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Corporatism

Uniting To Save Our Post Office

March 24, 2015 Staff, www.apwu.org , , ,
In the face of aggressive attacks, a wide range of national organizations have come together to create A Grand Alliance to Save Our Public Postal Service. These organizations are united in the demand that the public good must not be sacrificed for the sake of private investment and profit. A strong public Postal Service is our democratic right. The Alliance is fighting to protect and enhance vibrant public postal services now – and for many generations to come. The launch of A Grand Alliance to Save Our Public Postal Service featured the debut of a 2-minute video, “Our Postal Service,” featuring actor-activist Danny Glover. For Glover, it’s personal. In the video, he recounts what the Postal Service has meant to his family and many others.

Protests Target Gates Foundation Meeting On Africa Seed Systems

March 24, 2015 Sustainable Pulse, www.sustainablepulse.com , , , ,
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) are sponsoring a secret meeting Monday in London to promote a recent report detailing in clear terms how to privatize the seed and agricultural markets of Africa– without African stakeholders having a seat at the table. The meeting is being criticized for including corporations, development bodies, trade bodies and aid donors, yet excluding any African farmers or representatives of affected organizations. Today protesters on both sides of the Atlantic are picketing to protest the corporate capture of seed, and to urge the foundation to support African food sovereignty. Both in London and Seattle protesters will distribute open-pollinated seeds as a symbol of the alternative to the corporate model promoted by USAID and BMGF.

Obama’s Toothless Fracking Rules; Give-Away to Oil & Gas

March 22, 2015 Staff, www.americansagainstfracking.org ,
“Our U.S. national parks and public lands are some of our most treasured places and should be protected from fracking,” said Mark Ruffalo an advisory board member for Americans Against Fracking. “Yet instead of following the lead of New York in banning fracking, the Obama Administration has devised fracking regulations that are nothing more then a giveaway to the oil and gas industry. These regulations take from us our heritage and hands it to an industry that doesn’t need a hand out. Industrialization and parks don’t belong together.” “This fracking rule is merely a continuation of Obama’s harmful all-of-the-above energy policy that emphasizes natural gas development over protection of public health and the environment,” said Kate DeAngelis, climate and energy campaigner of Friends of the Earth. “This country needs real climate leadership from President Obama, not weak regulations that do nothing to stop the devastating impacts of climate disruption. President Obama should use his authority to keep fossil fuels in the ground by placing a ban on federal fossil fuel leasing.” “Our precious public lands have and are continuing to be sacrificed by the Obama Administration, only for the short-term profit of the oil and gas industry,” said Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch.

Banana Workers’ Strike Highlights Abuses By Corporations

March 19, 2015 Diego Arguedas Ortiz, www.ipsnews.net , , , , ,
A strike that has brought activity to a halt since January on three major banana plantations on Costa Rica’s southern Caribbean coast, along the border with Panama, has highlighted the abuses in a sector in the hands of transnational corporations and has forced the governments of both countries to intervene. More than 300 labourers, almost all of them indigenous Panamanians working on plantations for a branch of the U.S. corporation Del Monte Foods, have been on strike since Jan. 16 to protest harassment of trade unionists, changes in schedules and working conditions, delayed payment of wages and dismissals considered illegal.

Hedges On Bill C-51 & The Corporate State

March 16, 2015 H.G. Watson, www.rabble.ca , ,
We can't talk about free citizens in the state where everyone has all of their electronic forms of communication not only monitored, but stored in perpetuity in government computers. It doesn't matter if they're not using it. History has shown that if the government feels threatened or they seek greater control -- and I think that is the trajectory of the corporate state -- they will use it. The goal of wholesale surveillance, and something that Hannah Arendt wrote about in The Origins of Totalitarianism, is not to discover crimes but to give information to the government that it can use if it decides to arrest a certain category of the population. I think this is extremely grave. What I find disturbing is that although the revelations of Edward Snowden are known, we're not reacting.

Test Corporation Spies On Students’ Social Media

March 14, 2015 Bob Braun, www.bigeducationape.blogspot.com , ,
Pearson, the multinational testing and publishing company, is spying on the social media posts of students–including those from New Jersey–while the children are taking their PARCC, statewide tests, this site has learned exclusively. The state education department is cooperating with this spying and has asked at least one school district to discipline students who may have said something inappropriate about the tests. This website discovered the unauthorized and hidden spying thanks to educators who informed it of the practice–a practice happening throughout the state and apparently throughout the country. The spying–or “monitoring,” to use Pearson’s word–was confirmed at one school district–the Watchung Hills Regional High School district in Warren by its superintendent, Elizabeth Jewett.

The United States Of TTIP: Big Business Constitution For Europe

March 13, 2015 Nick Dearden, www.commondreams.org , , , ,
The US-EU trade agreement, known as TTIP, is not just another free trade deal. It is a charter for big business, forcing lawmakers to uphold the so-called ‘rights’ of investors above every other consideration – human rights, environmental protection, democratic accountability. It is a constitution for the free movement of capital. Leaked documents from the European Commission reveal that TTIP will be a ‘living agreement,’ continuing to influence laws even after it has been signed. If something doesn’t make the final cut, business lobbyists needn’t fear, because the Commission is working to enshrine a greater role for them in the process of creating (or halting) regulation. "The central purpose of TTIP is to align regulations on both sides of the Atlantic – whether chemical regulations, food production standards or environmental requirements."

Health Law Hasn’t Cut Insurers’ Rate Of Overhead Spending

March 13, 2015 PNHP, www.pnhp.org , ,
Despite claims by the Obama administration that the Affordable Care Act will reduce health insurance companies’ spending on overhead, thereby channeling a greater share of consumers’ premium dollars into actual patient care, insurers’ financial filings show the law had no impact on the percentage of insurer expenditures on such things as administration, marketing and profits. That’s the chief finding of a team of researchers, including two prominent physicians on the faculties of the City University of New York’s School of Public Health and Harvard Medical School, in an article published Wednesday in the peer-reviewed International Journal of Health Services. The ACA sets limits on insurers’ overhead, mandating an MLR of at least 80 percent in small-group markets and 85 percent in the large group market. However, the Obama administration changed the traditional yardstick by which the MLR is measured.

Stop The Fast Track To A Future Of Global Corporate Rule

March 12, 2015 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, www.PopularResistance.org , , , ,
Several major international agreements are under negotiation which would greatly empower multinational corporations and the World Economic Forum is promoting a new model of global governance that creates a hybrid government-corporate structure. Humankind is proceeding on a path to global corporate rule where transnational corporations would not just influence public policy, they would write the policies and vote on them. The power of nation-states and people to determine their futures would be weakened in a system of corporate rule. The Obama administration has been negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) over the past five years, is currently pushing Congress to pass trade promotion authority (known as fast track) which would allow him to sign these agreements before they go to Congress. Then Congress would have a limited time to read thousands of pages of technical legal language, debate the contents and be banned from making amendments.

VIDEO: Selling Toxic Substances To Kids

March 12, 2015 AbFeldman, www.http://rt.com/shows/redacted-tonight , , ,
Redacted Tonight's Abby Feldman dives into the murky waters of diet beverages and artificial sweeteners. Non profit watchdog group Center for Science in the Public Interest is asking pop singer Taylor Swift to ditch her endorsement of Diet Coke, which is sweetened with aspartame and other chemicals, considering her young fan base. Aspartame has been linked to cancer and disease, though the FDA continues to allow its use in over 6,000 products. The FDA also allows the use of saccharin, which has been proven to cause cancer in rats, and some new sweeteners have been deemed "generally accepted as safe," and do not need to be thoroughly tested or listed as an ingredient.Now artificial sweeteners also appear to cause diabetes and obesity by altering our body's natural ability to detect satiety and regulate blood sugar- leading to overeating and glucose intolerance.

World Bank President Admits Resettlement Failures

March 10, 2015 Ryan Schleif, www.theguardian.com , , ,
The World Bank last week admitted publicly it had no idea how many people may have been forced off their land or lost their jobs due to its projects. The Bank also did not know whether these people were compensated fairly, on time or at all. “We took a hard look at ourselves on resettlement and what we found caused me deep concern,” said World Bank group president Jim Yong Kim. “We found several major problems. One is that we haven’t done a good enough job in overseeing projects involving resettlement; two, we haven’t implemented those plans well enough; and three, we haven’t put in place strong tracking systems to make sure that our policies were being followed. We must and will do better.” In internal documents now made public, the World Bank admitted its own failures to understand, monitor and deliver even on its most basic policies.

Newsletter: At A Critical Juncture, Rise Up!

March 7, 2015 Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, www.popularresistance.org , , , , , ,
We are at a critical juncture in world history. We live in a globalized world. That is the reality. But at present, it is a world that is increasingly dominated by multi-national corporations and big finance capital that controls national policies. The result of this system is exploitation of people and the planet and the use of the security state to oppress those who resist or to gather resources. William Dalrymple reminds us of the serious consequences that can result from such an arrangement in his article about the East India Company. It is up to us to rise together and fight back, to resist the expansion of corporate power and to build new systems that are more democratic, just and sustainable. We are with you in this struggle. People power, applied strategically, can succeed.

Sour Grapes In ‘Wine Country’: Challenges To Wineries Erupt

March 5, 2015 Shepherd Bliss, www.popularresistance.org , , ,
Fortunately, many grape-growers and smaller wineries continue to follow regulations and not over-build. They are a credit to agricultural and rural communities. On the other hand, a prominent banker, Chinese developer, and two large Napa County wineries are opposite examples that have generated mounting concerns, especially from Sonoma County’s rural residents who feel invaded. Retired Citigroup CEO Sandy Weill, of what has been the world’s largest bank, bought a winery and moved here part-time from New York City in 2012. He purchased a Sonoma State University (SSU) honorary doctorate by giving a $12 million dollar gift, with strings attached. Part of SSU’s elite Green Music Center was also re-named after him. This was the first time SSU gave an honorary degree in return for such financial benefits, rather than for academic achievement.

Docs Show Industry Influence Of EPA’s Nat’l Fracking Study

March 4, 2015 Sharon Kelly, www.desmogblog.com , , ,
“This is about using the best possible science to do what the American people expect the EPA to do – ensure that the health of their communities and families are protected,” Paul Anastas, Assistant Administrator for the agency's Office of Research and Development, said in 2011. But the EPA's study has been largely shaped and re-shaped by the very industry it is supposed to investigate, as energy company officials were allowed to edit planning documents, insisted on vetting agency contractors, and demanded to review federal scientist's field notes, photographs and laboratory results prior to publication, according to a review by DeSmog of over 3,000 pages of previously undisclosed emails, confidential draft study plans and otherinternal documents obtained through open records requests.

Chicago Community Taking On Koch Brothers Pollution & Winning

March 3, 2015 Joseph Erbentraut, www.huffingtonpost.com , ,
It’s not easy to take on a wealthy, multi-national corporation and win. Especially for residents of Chicago’s struggling southeast side. But that’s exactly what's happening on the banks of the Calumet River, where the steel plants that used to give residents of a mostly Hispanic neighborhood access to a middle-class lifestyle were replaced, nearly two years ago, with black dust called petroleum coke (“petcoke”) piled five or six stories tall. The piles of petcoke -- a byproduct of the oil refining process -- belong to KCBX Terminals, owned by the conservative billionaire Koch Brothers. The piles have been roiling area residents ever since the black dust of mostly carbon and sulfur began blowing into the backyards, playgrounds and neighborhood parks. It blackens skies and leaves behind a sticky residue, raising concerns about aggravated asthma and other health issues.
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