To the editor:
The excellent op-ed, "America's access to justice at risk" (Nov. 23) by Arthur Bryant, executive director of Public Justice, provides a disturbing portrait of the George W. Bush administration's elaborate and sophisticated efforts to strip everyday Americans of their rights. As Bryant points out, President Bush's ongoing efforts to relieve corporations from legal accountability have long been a central tenet of his administration.
News stories about this aspect of the Bush agenda may be filled with technical-sounding words like "pre-emption," "mandatory arbitration," and "class-action bans," but they all stand for the same proposition: immunity for corporations that recklessly injure average Americans.
Removing legal accountability will trigger some corporations to cut safety corners, endangering all consumers. It will deny injured Americans the ability to receive appropriate medical care and feed their families. And it will obliterate "liberty and justice" for all but the most powerful. At the end of the day, few things would seem less American.
Andy Hoffman
Attorney and policy analyst
Center for Justice & Democracy
New York, NY
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