Trust. When corporations knowingly KILL people........

I have lost trust in a number of people.  And for good reason.  My ex, lied to me, cheated on me, stole from me, tried to screw me out of the business we built together, and to this day tells strangers and anyone that will listen just how worse than the devil himself that I am.  Strangers. To her.  Hey, I'm all for a bit of fun, but when customers I worked with back when I was working to build up my business in Austin email me with horror stories about the ex tearing them a new asshole after they made the mistake of mentioning me; well, my normal persona of reasonableness is taxed dramatically.  The world is a strange and mysterious place and my beliefs tell me that those with whom I have had interactions in this life, and previous ones, will be with me.  That is a scary thought, but should circumstances be that in the future, our paths once again cross and such that we communicate, I am not certain that I could ever trust someone like that ever again.  I will be courteous, I can not ever be anything but that.  However, trust, may be given easily, but once lost, it cannot be regained.  

At least that's the way it is with people.  For large multinational corporations, it seems that trust, is given, always.  Sort of a permanent thing.  No matter what corporations do in the pursuit of money.  It is a rather unusual phenomena, a big company does things that cost people their lives or their livelihood, and it's business as usual, no one says anything, does anything, or stops buying their products.  It is possible that the herd mentality just has blinders, and with the major media afraid to release any negative comments about big business, the herd goes blindly forth and practices consumerism.  Let's look at Bayer.  This multinational business took the initiative and when it was discovered that most, if not all, of their blood products were contaminated with live HIV and Hepatitis C viruses (from poor collection and testing procedures) and as many as 10,000 patients became infected with HIV; the company recalled all of the products.  And then sent them to India and Asia to infect people there.  The story came to light in 2003, along with the surprising story and admission by Bayer that in preparation for a petition to the EPA to loosen environmental restrictions and increase the allowable residue levels of pesticides on plants; that they had for several years been doing pesticide studies on humans.  All in violation of the Nuremberg Code of Ethics that was adopted worldwide to protect humans from potentially lethal non-medical experimentation. Bayer makes pesticides, along with a whole bunch of pharmaceutical products.  And the herd, us, the sheeple, buy their crap.  What else do they sell that might be a bit, well, sketchy?

My favorite company in the world is Monsanto.  For years they made millions and millions of dollars in the manufacture of PCB's.  One of the most toxic substances around.  And the company, in a mandate that they deny to this day, declared that in order to maximize profits, the industrial waste from manufacturing as well as used PCB's themselves, should be dumped into landfills, sedimentation ponds at their facilites, alongside roads, into streams, rivers and lakes anywhere.  It cost money to properly dispose of the wastes, dumping was very inexpensive.  Maximize profits.  Of the top 100 EPA SuperFund sites, 48 are from contamination by the company Monsanto.  Estimated cleanup costs back in the early Eighties when the EPA began cleanup was around ten trillion dollars.  It is ongoing to this day, and is expected to be completed by the year 2095.  One of the worst environmentally contaminated sites in the world is at Brofiscin Quarry in Groes Faen Wales.  The pollution, again, PCB's and other industrial wastes from the Monsanto plant there.  In 2011 Monsanto agreed to "help" with the cost of remediation, however they refuse to accept any responsibility for the pollution itself.  In 2005 the US Department of Justice went after Monsanto for violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act for bribing high level government officials in Indonesia.  The company admitted to the bribes, numerous bribes from 1997 to 2003.  In Indonesia, however the huge sums of money going to Senator Roy Blunt and others here, have never been formally recognized to exist.

Trust.  How can we as consumers trust a company that does things like this.  How can we as consumers, break out of the sheeple herd that is being led along the blind path of sanitized news reporting and find out what is really going on in our country.  Well, I mean other than listening to Rush Limbaugh.  It's easy.  Read my blog for one.  For another, look toward any number of alternative news websites that give a more rounded picture of the news and without the fear of loss of revenue from advertisers for saying negative things about them.  

Or read my blog, and tell your friends to read it too.  I have recipes on occasion.