Supporting One Standard
By overwhelming margins, people in the United States believe U.S. corporations
should be required to abide by U.S. labor and environmental laws in their
overseas operations.
Asked whether American companies that operate in other countries
should be expected to abide by U.S. health and safety standards for workers,
86 percent of respondents in a poll conducted by the independent Program
on International Policy Attitudes responded affirmatively. Sixty-nine
percent indicated their strong support for the concept.
These results were registered after respondents were presented two arguments
in favor and two arguments against the proposition. The arguments against
were: if other countries choose to have lower health and safety
standards, it is not the responsibility of American companies to meet
the higher U.S. standard and if U.S. companies have to abide
by higher environmental standards than other companies, this will make
it harder for U.S. companies to compete.
The poll found a similarly overwhelming majority 88 percent
favoring the proposal that U.S. companies operating overseas abide by
U.S. environmental rules. Sixty-seven percent of respondents said they
strongly agreed with the concept.
Poll respondents heard arguments against the proposition that included
imposing higher standards on American companies will increase production
costs, which will sometimes mean higher prices for the American consumer
and if U.S. companies have to abide by higher standards than other
companies, this will make it harder for U.S. companies to compete.
The Program on International Policy Attitudes is a joint program of the
Center on Policy Attitudes and the Center for International and Security
Studies at the School of Public Affairs, University of Maryland.
Big Business Day
Against the backdrop of a giant corporate shredder at work in front of
the U.S. Capitol, Ralph Nader and representatives from several public
interest, consumer and labor organizations on April 6 launched Big Business
Day, denouncing corporate rule in the United States.
Demonstrators dressed as anonymous corporate executives fed the hungry
shredder cherished values like truth, justice, democracy, family and community,
all in relentless pursuit of profits and power.
Big Business Day is a national day of action against corporate rule sponsored
by Citizen Works, a new Washington, D.C.-based organization which aims
to empower citizens and strengthen democracy.
In more than 100 locations, citizens took to the streets in protest,
theater and parades to talk about how big business is hurting them in
their communities and to discuss the role big corporations play in their
lives.
After years of exposés of corporate crime, fraud and abuse
by the mainstream media that go nowhere, said Nader, it is
long overdue for the forces of law and order to crack down systemically
on fraudulent and criminal behavior by big business against the interests
of workers, investors, consumers, taxpayers and the environment.
Many highlighted the Enron case as exemplary of corporate wrongdoing.
Last summer, families couldnt afford to refrigerate milk
for their infants, seniors couldnt afford to turn on a fan to keep
cool, all because Ken Lay and others believed that being disgustingly
rich wasnt enough, and because they legally bribed our government
officials to enrich themselves even more, said Mildred Brown, legislative
representative of ACORN. If we truly had a government of the people,
energy would be regulated for the good of the people.
Power Shapes the News
Media owners and advertisers exercise significant and growing influence
over major media news judgments, according to the New York City-based
Fairness and Accuracy In Media (FAIR).
Corporate media owners increasingly see using their media outlets
to promote their other businesses and the perspectives they favor as simply
standard business practice; and advertisers, in a time of recession, appear
to feel freer than ever to demand a favorable context for their ads, which
are, after all, medias main revenue source. Further consolidation
in the industry, abetted and encouraged by a deregulatory FCC, only promises
more to come. Those are conclusions from a March FAIR report, Fear
and Favor 2001: How Power Shapes the News, authored by Janine Jackson
and Peter Hart.
The report documents nearly two dozen discrete incidents where forces
outside the newsroom directly influenced news judgment decisions.
Case in point: On September 5, 2001, CNN carried live footage of the
close of the NASDAQ stock exchange. The New Yorks Daily News revealed
the next day that CNN general manager Sid Bedingfield had sent staffers
an e-mail not long before the 4 p.m. closing, instructing them to cover
the opening and the close of the NASDAQ every day: Its important
we do that starting today, the message said.
Just hours before, Bedingfield had himself received a memo from CNN Networks/USA
president Jim Walton explaining just why this was important. The NASDAQ
is a major CNN advertiser, and CNN chair Walter Isaacson and head of ad
sales Larry Goodman had an upcoming meeting with NASDAQ representatives.
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