Corporate Control

"The Eco-village was the epicenter of brilliant tactical coordination. This was a result of months of reconnaissance work and a chaotic yet functional plan of blockading that provided both fluidity and agility. As soon as a report would come in that one blockade was breaking or being threatened by the police, the transportation team would have vehicles ready to take people to the location and reinforce the blockade." [more]

"'The biggest surprise was that 76 percent of people who had a medical-related bankruptcy had health insurance when they first got sick,' said Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, a doctor at Cambridge Hospital and one of the authors. 'That's really new. No one has asked that before.'" [more]

"Former Rep. George Nethercutt, R-Wash., and former Deputy Interior Secretary Steven Griles are joining a lobbying firm headed by a former top White House energy adviser." [more]

Roughly three out of every ten of the ballots cast by voters on November 2 will vanish into direct-recording-electronic (DRE) computers the moment they are cast. These votes cannot be recounted independently of the computers because there will be no voter-marked ballots to recount. [more]

Mr Baker's Carlyle Group is in a consortium secretly proposing to try to collect $27bn (£15bn) on behalf of Kuwait, one of Iraq's biggest creditors, by using high-level political influence. It claims Mr Baker will not benefit personally, but the consortium could make millions in fees, retainers and commission as a result. [more]

"Many of the arguments wedding the war in Iraq with a strategy for neoliberal expansion are not readily convincing. They risk reading causality into tangential relationships. And, in their drive to connect, they overlook important disjunctures between the Bush administration’s foreign policy and the policy preferred by many business elites." [more]

His online friendship with other Stargate fans across the globe was portrayed as an international conspiracy against the MPAA. And perhaps most disturbing of all, it was later revealed that the FBI invoked a provision of the USA Patriot Act to obtain financial records from his ISP. [more]

"The most important tools being used by the Bush administration to maintain varying degrees of economic and political control in Iraq are the 100 Orders enacted by L. Paul Bremer, III, head of the now defunct Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) before his departure. ... Bremer also ensured the implementation of the Orders by stacking every Ministry with U.S.-appointed authorities with five-year terms—well into the period of the new, elected government." [more]

"'The detective told me if I did not medicate my son, I would be arrested for child abuse and neglect,'" Taylor said." [more]

"Some in Congress are taking up the insurers' cause. House Financial Services Committee Chairman Michael Oxley (R-Ohio) and two other senior panel members on April 23 wrote Treasury Secretary John Snow, urging him to extend the availability provision. They said, 'An extension will ensure that terrorism coverage is widely available while Treasury continues its good work and while private market solutions are still being developed.'" [more]

"The terminals had failure rates of 24 per cent in Alameda County and 40 per cent in San Diego county. Incredibly, tests were only performed on ten to fifteen per cent of machines before they left the factory. Diebold president Bob Urosevich admitted that thousands of voters had been disenfranchised." [more]

"Lockheed Martin Corp. will open an office dedicated to homeland security, in advance of the government’s award next month of a hotly chased, $10 billion contract to track the entry and exit of foreign visitors, the company said today." [more]

"Marcus maintains that the World Bank is ignoring, or is possibly unaware of, the fact that the very PA universities they will be strengthening all have official student branches of Hamas (called Al-Kutlah Al-Islamiyah) and Islamic Jihad (called Al-Jama'ah Al-Islamiyah), both terrorist organizations found on the U.S. and E.U. terrorist lists." [more]

"A North Canton, Ohio-based company that is one of the largest U.S. voting machine manufacturers and an aggressive peddler of its electronic voting machines, Diebold fails any reasonable test of qualifications for involvement with the voting process. Its CEO has worked as a major fundraiser for President George Bush. Computer experts revealed serious flaws in its voting technology and activists showed how careless it was with confidential information. In response, it threatened lawsuits against activists who published company documents on the Internet showing its failures." [more]

"The plaintiffs also alleged that Chevron Nigeria's management was involved in the detention and torture of protest leader Bola Oyinbo, and that a helicopter flown by Chevron pilots and vehicles supplied by Chevron Nigeria transported government forces that opened fire on two villages, killing several people." [more]

"Just over a week into the protest, and strikers are already being threatened by the paramilitary Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia, which issued a statement to 'declare war on the individuals that we have already identified as the leaders of the organisation. They must leave . . . or they will become a military target and we will finish them off. Anti-subversive justice will carry out justice.'" [more]

"Air Force acquisitions chief Marvin Sambur told Knight Ridder last week that the Air Force worked closely with Boeing on the program, to the exclusion of rival tanker manufacturer Airbus, because legislation required it to./ The e-mails and other documents show that the Air Force helped make sure that the legislation was written in such a way that Boeing would be favored, and collaborated with Boeing on the company's behalf." [more]

"Corporate critics say they are comfortable with these ideals, which are already pursued by many companies on an individual basis. What they reject is the notion that there should be any international compulsion. While the charter would not have the force of a formal UN treaty, it has taken the rare step of including an enforcement lever that might force negligent firms to pay compensation to their alleged victims - if they are convicted in local courts." [more]

"What's more, the executives and Clear Channel's political action committee gave 77% of their $334,501 in federal contributions to Republicans. That's a bigger share than any other entertainment company, says the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics." [more]

"'If you take the entire complement of people who are under arms in the private security industry, it's larger than people who are in the armed forces of the country, and this is worrisome,' says Security Minister Charles Nqakula." [more]

"In theory the companies should be accountable under guidelines produced by the Paris-based agency, the Organization for Co-operation and Development./ But Thursday’s report said no progress has been made in pursing the companies by their own governments." [more]

"...Rupert Murdoch is a very powerful player in the media – and, because of his willingness to turn his properties into mouthpieces for the administration, in the politics of the United States. So it should probably not come as any surprise that, like the politicians in any number of countries where Murdoch has come to dominate the discourse, Bush Administration officials answer Rupert's call – even when they are supposedly preoccupied with national security concerns. Rice's willingness to brief Fox executives is especially intriguing in light of the fact that she continues to refuse to brief the bipartisan panel that is investigating the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon." [more]

"With revenues of 196 billion dollars and 164 billion dollars, General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. came in third and fourth respectively. General Electric Co. remained at the fifth place with revenue of 134 billion dollars. Both Ford Motor and General Electric held their spots from 2002." [more]

Activist and singer/songwriter Evan Greer explains how public spaces are being coopted for private interests and calls for a re-claimation of public space and social interactions. [more]

Matrix, a controversial program intended to find criminals and terrorists, appears to be withering under its critics' attacks. [more]

"The Center's study found that investment companies continue to make staggering donations to Bush, driven by so-called bundlers. Nine of Bush's largest ten donors during October 2003 through January 2004 were financial services companies. All of Bush's ten largest donors from October through January are linked to bundlers who have pledged to donate $100,000 to $250,000 as part of the president's Pioneer and Ranger Programs." [more]

"Seven of the 15 candidates hoping to succeed Peter Fitzgerald, a millionaire who is not seeking a second term, fall in the millionaire range. Four are Republicans and three are Democrats." [more]

"Pentagon investigators charge that KBR charged for nearly four million meals that were never served. There is also the question of whether KBR paid as much as $61 million too much for fuel last year by buying it from a Kuwaiti source rather than from cheaper sources in Turkey. The billings now under review bring the total cost to the U.S. taxpayer to more than $176 million." [more]

"The RNC also improperly deposited $250,000 received from the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation ('Freddie Mac') in its general nonfederal account in 2001 even though the donation had been properly designated for the building fund." [more]

"...but again I couldn't vote on the democratic primary. What gives? I flip open my voter booklet and on the second or third page it stated something to the effect of: 'non-partisan voters can vote in 3 of the 7 party primaries, just request a ballot to do so'. So I requested the ballot." [more]

"Calling itself the Coalition for Economic Growth and American Jobs, the new entity comprises about 200 trade groups -- including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable, the American Bankers Association, the National Association of Manufacturers and the Information Technology Association of America -- as well as individual companies." [more]

"It all started when EMI began shouting the odds about DJ Danger Mouse's Grey Album, a mix compiled from Jay-Z's Black Album and The Beatles' White Album and which started showing up all over the Net, as well as offline." [more]

"Most stocks bought by senators had shown little movement before the purchase. But after the stock was bought, it outperformed the market by 28.6 per cent on average in the following calender year." [more]

" 'We had ours look into it and make sure it was OK,' said Sarah Beatty, senior vice president of marketing for USA Network. 'We thought this was a fresh way to promote a show, but we wanted to do it legally and responsibly.' " [more]

"Thus, although the culture industry undeniably speculates on the conscious and unconscious state of the millions towards which it is directed, the masses are not primary, but secondary, they are an object of calculation; an appendage of the machinery. The customer is not king, as the culture industry would have us believe, not its subject but its object." [more]