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CounterPunch
October
4, 2002
Holding Political
Candidates' Feet to the Fire on Corporate Crime
by RALPH NADER
When the revelations of crime and deception poured
out of the executive suites of Enron, Tyco, WorldCom and other
corporations earlier this year, politicians-particularly sitting
members of the Senate and the House of Representatives-unleashed
a blizzard of news releases to denounce corporate crime.
Never mind that many of these same politicians
long had been neck-deep in schemes to weaken (if not outright
eliminate) regulation and remove the regulatory cops needed to
uncover and stop the kind of corporate shenanigans that destroyed
the Enrons and left thousands of workers without jobs and pensions-and
investors holding worthless stock of bankrupt companies.
The politicians were betting that some
well-honed news releases and a few speeches expressing outrage
back home would be enough to take voters' minds off the scandals
and the human misery left in the wake of the corporate excesses.
Unfortunately, it is probably a good
bet. Too often in the past, that has been the case-a quick outburst
of anger and concern and then back to business as usual.
When hundreds of savings and loans failed
in the 1980s followed by the greatest rash of bank collapses
since the depression, there was a national uproar and a string
of Congressional investigations. Some  regulatory reforms did get through Congress,
but less than a decade later the financial industry was back
on Capitol Hill demanding deregulation once again. Despite the
recent financial disasters, Congress agreed to the new deregulation
in 1999-and many of the financial combinations created by that
deregulation are intertwined in the current corporate scandals.
Are we about to repeat this same sad
cycle in dealing with the current corporate fraud and crime wave
that has cost millions of Americans trillions of dollars? Will
this year's headlines, a few limited reforms and a tap on the
wrist be the end result-with no real protections in place for
the public, investors, workers and the economy? We should not
allow such a result. We need to prove that our political and
economic system is better than that. We can make lasting-effective-change
as citizens. This time, we need to keep the issues on the front
burner until we have true reforms, not fake facsimiles that do
nothing but lull the public into a false sense of security.
As part of that effort, I am asking candidates
for the U. S. Senate and the House of Representatives this year
to sign a 10-point pledge which contains provisions that will
put teeth in the crackdown on corporate crime. The pledge includes
a promise that the candidate will support legislation which would
give shareholders the right to democratically nominate and elect
the board of directors and approve all major business decisions
such as mergers and acquisitions above $1 billion in value and
the compensation packages of top executives. The pledge would
also promise support for a ban on corporate criminals obtaining
government contracts and banning government contracts for companies
that relocate their headquarters offshore to avoid taxes.
Signers would also pledge to strengthen
pension reforms and rein in excessive pay for corporate chief
executives as well as establishing a federally-chartered non-profit
Financial Consumers Association joined by millions of American
investors that would represent consumers before legislative and
regulatory bodies.
The pledge also contains a promise to
repeal the notorious Private Securities Litigation Reform Act
(1995) which shields the aiders and abetters of corporate crime,
such as accounting and law firms, from civil liability. The pledge
also calls on signers to support the regulation of derivatives
trading.
Candidates would also pledge to support
the establishment of a Congressional Commission on Corporate
Power to explore various legal and economic proposals that would
rein in unaccountable giant global corporations. The commission
would seek ways to improve on the current state corporate chartering
system and propose ways to correct the unfair legal status of
corporations such as the doctrine of corporate personhood.
In addition to holding political candidates'
feet to the fire on corporate crime, we need to continue to energize
and enlist citizens in the effort to crackdown on corporate crime.
An upcoming effort in mobilizing citizen support will be a rally
on Wall Street on Friday, October 4.
The rally, sponsored by Democracy
Rising is designed to focus attention to ongoing corporate
crime and to propose remedies to help shareholders, taxpayers,
workers and consumers. The rally will be on the steps of City
Hall directly facing the New York Stock Exchange. Reformers are
going to take the issue right to the New York Stock Exchange.
Citizens across the nation have the power
to change corporate behavior if they will stick with the issue
over the coming weeks and into the next Congress. We will be
pushing forward with the "The Candidate's Pledge To Crackdown
on Corporate Crime," but citizens should raise the issue
of corporate crime directly with Congressional candidates in
their hometowns and demand that they produce more than news releases
and speeches. This time we need to get real reform before the
issues fade and the politicians find another convenient rug under
which the crimes can be swept.
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October 2,
2002
Carol Wolman,
MD
Is the
President Nuts?
Diagnosing Dubya
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Something
Rotten in Klamath
Linda S. Heard
Might Sharon
Nuke Iraq?
Joanne Mariner
When
the Judge Says:
"I Botched It"
Peter P. Mahoney
A Vietnam
Vet Makes the
Case Against War on Iraq
Mark Engler
From the
Quarantine
Agaisnt Greed
Uri Avnery
Manufacturing
Anti-Semites
Jennifer Berkshire
Converging Against Capitalism
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2002
Benjamin Shepard
On the
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IMF/World Bank Protest
Reveal a Revived
Movement for Global Justice
Dr. Susan
Block
Cockfight
at the
Baghdad Corral
Krystal Kyer
Growing Union Opposition
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Ron Jacobs
Born Without a Spine
Scott Loughrey
Mysteries
of 9/11
Jeremy Brecher
Collective
Security is Working
Brenda Norrell
Troy
Black Feather on
the American Flag
Sam Bahour
Wake Up
and Smell
the Occupation
Richard Harth
Contrary
to Reason:
Adieu, Hitchens, Adieu
Carol Norris
Rumsfeld
the Surrealist:
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Ben Tripp
Lists Upon
Lists
September
30, 2002
Rep. Barbara
Lee
Alternatives
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Kurt Nimmo
Iraq: The
Vision
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Zeynep Toufe
"We
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Dave Marsh
The Troubador's
Highway
Tariq Ali
Taking
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Neve Gordon
Bush's
War of Self-Adulation
September
25 / 29, 2002
Alexander
Cockburn
The
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the Bears of Wall Street
Ben Tripp
Hunting with George
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Haywire: Boeing's New Navy Fighter Fails Bomb Tests
Joanne Mariner
Naming Genocide
James T. Philips
Riding to Maine
Anis Shivani
Life of a Bum
David Vest
Too True North
Jacob Levich
Case of the Missing Terrorist
William MacDougall
British Immigration Tests
Edward Hammond
Pentagon Develops Illegal Chemical Weapons Capability
Molly Secours
Bush's "I" Words:
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Edward Lazarus
Civil Liberties After 9/11
Lee Sustar
Employers Attack
Anthony Gancarski
Ledeen's Mad World
Krystal Kyer
Bush the Magician
David Wiggins
West Point Grad:
Bush Threatens World Peace
September
24, 2002
Chet Batsmack,
American
The American
Century
Paul de Rooij
Smear Mongers
George Szamuely
International
Kangaroo Courts
Jack Wheeler
Janet Reno: America's Saddam?
Linda S. Heard
Portrait
of Uncle Sam
Gary Leupp
Random
Thoughts on Anti-Americanism
Wayne Madsen
Germany
Leads the Way
William Hughes
George
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Resources:
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Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By
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and Jeffrey St. Clair
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