the common elemental form of evil???

here are three stories today that have one common link. that the single major elemental component form of evil in the world is greed. greed, stinking slimy smelly disgusting greed. those corporate personages whose existence is textually based on the grace of the people's government, but who act solely as if they are the government, demand such things as free markets--solely for themselves--corporate entities, and not for the people upon whom they prey. you can't extract resources from people and the earth without assuming certain costs of business. business, in order to increase profitability, needs to pass on those costs to the consumer. now these costs include the lives of the consumers. choosing how many will die so that the profit can be extracted and accumulated is now the business of business. it is all so evil

Metabolife, the producers of "a dietary supplement banned in 2003 only after the FDA had received reports of more than 155 deaths of ephedra users," spent "more than $4 million between 1998 and 2000 in Texas to lobby against state regulations." Yesterday, former Metabolife lobbyist Jonathan Snare was appointed deputy assistant secretary for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

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Home Depot reported 185 customer injuries a week in 1998 and has since refused media inquiries into its safety record. The company also uses its vast legal team to bully victims into signing confidentiality agreements about their injuries. The federal government "has recorded nine worker deaths in the past four years at Home Depot stores" and, in 2002, recorded a "45 percent jump" in workplace safety violations. In one high-profile accident, NASA astronaut Jean-Loup Chretien's shoulder was crushed when a 68-pound drill press fell on him from more than 10 feet up – ending his career. Because Home Depot refuses to take adequate safety precautions, "They are creating canyons of death and injury and inviting customers to walk down them," said one attorney representing families of victims. According to that attorney, the company has made a management decision that it is cheaper to pay claims to injured customers than pay for the necessary safety changes.

Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-LA), one of the chief authors of the industry-backed Medicare drug law pushed through Congress last year, announced he will be the new president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the chief lobby for brand-name drug companies. The Medicare bill Tauzin co-sponsored "showered billions of dollars on the pharmaceutical industry while doing nothing to slow increases in drug prices." The legislation banned the reimportation of prescription drugs from Canada and forbid the federal government from using its bulk purchasing power to negotiate lower prices on medicines. Today, Tauzin is reaping the benefits of that legislation, landing a million-dollar job with the group he used to regulate.

We are at a critical moment in human history with respect to both offensive and defensive nuclear forces. There is a willingness to continue the offensive strategies of the Cold War and add to them “mini-nukes” and “bunker buster” nuclear weapons and defensive deployments. These actions increase unacceptable risks to all nations across the globe and threaten nonproliferation efforts by undermining our longstanding and unequivocal treaty commitment to reduce and eventually eliminate nuclear weapons.