Life Is Better at the Top of the Food Chain

Trey Smith

When Congress was defunding ACORN for imaginary crimes alleged by a fraudster who is now having to compensate his victims, one Congresswoman proposed a bill to defund government contractors actually guilty of crimes. Passing such a bill would strip Lockheed Martin of some 80% of its income.

The list of abuses by Lockheed Martin includes contract fraud, unfair business practices, kickbacks, mischarges, inflated costs, defective pricing, improper pricing, unlicensed exporting to foreign nations (Lockheed Martin sells weapons to governments of all sorts around the world), air and water pollution, fraud, bribery, federal election law violations, overbilling, radiation exposure, age discrimination, illegal transfer of information to China, falsification of testing records, embezzlement, racial discrimination, retaliation against whistleblowers, bid-rigging, and much more.

Why, one might ask, does the federal government give such a company a dime, much less $40 billion per year?
~ from Maryland: A Government Of, By and For Lockheed Martin by David Swanson ~

We have a two-tiered justice system. People in the bottom tier get the book thrown at them for minor infractions, while the people at the top can commit all sorts of serious crimes and not face any recriminations. I know of people who have been kicked off of Food Stamps for not reporting a few measly dollars earned from odd jobs. These folks, whose lives are mired in poverty, are accused of "defrauding" the government of less than $100. And yet, corporations like Lockheed Martin can defraud the government of millions or billions of dollars and their "benefits" keep on rolling in.

We live in a shameless system.