Editor,
Mr. Carrasco, I don't think that it's so much a situation of innocent nÑive corporations gleefully working their day away to get money while people hurl accusations of vast control. I think what scares people a lot of times is the legal power (or perhaps immunity and abuse thereof) that corporations have.
You need look no further than a newspaper or magazine to see that the vast numbers of corporations that operate without regard for the safety and lives of those who they affect.
For example, there is Monsanto, a huge U.S. firm, which has historically been involved in chemicals manufacturing. It made Agent Orange (from which the Vietnamese countryside still has not recovered and American GI's are still getting sick). It deals heavily in commercial pesticides (many of which are sold to our Latin American neighboring countries - one catch, though: we can't buy the food they export because it's poisonous by our standards). It consistently poisoned the population of East St. Louis with accidental chemical spills, which occurred often enough that they had a running tab with the local hospital. Luckily, it could trick/bribe poor, uneducated people into signing away their legal right to recourse. Ironically, it is exempt from ever paying taxes to or employing a single person in East St. Louis.
And what is it up to now? Well, it has major holdings in the genetically engineered foods sector, and they're very scared about new scientific research that shows that genetically modified foods are not necessarily safe. So what does Monsanto do? It has been bribing and schmoozing scientists all over the world to try and get a specially hand-picked team to carry out "further research" that will prove the safety of genetically engineered products.
This corporate example is one of thousands, many of which are not so heinous, but many of which are far worse. That's why people cry conspiracy.
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The kicker is, because of the way corporations operate, people cannot take action against them. If they were subject to the same legal system as people, most would have been executed on a yearly basis since their incorporation. But they aren't, so many continue doing what they're doing, getting rich as hell, and injuring whoever may be in their paths.
What greater power can an entity have than control over the very health of people?
That column by Carrasco was either nÑive or propaganda. You don't even need a conspiracy theory when common knowledge is so damning.
Adam Collingsworth
UNM student
