SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
Who's the Pimp?
Sep 22, 2009
Acorn is a poor people's grassroots organization.
Earlier this month, some of it's employees were caught on tape giving advice to two young right-wing activists posing as pimp and prostitute.
Pfizer is a wealthy and powerful multinational corporation.
Earlier this month, a Pfizer unit pled guilty to a felony in connection with a major health care fraud and paid $2.3 billion in fines.
So, if the Democratically controlled Congress were to vote to either:
a) strip federal funding from the grassroots group Acorn, or
b) ban corporate felon Pfizer from future government business
Which would it be?
Let me guess.
Last week, the Democratic controlled Congress voted to strip Acorn of its federal funding.
Why?
The vote came a day after the release of the latest video by the two activists who crisscrossed the country trying to get Acorn employees to help them in setting up a child-prostitution business.
In some Acorn offices, workers reported the two to the police.
In others, they sought to help the fake pimp and prostitute.
Fox and Limbaugh and Hannity and Beck and O'Reilly made it seem as if Acorn was a corporate felon.
And reacting to the right-wing echo chamber, the House and Senate voted to end Acorn's federal funding.
Unclear whether such a move is Constitutional.
The Constitution prohibits bills of attainder.
That means Congress can't punish individual organizations.
But putting that minor detail aside for a moment, let's say Congress can punish.
Why bully the weak?
After all, a society rots from the head down.
Let's chop at the top.
Let's find a list of major corporate criminals who rip off the federal government.
And bar them from ever doing business with the federal government again.
Lo and behold, we have such a list right here.
A quick and dirty list from the annals of Taxpayers Against Fraud and the Corporate Crime Reporter:
Pfizer, Serono, Takeda-Abbott Pharmaceutical, Shering-Plough, Lilly, Abbott Labs, Cephalon, National Medical Enterprises, HCA, Gambro Health Care, Schering-Plough, Astra-Zeneca, Bayer, Purdue.
Major corporate criminals?
Check.
Convicted in a court of law?
Check.
Ripped off the federal government?
Check.
Paid fines that would keep Acorn in business until hell freezes over?
Check.
Which raises an obvious question for the members of Congress who voted overwhelmingly to strip Acorn of its federal funding:
Who's the pimp?
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Russell Mokhiber
Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime Reporter. He is also founder of singlepayeraction.org, and editor of the website Morgan County USA.
Acorn is a poor people's grassroots organization.
Earlier this month, some of it's employees were caught on tape giving advice to two young right-wing activists posing as pimp and prostitute.
Pfizer is a wealthy and powerful multinational corporation.
Earlier this month, a Pfizer unit pled guilty to a felony in connection with a major health care fraud and paid $2.3 billion in fines.
So, if the Democratically controlled Congress were to vote to either:
a) strip federal funding from the grassroots group Acorn, or
b) ban corporate felon Pfizer from future government business
Which would it be?
Let me guess.
Last week, the Democratic controlled Congress voted to strip Acorn of its federal funding.
Why?
The vote came a day after the release of the latest video by the two activists who crisscrossed the country trying to get Acorn employees to help them in setting up a child-prostitution business.
In some Acorn offices, workers reported the two to the police.
In others, they sought to help the fake pimp and prostitute.
Fox and Limbaugh and Hannity and Beck and O'Reilly made it seem as if Acorn was a corporate felon.
And reacting to the right-wing echo chamber, the House and Senate voted to end Acorn's federal funding.
Unclear whether such a move is Constitutional.
The Constitution prohibits bills of attainder.
That means Congress can't punish individual organizations.
But putting that minor detail aside for a moment, let's say Congress can punish.
Why bully the weak?
After all, a society rots from the head down.
Let's chop at the top.
Let's find a list of major corporate criminals who rip off the federal government.
And bar them from ever doing business with the federal government again.
Lo and behold, we have such a list right here.
A quick and dirty list from the annals of Taxpayers Against Fraud and the Corporate Crime Reporter:
Pfizer, Serono, Takeda-Abbott Pharmaceutical, Shering-Plough, Lilly, Abbott Labs, Cephalon, National Medical Enterprises, HCA, Gambro Health Care, Schering-Plough, Astra-Zeneca, Bayer, Purdue.
Major corporate criminals?
Check.
Convicted in a court of law?
Check.
Ripped off the federal government?
Check.
Paid fines that would keep Acorn in business until hell freezes over?
Check.
Which raises an obvious question for the members of Congress who voted overwhelmingly to strip Acorn of its federal funding:
Who's the pimp?
Russell Mokhiber
Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime Reporter. He is also founder of singlepayeraction.org, and editor of the website Morgan County USA.
Acorn is a poor people's grassroots organization.
Earlier this month, some of it's employees were caught on tape giving advice to two young right-wing activists posing as pimp and prostitute.
Pfizer is a wealthy and powerful multinational corporation.
Earlier this month, a Pfizer unit pled guilty to a felony in connection with a major health care fraud and paid $2.3 billion in fines.
So, if the Democratically controlled Congress were to vote to either:
a) strip federal funding from the grassroots group Acorn, or
b) ban corporate felon Pfizer from future government business
Which would it be?
Let me guess.
Last week, the Democratic controlled Congress voted to strip Acorn of its federal funding.
Why?
The vote came a day after the release of the latest video by the two activists who crisscrossed the country trying to get Acorn employees to help them in setting up a child-prostitution business.
In some Acorn offices, workers reported the two to the police.
In others, they sought to help the fake pimp and prostitute.
Fox and Limbaugh and Hannity and Beck and O'Reilly made it seem as if Acorn was a corporate felon.
And reacting to the right-wing echo chamber, the House and Senate voted to end Acorn's federal funding.
Unclear whether such a move is Constitutional.
The Constitution prohibits bills of attainder.
That means Congress can't punish individual organizations.
But putting that minor detail aside for a moment, let's say Congress can punish.
Why bully the weak?
After all, a society rots from the head down.
Let's chop at the top.
Let's find a list of major corporate criminals who rip off the federal government.
And bar them from ever doing business with the federal government again.
Lo and behold, we have such a list right here.
A quick and dirty list from the annals of Taxpayers Against Fraud and the Corporate Crime Reporter:
Pfizer, Serono, Takeda-Abbott Pharmaceutical, Shering-Plough, Lilly, Abbott Labs, Cephalon, National Medical Enterprises, HCA, Gambro Health Care, Schering-Plough, Astra-Zeneca, Bayer, Purdue.
Major corporate criminals?
Check.
Convicted in a court of law?
Check.
Ripped off the federal government?
Check.
Paid fines that would keep Acorn in business until hell freezes over?
Check.
Which raises an obvious question for the members of Congress who voted overwhelmingly to strip Acorn of its federal funding:
Who's the pimp?
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.