Murder With Intent.

        You walk through the air conditioned shopping mall and are surrounded by an array of colourful shiny shops, all displaying a kaleidescope of goods. They are all there, H&M, Gap, Adidas, and others, it all looks so innocent. However, a lot of the merchandise of these companies is manufacture in Indonesia, along the banks of the once beautiful River Citarum. A river that for centuries was the survival line for millions of people. They fished the river, they drank the water, it slaked the thirst of their animals, and it watered their fields of crops.

        Now thanks to the manufacturers of cheap goods for Western corporate names like the three mentioned above, the River Citarum is now a running sewer, as factories along its banks pour in a cocktail of toxic chemicals such as Mercury and other noxious poisons and waste. In spite of this the River Citarum, now among the dirtiest rivers in the world, is still drinking water to approximately 35 million people. Now the local trade has changed, instead of fishing, the local villages along its banks try to salvage rubbish from the river to sell, it's a living.

 

      Why should these people have to endure a range of horrific illness and the destruction of their way of life and livelihood, because corporations want to maximise their profits in the West? This is a form of slow mass murder, people will die from avoidable illnesses, others will live a life of poor and deteriorating health, all in the name of corporate profit. You kill somebody and steal their belongings, that's murder. You slowly kill thousands of people and steal their way of life, that's mass murder. It is not done through ignorance, these corporations are fully aware of the damage they are doing, fully aware of the consequences on the lives of those caught up in their greed driven quest for ever more profit. Not an impassioned murder, but cold blooded murder with intent.

 Sign the petition HERE.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Top Of The Stinking Pile, GAP.

       Earlier I posted about having an award for worst corporation on the planet. Well it seems that there is, and you can vote to help to pin that award on the lapel of that large greed driven, inhumane corporation, GAP.

This from The Sum Of Us:

It’s been eight months since the worst factory collapse in world’s history killed more than 1,100 workers. More than 125 global apparel brands have taken responsibility for the safety of the workers who make their clothes. But a few key corporations led by Gap are still standing in the way of real reform.

Gap, one of the top purchasers of Bangladeshi-made clothes, refused to sign a binding agreement to ensure that its factories are safe. Instead, it is actively undermining serious reform by promoting a non-binding corporate-controlled program that’s completely unaccountable to workers, and helping to convince other companies to do the same.

Gap has put publicity and profits ahead of workers’ lives -- and now we have an opportunity to hold it accountable.

We’ve successfully nominated Gap for the Public Eye Awards, which Greenpeace and the Berne Declaration bestow on the world’s least ethical corporation each year. If Gap “wins” it’ll be a huge blow to its PR campaign and a reminder that the sham isn’t fooling anyone. But to make it happen, we need your vote. To vote, just click the link, scroll to the bottom of the page, and click the "vote for this case" button.

Click here to vote for Gap the worst corporation of 2013.

When Gap, Walmart, and their allies walked away from the Accord, we knew more workers would die as a consequence. And like clockwork, another deadly fire ripped through a factory that supplied Gap in October. It was the latest reminder that we can't trust corporations with people's safety, which is why the independent inspections and legally-binding commitments to safety improvements that the Accord creates are so important.

The inspections mandated by the Accord are underway, overseen by globally-recognized fire safety experts. The garment industry isn’t going to be changed overnight, but real reform is happening. Meanwhile, our allies on the ground in Bangladesh have told us that the Gap-led Alliance is as bad as we predicted. It hasn’t hired any independent building inspectors and it isn't listening to workers -- it’s just using the same old company-controlled auditing systems that have been failing to enforce basic safety standards for years.

We can’t let this stand. If we enough of us vote, the Public Eye Awards will shame Gap in the middle of the the World Economic Forum in front of the world’s business press. This is our best chance in months to hold Gap accountable for its betrayal of Bangladeshi workers, and all it takes is a click.

Can we count on you? Click here to vote Gap the world’s most irresponsible corporation.

Thanks for all you do,
Rob and the team at SumOfUs

 Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

PROFIT BEFORE LIVES, THAT'S CAPITALISM.

     A little bit more on that pinnacle of capitalist development, that citadel of Mammon, Walmart. It would appear that fire safety would hit their profits, so they decided that it was more profitable to risk the lives of thousand of workers rather than face a small hike in costs.

This from Huffington  Post:

     Last year, Walmart reportedly decided against aiding factory upgrades that could have stopped fires like last month's blaze at a Bangladesh garment factory.

Bangladeshi suppliers of Walmart clothes wanted to upgrade their facilities to make them more fire-proof, and other retailers approved the plan, according to Bloomberg. The plan only fell through after Walmart and the Gap said they would not pay higher prices to make such upgrades feasible.

Read the full story HERE:

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