Room for a View

Views & News

GE: Bringing Good Things To Connecticut

Area television viewers have probably seen General Electric’s ads claiming the Hudson River will be better off if we don’t dredge up the million-plus pounds of toxic PCBs GE dumped there between 1946 and 1977. As recently as 1998, GE CEO Jack Welch told shareholders, “PCBs do not pose adverse health risks.” The Environmental Protection Agency believes PCBs, which are both carcinogens and hormone-mimickers, are a serious threat to both human and animal life. However, the EPA has repeatedly delayed making a decision on the Hudson, and state officials have done nothing.
For years, GE has threatened to pull out of New York if it were forced to pay for a cleanup of the Hudson. But while using this threat to stall regulatory agencies, GE has quietly reduced its upstate workforce from 46,000 in the 1950s to a current level of about 6,000. GE also moved its corporate headquarters to Connecticut. The threatened pull-out is essentially complete.
Recently, Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader called for Democratic candidate Al Gore and Republican candidate George W. Bush to return campaign funds from GE, which has given more than $598,300 in PAC money and $306,325 in soft money to the two major parties over the last year (more to Republicans than to Democrats). Among the counts against GE cited by Nader:
• GE is wholly or partially liable for at least 78 Federal Superfund Sites (polluted areas, such as the Hudson River, eligible for Federal cleanup dollars).
• Between 1991 and 1996, the EPA cited GE for 23 violations when toxic releases were unreported or under-reported.
• The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has fined GE for unsafe practices at its nuclear reactors and there is substantial evidence that GE reactors contain design flaws.
• GE has repeatedly pled guilty to civil and criminal charges of defrauding the Pentagon.
• OSHA has cited GE for workplace violations at its industrial plants.
—Todd Paul (source: Nader 2000 press release)

Bove Draws Prison Term

French sheep farmer, cheese maker and activist Jose Bove was convicted of criminal vandalism September 14 and sentenced to three months in prison. Bove pulled down a McDonalds under construction in Millau, France after the US slapped high tariffs on imported European foods in retaliation for the EU’s continued ban on American hormone-treated beef. His action was the latest in a series of French protests related to World Trade Association rulings, which override national autonomy regarding trade of irradiated, factory-farmed and genetically-modified foods. Thousands of supporters attended his trial, some wearing T-shirts that read, “Le monde n’est pas une marchandise. Moi non plus” (“The world is not for sale. Me neither.”)
The verdict was unusually harsh in a country where protest is a ubiquitous form of speech, and none of Bove’s nine co-defendants were given prison sentences. Bove has already filed an appeal, which will be heard in court in about a year; meanwhile, he will continue to travel the globe, meeting with government officials and speaking before farmers unions. In late September, he was scheduled to appear in Bangalore, India to join a protest against genetically-modified grain. He has been quoted as promising, “The combat will continue.”
—TP (source: The New York Times and The Global Citizen)