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Big Chase Bank And Big CVS Pharmacy Threaten Local Businesses

By Shepherd Bliss

28 June, 2012
Countercurrents.org

I’ve operated the small, artisan Kokopelli Farm, which grows mainly
berries, for the last 20 years. It is located a couple of miles from
small town Sebastopol’s downtown commons in Northern California. Our
town has less than 8000 people and is the economic center of what is
called the West County of the coastal Sonoma County. We historically
have had a vibrant local economy, which is now being threatened by the
desires of big businesses to further concentrate their enormous power
and drain the agrarian wealth out of the land and people.

If the United States’ largest bank, Chase, and its 18th largest
corporation, CVS Pharmacy, are permitted to anchor themselves at the
center of town, as they propose, it would hurt my farm and other local
businesses. This would damage our town and our semi-rural county of
nearly 500,000 people.

Fortunately, Sebastopol’s Design Review Board has rejected the Chase/
CVS development several times, the latest being by a 4-1 vote in June.
It will now go before the City Council on July 17. Chase and CVS have
substantial global power, so they are working behind the scenes to get
what they want—more money. They employ various tactics against local
businesses and officials. The corner they covet is the most valuable
in our town that is currently on the market.

Chase Bank, which is part of JP Morgan, and its CEO Jamie Dimon have
recently received bad publicity for gambling with derivatives and
losing over $2 billion dollars. They have a long history of paying
millions of dollars in fines for illegal, fraudulent, predatory
banking practices. Many consider them loan sharks. Fortunately for us,
we have good alternatives because we have many credit unions and local
banks in Sebastopol. They deserve our business, which strengthens the
local economy.

CVS is the 18th largest corporation in the U.S. and has also been
found guilty numerous times and fined millions of dollars for criminal
practices, including the failure to cleanup toxic materials. The white
collar criminal top managers of Chase and CVS should be in jail. They
are not there because--like previous robber barons--they have high
paid lawyers, lobbyists, and politicians who make the laws that are
supposed to regulate them.

Corporations have captured the federal government and rule even
judges, especially the U.S. Supreme Court. Big corporations have
successfully concentrated their power in many industries, including
financial, pharmaceutical, agribusiness, and nuclear energy. They
anchor the wealthy 1% and oppress the 99% of people.

CVS utilizes devious ways of depriving local pharmacies of customers.
According to GoLocal’s (www.golocal.coop) Philip Beard: “My local
druggist at Tuttle's Pharmacy in Santa Rosa has lost a sizable portion
of his clientele. All County workers are now covered by a recently
adopted County group healthcare policy. The policy only pays for
prescribed drugs if they are bought at CVS!”

Beard added, “So Tuttle's, a longtime locally owned Sonoma County
business that's paid beaucoup bucks in taxes over the years, is
cheated out of a significant part of business because the County--
ostensibly to help its employees cover their healthcare needs--awards
an exclusive contract to a corporate giant that would like Tuttle's to
go out of business. The people who work there would lose their jobs.”

The owner of another local pharmacy in the West County confirmed the
same information. It is losing customers because of the mandatory mail
order purchasing of medicine only through CVS. “This model is not a
best practice for patients,” he observed. “CVS does not care. Medical
outcomes are best when done with face-to-face interaction with the
pharmacist. Yet most of the county is going to such mail-orders.”

My small business was damaged when a big super-market chain bought a
small, local business. For many years Sebastopol’s Food for Thought
was the main purchaser of my berries. I could supply them the quantity
they needed at their one store. But once Texas-based Whole Foods
bought them, they wanted me to supply berries for all their regional
stores. Since I was unable to do that, they began purchasing their
berries from big businesses located outside Sonoma County. So instead
of the money from the financial exchange continuing to circulate among
the people within Sonoma County, it now goes to Texas and elsewhere.
Studies document that the average morsel of food in the U.S. travels
1500 miles from field to fork to be eaten. This consumes a huge amount
of fossil fuels, which are declining in supply and should be preserved
for essential uses.

Fortunately for my business, Laguna Farm has continued to purchase my
berries to supply its Community Supported (CSA) customers; I also sell
them directly to customers who come to Kokopelli Farm. Another
favorable recent development for local growers has been the growth of
Terra Sonoma into the Farmers Exchange of Earthly Delights (FEED). It
buys directly from local farmers and distributes throughout the San
Francisco Bay Area. Its motto is "Feeding you Locally since 1979." The
word “locavore,” which means to source one’s food locally, was
invented in Sonoma County, and recently was named the Oxford
Dictionary’s new word of the year.

The Spiral Foods Coop has been hard at work organizing and already has
hundreds of members, which will give locals more local food options.
We need more such cooperatives and fewer huge corporations.

“One person, one vote” is an American tradition. However, the 2010
U.S. Supreme Court’s misnamed “Citizens United” decision declaring
that corporations are people, we has deprived us of that tradition.
The way it now works is that one giant corporation can give millions
of dollars to candidates and elected officials and thus buy their
votes. This includes Supreme Court judges, resulting in the current
U.S. Supreme Court having the lowest percentage of confidence by the
American people of any court in U.S. history.

If the Sebastopol City Council upholds the Design Review Board’s
rejection of the Chase/CVS development, it would benefit the small
businesses and people of the West County. If it permits that
development, it would ensure a protracted struggle by those of us who
love the small town character of Sebastopol, which Chase/CVS would
undermine.

The differences between big chains like Chase and CVS and small
businesses like Kokopelli Farm and Tuttle’s are essential. Local
businesses like ours are what differentiates and puts our small town
of Sebastopol on the map as a local, go-to community with character.

(Shepherd Bliss operates the artisan Kokopelli Farm, teaches college,
and can be reached at [email protected].)




 


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