LETTERS: ISSUE OF RESPONSIBILITY

To the editor:

In their reply to my letter reporting the shameful performance of our federal representatives regarding human and environmental health issues, the Arnzens accused me of distortion. However, they identified no distortion, merely resorted to the tired and misplaced cry and red tape and regulation.

Like most Americans, they claim to agree that health, environment and the future quality of life should be protected. But they fail to explain how we can persuade companies such as the tobacco, oil and timber corporations to honor these needs. Evidence tells us that even now multinational corporations are happy to take advantage of regulations that provide them with huge subsidies, yet they continue to deny the clear destructiveness of their activities. The shame is that these companies are abetted by our representatives and those electing them.

The issue is not federal intrusion into the lives of average Americans. The issue is regulating the destructive behavior of corporations which lack any social responsibility but are driven solely by economic motives and demands.

When we have to pay large amounts to obtain clean drinking water from the river, it's because someone upstream has polluted it. The fundamental questions are simple: Should we pay, or should the polluter pay? And if the polluter wants neither to stop polluting nor to pay for our purification process, how do the Arnzens propose to hold him or her accountable and solve the problem?

Considering that the American Cancer Society reports that by 1995 the lifetime cancer rates for women had reached one in three and for men one in two, I suspect that in our hearts we all know who should really be held responsible and who should be paying the bills. When we reflect upon how our economic system works to discourage costly corporate social responsibility, we realize that the system demands we have regulations that demand and enforce such responsibility to provide protection for Americans and an even playing field for industry.

ALAN JOURNET

Cape Girardeau