Chapter 50: How Do They Get Away With It?

To commit the perfect crime, you need not be a genius - just responsible for the investigation afterwards. The only institution that could possibly keep Big Chem honest is Big Media - currently owned and controlled by Big Chem.

This was not always the case. Rockefeller was known to have been the subject of the editorial cartoons in the late 1800's. (343)

"Infant Hercules and the Standard Oil Serpents"

The monopoly was often symbolized as fat capitalist, In this cartoon a fat moneybag is dominating over labor. The barrels behind the money bag represent several trust at the turn of the century. The largest barrel has "Standard Oil Trust" written on it.

In 1905, McClures writer Ida Tarbell followed up her history of Standard Oil with a "scathing personal sketch" of Rockefeller. (344)

Other McClures writers were wondering if Standard Oil Company could wave their millions around and influence the reporting of news in the company's favor. (345) Rockefeller must have done something, because despite all their criminal activities since then (and I haven't even mentioned their labor relations), they haven't really gotten too much bad press.

I.G. Farben, too, has gotten off rather lightly, reputation wise. Take Carl Duisberg, for example. Despite being an anti-Semite opportunist who was key in introduced gas warfare, death labor and corporate fascism into Germany, when he died in March 1935, there was hardly an honor that had not been bestowed on him: his biography contains honorary doctorates, citizenships and senator titles. The Times of London summed up Carl Duisberg's achievements in its obituary: "His country loses a man who, all things considered, I believe may be regarded as the greatest industrialist the world has yet had." (346)

The new Group headquarters blend harmoniously into the Carl-Duisberg Park.

By the early seventies, the control the corporate elite had over the media was beginning to slip. The Trilateral Commission, founded by David Rockefeller in 1973, devoted it's first major study to the "crisis of democracy" in the industrialized world, as more and more people (borrowing a term from Jello Biafra) "became the media." The Commission call this "excessive democracy" and hoped to restore the days when "Truman had been able to govern the country with a relatively small number of Wall Street lawyers and bankers," the days of "moderation in democracy" as they put it. Of particular concern to the Commission were the failures of what it called the institutions responsible "for the indoctrination of the young": schools, churches and the media. (347)

The major print media is totally Rockefeller. Arthur Hays Sulzberger (1891-1968) sat on the board of directors for both the Associated Press and the New York Times (1935-1961). He was also a director of the Rockefeller Foundation. (348)

The Rockefellers own Time and Newsweek. (349)

Both Time and Newsweek had cover stories on bio-terror - both stressing Cipro as the best defense against anthrax (Time had a huge blow-up image of a Cipro pill), and both articles carried a date of Oct. 8, probably shipped out a week before - right before the Oct. 4th "first mention" of anthrax in the mass media. (350) Great timing for Bayer's Cipro sales - no wonder profits have been so good.

Every once in a while, they let their true sides show. In 1988, at Bayer's 125th anniversary, the chair, Hermann Strenger, bragged to a reporter that he was a "Third generation Bayerite" who fought in Hitler's army as a youth. (351)

Obviously, there are some people who will have to be spoken to about their continued support of fascism and genocide. If I could afford it, I'd put a billboard up near where he worked with his smug admission some good blown-up photo of the worst crimes of his family, and a website connection to an ever-growing list of Bayer's current crimes.

Notes

(343) www.history.ohio-state.edu/projects/uscartoons/verdict/ht/22Jan1900.htm

(344) "The Prize," 1992, Daniel Yergin, Touchstone, p. 286, photo #10

(345) Patent Medicine Conspiracy Against the Press," Mark Sullivan, Colliers, Nov. 4, 1905 - reprinted in "The Muckrakers" by A. Weinberg & L. Weinberg, Simon & Shuster, 1961

(346) www.bayer.com/en/bayer/history/bg_duisberg.php

(347) "Profit over People" Noam Chomsky, 1999, p. 60

(348) "Drug Story" p. 139

(349) Ibid, p. 135

(350) www.fas.org/bwc/news/anthraxreport.htm

(351) Jenny Miller - "Bayer Buys Berkeley," Z Magazine, January, 1992, p. 22