Maytag, owned by Whirlpool Corporation, is corrupting Major League Baseball through its "Filthiest Plays of the Week" promotion. They have enlisted 12 time all-star Barry Larkin as spokesman for the campaign. Barry Larkin does not have a clue who Whirlpool Corporation really represents.
Ferdinando Imposimato is the Honorary President of the Supreme Court of Italy and former candidate for the President of the Italian Republic:
I have seen the beginnings in Italy of that same process of urban degradation and economic impoverishment which has ruined the city of Benton Harbor. In recent years, Whirlpool has bought up large chunks of our splendid Italian appliance industry, including especially the appliance manufacturer Indesit. Now, Whirlpool executives have issued a proclamation from Benton Harbor announcing with absolute arrogance that they intend to wipe out about 2,000 jobs, which means more than a third of the current personnel of the Italian branch of Whirlpool. This mass firing would be a devastating blow for Varese, Caserta, Turin, Naples, Siena, and the other Italian cities which Whirlpool is targeting.
We have to ask ourselves if Whirlpool is trying to drive these Italian cities down to the same level of plantations of despair which we observe today in Benton Harbor.
I therefore call on the Italian government to intervene to protect these jobs in our country. The Italian government should call in the American ambassador in Rome and demand explanations about the Pinkney case, emphatically reminding him that the United States, as signatories along with Italy of the Final Act of the Helsinki Treaty (1975) are required to respect human rights and civil rights, with voting rights at the top of the list — meaning exactly the right which Reverend Pinckney was attempting to exercise.Whirlpool hypocrisy has no limits. I, Rev. Edward Pinkney, speak out against Whirlpool and Major League Baseball not in anger, but with anxiety and sorrow in my heart, and above all with passionate desire to see our country stand as a moral example to the world. If there is any one thing that we must see today, it is that these are revolutionary times.
We must move from words to deeds. We must go back to our communities and organize against gentrification all around the country, against Whirlpool Corporation (including Maytag), against poverty, against racism. We must begin to organize the ghettos for control by the people against exploitation. Exploitation and racism do not only exist in this nation's foreign policy, but right here in the streets of Benton Harbor, Michigan.
It is up to you! It is up to the people here today to make your neighbors see this other side of Whirlpool. We must have mass protests at every Major League Baseball park in the country to protest against poverty, job loss, and racism. Let's stand together.
