Deadly Brew - The Human Toll of Ethanol (Clinton Investments)

[Catherina]

Run time: 02:23 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGsBMWsjLcE   Posted on YouTube: January 17, 2008 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: March 29, 2008 By DU Member: Catherina Views on DU: 1205

 
45 tons of cane in one day. That's what one poor man cut before dying of exhaustion. There are women and children working there too. So much for advancing women and children's rights. No wonder the Clintons don't want to release her tax records.


Althecat started a thread about this Why the Clintons' profiting off near-slavery is not a campaign issue

Clinton Link in Brazil Ethanol Probe
By ALAN CLENDENNING – Mar 10, 2008

SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) — A team from Brazil's Labor Ministry found "degrading" living conditions for 133 sugarcane workers employed by an ethanol company whose investors include former President Clinton and other high-profile financial players.

At five sites inspected, workers "complained they were suffering from hunger and cold, and all of the locations were overcrowded and with terrible sanitary conditions," according to a statement issued Friday by Jaqueline Carrijo, who led the inspections last month.

...

Clinton's connection is via an investment in Brenco by The Yucaipa Cos., a U.S.-based fund in which Clinton was a senior advisor until last year. His investment in Brenco is valued between $15,001 and $50,000, according to a financial dislosure report submitted last year by his wife, presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Yucaipa, whose chairman is prominent Democratic billionaire Ron Burkle, holds an overall 2.8 percent stake in the initial $200 million raised by Brenco last year to start up operations in Brazil's booming ethanol sector.

Bill Clinton spokesman Matt McKenna said that the former president's investment made via Yucaipa was small but that he had been assured Brenco was "committed to the highest ethical standard with regard to the treatment of its workforce and of the environment."

"The president finds these allegations deeply troubling and expects Brenco to move swiftly to ensure that those responsible are held accountable," McKenna said, adding that Clinton is "taking steps to ensure that there is an appropriate transition for his business relationships should Senator Clinton become the Democratic nominee."

The Brazilian labor probe focused mostly on living conditions for the workers, including 17 who were paying rent to live in housing overrun by rats and cockroaches, Carrijo said. In addition, trucks lacked special seatbelts for workers who ride atop the vehicles as they throw sugarcane seedlings to the ground, she said.

...

Brenco's investors include Vinod Khosla, a venture capitalist who was one of the co-founders of Sun Microsystems; America Online founder Stephen Case; Hollywood producer and Democratic fundraiser Steven Bing, another close Clinton ally; and former World Bank President James Wolfensohn.

...

Brazil is the world's second-largest producer of ethanol after the United States, but is the No. 1 exporter. Experts say Latin America's largest nation could become an ethanol superpower because its sugarcane is more efficient for ethanol production than the corn used in the U.S.

...

Associated Press writers Devlin Barrett in Washington and Peter Muello in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, contributed to this report.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jeHsuoT1eKJDwq3l2kU9GqHm5vVAD8VASI300

Making money off poor people who get lung fibrosis working in sugarcane fields to fatten your portfolio while you sponsor ethanol legislation. Priceless.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has sponsored legislation to provide incentives for ethanol and has worked to foster a favorable environment for investment in it.


By MIKE McINTIRE
Published: February 28, 2008

To big rounds of applause, three of the world’s richest men — Richard Branson, Ronald W. Burkle and Vinod Khosla — trooped onto a New York ballroom stage with former President Bill Clinton to pledge support for renewable energy projects to combat global warming and create jobs.

...

And sitting in the audience was an influential public official who had also taken an active interest in renewable sources of fuel: Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

...

Several months earlier, Mrs. Clinton had sponsored legislation to provide billions in new federal incentives for ethanol, and, especially in her home state of New York, she has worked to foster a business climate that favors the sort of ethanol investments pursued by her husband’s friends and her political supporters.

...

One potential beneficiary is the Yucaipa Companies, a private equity firm where Mr. Clinton has been a senior adviser and whose founder, Mr. Burkle, has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for Mrs. Clinton’s campaigns. Yucaipa has invested millions in Cilion Inc. — a start-up venture also backed by Mr. Branson, the British entrepreneur, and Mr. Khosla, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist — that is building seven ethanol plants around the country. Two are in upstate New York.

...

A Cilion executive said Mrs. Clinton’s office had been helpful to the company as it pursued its New York projects. More broadly, by steering federal money, organizing investor forums and offering the services of her staff, she has helped turn the upstate region into an incubator for ventures like Cilion’s, while providing a useful showcase for her energy proposals on the campaign trail.

...

Because Mr. Burkle’s Yucaipa funds are private, and the Clintons have refused to release their tax returns, details of Yucaipa’s investments and Mr. Clinton’s potential to profit from them are not publicly available. Last year, after Mr. Clinton published a book on philanthropy that extols the virtues of investing in renewable energy and contains a reference to Cilion, a spokesman for the former president told New York magazine that he consulted for Yucaipa on renewable energy investments but was not involved in Cilion.

...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/us/politics/28ethanol.html

João Raimundo (31 years)

“What did I get from cutting sugar cane? All I got was lose my finger. There are a lot of grave accidents –to the leg, to the arm. A lot of the time, the person isn´t able to work. The Sugar Mill´s doctor gives you three days off –and after that, you are obliged to work. Rights? No one´s rights are respected.”

(What do I think of the Sugar Mill owner?): “he´s a latifundiary who sucks the workers´ blood.”



João (55 years)

“I worked and worked and what did I get? Only old age and exhaustion”

(What do I think of the Sugar Mill owner?): “He´s an exploiter of slaves.”



Manoel (57 years)

“Ever since I was 10 years old I´ve worked in the sugar cane fields and it has given me nothing – not even to eat. It´s slavery. There´s no freedom.”

(What do I think of the Sugar Mill owner?): “he´s a thief, a robber.”



Maria José (54 years)

“I worked in the morning so as to be able to pay my bills in the afternoon. Working in the sugar cane field doesn´t give a return. Even if you´re sick, you still have to work. Only the sugar bosses make profit, it´s only them that get rich.”

What do I think of the Sugar Mill owner?): “he kills us with work.”



Albertina Maria (40 years)

“There´s no future in the sugar cane field. I´ve never had anything – just work and ruin. Work and not receive anything in return. The little health I had has gone.”

(What do I think of the Sugar Mill owner?): “he´s corrupt.”



http://petroleum.berkeley.edu/patzek/BiofuelQA/Materials/sugarcane_workers_in_brazil.htm

[Dogmudgeon]

1. This was an anti-Gore story in 2000, too.

I think the particular indians in that case were the U'we.

It turned out to contain quite a bit of fiction, and probably set prosecution of real human slavers by a decade or more (or at least 8 years).

--p!

[Ysabel]

4. this is current (n/t)...

[aquart]

2. So we're not allowed to eat sugar, either? Or birthday cake? Or candy?

Or lemonade? Or packaged salad dressing? Or spaghetti sauce? Or pancakes? Or...

Of course Obama supporters are not the lying scum of the earth. It's simply, as they have already proved, that they will believe anything.

[Ysabel]

3. there are alternatives...

http://transfairusa.org/content/certification/sugar_program.php

http://www.globalexchange.org/

[hoosier_lefty]

6. uh I hope you're not suggesting...

that there is sugar in that koolaide!
because sugar = murder = clintons

[Ysabel]

5. k and r (n/t)...