http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/06/13/1859/Published on Wednesday, June 13, 2007 by CorporateCrimeReporter.com
Twenty Things You Should Know About Corporate Crime
by Russell Mokhiber
This is the text of a speech delivered by Russell Mokhiber, editor of Corporate Crime Reporter to the Taming the Giant Corporation conference in Washington, D.C., June 9, 2007:
Twenty years ago, Corporate Crime Reporter, a weekly print newsletter, was launched.From the beginning, the most popular feature of Corporate Crime Reporter has been a question/answer format interview.
Over the years, we’ve interviewed hundreds of prosecutors, defense attorneys, law school professors, reporters, and activists.
Our first interview, which appeared in Volume One, Number One on April 13, 1987 was with the premier corporate crime prosecutor of his day.
That was Rudolph Giuliani, then U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York.
At the time, he was prosecuting the likes of Michael Milken, Ivan Boesky and Marc Rich.
President Clinton later pardoned Marc Rich.
Apparently Marc Rich’s wife was dumping big cash into the Clinton library.
Rudy is now solidly in the hands of the corporate crime lobby. He prosecuted corporate crime as a way to achieve higher office. Then he learned one of the key lessons of corporate crime prosecution.
You can achieve higher office by prosecuting corporate crime. But as you move up the ladder, you have to make nice with the corporate powers that be. And so you turn your attention and rhetoric to various forms of street crime.
Now, Rudy is ready to be President.
So, corporate crime lesson number one – prosecute corporate crime to achieve higher office, then prosecute street crime to protect your political position.
Or to simplify it, corporate crime is all about power politics.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/06/13/1859/