The Effects of Corporate Greed

Skull-n-CrossbonesThank god those folks at Texaco (now owned by Chevron) aren’t drilling for oil or doing their exploration in your neighborhood–I don’t think you and your family would survive the experience. Why is this? Just ask the local people in Ecuador’s Amazon jungle region about Texaco and oil exploration.

The Tucson Weekly published a fantastic article here about the oil exploration and drilling that Texaco started back in the 1920s in the Ecuadorian region. Texaco, now owned by Chevron, decided that the poor indigenous jungle people wouldn’t know any better about modern petroleum drilling methods, so they used the cheapest, most expedient and damaging practices possible with no concern for those native peoples. There has been quite a bit of coverage about this situation, including Amnesty International throwing their legal and activist/community support into the mix.

Here’s the routine: you follow worst case business practices in an area where the locals don’t have a clue as to what you’re up to, completely devastate the local environment, don’t bother cleaning up after yourself, and then deny you ever did any harm in the first place: blame everything on the locals (who would never do anything to their community because it’s where they live.) Doesn’t this sound like a petulant, spoiled American child? What do parents typically do to the child after repeated warnings and parental instructions about poor behavior? They spank the kid’s ass and send the child to a “time out” zone, take away privileges, show their displeasure and sorrow about the child’s actions. So, taking this rather spotty metaphor to the matter at hand, how do we treat corporate misbehavior? We shame them, we spank them with lawsuits, we shun them by boycotting their products and services, we hopefully cause the corporate brats to own up to their misdeeds and compensate the native peoples.

Links:
Tucson Weekly (archives) article
Chevron could face huge damages
In-depth reporting about this disaster: AmazonWatch – ChevronToxico