Bad Company: A History of Corporate Irresponsibility & Abuse

(Nine Mile Run, Pittsburgh, PA)


Let's face it. Corporate America has a hideous track record when it comes to protecting the basic health and welfare of Americans. As a lifelong Pittsburgher, I know all too well what history has taught us: corporations will literally bulldoze the general public for a buck. Pittsburgh is just one glaring example of a city where a corporation or two will extract resources and labor only to cause environmental disaster in the long run for short-term economic gain. Entire neighborhoods have been bulldozed for "progress." (e.g., the Hill District, North Side) Entire valleys, like the one pictured above were fill-in with the waste material of industry with no regard for public health and safety. Not without a response from the public, mind you. But public protest falls on deaf ears when corporate profits are involved. We have literally spent billions of dollars cleaning up the mess left by our irresponsible corporate citizens due to the failure of our federal government to rein-in out-of-control corporate greed. Those advocating "small" federal government and De-regulation know this. (Yes, I'm talking about the current Tea Party movement.) You likely have an example of corporate abuse in your own city: New York, Detroit, San Francisco, or Los Angeles, you all know it.

Corporate arrogance has been astounding over the past century. They make outrageous claims that their particular procedures are safe for the public and besides, the economy is most important for the greater good. (e.g., Andrew Carnegie, Henry Frick, and U.S. Steel. Massey Energy and its spokesman Don Blankenship.) Like an effective abuser, they minimize and discount their particular industry's role in the relationship to public health, denying any wrongdoing, while at the same time continuing to practice their ways, and blaming the public for being irrational or illogical in their thinking. This is the the same psychological tactic an abusive parent uses when caught brutalizing a child.

Now the Oil & Gas industry is invading the Marcellus Shale region of the Appalachian mountain range and using the same tactics as their historic predecessors in coal, and steel and finance. They label people environmental "extremists" who have concerns about their drinking water and rivers and streams, not to mention the air they breathe. They minimize and discount documented evidence of tainted drinking water, polluted rivers and streams, dead and deformed farm animals, and accidents at their well sites. You can almost hear them saying "Oh, that's just those extremists." Or, "That's not our fault. That was a naturally occuring phenomenon."

It's time that Americans stood up against the abusive corporations. It's time that responsibile corporations hold each other accountable. And it's time for government to rein-in the bad companies that have a reckless disregard for the health and safety of families and children.