The Daily Poetry Movement

international | arts and media | other press Saturday October 16, 2004 21:53 by Migratory Bird migratorybird at risup dot net

Check out the corp watch link for more war profiteers. All of these links, amnesty international etc are extremely important for reviewing. In America our impartial unbiased news is actually the war machine "driving" us towards our own destruction. But maybe we can break the silence of media monoploies and bring the humane back!

PLEDGE OF CORPORATE ALLEGIANCE

WE WILL RAPE THE EARTH,
STRIP IT FOR ALL IT'S WORTH,
PROSTITUTE OUR BODIES
FOR THE INDUSTRIAL MACHINE,
SACRIFICE OUR MINDS,
GIVE UP OUR LIVES,
AND LAY ALL OUR TIME
DOWN AT THE FEET
OF OUR CEO CHIEF.
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In fact, despite a recent military report recommending criminal charges be filed against at least two Titan employees contracted as translators at Abu Ghraib prison, the US Army has awarded a six month "bridging contract" to the San Diego-based security firm to continue providing translators and interpreters after its current contract ends this month. The Associated Press reports that the new contract could bring Titan as much as $400 million.

http://electroniciraq.net/news/1659.shtml





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FREE TRADE

THE PRIME MINISTER OF POVERTY COUNTRY
PLEADED WITH THE PRESIDENT
OF PROSPERITY CORPORATION
SAYING, “PLEASE,
SAVE MY STARVING CITIZENS!”
THE RICH MAN STERNLY REPLIED,
“ONLY IF YOU WILL GRANT ME
THREE WISHES.
YOUR PEOPLE MUST WORK
FOR A DOLLAR A DAY,
YOUR MINISTRY OF ENVIRONMENT
CANNOT INSPECT US,
AND WE WILL NOT PAY MORE
THAN TWO PERCENT IN TAXES.”
THE POOR RULER RESPONDED,
“YOU ARE EXPLOITING OUR SITUATION.”
THE GREEDY MAN GRINNED.
“IF YOU WON’T ACCEPT IT,
WE WILL SET UP OUR SWEAT SHOP
IN SOME OTHER SMALL NATION.”

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On January 28, 2002, Dr. Raman Aziz al-Abi, a university professor, went to work. He was teaching a class to some 100 students when, suddenly, a group of men burst into the lecture hall, shackled the professor and whisked him away. Professor al-Abi's students said he pleaded with the men to let him speak to an attorney but they physically dragged him off. The men who took him away refused to answer any questions and Professor al-Abi disappeared. This isn't an abduction story from some distant land run by a tin pot dictator or a scene from a Hollywood thriller. This event took place right here in the United States. Professor al-Abi was a teacher at the University of Northwest Central Texas at South Pantego. He had lived in the United States for 27 years and had been accepted for citizenship just a week before. His naturalization ceremony was two weeks later.
http://www.soundvision.com/info/muslims/internment.asp
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Amnesty International

Guantánamo Bay: a human rights scandal

None of the detainees have been granted prisoner of war status or brought before a “competent tribunal” to determine his status, as required by Article 5 of the Third Geneva Convention. The US government refuses to clarify their legal status, despite calls from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to do so. Instead, the US government labels them “enemy combatants” or “terrorists”, flouting their right to be presumed innocent and illegally presuming justification for the denial of many of their most basic human rights.

http://web.amnesty.org/web/web.nsf/print/guantanamobay-index-eng
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FAITHFUL EMPLOYEES

WE LOVE
THE CORPORATION.
WE LIVE
FOR THE CORPORATION.
WE DIE
FOR THE CORPORATION.
WE SACRIFICE
TO THE CORPORATION.
WE COMPROMISE
FOR THE CORPORATION.
WE ARE SLAVES
OF THE CORPORATION.
WE WORSHIP
THE ALMIGHTY CORPORATION
BECAUSE WE ARE YOUNG
AND NAIVE
AND HAVEN'T YET BEEN
SCREWED BY
THE CORPORATION.
******************************************************************
War Profiteers
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?list=type&type=16


General Electric
Run until 2001by “Neutron” Jack Welch, who made it a matter of principle to lay off 10% of his workers per year, the world’s biggest company churns out plastics, aircraft engines and nuclear reactors and media spin through NBC, CNBC, Telemundo, and msnbc.com.

CEO: Jeffrey R. Immelt
Military contracts 2003: $2.8 billion
Campaign contributions: $221,350 in 2002

The world’s largest company by market share, General Electric’s revenues in 2003 totaled $134.2 billion. GE was run until 2001 by “Neutron” Jack Welch, who made it a matter of principle to lay off 10% of his workers per year.

General Electric makes household appliances, plastics, water treatment systems, lighting, medical equipment, and commercial financial services. It also makes aircraft engines and nuclear reactors, and keeps criticism at bay with its ownership of media giants NBC, CNBC, Telemundo, Bravo, and, in partnership with Microsoft, msnbc.com. GE’s recent partnership with Vivendi added Universal Studios, USA, Trio and Sci-fi cable channels to its $43 billion media empire.

General Electric is one of the world’s top three producers of jet engines, supplying Boeing, Lockheed Martin and other military aircraft makers for the powering of airplanes and helicopters.
The “war on terrorism” has seen GE’s military contracts rise substantially. But the company’s “defense” side has been doing well for a while. GE and other military contractors got a big boost under the Clinton administration from Presidential Directive 41 which stated that it was the job of US diplomats to promote arms sales abroad in order to safeguard American jobs; this directive tied the promotions of diplomats to how effectively they hocked US armaments.
GE has designed 91 nuclear power plants in 11 countries, yet its nuclear reactors around the world have a fatal flaw. In the event of a nuclear meltdown, there is a 90 percent chance that radiation from GE-designed reactors would be discharged directly into the atmosphere. While the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission is aware of the problem, it continues to license GE nuclear reactors.
GE’s history with nuclear power is an ugly one. In the 1940s-1960s the company ran experiments on humans with radiation, including irradiating the reproductive organs of prison inmates in Walla Walla, Washington, without warning them of the risk of cancer. Other tests were run on the elderly and hospital patients. General Electric intentionally released large amounts of radiation into the air from the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Richland, in order to see the distance it would travel. These atrocities were revealed in hearings in 1986 held by Representative Edward Markey of Massachusetts. The company has also been accused of knowingly poisoning its workers at the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory in Schenectady, New York with radiation and asbestos.
General Electric is currently attempting to overturn the US Superfund Law of 1980, which allows the government to hold polluters responsible for cleaning up their toxic chemicals. GE argues that it is “unconstitutional” for the Environmental Protection Agency to force the company to pay $500 million for the cleanup of the Hudson River, where GE dumped carcinogenic PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, over three decades. In March 2004, a federal appeals court has revived GE’s lawsuit. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that GE is trying to change the Superfund Law: the company is responsible for 78 Superfund sites around the US.

It’s clearly not safe to be a worker for GE either. The US government’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, has cited the company for 858 workplace safety violations from 1990-2001.

General Electric has been involved in so many cases of fraud that in the 1990s the Pentagon's Defense Contract Management Agency created a special investigations office specifically for the company, which indicted GE on 22 criminal counts and recovered $221.7 million. In one case, in 1992, GE entered a guilty plea to criminal and civil charges for defrauding the Pentagon in a case where money was funneled to the Israeli military. GE was fined $69 million for violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

GE’s financial division has been another area ripe for fraud. GE was fined $100 million for trying to get bankrupt creditors to pay without informing the bankruptcy courts, in effect paying debts that they no longer legally owed. Not surprisingly, General Electric is the financial backer of WorldCom, the telecom company whose massive fraud and creative accounting led to the largest bankruptcy in US history.

The company has been involved in countless scandals, but strangely enough, they don’t seem to affect General Electric’s ability to win government contracts – but then, this is typical of all military contractors. According to a survey by the Center for Public Integrity, from 1990-2002, 30 of the US government’s top contractors were found guilty of fraud in 400 cases, leading to settlements and fines amounting to at least $3.4 billion. General Electric paid $982.9 million for 63 cases in this period.

Such repeated behavior and continued contracts wouldn’t be possible without friends in high places, of which General Electric. GE spent more than $31 million in 2001 and 2002 lobbying lawmakers; in 2000 it spent $16 million. Reigning CEO Jack Welch had enormous influence and was consistently ranked CEO of the Year by the slavish business press; he was major Republican donor as well. GE director Sam Nunn was senator for Georgia for 27 years, and also sits on the boards of ChevronTexaco. GE’s Senior Vice President and General Counsel and Secretary, Benjamin W. Heineman, used to work for the US government’s Department of Health, Education and Welfare. General Electric gave $221,350 to political campaigns in the 2002 election cycle, with 40 percent going to Democrats and 60 percent to Republicans.

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DRONES*

THEY FORM THE MAJORITY IN SOCIETY,
DAY AFTER DAY DOING JOBS
THEY WERE NEVER CREATED FOR,
AND EVENING AFTER EVENING
FEEDING THEIR MINDS
ON ENTERTAINMENTS
THAT SUBTLY SHAPE
THEIR VALUES.
THEY AGREE WITH ALL
THE POPULAR OPINIONS,
AND BUY ALL THE PRODUCTS
GLORIFIED ON T.V.
THEY LIVE THEIR LIVES EXERTING,
SWEATING, CONSUMING,
AND FOLLOWING
SOMEONE ELSE’S DREAM.

*All poems were from Corporate Domination,
Careerism, and Greed

by Chris Lindsay

http://www.cryjustice.com/revolution.htm