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More Than One 1
More Than One
Volume One!
Issue One
No. One
One
-Table Of Contentments-
1. ...............................................................Editorial
2. ...............................................................Letterz!!
3. .............................................Milk... It Does a Body Dead
4. ............................................................You're Next!
5. ....................................................Why Everything Sucks
6. ................................................Pray, Mutherfuckaaaaaaa!
7. ....................................Corporate Crime & Violence in Review
8. ............................................................Engage Spiel
9. ........................................................The War on Drugs
10. ................................... Excerpt from: Diet for a New America
11. ..............................................................Just Stuff
12. .....................................................Absolutely NOTHING!
Comments, criticism, letters, hate mail, donations, contributions,
questions, cheesy stories about god, submissions, remissions,
demonstrations, revelations, hot tipz, etc. should all be directed to:
mto@foul.cuug.ab.ca
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Editorial:
You may notice that next to nothing in this e-mag is an original work of
mine. Then again you may not. But the truth is, I haven't had the time to
do any research as of late. I hope this will change in the future so I can
stop feeling as if I'm the guy sitting beside the guy talking, who at the
end of the long winded mind blowing speech says '.....ditto'.
Although I tend to agree with a great deal of the things said in this
e-mag (why the fuck else would I take the time to retype them!?!?), I do
not expect you to take it as 100% truth. If anything, these articles have
taught me that you always have to think for yourself. We rely far too much
on mass media owned by biased major corporations for our daily news. We
have to learn to think for ourselves again.
The reason why I am doing this, is because I feel there are a great deal
of people who just accept what is put in front of them, and continue on
happily with their lives. People have stopped questioning the reality of
what is being thrown in their faces. The dairy bureau of Canada recommends
3 to 4 servings of dairy products a day. The majority of "bureaus" such as
this are made up of the people who benefit from you buying their products.
Of course they recommend you use it alot, how else are they going to make
a profit? The fact is, a great deal of media is filled with bias. We have
to learn to see through this.
Anything that you want to send to me, go ahead, send it. I dare you! I
read and reply to most anything that shows up in my mailbox. It may take
me a while, but I will read it. And I will reply to it. Maybe.
My mail feed at this moment is not 100% relaible, so if you do send
something and get no response within a few days, try sending it again. Do
not send something 100 times just to be sure it gets through, though.
Something ironic about the name of this e-mag, is that I'm not sure
whether there will be more than one issue of 'more than one'. It's taken me
about 2 months to put this together (admittedly I wasn't working very hard
on it the first month.) Depending on the what kind of reply this generates,
more than one could go various places. I would like to have it as an actual
hardcopy magazine, though it will always be available for completely free in
electronic form.
I've labelled other people's work where I can, and tried to provide as
much information ABOUT the information as I could. In some cases, it just
isn't possible. But NEVER will I try and say that I wrote something when I
didn't (except when it will make me look really cool and suave, but thats
different). I have asked none of these people for their permission to
reprint their work. I hope they don't mind, but if they do.. To hell with
them, I don't believe anyone can have ownership over the distribution of
words. So there..
<Insert witty end remark here>
Sereptitiously,
Jack Maxx
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Letterz:
A
B
C
This is the first issue in case you haven't noticed. I haven't gotten the
multi-million dollar advertising campaign off the ground quite yet. Hence,
there are NO letters.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This article was taken from King's Mob Returns (Vol. 2)
(Completely without consent or permission of ANY kind.)
Jim D. Peri
jdperi@panix.com
Who in turn took it from:
Milk... It Does a Body Dead
by Razzle Spooner
Originally Published in Kidney Room #2
Available by mail at: PO Box 589; Village Station; NYC, NY 10014
It seems a few people had a problem with my sticker that reads: MILK IS
LIKE RAPING A WOMAN, STEALING HER BABY, AND COMING BACK TO HER HOUSE
EVERYDAY TO PUMP HER BREASTS DRY. These people said you can't compare rape
and the consumption of milk, they are just not the same. Anyone who agrees
with these people is obviously uneducated on the subject, so, once again, I
am going to go through the life and death of an opressed animal.
The statement I made is false in one sense. I was only telling half the
story.
Cows are not the grazing, roaming and romping animals they once were.
They are now subjected to afflictions far worse than anything a human has
ever experienced, and it happens everyday, to 5 million cows a year.
These loving animals are set up on "raping racks," literally strapped
down to a machine, and a gigantic rod full of bull semen (a few male cows
will be reared as bulls spending their lives in solitary confinement,
banging "canvas cows and rubber tubes" - male rape -) is forced into their
vaginal openings (75% of all pregnancies are "artifically inseminated").
They have no choice in the matter. They don't even get a chance to
recuperate, because three months after they give birth, they are raped
again. The cow is milked 10 months out of the year and spends her whole
life in a cage too small for her to turn around in. There is no connection
between the bull and the cow, they have never even seen each other.
It is obvious that this constitutes rape. Anyone who eats or drinks
dairy might as well shove the inseminating pole up the cow's hole
themselves.
Once the baby is born, mommy cow is lucky if she even gets a glimpse of
her baby, which she carried for nine months. It is very important for a
bonding process to start at this point, but that would not be profitable,
so it is not allowed. Instead, her calf will be subjected to suffer through
one of the following fates.
The "luckiest" calves are slaughtered immediately and used in pet food,
and pet food veal and ham pies. Rennet (from the stomach linings of newly
born calves) is used in cheese making.
Hundreds of thousands of calves are exported each year only to be
committed to suffering all the horrors of life in veal crates. In these
crates, they are fed milk substitute deficient in iron and fiber to keep
their flesh white (they could have natural milk, but you need that for your
coffee). With no room to move, they will gnaw at their crates and their own
hair to get the roughage they crave - malnutrition and confinement lead to
widespread disease.
Some females will be reared on milk substitutes to become dairy herd
replacements, thus beginning the cycle of continual pregnancy (rape) at the
ages of 18 to 24 months.
Because of drugs (funny how straight edgers won't take drugs but will
drink milk thats been drugged) this poor, unfortunate milk machine
produces 6,000 litres of milk per year. That is the equivalent of 3,000
soda bottles. This is 10 times the amount her calf could drink, not that
the calf would get a chance to taste a drop - after all, a human's
chocolate bar or slice of pizza is more important than a newborn calf
dependent on those nutrients for survival. Dairy "technology" has made it
so that a cow can be milked three times a day and a full udder can weigh as
much as 50 bags of sugar. They have even been known to drag on the ground
causing Mastisis (inflammation of the udder caused by spending the winter
on concrete floors, immersed in feces).
Cows are naturally vegan and all they need to survive in a natural
surrounding is grass, yet, because of the mass amounts of milk they must
produce, they are fed huge quantities of mixed grains (1/3 of all the grain
in the world, which could be used to feed us hungry humans, is fed to
livestock). Some farms have started feeding cows sheep brains, which, in
most cases, results in B.S.E. (mad cow disease).
Dairy cows are slaughtered when they are no longer useful. The natural
life span of a cow is 20 to 25 years, but, in these stressful conditions,
they probably won't see their 6th birthday.
So, let's see. Maybe the people who opposed my sticker were right, I
should change what it says. I guess I should say: DRINKING MILK IS LIKE
RAPING A MAN WITH A MACHINE, THEN STRAPPING A WOMAN TO ANOTHER MACHINE AND
RAPING HER WITH A GIGANTIC DILDO, THEN SHOOTING HER UP WITH DRUGS, THEN
WHEN SHE GIVES BIRTH, STEAL HER BABY AND SELL IT TO A LIFE OF
UNDER-NOURISHMENT, THEN COMING BACK TO THE WOMAN'S HOUSE THREE TIMES A DAY
TO PUMP HER BREASTS DRY AND RAPE HER AGAIN TO START THE PROCESS OVER. On
second thought, that would be too much to put on one sticker - so I will
stick to the condensed version.
Anyone who is vegetarian for the animals must realize that dairy is
just as cruel to the animals, and just as bad for you.
(Editorial notes from Kings Mob Returns Editors
Neil: Good good good good good (read fast). This is just a sample of the
torture all species that we eat must endure. True, there's a life cycle and
a food chain - but we don't need to torture the animals.
Jim: I feel as if I've been lied to all my life by those damn "milk it does
a body good" commercials. No one ever told us that those were paid for by
the milk industries, I always thought it was just a public service
annoucement. Think about it... "butter makes it better," "cheese glorious
cheese"... how about "bovine growth hormone makes it better?" Never heard
that one.
End of KMR Ed. Notes)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Taken from The Calgary Herald, Fri, June 25, 1994, Section A7
-Board hears of false arrest-
(Man jailed after woman lies about sexual assault)
Dartmouth, N.S. (CP) -- A Halifax man arrested for a sex assault he didn't
commit says sloppy work by two police officers ruined his life.
Stephen MacCormack, arrested last July after a woman lied to police
about being sexually assaulted by a stranger, has filed six complaints
under the Police Act.
Police ignored major features in Twila Cunningham's description of her
attacker, his lawyer Mark Knox said as a four-day Police Review Board
hearing into the complaints wound down this week.
The complaints say Sgt. Shane Halliday and Const. Robert Lomond:
- Had no cause for the arrest;
- Abused authority by being rude to MacCormack's wife;
- Made a disparaging remark that wives lied for their husbands.
- Neglected their duty by failing to contact witnesses.
- Denied MacCormack his right to call a lawyer.
- Disclosed confidential information to his landlord, an RCMP officer.
The police officers' lawyer, Ron Pink, said the complaints are
frivolous and groundless because police had reasonable and probably arrest
grounds.
Pink accused MacCormack of using the board simply as a prelude or "free
discovery" for his civil suit against officers.
MacCormack lost his airport job, and claims he's blacklisted and can't
get any security work, so he's using the complaints as a way to get money,
Pink said.
Police arrested MacCormack and another innocent man, Peter Theriault,
after Cunningham, 27, lied about being attacked by a stranger in her
apartment in July last year. She was jailed in April for 90 days.
Police found her lying in the fetal position on the floor of her
apartment, shaking uncontrolably in a blood-soaked sun dress, with marks on
her face and body.
Cunningham, who picked MacCormack from a police photo line-up, claimed
she answered a knock at her door. A stranger burst in, she said, wrapped a
phone cord around her neck and raped her. She later said she lied. She said
she was assaulted by a family friend and lied to protect herself and his
family.
MacCormack's lawyer said police ignored parts of her description that
didn't fit MacCormack -- a dimple, freckles, black hair and calloused
hands.
The board will hand down it's decision at an unspecified date.
[
The Holy Words of Jack Maxx Lie Here:
I find it quite reassuring to know that at any given moment I can
be accused of rape and be completely stripped of my rights and freedoms,
perhaps lose my job if I'm lucky and maybe... just maybe the arresting
officers would be so kind as to insult my family too.
]
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10 Easy Steps to Selling Out Yourself, Fans, Morals, and Ending Up
Wondering Just What the Fuck You're Doing, Part I.
OR
Why Everything Sucks
By Jack MaXXX
To me, selling out is not about signing major record deals, or making
videos for eMpTyV/notMuch Music/The Porn Channel/Whatever. Selling out is
the point where you stop making music for the music, and start making music
for the money.
Of course, people need money to live. But when you start making your
music because you need the money it generates to live, you're no longer
making the music just for the sake of the music. It's a hard concept to
grasp, I know.
One of the bands that has been labelled a 'major sell-out' of the past
while, is Bad Religion. I personally like Bad Religion. If it wasn't for
them I don't think I would have ever gotten into Punk/Hardcore music. I
would still be content sitting around listening to Metallica and Megadeth,
and 'rocking on'.
At the time of Bad Religion's 'sell-out', I was volunteering for a local
independent music festival, which BR were supposed to be playing (though we
all had our doubts). I remember sitting there at one of our volunteer
meetings, when the organizer told us that Bad Religion would not be playing
because the band was having 'personal problems'. At that one moment, I felt
the shittiest I have ever felt in my life. I knew there was something going
on with the BR that I wasn't going to like. It came to light at a later date,
that these 'personal problems' were the signing of a major record deal. Bad
Religion was no longer going to play our independent music festival because
they had signed to a major label.
This is the problem I see with 'selling-out'. You lose sight of your
fans when you're dreaming about how you're going to spend all that cold
hard cash. You start charging $25 a person for a gig, $20 for T-Shirts,
jack the prices of your albums up. You lose sight of what was fun about
playing the music in the first place.
You can always hide under the guise of wanting to reach a wider audience
though. And maybe, just maybe you really DO want to reach a wider audience.
Maybe you do want to get your message out there. But to me, it invalidates
that message when you cease to play your music for that message and take on
the attitude of 'we did it for the money.'
I'll still listen to Bad Religion. I'll still listen to many bands that
in my opinion have 'sold-out'. But the music has definately lost a great deal
of meaning when you realize the only reason that message is coming across
to you is so that you can be sold on it and throw some more money at the
cause.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kneel down, dear people of Quebec
The Rosary solves every problem
Quebec seperatists are communists, revolutionaries, no matter what the
label of their movements might be. The seperatists are liars. They claim to
be nationalists, but their communism is international. They claim to be
"independentists", but they are submitted to International Finance.
It is on behalf of this same "independentist" nationalism that a
communist revolution took place -- and communism seized power -- in the
Congo, Algeria, Guinea, Angola, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Vietnam, Cambodia,
etc. One sees now what is presently taking place in Croatia and
Bosnia-Herzegovina, which are martyr nations.
Those who bawl for free Quebec, for free Britanny in Frace, for a free
Jura in Switzerland, for a free Basque country in Spain, are talking about
freedom only to surrender themselves, and all of us, to the worst
dictatorship of history.
It is a worldwide plot, with a clever and proven structure and strategy,
led by Communist leaders, and well financed by leaders of High Finance.
Will Quebec escape from this attack of the enemy?
The Rosary solves every problem. Couldn't our families find fifteen
minutes to pray the Rosary, like it used to some years ago in every home in
Quebec?
Kneel down, dear people! We must kneel down! Only God can overcome
Lucifer and his hellhounds. God is infinetly merciful; He only asks for a
minimum of goodwill on our part, that is to say, that we kneel down and
acknowledge His fatherly goodness and power, that we keep His Commandments
which are everlastingly wise, for the good order of societies on earth, and
eternal happiness of souls.
[
The Holy Ranting Words Lie Here of Jack Maxx
This was taken from a newsletter that appeared in my mailbox a short
while ago. It didn't really have a cover page, but it did have an address
(which will be provided). It talks mostly about how the attempted
seperation of Quebec from Canada is a ploy by world communist leaders. The
newsletter has some valid ideas, though it also has some ideas that were
making me wonder just what the authors of it had been smoking (Such as the
one illustrated above.) I recommend picking it up if at all possible.
]
"Michael" Journal
1101 Prinipale St.
Rougemont, Quebec
Canada J0L 1M0
Tel: Montreal (514) 875-6622; Rougemont (514) 469-2209; Fax (514) 469-2601
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Taken From: CENSORED: The News That Didn't Make it To The News--And Why
By Carl Jensen
Corporate Crime & Violence in Review: The 10 Worst Corporations of 1991
By Russel Mokhiber; Multinational Monitor - December 1991
The past year has seen corporate crime and violence on the move at an
accelerating pace--public corruption, environmental degredation, financial
fraud, procurement fraud and occupational homicide are all on the increase.
Criminal corporate collectivist action has inflicted injuries on the
planet and its people that even the most evil of individuals acting alone
could not dream of inflicting--the growing hole in the ozone layer, global
warming, and increasing cancer rates, to name a few.
Yet, many people in positions of authority continue to deny this reality
and defy common sense.
The vast majority of crime shows on television today, for example, focus
on street crime, not corporate crime.
Earlier this year, Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen wrote that
"Young Black males commit most of the crime in Washington, D.C." This
statement is demonstrably false. In making it, Cohen ignored the research
of corporate criminology, which has found that all corporate crime and
violence combined inflicts far greater damage on society than all street
crime combined.
Apparently, Cohen did not take into account Exxon, International Paper,
United Technologies, Weyerhauser, Pillsbury, Ashland Oil, Texaco, Nabisco,
and Ralston-Purina, all convicted of environmental crimes in recent years.
All of these convicted corporations operating in Washington, D.C. None of
them are young black males.
All of the 46 individuals convicted in the Operation Ill-Wind
prosecution of defense procurement fraud were white males. The six
corporations convicted in that operation--Cubic, Hazeltine, Loral,
Sperry/Unisys, Teledyne and Whittaker--are controlled by white males. And
of the people convicted in the recent Wall Street insider trading scandals,
the vast majority were white males. Cohen apparently redlines these
white-collar criminals and their Washington associates from his definition
of crime.
Jeffrey Parker, an associate professor of law at George Mason University
School of Law, put forth the idea earlier this year that "there is no
corporate crime--only individuals can commit crime."
"Crime can only be committed by an individual human being who can be
held morally responsible through punishment," Parker wrote. "The idea of
'corporate crime' is a corruption of the core meaning of crime and a
dilution of the underlying ethic of individual moral responsibility and
autonomy."
Parker's theoretical idea that a "corporation has no mind, and therefore
cannot commit crime" defies reality. Sure, a corporation doesn't have a
mind in the human sense, but as Thomas Donaldson points out in his book,
'Corporations and Morality', corporations have "practical and theoretical
knowledge that dwarves that of individuals."
And their crimes dwarf that of individuals too. In support of a
different view of criminology, specifically, that a corporation can commit
a crime, that white people commit more crime than black people and that
television is still a vast wasteland, we present the Ten Worst Corporations
of 1991.
Alyeska: Invasion of Privacy
Charles Hamel is a former oil industry executive in Alaska. He left the
business when he discovered that oil he was sending to foreign customers
was significantly diluted with water. Hamel investigated the problem and
found that oil companies were aware of the water problem but failed to take
action to correct it. "Instead, they denied the truth, and apparently hoped
I would forget about my business, and damage to my credibility and
reputation and my lost income," Hamel says.
In 1985, Hamel decided to expose the "dishonesty of the oil industry."
In addition to the water-in-the-oil problem, Hamel concluded that "the oil
industry was turning Alaska into an environmental disaster."
Hamel focused his attention on Alyeska Pipeline Service Co., the
consortium which represents the major oil companies operating in Alaska.
"The more I heard, the angrier I got about what was going on," Hamel
told a congressional committee earlier this year. "Alyeska was polluting
the water by introducing toxic sludge, including cancer-causing benzene,
into the pristine waters of Port Valdez and Prince William Sound. Alyeska
was poisoning Valdez fjord's air by venting extremely hazardous hydrocarbon
vapor directly into the atmosphere."
Alyeska insiders began turning information over to Hamel about
environmental and other violation committed by Alyeska. Hamel passed the
information to federal enforcement agencies, to the media and to Congress.
Hamel's advocacy led to enforcement agencies, news stories,
congressional investigations and growing public awareness of the problems
of oil in Alaska. He became a major thorn in the side of the industry.
Then, Alyeska sought to silence Hamel. The company hired Wackenhut
Corp., a major security firm, to investigate Hamel. Alyeska claims that it
hired Wackenhut to recover "stolen documents." But Representative George
Miller, D-California, who investigated the Wackenhut operation, said that
the surveillance operation "involved the much more sinister and disturbing
motives of silencing environmental critics and intimidating whisteblowers."
Wackenhut created a fake environmental group to try to trick Hamel. "One
day in April 1990, a Dr. Wayne Jenkins came to me," Hamel told
Representative Miller's Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs earlier
this year. "He described his company, Ecolit Groups, as a well-funded group
of attorneys who wanted to help me. They would provide me the tools to
protect these workers who had turned to me for help. Ecolit could help
protect their jobs, and supply me support staff and assistance to manager
what had become a full-time, financially costly job of protecting
whistleblowers and coordinating government investigations. I thought it was
too good to be true." And it was. Dr. Wayne Jenkins was in fact a Wackenhut
investigator. Wackenhut surreptitiously video-taped the meetings with
Hamel. And that was only the beginning.
"Alyeska authorized stealing our trash, monitoring and taping our
telephone calls, concealing video cameras in a hotel room, stealing our
mail and illegally obtaining our personal and financial information," Hamel
testified.
Based on the information gathered through this surreptitious operation,
Alyeska fired a number of employees who fed Hamel information.
Virginia state police are investigating allegations that Alyeska and
Wackenhut might have violated state laws by secretly intercepting Hamel's
telephone calls.
Miller's committee believes that the Wackenhut/Alyeska operation may
have violated federal mail and wire fraud statutes, and laws governing
theft, eavsdropping, tape recording and obtaining telephone toll records.
Both companies deny engaging in any illegal activities.
"I refuse to believe that any citizen of this country has to tolerate
the invasion of privacy that I have been subjected to simply because I have
exercised my Constitutional rights and responsibilities as a citizen to
petition Congress," Hamel says.
American Home Products: Puerto Rican Racket
What do Chef Boyardee pasta, Jiffy Pop popcorn, Wheatena, Advil, Anacin,
Robitussin, Dristan have in common? They are all made by American Home
Products Corp., a company that cares little about its workers.
In November 1990, AHP announced that it would close down its Whitehall
plant in Elkhart, Indiana, throw its 775 employees out of work and move the
facility back to Guyama, Puerto Rico.
Unfortunately for American Home Products (AHP), its Indiana workers
refused to go quietly into the night. Last year, the Oil, Chemical and
Atomic Workers Uninion (OCAW) launched a grassroots compaign called "Keep
Whitehall Open: Hometowns Against Shutdowns" to prevent the plant from
closing [See "American Home Products Moves Abroad," Multinational Monitor,
April 1991]. The campaign has seen a number of street actions and numerous
lawsuits against AHP, including a $100 million racketeering lawsuit. The
National Labor Relations Board has charged the company with numerous labor
law violations.
"The closure of Whitehall looms like a death sentence over our members,"
says Connie Malloy, president of OCAW local 7-515. "American Home Products
has displayed a total lack of respect for the law and a total lack of
respect for [its] long-term employees."
In Puerto Rico, U.S. District Court Judge Jaime Pieras agreed with
Malloy, at least in part. In August 1991, Pieras cited AHP for an
"outrageous violation" of a discovery order in connection with the
racketeering lawsuit. Pieras held that AHP had improperly withheld
thousands of documents which the labor union had requested.
OCAW's racketeering lawsuit, filed in January 1991, alleges that
American Home Products fraudulently obtained federal tax benefits by
falsely certifying that the plant would not harm existing employment in
company facilities on the U.S. mainland. Under federal tax law,
corporations cannot utilize a number of tax breaks available in Puerto
Rico if mainland jobs will be lost as a consequence.
Clorox: Mud Ball
Everybody's Business: A Field Guide to the 400 leading companies in
America, by Milton Moskowitz, Robert Levering and Michael Katz, calls
Clorox "a good corporate citizen in their hometown of Oakland."
But the giant bleach manufacturer has its dirty side, too, and that side
reared its ugly head earlier this year when a public relations firm
prepared a "Crisis Management Plan" for Clorox, advising the company on how
to deal with the environmental movement.
The plan, prepared for Clorox by the public relations division of
Ketchum Communications, recommends labeling environmental critics as
"terrorists," threatening to sue "unalterably green" journalists,
dispatching "independent scientists" on media tours as a means to
counteract bad news for the chlorine industry and recruiting "scientific
ambassadors" to tout the Clorox cause and call for further study. The
Clorox plan makes reference to studies linking chlorine use to cancer, and
suggests key ways to discredit the findings if they ever become public.
The plan was apparently prompted by fears that the environmental group
Greenpeace would target household use of chlorine bleach and call for its
elimination.
And those fears proved correct later in the year when Greenpeace issued
a scathing report, "The Product Is Poison: The Case for a Chlorine
Phase-Out." According to the report, chlorine is one of the world's most
severe toxic pollutants and should be phased out. The report also called
for plans to protect the 10,000 to 20,000 workers employed in the chlorine
industry and the communities where such industries are located. The report
found that in U.S. and Canadian populations, 177 organochlorines have been
identified in human fat, breast milk, blood, semen and breath.
Greenpeace has instituted an international program aimed at ending the
use of chlorine in the pulp and paper industry. Greenpeace's slogan,
"Chlorine-Free in 1993" is cited in the Clorox crisis management plan,
which outlines numerous "worst case scenarios" in which Greenpeace and
"unalterably green" journalists figure prominently.
Water pollution from the use of chlorine in the paper industry has
contaminated rivers, streams and lakes throughout the world. Chlorine is
the base chemical in DDT, PCBs, Agent Orange, CFCs and many other
persistent toxic pollutants, according to Greenpeace's Shelly Stewart.
Fred Reichler, Clorox's director of corporate communications, backed
away from the plan when stories about it hit the press in May of this year,
saying the plan was "rejected by Clorox." But, he added, "all responsible
corporations must be aware of issues that may affect their products and
services."
Du Pont: Worst Polluters
Earlier this year, E.l. Du Pont de Nemours & Company began running a
television advertisement featuring sea lions, otters, dolphins and penguins
playing in their natural environments while Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" plays
in the background. The 30-second commercial shows a shoreline and pans the
horizon, as the narrator remarks, "Recently, Du Pont announced that its
energy unit would pioneer use of new double-hulled oil bankers in order to
safeguard the environment."
Friends of Earth's Jack Doyle points out, however, that Du Pont's oil
subsidiary, Conoco, does not have any double-hulled ships in service and
that its fleet will not be double hulled until the year 2000. And the
company has no plans to put double hulls in two of it's supertankers,
according to Doyle.
In fact, Du Pont is the nation's number one corporate polluter.
According to an exhaustive report issued by Friends of Earth earlier this
year, Du Pont has paid out nearly $1 million in fines, penalties or lawsuit
settlements for alleged environmental and public health problems between
March 1989 and June 1991. Du Pont reported that it emitted 348 million
pounds of pollution in 1989--14 times more than Dow Chemical, 20 times more
than Chrysler, and 30 times more than Mobil. The Friends of the Earth
report, "Hold the Applause," found that, among the largest 10 companies in
1989, Du Pont had the highest ratio of pollution to profit and the lowest
value of sales generated per pound of U.S. pollution.
According to the study, Du Pont has dumped pollutants into the world
oceans, invented chemicals which are now destroying the earth's protective
ozone layer, injected millions of pounds of hazardous wastes underground
with unknown consequences, produced pesticides that have infiltrated the
world's foodstuffs and drinking water, sold lead additives for gasoline in
developing countries and lobbied Congress, state legislatures and foreign
governments to oppose or weaken environmental measures.
An incident reported earlier this year sheds light on the company's
callousness and disregard for human life. The News Journal of Wilmington,
Delaware reported that, in its quest to develop a method of dry-cleaning
women's clothing, Du Pont exposed volunteers to Freon 113 during early
experiments, leading to the death of a company secretary. Du Pont continued
the experiments even after the death of 44-year-old Beverly B. Manning,
according to company documents obtained by the Journal.
But if large megacorporations go the way of the dinosaurs, Du Pont will
probably be most remembered for for producing chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs),
the chemicals which destroy the earth's protective ozone layer. The
Environmental Protection Agency estimates that exposure to ultraviolet rays
brought on by ozone destruction will result in 200,000 additional deaths
over the next 50 years.
"Du Pont is perhaps the most culpable for stringing out the CFC era for
its own business reasons and for delaying a shift to safe alternatives.,"
asserts Doyle [See "Du Pont's Disgraceful Deeds: The Environmental Record
of E.l. Du Pont de Nemours," Multinational Monitor, October 1991].
Ethyl Corporation: Poisoning Third World Children
The hazards of lead to children are well known: low birth weight,
decreased intelligence, behavioral abnormalities and other life-long,
irreversible damage. A public education campaign in a number of Western
countries forced governments to ban lead additives in gasoline.
However, a U.S. corporation still produces tetraethyl lead (TEL), a
toxic gasoline additive--for export to Third World countries.
"Ethyl is exporting a developmental toxin to developing countries," says
Kenny Bruno, co-ordinator of Greenpeace's Hazardous Exports Prevention
Campaign. "Lead was taken out of gasoline in North America after it
poisoned countless children, but Ethyl continues to export lead additives
abroad. Ethyl's decision to fuel profits by exporting this deadly
[chemical] demonstrates contempt for children around the world" [See
"Poison Petrol: Leaded Gas Exports to the Third World," Multinational
Monitor, July/August 1991].
While most industrialized countries have banned or reduced the use of
leaded fuel, Ethyl, which manufactures TEL at a plant in Canada near
Sarina, Ontario, applied for permission to double its production capacity
of the additive. Later, under pressure from environmentalists, the company
abandoned it expansion plans, announcing that it would instead buy TEL from
other suppliers.
Ethyl is one of only three companies in the world that produce TEL. The
others are Du Pont and the United Kingdom-based Octel. Ethyl, the
second-largest producer of the additive insists that TEL is not linked to
lead poisoning.
But, according to Dr. Sergio Piomelli, a hematologist at Columbia
University who has published a number of studies on lead poisoning, there
is very strong evidence that lead exposure even at low levels interferes
with the intellectual function of the developing brain.
"The removal of lead from gasoline in this country has had a fantastic
effect on children's health," Dr. Piomelli says. "It is unfair and immoral
to inflict more exposure to lead on children in developing countries."
Many Third World countries still rely exclusively on highly leaded fuel.
According to David Schwartzmann, professor of geology at Howard University,
lead poisoning of children in the Third World cities "can be expected to be
truly epidemic."
Bruno concludes that "there is no technological impediment to preventing
almost all of the lead contamination stemming from the use of leaded
gasoline."
It's the political impediment--Ethyl Corp and the other lead additive
producers--thats blocking change and creating health problems worldwide.
General Electric: Bringing Nasty Things To Life
After a two-year absence, General Electric (GE) is back on the Ten
Worst List. General Electric is still a criminal recidivist company, it is
still heavily engaged in building weapons of mass destruction, and is still
trying to whitewash its image by flooding the national media with it's
catchy jingle, "GE Brings Good Things to Life."
But the people at INFACT, the Boston-based public interest group that is
calling for a consumer boycott of all GE products, want you to know that
GE has brought some very bad things to the environment, too--namely
extensive pollution and contamination.
In a report released last year, "Bringing GE to Light: General
Electric's Trail of Radioactive and Toxic Contamination from the Company's
Nuclear Weapons Work," INFACT found that GE's nuclear weapons work has
created environmental health and safety nightmares across the United
States.
INFACT charges that GE knowingly contaminated residents of Washington,
Oregon, and Idaho with radioactive contamination from its Hanford nuclear
weapons facility. Workers and communities faced similar dangerous
contamination problems at GE facilities throughout the country.
In addition the report found that:
- GE ranks number 1 in Superfund sites, being a "potentially responsible
party" at 51 sites as of August 1990.
- GE released more cancer-causing chemicals into the environment than
any other U.S. company during 1988.
- While conducting a nationwide repair program for over one million of
its refrigerators, GE intentionally released more than 300,000 pounds of
CFCs into the atmosphere where they destroy the Earth's protective layer.
- For over 30 years, GE dumped hundreds of thousands of pounds of PCBs,
which cause birth defects and may cause cancer, into New York's Hudson
River. Over 250,000 pounds remain in the river bottom. All fishing is
banned in sections of the river and commercial fisheries for striped bass
had to be shut down as far as Long Island.
- In 1977, an epidemiologist noticed high levels of cancer and leukemia
among workers at GE's plant in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. He began a study
that initially showed an excessive number of deaths. Then GE took over the
funding and provision of employee records for the study. In 1990, GE
announced that the study failed to find a link between toxics used at the
plant and cancer deaths, and that there would be no further studies. A
closer look at the present study shows a number of "associations" between
toxics and specific cancers found among workers at the plant.
And in a report released earlier this year, "Workers At Risk: A Survey
OSHA's Enforcement Record Against the 50 Largest U.S. Corporations,"
Essential Information's James Donahue found that of the 50 largest
industrial corporations surveyed, General Electric was by far the most
frequent violator of federal workplace and safety health laws. From 1977
through 1990, GE received 2,017 citations and paid a penalty for 27.3
percent of those citations. GE received 550 penalities during the period,
more than any other corporation in the survey.
GE was also heavily involved in killing in the Persian Gulf. INFACT
reported that GE received nearly $2 billion in U.S. military contracts for
systems employed in the Gulf War effort.
GE owns NBC, the television network. During the Gulf War, as the media
watchdog group FAIR has pointed out, "Conflicts of interest at NBC were
an ongoing problem, as when the network aired a laudatory segment on the
Patriot missile (1.18.91), for which GE produces parts. [NBC anchor Tom
Brokaw] called the Patriot 'the missile that put the Iraqi scud in its
place.'"
FAIR also reported that "the government of Kuwait is believed to be a
major GE shareholder having owned 2.1 percent of GE stock in 1982, the last
year for which figures are available."
Conflicts of interest at NBC have not been confined to the war. When
NBC's "Today" show did a segment on consumer boycotts around the country,
many consumer products from Spam to Marlboros were mentioned. GE's light
bulbs were left out. Todd Butnam, editor of the National Boycott News, says
a "Today" show staffer told him "We can't do that one [GE]. Well, we could
do that one, but we won't."
Another "Today" producer joked that he would be looking for a job if he
publicized the GE boycott on NBC.
G. Heileman Brewing Co.: Racist Marketing
In June of this year, G. Heileman Brewing Co., the Milwaukee brewer of
Old Style, Schmidt, Tuborg, Carling Black Label, Iron City and a number of
other college favorites, decided to focus its energies on the
African-American community. Heileman unveiled PowerMaster, a malt liquor
that contained 31 percent more alcohol than other malt liquors, including
Colt45, also manufactured by G. Heileman, and 60 percent more alcohol than
regular beer. PowerMaster had an alcohol content of 7.5 percent and was
marketed primarily in minority neighborhoods already plagued by high rates
of alcohol-related diseases.
But unlike other sexist and racist advertising campaigns launched by the
alcohol industry in recent years, the PowerMaster campaign died a quick
death after a flood of public interest criticism. Within a week of press
reports that PowerMaster was hitting the street, a coalition of 21
community, consumer and health groups called on G. Heileman to halt the
marketing of PowerMaster and asked the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and
Firearms (BATF) to require malt liquor products to have no more alcohol
than regular beer. In a letter to Heileman, the groups called on the
company to remove PowerMaster from the market and charged that "given the
growing concern and outcry about the extent of alcohol related disease and
crime problems facing urban America, we believe that the targeting of the
product to inner-city communities is particularly irresponsible." Boycotts
of other G. Heileman products were planned in 25 cities.
U.S. Surgeon General Antonia Novello said she wanted G. Heileman to
change the name of PowerMaster and scrap a marketing campaign aimed at
minority consumers who were already at risk for alcoholism. Food and Drink
Daily reported that the BATF was examining all malt liquor ads and
labelling. Fathers Michale Pfelger and George Clement were arrested while
trying to meet with Heileman officials. In Chicago, liquor stores posted
signs saying "We will not sell PowerMaster in this story!! Save our
Children!!"
Reverend Calvin Butts of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem
condemned Heileman and the "insidious and diabolical marketing methods" of
this new malt liquor.
"PowerMaster is marketed to primarily low-income, powerless people so
you get a feeling of euphoria and [a sense] that you are powerful and
masterful when in fact things that make you powerful and masterful you are
not doing--you're drinking malt liquor," said Reverend Butts.
"Nightline" even did a show on PowerMaster. The already bankrupt
Heileman couldn't take the public pressure and buckled. In July, it
announced it was scrapping its plans to market PowerMaster, and by October,
the potent brew was reportedly off the market.
"The withdrawal of PowerMaster puts out the message to all the other
malt makers and to tobacco and alcohol companies in general that we aren't
sitting back and watching you stomp and kill and destroy and then just
saying 'that's too bad,'" Reverend Pfleger of the St. Sabina Church in
Chicago told the Wall Street Journal. "That era is over."
Kellogg's: Harassing the Police
"Kellogg's constantly lies about it's products. I don't believe anything
Kellogg's tells me."
Who said this? A person giving an on-the-street interview? An agitated
consumer? No, it's Stephen Gardner, a tough cop with a rough edge.
Gardner is an assistant attorney general in Texas, and chief of the
attorney general's consumer protection division.
Gardner led Texas and five other states into legal battle with
Kellogg's, charging the giant cereal maker with making false nutritional
claims about a number of its cereal products.
"I do believe that Kellogg's lies about its products to the public,"
Gardner says. "And I do believe that Kellogg's has lied to me and to the
court on any number of occasions to gain an advantage in the litigation. I
don't trust them."
In May 1991, Kellogg's sued Gardner for slander accusing him of
launching a "media assault" against the company.
In fact, what probably disturbed Kellogg's the most was Gardner's idea
of protecting the public trust. During the late 1980s, Gardner led Texas,
Iowa, Minnesota, California, Florida, and Wisconsin in an investigation of
Kellogg's claims about a number of cereals, including Special K and Sugar
Frosted Flakes and Heartwise. The states alleged that Kellogg's deceptively
promoted Special K as a high protein cereal which dieters could use to
"keep the muscle but lose the fat." The states charged Kellogg's with using
"scare tactics" by telling dieters they would lose their muscle tone
without eating enough protein. "Thats simply not true," Gardner said.
The states also investigated Kellogg's Heartwise cereal. In 1990
Gardner's office determined that in marketing Heartwise, Kellogg's was
actually promoting a laxative as a breakfast cereal. There is a fundamental
issue about whether it's safe to put a laxative in a breakfast cereal,
Gardner said. This is compounded by the fact that Kellogg's admittedly has
received over five dozen complaints of allergic reactions from peoplw who
ate heartwise.
Kellogg's has since stopped making the disputed claims for each of the
three products but has refused to settle with the states.
Kellogg's slander complaint alleges that on a WFAA-TV news telecast in
Dallas, Gardner made the "false statement" that the intended use of this
stuff [referring to Heartwise] is going to give you diarrhea. And the state
of Texas wants to know if Kellogg's ought to be selling mommies and daddies
laxatives to feed their kids at breakfast time.
"These statements constitute a slanderous attack on the good name and
reputation of Kellogg's Company," a company spokesperson said.
Texas Attorney General Dan Morales calls the slander suit against his
associate Gardner "a harassment suit."
Gardner isn't backing down. "I believe that if we have to, we can
establish that Kellogg's is a liar," Gardner says. When--as I
anticipate--Kellogg's does violate the law in some new and novel way in the
future, we'll be in touch with them.
Hoffman La Roche: 80 Dead and Counting
The giant Swiss drug manufacturer F. Hoffman La Roche discounted early
warnings by its U.S counterpart that a drug used as a sedative and an
anesthesiac could cause deadly side effects if sold in a highly
concentrated form, according to internal company documents released earlier
this year.
The documents indicate that the company's marketing division felt that
the problem was "less significant" than the "commercial exploitation" of
the drug. Roche went forward and sold the drug, Versed, in the more
concentrated form. Versed has been linked to about 80 deaths and many more
near fatalities.
In July 1991, Public Citizen's Health Research Group call on the Bush
adminstration to launch a criminal investigation of the company for failing
to report key findings about the hazards of Versed to the government. The
Bush administration has yet to act.
"It is clear from the FDA's own chronology of the events between
initial U.S. approval of the concentrated (5mg/ml) dosage form in December
1985 and the eventual introduction of [the safe, less concentrated]
(1mg/ml) dosage form in July 1987, that FDA had not been informed of
Roche's internal evidence that the concentrated dosage form was so
dangerous for many patients, especially those getting the drug for
diagnostic procedures so-called conscious sedation where an
anesthesiologist is not present," says Public Citizen's Dr. Sidney Wolfe.
The company has denied that the more concentrated form of Versed is
unsafe and that it discounted safety concerns for marketing considerations.
The incriminating documents include correspondence between Roche's U.S.
affiliate in Nutley, New Jersey and its Swiss headquarters in Basel,
Switzerland. The documents also include a summary and analysis of the
correspondence between the Basel headquarters and the Nutley division
prepared by the Washington D.C. law firm of Arnold & Porter prior to a Food
and Drug Administration investigation into the marketing of the drug.
The Arnold & Porter memorandum, marked confidential, concluded, "One
interpretation possible from these documents is that Roche/Nutley
disregarded its own concerns for safety of the drug in favor of the
marketing and political pressure from Roche/Basel."
"When the drug came out, I was very surprised at the concentration and I
ran some of the dosage numbers and found it was a dreadful mistake--that
drug was too concentrated for physicians to use responsibly," says Dr.
Robert M. Julien, an anesthesiologist based in Portland, Oregon.
"My feeling was that the company was desperately trying to protect its
Valium market with a very expensive brand-named drug," Dr. Julien says.
"When it was marketed in early 1987, it was purported to be a Valium
replacement and Valium look alike. It is clear that Versed is about four to
six times as potent as Valium--although it was purported to be the equal to
Valium."
Dr. Julien calls Roche "irresponsible" and says that he thinks the
company should remove the highly concentrated form from the market.
Public Citizen's Dr. Wolfe is calling on the FDA to punish Hoffman La
Roche. "Roche was well aware of this problem and it was essential to also
provide a more dilute dosage form in order to prevent deaths and serious
injuries," Wolfe wrote to FDA chief David Kessler. "This important
information appears to have been withheld from FDA for a significant amount
of time, resulting in dozens of preventable deaths in this country.
According to FDA officials, the belated introduction of the more dilute
dosage form has been accompanied by a significant reduction in these tragic
preventable deaths. The full force of the law must be applied to the Roche
officials responsible for these lost lives. Even a fine of a hudred
thousand dollars would be far too lenient. We hope that your investigation
will also lead to imprisonment for the Roche officials."
Procter & Gamble: Of Dirty Rivers, Disposable Diapers and Coffee from El
Salvador
You would think that a company that makes products with such names as
Ivory Snow, Mr. Clean, Sure and Sunny Delight would keep its operations
clean, sure and sunny. Think again.
Every day, Procter & Gamble's cellulose plant in Florida dumps 50
million gallons of wastewater into the Fenholloway River, which was once
known for its healing mineral springs.
Health officials have told residents not to eat fish from the river
because of dioxin contamination. Chemicals have seeped from the river into
drinking water wells. Procter & Gamble (P&G) now supplies bottled drinking
water for area residents and for workers at its plant.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials say that, in parts of
the river, fish are no longer found. In other parts female fish have been
found with male characteristics.
The pollution of the river has been going on for years. Earlier this
year, Julie Hauserman, a reporter with the Tallahassee Democrat, pushed the
plight of the Fenholloway into the public spotlight with a series of
articles titled "Florida's Forgotten River."
According to the Democrat, since March 1991, environmentalists have
petitioned the EPA to overstep Florida environmental officials and upgrade
the river from its industrial classification to a recreational river where
fish can survive and people can swim. State officials are now undertaking
the most extensive review of P&G's permit since the plant was opened to
determine whether it should retain its permit.
"It's the worst river I've ever seen," says David Ludder, an attorney
with the Tallahassee-based Legal Environmental Assistance Foundation.
Ludder says the contaminants released into the river include a wide range
of chemicals such as ammonia, bromide, organic nitrogen, oil and grease,
dioxin, lead, mercury, phosphorus, magnesium and phenols. "The color in the
discharge has effectively prevented sunlight from reaching the bottom of
the river as well as from reaching the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico where
the Fenholloway flows," he says. "The result is that plant life and the
aquatic organisms that depend on sunlight can't survive. Chemicals have
consumed the available oxygen in the water."
Ludder says that P&G has polluted the river without violating state and
federal environmental laws, but that enforcement action may be possible for
the contamination of ground water.
P&G, the maker of Luvs and Pampers disposable diapers is the nation's
largest disposable diaper manufacturer. Earlier this year, attorney
generals from 10 states forced P&G to agree to refrain from claiming on
labels and in advertising that its diapers are readily degradable.
New York Attorney General Robert Abrams said that the company's
advertisements create the overall impression that the diapers are
completely biodegradable and make it appear to consumers that they need not
worry about the solid waste problems posed by disposable diapers because
they will somehow turn into environmentally benign dirt in a matter of
months.
"To make an environmentally informed choice, consumers need truthful and
accurate information not slogans aimed at making them feel good," Abrams
said. "By promoting their disposable diapers as compostable, when
facilities that accept diapers for composting are virtually unavailable,
Procter & Gamble is deceiving consumers who are concerned about the
trade-offs between using disposable diapers and limiting solid waste."
One last thing--Neighbor to Neighbor is into the third year of its
boycott of P&G's Folgers coffee because the company buys its coffee beans
from El Salvador, where a small group of elite families controls coffee
production (and the rest of the economy) and where death squads and the
military have murdered tens of thousands of civilians over the last decade.
Earlier this year, P&G announced that it is developing a new blend of
coffee that does not contain coffee beans from El Salvador. But for now P&G
is still using El Salvador beans in Folgers, so the boycott is still on.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The following information was written by the members of the Santa Rosa, CA.
band Engage.
"Nothing Happens, Until You Make it Happen"
Every year one hundred and seventy billion animals are slaughtered
for food in this world. The stifling amount of information shows that this
slaughter is destroying our health, our environment, and our ability to
show compassion. With this overwhelming amount of bloodshed, how can we as
human beings justify the consumption of animal products.
A heart attack occurs every 25 seconds in the U.S., and a fatal
heart attack occurs every 45 seconds. The average American meat eating man
has a 50% chance of dying from a heart attack, while a pure vegetarian man
(vegan) has only a 4% chance. You can reduce the risk of a heart attack by
90%, by abolishing animal products from your diet. Consuming one egg per
day rises one's blood cholesterol by 12%. The pesticide residues in U.S.
diet supplied meat is 55%, and dairy is 23%. Percentage of chlorinated
hydrocarbon pesticide residues in U.S. diet attributable to meat, dairy
products, fish, and eggs is 94%. While the beef industry continues to tout,
"beef, real food for real people" remember what beef gave their spokes
person James Garner: quintuple coronary artery bypass surgery... Dr. Mark
Hegsted of Harvard School of Public Health said, " I wish to stress that
there is a great deal of evidence and it continues to accumulate, which
strongly implicates and, in some instances, proves that the major cause of
death and disability in the U.S. are related to the diet we eat."
Of the 75% of U.S. top soil lost, 85% can be directly related to
livestock production. The primary cause of greenhouse effect is carbon
dioxide emissions from fossil fuels. The fossil fuels needed to produce a
meat centered diet vs. a meat free diet is 50 times more. The number of
acres of U.S. forest cleared for crop land to produce a meat centered diet
is 260 million. The area of tropical rain forest consumed in every quarter
pound of hamburger is 55 sq. feet. The current rate of species extinction
due to destruction of tropical rain forest for meat grazing and other uses
is 1,000 per year. Half of all water used in the U.S. is used for livestock
production. The cost of a pound of hamburger would be $35, if this water
usage was not subsidized by U.S. tax payers. A factory farm that houses
60,000 chickens produces about 82 tons of manure every week. A factory farm
which contains 2,000 pigs produces 27 tons of manure and 32 tons of urine a
week. In all, factory farm animals produce about two billion tons of manure
each year, (about 10 times the amount of human waste) a veritable
environmental nightmare. When animal wastes reach ground or surface waters,
they take up oxygen as they decompose. Water over loaded with waste becomes
stagnate and then incapable of supporting fish and other animal life.
The majority of animals raised in this country for food are raised
in factory farms. In factory farming, the purpose is economic efficiency;
this means simply, to put as many animals in the least amount of space as
possible. Confinement is the name of the game, vast "warehouses" of animals
are kept in dim lights in order to keep them calm in a neurotic
environment, for the duration of their short lives. Five to seven chickens
are kept in cages 12" by 12", stacked upon each other, row after row. They
are debeaked (literally) at about seven weeks. And all animals raised in
factory farms and shot up with thousands of growth stimulants, antibiotics,
disease controlling agents, not to mention injections of drugs to produce
an appealing color of meat, or taste. This obviously leads to drastic
health and sanitary problems for the animals such as salmonella poisoning
in fowl as well as coliforn, "shipping fever", and cronic diareah in cows,
and cholera in pigs. Calf losses are 15-20% on the average dairy farm.
Factory farmed pigs are primarily slaughtered by means of electric shock to
the temples and then their throats are slit. Chickens are hung on conveyer
belts to be systematically have their throats slit by an electric knife,
and then put in through boiling water (many times still alive), and cows
are killed with an electric spike bolt gun to the brain. The number of
animals killed for meat per hour in the U.S. is 500,000.
The amount of meat the U.S. imports annually from Costa Rica,
Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Panama is 200,000,000 pounds. The
average per capita meat consumption in these countries is less than what is
eaten by the average U.S. house cat. The number of people who will die of
starvation this year is 60 million. The number of people who could be
adequately fed with the grains saved if the U.S. reduced it's meat
consumption by just 10% would be 60 million. The number of people that
could be fed with grain and soybeans now eaten by livestock is 1.3 billion.
The percentage of corn grown in the U.S. eaten by people is 20%. The
percentage of corn grown in the U.S. eaten by livestock is 80%. The
percentage of oats grown in the U.S. and eaten by livestock is 95%. The
percentage of protein wasted by cycling grain through livestock is 99%. The
pounds of potatoes that can be grown on one acre of land is 20,000 pounds.
The pounds of beef produced on an acre of land is 165. It takes 16 pounds
of grain and soybeans to produce one pound of feedlot beef.
These facts speak for themselves. Ending the consumption of animal
products will not only save innocent animal lives, it will save ourselves
from needless suffering and starvation, and it will help preserve our
planet.
"It is an obligation, given the abilities we are gifted with, and in
accordance to the abolition of all prejudices, to choose a lifestyle that
reflects our capabilities to understand right and wrong..." - Engage
-----
"A Poor Excuse For Science, A Poor Excuse For Humanity..."
This picture {not included for obvious reasons} of a monkey
infected with a human disease (syphilis) is just a mere sample of the
millions of brutal and unnecessary experimentation conducted each year on
innocent animals. In the U.S. 90 million animals are killed annually through
"research". This means that 3 animals die every second. When only 3.5% of
this research has been attributed to raise the average life span, how can
we allow this type of crime to be commited in the name of science
Our reliance on vivisection (animal experimentation) has benefited
nothing more than lining the pocketbooks of the very vivisectors who
torture animals, and those who are a part of this 6 billion dollar a year
busin
ess. We can no longer foolishly attempt to rely results obtained from
animals in laboratory conditions to human beings. The entire biological
system of non-human animals are completely different. Diseases and other
conditions must be artificially injected or created in healthy animals
through violent means. It is obvious that a spontaneous disease cannot be
recreated in a healthy animal, but only some of its symptoms. Animals
reactions to diseases, drugs or psychological conditions and environments
are completely different than that of human beings. Results obtained from
non-human animals cannot be extrapolated to humans simply because the
premise on which it is based is false.
Animals are sentient, they have the capabilities to feel pain and
pleasure as we do. Their use in laboratory experiments not only gives
inevitable false results, we have no right whatsoever to use them in any
way for our purported benefit or curiosity. It is our duty as thinking
moral beings to use our capabilities justly, to protect and live equally
with all life, instead of exploiting ourselves and the animals.
If we are ever to be truly commited to helping human health, we
must abandon experiments on animals that are unethical and produce only
erroneous results, and focus our energy and financial resources upon
prevention. This is the only effective way of saving human and non-human
lives. We need to adjust our lives accordingly, as the Center for Disease
Control has continually told us that 97.5% of the leading causes for death
is lifestyle. We need to stop eating foods that are killing us. Only then
will we be protecting the welfare of human and non-human health, and living
up to our responsibilities and true capabilities to live in peace with all
life..
We cannot explain fully the overwhelming evidence involved in
depicting the true crimes of vivisection in this space. We encourage you to
please write to us, or the groups aforementioned {actually, down below} for
more, much needed information.
ADDRESSES FOR ORGANIZATIONS 'ENGAGE' THINK ARE IMPORTANT FOR EDUCATION:
Animal Rights Mobilization:
P.O. Box 1553, Williamsport, PA. 17703
American Anti-Vivisection Society:
Suite 204 Noble Plaza, 801, old York Rd. Jenkintown PA 19046-1685
Animal Liberation Front Support Group:
P.O. Box 3623, San Bernadino, CA 92413
Earth First!:
P.O. Box 235, Ely NV. 89301
Amnesty International:
322 Eighth Ave., New York, NY 10001
Queer Nation:
Box 34, 3543 18th St. San Francisco, CA. 94110
RECCOMENDED READINGS (available through ENGAGE or your local library):
Animal Factories:
Jim Mason and Peter Singer
Diet For a New America:
John Robbins
Animal Liberation:
Peter Singer
Slaughter Of The Innocent:
Hans Ruesch
``````````````````: {Engage is a hardcore-ish band from CA. They can be
.E N G A G E:: reached at this address for information pertaining to
.P.O. Box 4842::::: this article or information on their music. Engage is:
.Santa Rosa, CA:::: Jason-Guitars/Vocals Kevin-Vocals Eric-Drums/Percussion
.9 5 4 0 2::::::::: Brian-Vocals K.C.-Bass. The information in this file
..................: was taken from the "It's In Your Hands" 7" from '92.}
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Excerpt from: CENSORED: The News that Didn't Make The News--and Why
By Carl Jensen
We are Winning the War on Drugs was a Lie
Synopsis: When President George Bush went before the nation on September 6,
1989, to give a special address about the seriousness of the drug problem
in the United States, the media and the public responded with alarm. By the
end of that month, 64 percent of the public believed that drugs posed a
greater threat than nuclear war, environmental degradation, toxic waste,
AIDS, poverty or the national debt. The New York Times alone published 238
articles on drugs--more than seven articles a day--that month.
Fast-forward to 1992: The federal anti-drug budget has mushroomed to
over $10 billion dollars; and the president proclaims, "We are winning the
war on drugs." The problem with this proclamation is that it is a lie.
The sobering fact is that Americans are in greater danger from drugs
today than they ever were before. In fact, despite "winning the war on
drugs," drug deaths in the U.S. are skyrocketing at a much higher rate than
drug arrests.
Before the Reagan/Bush administrations began their war on drugs, deaths
from drug abuse and drug-related murders had declined from a peak of 8,500
per year in the early 1970s to 7,700 in 1982. Since 1982 the numbers have
steadily climbed. Drug abuse deaths have risen by 50 percent and
drug-related murders have tripled--to more than 13,000 in 1990. This is the
steepest increase and highest level in history.
Today's drug statistics are startling:
- During a single week of the present day drug war (as opposed to the
"pre-drug war era"), there are 15,000 more arrests, 5,000 more pounds of
cocaine seized, 10,000 more people sent to drug treatment and 100 more
drug-related deaths.
- Street drugs (marijuana, LSD, cocaine, heroin) are not the main
killers, as they are portrayed. Rather, prescription drugs (barbiturates,
stimulants) are most lethal, accounting for more than 8,000 deaths
annually, while street drugs account for 3,000 deaths. (also overlooked is
the "legal-drug" death toll: 400,000 annually from tobacco, 100,000 from
alcohol.)
- Teenagers are often portrayed as the most at-risk group for drug
abuse. However, of the 13,000 plus drug-abuse deaths in 1990, adults aged
20 to 59 accounted for 11,000 of those fatalities.
- Marijuana, LSD and other hallucinogens account for fewer than five
deaths a year but make up more than half of all drug arrests.
- Prescription drugs cause more than half of all drug deaths but
comprise only 10 percent of all drug arrests.
- White adults over the age of 25 account for two-thirds of all drug
related deaths but account for only one-third of all drug arrests.
It is more than ironic that the mainstream media that helped Reagan/Bush
create a drug war hysteria remain silent or ignorant of the real problems
that exist today.
Sources:
In These Times
2040 N. Milwaukee Avenue, 2nd Fl.
Chicago, IL 60647-4002
Date: 5/20/92
Title: "Drug Deaths Rise as the War Continues"
Author: Mike Males
EXTRA!
130 W. 25th Street
New York, NY 10001
Date: September 1992
Title: "Don't Forget the Hype: Media, Drugs and Public Opinion"
Author: Micah Fink
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Excerpt from: Diet for a New America
By John Robbins
(Again, taken without permission and probably violating some copyright law
of some sort... Damn, eh?)
How Now Brown Cow?
For centuries, these animals have pulled our plows, sweetened our soils,
and given their milk to our children. Today, however, these peaceful
patient creatures have been rewarded for their centuries of service by
being treated in much the same way as today's chickens and pigs. You might
think there are laws requiring them to be treated humanely. But harkening
back to darker times, the Animal Welfare Act specifically excludes creatures
intended for use as food from its regulations governing the "humane"
treatment of animals. And though this law places some restrictions on how
cruelly animals can be treated, cows, pigs, and chickens, however are
evidently not considered animals within the meaning of the Act. The current
philosophy is that you can be as cruel as you like, as long as the animal
is later going to be eaten.
The result isn't very pretty.
You may wonder, as I have, how the people who actually handle the
animals rationalize what they do. I asked a livestock auction worker named
George Kennedy if he were ever uncomfortable with the way the animals were
handled. He replied:
"Look, if you want beef, this is the only way you can have it. There's
no room in this business for a 'be nice to animals' attitude. There's work
to be done, and that's all there is to it."
Later, I talked with the owner of the auction, a man named Henry F.
Pace. I asked him how he felt about the charges from animal rights groups
that the auctions were cruel to the cattle. He sized me up for a moment,
then answered:
"It doesn't bother me. We're no different from any other business. These
animal rights people like to accuse us of mistreating our stock, but we
believe we can be most efficent by not being emotional. We are a business,
not a humane society, and our job is to sell merchandise for a profit. It's
no different from selling paper-clips, or refirgerators."
In the eyes of the law, Henry Pace is right. There are almost no legal
limits on what can be done to the animals destined for our dinner tables.
A federal law, passed in 1906, does put certain basic restraints on the
way cattle can be shipped by railroad. This law was passed to curb the
cruelty that most of us would like to think belonged to a less-enlightened
time. But this law puts no restraints on the way animals can be shipped by
truck, because trucks did not yet exist at the time this act was passed,
and apparently the cattle industry has managed through the years to block
the passage of any legislation which might extend the cow's protection to
include modern transportation.
With a sharp eye for this kind of loophole, the meat industry today
almost always ships cattle by truck. The journey, as you could probably
guess by now, is a horror from start to finish.
If you were to step inside one of these trucks you'd be immediately
struck by the smell. It wouldn't take you long to know that the ventilation
is terrible. And you'd soon find out that the temperatures are scorching
hot in the summer, and bitterly cold in the winter. You'd see that these
animals--ruminants whose stomachs only function properly with a more or
less continuous supply of food--may spend as much as three days and nights
without being fed or watered. One authority wrote:
"It is difficult for us to imagine what this combination of fear, travel
sickness, thirst, near starvations, exhaustion, and (in winter)... severe
chill feels like to the cattle. In the case of young calves, which may have
gone through the stress of weaning and castration only a few days earlier,
the effect is still worse."
Today's cattlemen regard it as a normal part of the business that some
of the animals will die in transit. It's a calculated loss. They find it
more profitable to absorb the loss due to deaths and injuries than to
handle the animals differently. They fully expect to find some of the
animals dead on arrival, and they calculate the loss simply as one of the
costs of transporting the animals, along with the price of gasoline.
Most of the deaths are caused by a form of pneumonia known quite
appropriately as "shipping fever." More than one animal dies of this
disease for every hundred cattle that reach market. The Livestock
Conservation Institute has called it the most costly animal disease in the
United States today. Accordingly, livestock producers today routinely use a
dangerous antibiotic called chloramphenicol to treat shipping fever. It
helps keep deaths down and profits up.
The Food and Drug Administration, however is not very happy about the
use of chloramphenicol in the beef industry, and frankly, I don't blame
them. The Book of Lists #2 has a remarkable listing titled "Nine Travesties
of Modern Medical Science," which ranks chloramphenicol right along with
thalidomide tragedies and other horrors. The reason is that in a small but
significant percentage of people even minute quantities of chloramphenicol
cause a fatal blood disorder call aplastic anemia. Chloramphenicol has
legitimate medical uses in extreme cases where human lives are at stake and
no other antibiotic will work. But it is an extremely dangerous drug. Even
infinitesimal amounts will kill susceptible human beings by preventing
their blood marrow from producing red blood cells. And there is no way to
know who is susceptible! Dr. Joseph A. Settepani, a veterinarian who works
for the FDA in the area of human food safety, says amounts as low as 32
milligrams of chloramphenicol have killed human beings. This is an amount
you would ingest from consuming a quarter pound of meat with a residue
count of 8 parts-per-million. Commercial beef from animals treated with
chloramphenicol for shipping fever has been found to have residue counts
100 times that high.
If you were to watch today's cattle being shipped, you'd see that
shipping fever is only one cause of death for cattle in transit. There are
other causes too and none of them leads to a particularly easy death for
these gentle animals. You'd see cattle freeze to death in the winter. You'd
see them collapse and die from heat prostration and severe dehydration in
summer. You'd see them suffocate when other animals pile on top of them as
the overcrowded trucks go around curves.
If you were on hand when the animals arrive at their destination you'd
see that those who survive the journey are not in the best of shape either.
Not only may they have contracted shipping fever, but they have suffered a
great deal of bruising and may be crippled from the pounding they have
taken. Incidentally, the trade definition of a "cripple" is:
"... an animal that must be carried or dragged from the vehicle."
In other words, an animal that can manage to limp along even though its
legs are mangled and broken is not a "cripple." By the same token, an
animal is not considered officially "bruised" unless its injuries are so
bad its flesh must be condemned as unsuitable for human consumption.
Apparently bruising counts only when it affects the pocketbook.
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Just Stuff
There has been horrible things happening in Rwanda for some time now,
even longer than there were horrible things happeing in Kuwait. However,
the UN has seemingly not involved itself in helping out as they
'helped-out' in Kuwait. Perhaps because there is no oil at stake?
I was reading the paper the other day (sin #1), when I came across a
story that mentioned the horrible things that happen to food in fast food
restaraunts. Such as, food falling on the floor, etc.. It struck me as
somewhat ironic that this person (and undoubtedly countless others) were
disgusted by the idea of their food getting a bit of dirt on it, but had no
qualms about eating the insides of a creature that was formerly alive and
well.
"[Time Warner] is definately into it for the music. It's more of a
family label..." - Tre Cool of Green Day on signing to Reprise Records
(Taken from King's Mob Returns Vol. 2)
Apparently the police department in Athens, Texas made home movies with
good soundtracks of a couple of its white officers beating a black man,
then shooting him twice in the backside as he tried to run away, recording
all the action with a video camera mounted on the police car (2-12 San
Francisco Chronicle). The video tape was recently subpeonaed. Kind of like
shooting yourself in the foot. (Taken from Maximum Rock N Roll issue 132,
which I still haven't finished reading.)
And of course, nothing would be complete without some Embrace lyrics. I
was reading these the other night, and decided to include them for y'all to
think about.
The song is entitled 'Do Not Consider Yourself Free' and its on Embrace's
self titled (and also one and only (I think)) album.
i didn't want to see people
hurting people
but i refuse to close my eyes
so in front of me
i see ugly people
seething and believing ugly lies
and yes, of course, i'm scared of being hurt
and yes, of course, i'm scared of being wrong
but at the same time my silence
will convict me
and the evil will carry on
if i can do some good
i want to do it
if i have a choice
i want to make it
it's my human responsibility
that life lives
selfishness gives
and death becomes natural
so you can stay cool behind
your window
and choose the view
you want to see
but as long as there are
others held captive
do not consider
yourself free
End Issue 1, Volume 1, No. 1, ONE!
