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Anarchism, Syndicalism, Labor
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Authoritarianism and Totalitarianism
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Banking, Investment, Finance
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Capital
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Noam Chomsky
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The Commons and the Tragedy
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Consumerism, Materialism
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Corporatism and "Crony Capitalism"
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(Page 2)
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(Page 3)
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(Page 4)
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(Page 6)
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(Page 7)
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(Page 8)
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The "Edge"
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The Greens
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KEIRETSU, CHAEBOL
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Liberalism
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Luddites, Luddism, and Neo-Luddism
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The Market
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The Military-Industrial Complex
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Persons
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Persuasion, Manipulation, Advertising, Propaganda
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Plutocracy
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Profit
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"Let me tell you a story about life, death and profit. It involves some of the poorest countries in the world and some of the richest companies. It goes to the heart of how the modern world is to be run and whether the institutions set up to police the global economy are up to the job.
Eleven million people in poor countries will die from infectious diseases this year. Put a different way, it means that by the time you finish reading this column 100 people will have died."
"'We have become the creatures of these people. Advertising as news. It's prevalent in every aspect of the press. It's very skilfully done. The amount of energy and money and ingenuity applied to corporate spin and corporate lying has never been greater or more effective than it is now'.
'These people' are big corporations. 'The biggest delusion of our time is that great corporations have an ethical centre. They have absolutely no ethical or moral centre', he told me during a visit to Sydney this week. He's not just talking about marketing and branding and corporate spin-doctoring. In his new novel, The Constant Gardener, he argues that big pharmaceutical corporations have blood on their hands while, on the surface, everything they do is according to law."
"At Philip Morris USA, integrity, trust, passion, creativity, quality and sharing with others are the values that guide us as a business and guide our employees as individuals."-- and apple pie, you betcha.
"One out of every ten radio stations across the United States broadcasts under the Clear Channel’s banner and the company’s approximate (sic) 1,170 stations bill a full 20% of total industry revenue. No one is bigger, better or more intense than Clear Channel Radio. And no one takes radio more seriously. Clear Channel broadcasts in every top ten market and in 47 of the top 50. ..."Radio Hall of Shame" : Randy Michaels
Clear Channel’s mission is to broadcast the best programming to the broadest audience providing the best value to advertisers. ...
Clear Channel made radio history in the year 2000, collecting strategic acquisitions and completing mergers designed to provide the company with a unique, unduplicated collection of assets that cannot be reproduced at any price."
"Corporate law dictates that the primary duty of the people running the company is to take care of the people owning the company: in other words, their first duty under the law is to make sure that the shareholders make as much money as possible. What this means is that if the people running the corporations have the opportunity to do something that might be socially responsible but would make the corporation less profitable for the shareholders--like, say, doing a more efficient job of cleaning up its own waste--they are legally prohibited from doing the right thing."
"Greed is not about wanting to make money. All of us want to do that, and companies have to. In contrast, greed is about being unable to think of anything else."
"As Robert Henlein wrote in (his 1939 short story) 'Life-line':
"There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute nor common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped or turned back, for their private benefit."
"An Alabama jury yesterday found that Monsanto Co. engaged in "outrageous" behavior by releasing tons of PCBs into the city of Anniston and covering up its actions for decades...
Anniston residents did not learn about the pollution until 1996, even though documents show that Monsanto knew about it for decades. In 1966, for example, Monsanto managers discovered that fish dunked in a local creek turned belly-up within 10 seconds, spurting blood and shedding skin as if dropped into boiling water. In 1969, they found a fish in another creek with 7,500 times the legal PCB level. But they never told their neighbors, and concluded that 'there is little object in going to expensive extremes in limiting discharges'.
"Disney has outdone downtown business districts by purchasing a whole town. Lake Buena Vista, FL, has only 40 citizens, some 30 million visitors, and only one major business: Disney World. By creating its own jurisdiction, Disney has revived the 19th century notion of the company town and eliminated the need for local democracy."
"In his book, Married to the Mouse: Walt Disney World and Orlando, Robert Foglesong argues that the Florida legislature created the RCID under the belief that Disney create an actual community in the area as part of its EPCOT project. However, once the Disney Company was granted governmental powers, it did not follow through on its promise of permanent residents in order to maintain control over the RCID."