water near some fracking sites? "Trust us!" And of course in the financial field, although not chemical, there is such a lack of proper regulation that has lead to many losing their homes and savings, and we hear "Trust us!"
"Trust US!" We are watching and we WILL be defiant; we WILL object; we WILL change things with our vote!
That's an excellent point Lynn. The four deaths in Libya have far more traction that thousands poisoned this way.
Lynn,
I agree with everything you said, although I don't think that it's a lack of regulation. It's clear that the exemptions for mining and energy from the Safe Drinking Act were bought off by lobbyists. Does the EPA even have the power to grant exemptions from the law? And even if it does, why? They are supposed to be protecting us – not the corporations. If we have to have non profit orgs monitoring the government agencies to make sure they do their job, then we need to take those agencies apart and find out why they are doing that. This is a problem of enforcement – these agencies are supposed to enforce the laws; I don't think it's a lack of regulation. Granting exemptions to the law is a lack of enforcement.
This would be like the IRS granting exemptions to tax law after they were paid off by a lobbyist/corporation. It shouldn't be done, period.
The financial sector does the same thing – Gramm Leach Blily allowed the banks to take on way more risk regarding investments than they could previously. The banks (which were were restricted to giving loans) suddenly found way more income from investments. They didn't manage their risks well and in turn, created stupid investments like CDS'. Where's their free market when they screwed up? If they hadn't threatened Congress with completely financial meltdown, we would have never had TARP. Now the banks have a feeling of entitlement that the government will bail them out again if they screw up. We should not pay for their mistakes.
Thanks for republishing the article in its entirety Moyers as always, is spot on!
It's so strange that these people can turn their heads away from the obvious, that they aren't concerned that their own families and loved ones will be effected by their greed and lack of concern for the future. Ignorance is bliss, they play a baby's game of peek-a-boo, and simply hold their hands over their eyes and if it isn't seen directly – it's not there! How tragic!
So far they have geen able to localize the effects of their criminal greed to poor communities.
Just one more reason why I am glad I do not eat chicken.
Watch out for Kentucky Fried Critter. 😉