Rape of the Amazon for fat profits

[WildHorse]

Occidental Petroleum got caught spoiling lands and water providing basic sustainance of several indigeneous populations in northern Peru for thousands of years. All for a buck.

So Oxy goes in, milks out the max profits, then eventually when the payoff dwindles Oxy flips the properties to local interests, and tries to evade responsibility for extreme damage done there.

Shame on the Oxy managers who got rewarded for what they did in Peru.

Idealistically, there ought to be some sort of severe social stigma applied to people who buy stock of companies that behave so cruely, rapaciously, with the savage social irresponsibility displayed by Oxy in Peru.

Oxy wreaks environmental havoc -- and leaves many of the people ill

 

[Turkish]

Doesn't surprise me at all. Remember Piper Alpha and Cano Limon? The attitude of Oxy is a prime example of American corporate arrogance. Sorry, some of you may get offended by that but it is true. I am a former World Bank employee (HDN - Health Div) and have seen countless examples where American companies disrespect the health of those in developing nations.

You must realize, OXY can explore and process oil/gas using similar methods in the U.S. but it will not as it will have to face heavy legal consequences for destroying nature/endangering human life.

Scott, don't expect much support here. Most people here hasn't even left their home state, let alone the United States.

 

[Braznor]

I guess here no one heard of the Union Carbide disaster in India.

 

[sandorski]

It's not just American Corps. Seems to be Corporations in general. There are probably exceptions, but I suspect they are few and far between who are decent.

 

[WildHorse]

''

 

[Turkish]

Originally posted by: scott

Originally posted by: sandorski
It's not just American Corps. Seems to be Corporations in general. There are probably exceptions, but I suspect they are few and far between who are decent.

You're right; the Oxy story can probably be retold over & over, simply changing the company names and locations.

sandorski, how do we influence change for the better?

In Surfrider Foundation the saying is often used, "If not us, who? If not now, when?"

It seems to me a "right action" is to take all opportunities to promote a social norm (is that a meme?) making it shameful to buy shares of corporations behaving with harmful disregard of people and envirnment, such as exemplified by Oxy in Peru. In other words, deter buyers of their stock. Make it harder for them to raise money.

There's a strong flavor of civil disobedience here. I must re-read some Thoreau soon for helpful pertinent ideas!

It won't work. The average investor doesn't have a clue about what the companies in his/her portfolio do. Their investments are handled by a financial adviser / portfolio manager who only cares about the commission he is going to receive.

What we need is better international cooperation on environmental issues and liability for actions taken elsewhere. This is also hard to achieve as governments in industrialized (&developed) nations are puppets of corporations so it will be hard to get any of them to sign it, including my home country Turkey.

 

[BrownTown]

I dunno, I work for a company that gets alot of people protesting stuff they do and its often blown up in the media, and even when its not if you look at a company with tens of billions in revenue and tens of thousands of employees there are always some "bad apples" who make immoral descisions or even cause accidents that harm other people. I'm not condoning this by any means, but just going out and saying "big buisness is evil" is a rather gross oversimplification, I'm sure you can find just as many small buisnesses screwing over their customers, and also find many instances where big buisnesses have made out lives better.

 

[ScottMac]

I'm not surprised, Al "Gulfstream" Gore has a significant stake in OXY.

I didn't have a lot of time to look it up, but it's mentioned here: http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=468

It's OK to rob, rape, and pillage, as long you have good intentions.

 

[piasabird]

Much todo about nothing. The article is not even about the Amazon. It seems to be about Al Gore and how he raped America.

 

[dahunan]

Look at how they raped your pension and retirement funds

Small businesses do not have the govt support and political clout to get away with the shit that the big boys do

 

[Sinsear]

Originally posted by: ScottMac
I'm not surprised, Al "Gulfstream" Gore has a significant stake in OXY.

I didn't have a lot of time to look it up, but it's mentioned here: http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=468

It's OK to rob, rape, and pillage, as long you have good intentions.

Say it isn't so. Gore-God the Green is a big oil man.

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: scott

Originally posted by: sandorski
It's not just American Corps. Seems to be Corporations in general. There are probably exceptions, but I suspect they are few and far between who are decent.

You're right; the Oxy story can probably be retold over & over, simply changing the company names and locations.

sandorski, how do we influence change for the better?

In Surfrider Foundation the saying is often used, "If not us, who? If not now, when?"

It seems to me a "right action" is to take all opportunities to promote a social norm (is that a meme?) making it shameful to buy shares of corporations behaving with harmful disregard of people and envirnment, such as exemplified by Oxy in Peru. In other words, deter buyers of their stock. Make it harder for them to raise money.

There's a strong flavor of civil disobedience here. I must re-read some Thoreau soon for helpful pertinent ideas!

IMO, we have Consumer Power and Investor Power, but neither of these is sufficient to really rectify the situation. Both can have some affect, in fact at times Consumer Power has influenced some good, unfortunately that only works when something has been exposed and it only works for awhile when the Consumer can still be outraged. In time though it gets harder for people to be outraged and they eventually succumb to acceptance.

I think the only real solution is for there to be a Global Authority that is Democratically(in some form)Elected with Authority over International Trade and other International Issues. You need an organization that has power over the Corporations no matter where they operate.

 

[Turkish]

Originally posted by: sandorski

Originally posted by: scott

Originally posted by: sandorski
It's not just American Corps. Seems to be Corporations in general. There are probably exceptions, but I suspect they are few and far between who are decent.

You're right; the Oxy story can probably be retold over & over, simply changing the company names and locations.

sandorski, how do we influence change for the better?

In Surfrider Foundation the saying is often used, "If not us, who? If not now, when?"

It seems to me a "right action" is to take all opportunities to promote a social norm (is that a meme?) making it shameful to buy shares of corporations behaving with harmful disregard of people and envirnment, such as exemplified by Oxy in Peru. In other words, deter buyers of their stock. Make it harder for them to raise money.

There's a strong flavor of civil disobedience here. I must re-read some Thoreau soon for helpful pertinent ideas!

IMO, we have Consumer Power and Investor Power, but neither of these is sufficient to really rectify the situation. Both can have some affect, in fact at times Consumer Power has influenced some good, unfortunately that only works when something has been exposed and it only works for awhile when the Consumer can still be outraged. In time though it gets harder for people to be outraged and they eventually succumb to acceptance.

I think the only real solution is for there to be a Global Authority that is Democratically(in some form)Elected with Authority over International Trade and other International Issues. You need an organization that has power over the Corporations no matter where they operate.

In all honesty, do you really believe that the U.S., UK, France, etc. would sign up for such thing? Not in a thousand years. Look at WTO, maybe the intention was to provide a fair trade environment for all companies across the globe but now it's just a poke stick. Meh

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: Turkish

Originally posted by: sandorski

Originally posted by: scott

Originally posted by: sandorski
It's not just American Corps. Seems to be Corporations in general. There are probably exceptions, but I suspect they are few and far between who are decent.

You're right; the Oxy story can probably be retold over & over, simply changing the company names and locations.

sandorski, how do we influence change for the better?

In Surfrider Foundation the saying is often used, "If not us, who? If not now, when?"

It seems to me a "right action" is to take all opportunities to promote a social norm (is that a meme?) making it shameful to buy shares of corporations behaving with harmful disregard of people and envirnment, such as exemplified by Oxy in Peru. In other words, deter buyers of their stock. Make it harder for them to raise money.

There's a strong flavor of civil disobedience here. I must re-read some Thoreau soon for helpful pertinent ideas!

IMO, we have Consumer Power and Investor Power, but neither of these is sufficient to really rectify the situation. Both can have some affect, in fact at times Consumer Power has influenced some good, unfortunately that only works when something has been exposed and it only works for awhile when the Consumer can still be outraged. In time though it gets harder for people to be outraged and they eventually succumb to acceptance.

I think the only real solution is for there to be a Global Authority that is Democratically(in some form)Elected with Authority over International Trade and other International Issues. You need an organization that has power over the Corporations no matter where they operate.

In all honesty, do you really believe that the U.S., UK, France, etc. would sign up for such thing? Not in a thousand years. Look at WTO, maybe the intention was to provide a fair trade environment for all companies across the globe but now it's just a poke stick. Meh

It is inevitable. Maybe not for our Civilization, perhaps the next will learn from our error if we fail to adopt one.

 

[TallPilot]

Look at how they raped your pension and retirement funds

I don't even want to think about what they did to me!

 

[Deleted member 4644]

The article was not very specific honestly. I personally believe that Oxy did commit various environmental crimes, but if those Indians and their lawyers cannot come up with a lot of specifics, they are not going to get anywhere. Truth is they waited 8 years since operations ended and the evidence was purged, and they are probably out of luck.

 

[JS80]

Originally posted by: Deleted member 4644
The article was not very specific honestly. I personally believe that Oxy did commit various environmental crimes, but if those Indians and their lawyers cannot come up with a lot of specifics, they are not going to get anywhere. Truth is they waited 8 years since operations ended and the evidence was purged, and they are probably out of luck.

You mean they waited 8 years for Oxy to make money so that they can sue to take the money they made.

 

[Pabster]

Ah, yes. And which political family is heavily vested in Occidental Petroleum? :laugh:

The sheeple were fooled again.