Bay Area's Most Notorious and Destructive Corporations Support Newsom for Mayor

Bechtel is a staunchly Republican corporation. It's current and past Board of Directors and chief executives read like a whose who of Republican power past and present. For example, current Bechtel director and former Republican Secretary of State under Ronald Reagan, George Shultz, personally gave Gavin Newsom $500. Shultz is also among the executives at Bechtel who personally lobbied publicly for the invasion of Iraq. Bechtel continues to profit heavily off of the invasion with their $680 million reconstruction contract. Included in the contract is Iraq's water system. Bechtel is one of the leading water privatization companies in the world. After privatizing Cochabamba, Bolivia's water, Bechtel sent prices skyrocketing, ensuring that only the wealthiest Bolivians could afford water. Now, Bechtel is suing Bolivia for $25 million for lost profits after being kicked out of the country. Bechtel has also shown a long-standing interest in San Francisco's water system.

ChevronTexaco's former executives include current Republican National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice. They helped bring us into the war in Iraq and are profiting richly off of that war -- ChevronTexaco's profits have quadrupled over the last three month period to $1.6 billion dollars as a result of war-inflated oil prices. They are shipping Iraqi oil directly into the port of Oakland to be refined in their Richmond facility where they have blatantly flouted environmental standards for decades -- poisoning our air, water, land, and the lungs of Bay Area residents. ChevronTexaco also continues their relentless onslaught against the forests and indigenous communities of the amazon and around the world.

The Gap is notorious for its use of sweat shop labor involving extreme human rights abuses around the world. The Gap and its owners in the Fisher Family are also renowned for their continued destruction of California's ancient redwood forests using highly chemically intensive processes that are deadly to the surrounding environment and communities. The Gap destroys locally owned businesses the world-over while spreading its message of homogenization and multinational corporate dominance.

These are the corporations of war, death, global and local environmental and human rights atrocities, ancient forest destruction, sweat shop labor, water privatization for the rich, corporate globalization, and the list goes on and on. Matt Gonzalez, on the other hand, has not received a penny from any of these corporations nor their employees.

Let Bechtel, the Gap, the Fisher Family and ChevronTexaco know what you think about their corporate behavior and their candidate.

For more information on these corporations and on-going campaigns to fight them, please see the following websites: www.actagainstwar.org, www.amazonwatch.org, www.projectunderground.org, www.globalexchange.org, www.gapsucks.org.

Source: San Francisco Ethics Committee 2003 Financial Disclosure Database ... Compiled by Antonia Juhasz