NOTICE:
THIS PAGE WAS MOSTLY PREPARED PRIOR TO THE 2006 US ELECTION.
IT WILL HAVE A MAJOR UPDATE FOR THE 2008 ELECTION BEGINNING IN DECEMBER.

...
Introductory Dialogue, Concluded, Part 3 of 3
OUTLINE OF PROBLEMS
CORPORATE ABUSE AND POLITICAL CORRUPTION
Copyright © 1995-2008 by Thomas E. Harries, Ph.D.
All Rights Reserved

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"If a path to the better there be,
it begins with a full look at the worst."
Thomas Hardy 

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Corporate Betrayal of Free Market Capitalism

The evidence below will show that, beginning with the election of 2000,
a slow motion coup d'etat has been unfolding in which our government's
focus on the rights and needs of the American public is steadily being replaced by
overpowering and unaccountable corporate control made possible by election fraud.
The information below will compile a "picture by the numbers" of right wing incursions
into our democratic rights and way of life.  

On this site, your will find a special page that provides the shocking, but incontrovertible, evidence 
for corporate right wing election fraud, and the case for my claim that the outcomes of the 2006 and 2008
national elections are already predetermined to go to those candidates sponsored by the Bush-Cheney machine.
NOTE:
although the Democrats won the 2006 midterm by a significant margin, there is growing\
evidence that their victory was due to miscalculations of the e-machine hacks that were
intended to deliver the election to the Republicans.  The emergent evidence suggests that instead
of the 32 districts carried by the Democrats, except for the fraud evident in precinct
protocols and e-voting machine hacks, more than 50 districts ought to have gone over to the Democrats.
CLICK HERE to visit the reasons and technical evidence and other data  in support of this claim

[Quick Links] to sub elements of this page

Guidepost I-6, Selected Major Symptoms of root problems  Root problem-symptom relationships defined Spiritual defects trigger a cascading of intellectual deficiencies Corporate waste fraud, abuse, including  abuse of workers Direct and indirect abuse by the health care industry Exportation of US jobs, taxes, H-1B, importation of cheap labor Creating or selling dangerous or poisonous products Betrayal of essential role of government Privatization and Corporate theft of governmental functions Privatization of the National Elections (Vote Fraud) Media and its use and abuse by corporate controllers Corrupt laws and lawyers, lackeys to corporate abuse:               [Special case of copyright law] Avoidance of tax responsibility Lobbies and the corruption of the political process

SOrchestrated Political deception [a lie is truth]: Misdirected government Materialistic illusions that create Spiritual distractions Decline of Spiritual character, growth of the Milgram Syndrome  The relentless corporate opposition to regulation Are corporations "persons?" Toleration of the simples and promotion of extremism Emergence of the enforcer: police, military, law enforcement and media are co-opted to protect and extend corporate power. Religion's betrayal of its Spiritual potential: an example of the corrupting power of the ego intellect How Spiritually grounded and inspired movements are steadily transformed into ego dominated movements SPECIAL ESSAY: why the liberals lost the 2004 election to religion         [Use back Button to return]

...

[Continuing Dialogue from Part 2 of 3, "The Earth is Expendable."]

Mystical Protagonist: You have chosen to examine an outline of selected problems that now confront our nation, and also western and other high tech societies. I want to emphasize that I do not offer them now for the purpose of how they might be analyzed or addressed.  I offer them to begin a major thesis of OT/MP which holds that neither the problems nor opportunities that exist in the ego's intellect can be adequately and permanently resolved by rational thought alone.

Even an intellectually promising solution will be opposed by those whose ego intellects define it as a potential threat and not a blessing to them. In spite of, and in some cases because of  their brilliant intellects, they will oppose change "mindlessly," i.e., because the nature of their working consciousness does not include the alternative possibilities. To invest in this outer world of mental illusion without the inner guidance of Spiritual Truth is to court failure and possibly disaster.

InQuiring Mind: I don't understand.

P: Good!  Your first success is to suspect, if not recognize, your intellectual limits and vulnerability.  You are not yet empowered to fully "understand," but that will come as we enter the depth of the Mystical Paradigm (MP.)  As I will demonstrate, even "understanding" is not a sufficient condition for adequate decision making.  Rather Knowing arising from the Wisdom derived from Spiritual insight is what is required.

My purpose in this part of our introductory dialogues is only to introduce a sampling of our most significant and threatening problems.  These are ones that do not appear to be given adequate attention by those who ought do so. I want to make sure that we are on the same sheet of music when we presume to address problems.  It requires a working Spiritual Consciousness to even hope to separate problems from their symptoms.  Can you do that?

Tell me which of the following 17 conditions are problems and which are symptoms?
[pause to assess]

1   Cynicism and Depression
2   Vulnerability to manipulation by corporate or other propaganda or empty distractions
3   Tolerance and promotion of right wing (mostly) or other forms of dangerous extremism
4   Corporate economic power mongering
5   Tolerance of Corrupt laws and lawyers
6   Crime and social disorder
7   Corporate control of media and information resources
8   Corporate abuse of workers by removal of benefits, reduction of wages and salaries, and exportation of jobs
9   Corporate abuse of citizens by tax avoidance and exportation of tax dollars
10 Corporate orchestrated political manipulation and deception through media and lobbies
11 Apathetic and/or misdirected government
12 Spiritually empty or compromised religion
13 Lack of personal discipline
14 Spiritual ignorance, apathy, and confusion leading to investments in ego generated illusion
15 Felt loss of control, need to take action or find a "friend"
16 Vulnerability to political manipulation and deception
17 Fear and uncertainty

continue
.
.
. .
.
.
..

Q:  I give up. Tell me.

P: Actually, they mostly interact.  Almost every condition defined as a "problem" can also be defined as a symptom of a still deeper problem.  Here is how the MP will sort them for you now. Root problems generate the symptoms that are often presumed to be the root problems so that the actual root problems remain out of consciousness.  Unfortunately, addressing symptoms does not "get it done."  In the following list that there a progression from most problematic, as defined by the Principles of the MP, (of which you have not been presented) to that which is most symptomatic:

MOST PROBLEMATIC
1   Spiritually empty or compromised faith or religion
2   Spiritual ignorance, apathy, and confusion leading to investments in ego generated illusion
3   Lack of personal discipline
4   Felt loss of control, need to take action or find a "friend"
5   Fear and uncertainty
6   Cynicism and Depression
7   Vulnerability to manipulation by corporate or other propaganda or empty distractions
8   Tolerance and promotion of right wing (mostly) or or other forms of dangerous extremism
9   Vulnerability to political manipulation and deception
10 Tolerance of corrupt laws and lawyers
11 Apathetic and/or misdirected government
12 Corporate control of media and information resources
13 Corporate economic power mongering (law of the jungle)
14 Corporate orchestrated political manipulation and deception through media and lobbies
15 Corporate abuse of workers by removal of benefits, reduction of wages and salaries, and exportation of jobs
16 Corporate abuse of citizens by tax avoidance and exportation of tax dollars
17 Crime and social disorder
MOST SYMPTOMATIC

Q: What is this religion and faith thing you list as being the most problematic?  You promised we would not be concerned with religion in these dialogues.

P:  We are concerned with Spirituality, not with religion, except that a religion is expected to be a platform to nourish Spiritual health and growth when it can sometimes interfere or have the opposite effect.

Don't get hooked on this particular list or the order presented. Anyone could present another reasonable list.  Instead, focus on the principle being illustrated.  This is not the only list you could construct and you can reasonably argue for a different order in the hierarchy.  Given more thought and meditation, a more accurate and comprehensive list could be created. But I only offer it in this form now just to introduce a principle. That principle is:

As a person's (or any human system's) Spiritual Truth becomes compromised, you will find symptomatic pathologies occurring in their outer world of experience with a corresponding increase of inner emotional distress. That outer world is the material world defined by the senses where most of our consciousness is mistakenly focused.  The MP will fully defend this assertion, but for now, I ask you to tentatively accept this assertion on faith as illustrative of a general principle found in metaphysics [definition].

Q: What principle?

P: The list represents a hierarchy beginning with #1 as primal cause, and progressing through #17 as a prime symptom of prior causes. This is a hierarchy of causes producing effects. It exists only in the perceived outer world which is defined and limited by your senses bound intellect.  I will argue that any such sense based belief only relates to an illusion created by the ego and its slave the intellect. Note that crime and social disorder gets priority attention these days. Crime is defined as "the problem" by politicians seeking to be elected. But it is placed at the bottom of the MP's list of priorities.  If you can heal the prior conditions which are the antecedents of crime, then crime and disorder will pass away. The same principle applies to a properly conducted conflict mediation.

When the underlying needs that create the issues between the disputants to a conflict are made visible to them, then when underlying needs of each can be met, (the deepest of which is Spiritual,) then the issues will dissolve and agreements can be negotiated.  In Scripture we have been given the promise that:  "But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you." [Mat 6:33 NKJV]  OT/MP translates that as guidance that we first develop our Consciousness of Spiritual Truth, and from that awareness and devotion to Spiritual Truth, we will be led to worldly health, harmony, prosperity, and success.
...
We will be applying the MP to create the preconditions for social healing.  These range along a complexity continuum from individual personal well being, through increasingly complex human systems, to ultimately define interacting systems of governance.  This Paradigm will empower as a first priority, the recognition and healing of primal problem preconditions within ourselves that manifest as an affliction in our society.  The nature of healthy governance must first reside within a critical mass [definition] of an electorate that holds a viable awareness of Spiritual Truth.  The sages have been proclaiming this for more than 500 years BCE [Before the Common Era.]  [examples]

I assert that the root problems in any society are the ones from which all social dysfunction follows.  They are related to an absent, anemic, or corrupted Spiritual Consciousness.  This lack is most likely due to the absence of effective Spiritual influences from parents, a faith group or religion, or peers.  This is why I have listed religion and faith first as these are the root contributors that cause or inhibit solution of the sequence of problems and symptom that follow. Unless that primal defect or condition of Spiritual lack is healed first, all subsequent efforts at problem coping and resolving are certain to be resisted, compromised, or be unstable.

Q: Wait a minute!  I told you how I feel about the "R" word.  I'm about to walk out of here.  You keep stating that that this MP is not a religious thing, but the term keeps coming up.
...
P:  The MP is not related to any particular religion, but does affirm all Spiritually healthy religions. [see the MP's definition of spirituality and religion] OT/MP will focus on the empowering underlying Mystical Truth that creates and nurtures any effective and Spiritually healthy religion.  As I will soon develop, OT/MP has profound issues with that part of religious practice held today by those I call the "religionists." [definition]  I assert, and you will discover, that your problems with the "R" word are not related to Mysticism or Spirituality, but most likely to the worldly practices of the religionists as defined by the MP.

However, the actions of a public official as defined criteria and approved by the religious right, can lie, cheat and steal, and can mismanage millions of dollars of the public trust.  But let any incompetent and unethical office holder support a wedge issue, as only one example, an antiabortion plank, then the extreme right and religionists are instantly mobilized to defend and support the questionable incumbent.  These right wing religionist groups have expressed no serious moral outrage at the gross corruptions of corporate leaders that have ruined countless businesses, family incomes, retirements, and the lives of those who trusted them.  The ignore the list of assaults on American society examples of which will be noted below. Many such corporate leaders are found as pillars of these religionist churches.  But let any ethical, professionally competent, but liberal, pro choice politician appear in a public elevator with his fly inadvertently unzipped, then just listen to the determined chorus demanding his immediate ouster as a pervert.

Q: Surely, you overstate your case.

P:  Perhaps by example, but definitely not in principle.  Let my arguments continue to develop.  I assure you, that as your enter into the empowering elements of OT/MP, you will come to feel positively about many religious matters that you now reject or avoid.  At the same time, you will be empowered to accurately note the destructive contributions of the religionist and political right and their foot soldiers, the groinicks.

But now let is continue with a quick outline of presenting problems and symptoms we observe in our personal lives, our families, our communities, and in our institutions and agencies of government.   Remember, for now, we do not care about problem solving, but only to cast the net to capture the most crucial and festering afflictions that challenge the founding principles and healthy future of this nation. We are looking for Holistic patterns of pathology that must eventually be resolved by Spiritually grounded interventions.

P: So, let me ask you this question:  Do you want to serve as a corporate or institutional representative who routinely meets the public?  Do you want to meet the public to do their business as an institutional, agency or corporate representative or functionary other than in sales?

Q:  Possibly.  I enjoy my contact with people most of the time.  I would probably like that if I can make money, or become empowered to serve in any financially rewarding role more effectively.  The, I guess I would still have to choose marketing and sales.  There is not much financial and status pay off for the social service type "do-gooders."

P: Then imagine yourself as the interface or gatekeeper who has to confront a wrathful public regarding corporate misdeeds.  These employees are aware, more than others, the extent they are already being subject to an ever increasing torrent of customer frustration which they usually experience as verbal abuse.  More and more this anger will express as overt violence in their work place.  I refer to enraged members of the public, former employees who have been fired for the convenience of the "bottom line" or political payoff. Those persons will take their anger out on you when you are the only accessible symbol of the corporate, agency, or institutional sources producing their rage.

As of now this unrequited rage has nowhere else to go.  There is no legitimate outlet to discharge that anger in any healing or functionally useful way.  The official corporate interface with the public becomes the only point of contact a frustrated consumer or corporate client can find.  Therefore, this inner anger overflows on whoever mans the interface, even though both the interface and the customer intellectually know that the interface is not personally responsible for what has produced their frustration.  Without a Spiritually grounded support system, such angered persons are potential killers and terrorists. [evidence of corporate terrorism on workers in Canton, Ohio]

Q: That is an awesome and daring claim.  How can you say that?

"But we also believe that both history and current experience demonstrate that left to its own devices, laissez-faire capitalism is extremely vulnerable to instability and perfectly capable of producing recessions or worse.  There is, moreover, much evidence that capitalism can easily descend to a level where the system, in the words of Russell Baker, serves mainly to 'comfort the comfortable and afflict the afflicted.'"  [Wolman & Colamosca, 1997, p ix], [See also Greider, 1987]

Q: What do you mean by "corporate depersonalization" of the public?

P:  By defining customers and the public as economic entities.  You have heard discussions where people are referred to as "assets" or "packages?"  By isolating themselves from customer anger, that anger accumulates. The trigger can be a defective or incorrect product that was purchased directly or  mail ordered.  Or the trigger can be  improper charges or simply response delays. But to negotiate or even speak with a corporate functionary, you must first pass the challenge of phalanxes of obstructive telephone barriers and automation that deny easy personal contact.  These obstructive protocols are now routinely implemented as standard policy and practice by almost every corporation and government agency.  There is no government entity, or elected representative that can effectively deal with these kinds of problems because our elected representatives are bought, paid for, and owned by those same corporations with whom you may have issues.

A national reservoir of rage is thereby being created and energized which ultimately becomes the empowering source for insurrection.  Then large numbers of the public feel compelled to take to violence in the streets as their only remaining channel of effective protest. They only need a leader to emerge, and they will not care if it is the likes of a Joseph Stalin or Adolph Hitler.  From the bloody streets that are certain to follow, the protesters will be labeled anarchists and they will be suppressed, imprisoned, and killed through the use of violent force implemented by corporate enforcers, and by those public police and military they have co-opted to accomplish their dirty work.
[evidence of fascistic tactics already used by police, Hightower & Frazer, 2003] [additional source] [Sanitized press news account that denies the public their right to know the true facts.] [President Bush acts to suppress public access to class action suits for corporate damages to the public.]

Oppression through governmental application of  violence on the public becomes the point where the social stability we have always enjoyed begins to rapidly unravel. Public opposition to the abuse of authority, especially overt acts,  further justifies even harsher and less flexible enforcement and penalties.  As a consequence of if this dynamic, our precious freedoms are first eroded and then will be permanently lost to the increasingly autocratic governance required to restore order.

Q: I think I have already observed this in the removal of certain Constitutional protections by this so called "Patriot Act" in the name of protecting us from terrorists.

P: Correct.  Therefore, pay special attention to the problem profiles that follow.  Unless soon addressed by Spiritually potent corrective processes, the conditions described in these profiles are the seeds and recipe for oncoming social disaster.
 

WHY THE POWER AND GREED MONGERS HAVE ALWAYS PREVAILED AND ARE PREVAILING NOW
A preview from the logic of the Epilogue's Master Allegory:
The Infernal Catechism of the Secret Society of Power Brokers and Power Mongers

The root of the power monger lies in an intellectual consciousness that is seriously limited by an impoverished Spiritual Consciousness. This lack allows any unprincipled aggressive person (system) thus afflicted,  to use any pragmatic tactic regardless of harm or brutality on innocent parties or systems, e.g., the groinicks [definition] who helped carry the 2004 election for George Bush and corporate America. When unresolvable stress and fear are present, a Spiritually lacking person or system will quickly regress to the laying on of hostile hands because alternative strategies cannot exist in an intellectual consciousness that is not served by an adequate Spiritual Consciousness. Regardless of the human  system, persons of elevated Spiritual Consciousness cannot or will not resort to non ethical or brute force means of copying.  They avoid resistance.  They cannot resort to hostile actions, and instead, attempt to ignore or mollify the aggressor hoping the aggressor or problem will go away.  This response only deepens the problem and threat. Thus every human system that is disabled of a viable Spiritual Consciousness, remains unconsciousness of the scale, scope and source of a developing pattern of destruction.  They predictably fail to challenge the bully, or the emergent power monger. In governments, corporate cultures, agencies, and educational systems, the competent, decent and likable persons of expanded Spiritual Consciousness are frequently at a loss to understand to why they were passed over for promotion, greater responsibility, or being elected.  They are thus made victim to the bully, liar and cheat.  The decent person or system will resist meeting the problem head and refuse to use tactics at the same level of consciousness as their adversary, the only approach that can work with such persons (systems.) In any predatory culture, you cannot excel without being willing to lie to, cheat, corrupt, harm, or even kill any competitive person or entity that can effectively  challenge your credibility and power base. When the majority public is afflicted by low Spiritual Consciousness, they are powerless to detect the Real source of their affliction or their certain evil fate, even as they progressively  experience the growth and impact of increasingly adverse symptoms. The emergent victims of the bully and power monger oppose, mock, discount, and ignore any message that tries to nourish and expand their impoverished intellectual consciousness to warn them of their danger. WHAT FOLLOWS BELOW ARE THE EFFECTS OF THIS PATTERN OF SPIRITUAL IMPOVERISHMENT ON AMERICAN AND WESTERN SOCIETIES

 P: Spiritual lack or insufficiency generates many defects of personality and personal character.  From these defects follows the worldly experience of personal and social problems. The more prevalent such defects are in the citizens of a society, especially in its leaders, the greater the array of social pathology that afflicts that society, and the greater the stress, fear and frustration experienced by its members, and the less stable that society progressively becomes.  Just look at today's headlines.

More important, look behind the stories that create the headlines.  Even more important, examine that which is not judged to be news worthy, e.g., the everywhere present overgrowth of human populations, chronic pathologies such as over development, the rotting infrastructure of our society (e.g., highways, bridges, and power, water and sewer systems,) urban poverty and the vast and neglected panorama of rural poverty and all that follows from them.

This infrastructure rots as we find billions of US dollars to send overseas to build infrastructure in third world countries to be exploited by US corporations.  This investment pays for the corporate profits of US mega corporations and conglomerates, e.g., Bechtel Corp., Halliburton Oil, and a handful of other favored corporations. These tend to be those most tightly connected to the Republican administration. [background]  But most of the workers who benefit from this corporate largess work overseas. No taxes flow back to the United States.  A recent report documents the corrosive effect of Bechtel's involvement in Iraq's reconstruction, in Bolivia and elsewhere.

"[The report] documents Bechtel's track record of environmental destruction, disregard for human rights and financial mismanagement of projects that have affected communities all over the world. " [source]

Q:  Well, now, your claims certainly don't translate into much promise for my happily planned career. So I am experiencing resistance to you message.  Its implications seem too complex for me to sort out.  Why should I continue this distress when I already feel threatened now, at the outset of our dialogues?

P: Because, "Reality Always Wins!  What you don't know may be hurting you now.  But you already show good instinct, to recognize your resistance.  This is a very positive sign.  Your feelings of threat are natural when you are not Spiritually empowered.  A viable Spiritual Consciousness is essential to cope with a combination of complexity and threat.  But you and a handful of your fellow graduates represent a core of increasingly rare individuals who are both capable and willing to accept the challenges of intellectual complexity, especially when presented in written form.  This is one reason why I accepted you to share in these dialogues.

Q: Can you give me one convincing example where this lack of so called Spiritual Consciousness led to serious harm to the public?

P: In the 1970's, the corporate power structure conspired to permit OPEC to allow oil supplies to decline.  Then began an intended chain reaction as follows:

Oil supplies declined and prices were raised to close to $2.00/gal from less then $0.50/gallon (in the 1970's economy)
Since oil underlies all of the industrial and distribution functions in the United States, a rapid increase of prices immediately began
The Federal Reserve headed by Paul Volker defined the resulting inflation as a national emergency and began to raise the bank interest rates to over 18 percent.
As the cost of money was increased, combined with the inflated costs of goods and services, there began a widespread failure of small, mid sized, and even large businesses and family farms.
Then began a feeding frenzy of larger businesses and banks consuming the smaller.

Q: Orchestrated by the dominant cooperate power structure, way back in the seventies?

P: Yes.  But please note, because of that same lack of Spiritual Consciousness and the capacity to recognize Holistic and Systemic process:

Q; I think it has already begun [June, 2004]

P:  People in general do not want to be bothered by the challenges of having to deal with complexity of any kind.  Were I to place our dialogues and supporting information that I will be sharing with you over the next few days and weeks on the Internet, where it must be read to be understood, most will not be willing, even if they are able, to accept the required discipline.  The number of visitors who do have the discipline and motivation to meet this challenge may be insufficient to form the critical mass of persons needed to galvanize the right kind of energy to implement political and social change.

Some will be hampered in spite of being caused to understand its direct relevance to their most urgent needs.  They are caught up and distracted by de-energizing and destructive lifestyles.  This group includes the party animals, those whose minds are trivialized by their choices on the Internet itself, by video and film media, and by heavy metal and other crass and debased pop styles in music, sports, and entertainment. The there is the mindless pap that is replacing hard news and analysis on so called news and information shows, e.g., CNN's and MSNBC's morning programs.  These are primal experiences which, like mercury, is subtle, slow, but mind numbing, mind poisoning, and eventually fatal.

They suffer from an absent or anemic Spiritual character of which they remain blissfully unaware.  Since the very concept of Spirituality is out of their consciousness, they cannot detect this problem, cannot relate to it, and therefore they cannot recognize its symptoms when they appear as pathology in their own lives.

In other words, they don't have the heart, mind or stomach for dealing with the Truth of their own lives. Better to dwell in the dream time.  Therefore, they can't generate the emotional grit to take on the challenge that you have said you are accepting with me.

Q: Well, throughout my education I've invested a good portion of myself in that kind of diversionary stuff which you claim is destructive, and I seem to have survived to be labeled a success.

P: Actually, in real time, maybe, but in Real time, that remains to be seen, .  But let me continue and pose a few of our more urgent adverse conditions..

P:  Remember that I introduce this array of problems and symptoms of problems only to emphasize that OT/MP is a generic Spiritual model. This Paradigm has the potential to empower effective and stable solutions in each of the following topic areas through first achieving Spiritual awakening among a critical mass of corporate and government whistleblowers and public leaders. Then the MP can provide them with the necessary Spiritual Principles that empower intellectual consciousness to identify and construct healing and correcting interventions to work.  I will briefly introduce the pattern of abuse found under each topical heading.

Q: Then I should keep this profile of problem vs symptom, whatever, in the back of my mind as we get into the heart of the MP.

P: Yes.  Also, please always remember, during these dialogues, I may present you with resources that are not always fully compatible with the ideas of the MP, perhaps even opposed, but which have a utilitarian element of use to the MP.  Therefore, should I not mention it at the time, by providing a resource, I do not always intend to convey the idea that OT/MP fully accepts or supports the use of facts, agenda, tactics and strategies associated with that particular information source.   I reaffirm the constant position taken by OT/MP, that no intellectually valid solution, including those proposed here, can be made to work without first being empowered and validated by means of a Spiritual dimension and context.

I assert and will defend why you and the public cannot yet do this, no matter how educated, experienced, devoted, determined,  or well intended you are.  As we become immersed in the details of MP, that Holistic idea, which is the MP, is among the most difficult for me to communicate to you and our modern American brethren.  But I trust we will share and support each other as we expect success from the effort.

Q: You mean of course, the "Curse of Holistic and Systems Thinking."  But I understand that I should pay special attention to the destructive role of predatory capitalism, and the growing presence and success of corporate greed and power mongers, as you call them, because their success contributes to our declining quality of life. Correct?

P: Yes, but equally so does the social and emotional ambiance of our society that is nurturing it.  Here are three examples of a seemingly mundane nature which illustrate the pervasive nature of corporate abuses.

First example, in their design for the renovation of the Kansas City International airport, the airlines arranged for the planning commission to provide no lavatory facilities inside the security perimeter.

Q: What?  You mean if you are about to get on an airplane and want to go to the bathroom, you have to leave the security area and then come back and completely check through security again to get on the airplane?

P: Correct.  If you are an elder who is incontinent, or a family traveling with babies or small children, or if you feel ill, you are trapped.  Further, you must take all your carry on luggage out and check it back in.

Q: Why in the world would the airport authority permit such an outrageous condition when they are upgrading the facilities?

P: Because the airlines demanded additional boarding space that was compromised had lavatories been permitted.

Q: Outrageous.  Even I can relate to that.

P: The second subtle example is what has been called "bloatware."  This is the practice of software designers, especially Microsoft, as they revise and expand their software, to remove or disguise familiar and needed functionality. This action forces customers to buy upgrades in order to properly process earlier software products using the "bloatware."  This is a pernicious evil that even non-professional users of computers have experienced, but there is no public outcry.  Even the rational explanation is outside of their intellectual consciousness.

Q: Well, that explains some problems I have recently experienced in using some graphics that used to work fine in my system.

P: Third, there is the national pattern of community developers who use their influence with local councils to not build or expand traffic arteries in a developing community.  They wait until the community fills in with tax paying residents and businesses.  Only then, do they permit the construction of the needed roadways, sometimes years after near intolerable gridlock has been well established in these local areas.  One example is Route 28, that runs north and south for 15 miles on the east boundary of Dulles airport between Sterling and Manassas, Virginia.

Today, a similar crushing condition has existed for more than 15 years along Rt. 30 east from Chambersburg to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.  Only now, 15 years overdue, with enormously amplified aggravation, the state has at last begun to widen the two lanes to a full four lanes.  These examples could be endlessly expanded by examining every moderate to large community in the United States.

Q:  I can provide a couple from my own recent experience.

P: Then there is the growing problem of corporate theft and abuse of legitimate and essential government functions on local, state and national governments.. This is accomplished by means of an evil known as "privatization."  I will make a number of references to this trend.

Q: Yeah.  I am told that is supposed to be a good deal.

P: Far from it.  Then there is yet another area where corporations surreptitiously invade the privacy of their customers.

Q: I guess that complexity is sometimes hides an abuse of privacy rights.  How can that happen without customers at least suspecting?

P:  They do, and in this situation, the corporations are more to be feared than the government.  At least the government is supposed to be monitored. But who monitors corporate invasions to privacy?

Q: Nobody.  I bet they hide behind their proprietary claims for their products.

P: Yes. The most recent lapse of privacy protection is found in Goggles' (the search engine) use of their new "G-mail" to invade privacy.  Their vaunted search engine scans the e-mail of their clients using their new G-Mail function to send them offensive pop-up and other ads based on the nature of their pattern of e-mail content.  [evidence] There was a great public outcry that somewhat cooled their plans.

Q:  So how does one resist this kind of intrusive abuse by big corporations?  I've recently heard of "phishing" by which fallacious e-mail  is sent to your computer to seduce you to prove deeply personal information regarding passwords, codes, social security, insurance and credit card information wanted by the intruder corporation.  We don't even know about it most of the time. But I think its also because folks are too lazy to find ways to oppose such stuff.

P: I also want you to note the growing frequency that public access to major news sources such as the New York Times newspaper and The Washington Post, among others are now shamelessly forcing visitors to their web sites to endure one or more of the following abuses which amount to a form of extortion of information:

Being forced to register before one is permitted to follow any story beyond the headlines.  This includes your e-mail and personal data, a dossier, so that you can be bombarded with SPAM, trash mail, and telephone solicitations.
Being forced to watch a pop up window that cannot be removed which contains a commercial for what seems like an interminable amount of time before the article that you want is released.  Even if they wanted to, most persons, including those who can afford the Internet technology, cannot possibly afford to buy the vast majority of those products they are forced to view .
The Wall Street Journal now requires an expensive annual subscription before your can get to its information.  This requirement forecloses on students, the retired, the economical challenged to have access to information that could inform them on the status of politics and economic.  [see below]
Most obscene are those commercials that now involve pop-up sound that blasts the viewer's concentration but which that cannot be turned off without an extended effort to figure out how in some cases.
Having to remove pop-up windows before or after you have visited their site.
What meager feedback channels exist for complaints to such organizations are hidden by obstructive telephone or e-mail barriers or steadily being removed altogether....

Related to these developments in corporate invasion of our personal privacy, we are at risk to loosing the free access to the Internet itself due to the long term impact of corporate generated "spyware" [defined].  Here is one of the disturbing symptoms of this trend that will be energized by the proliferation of corporate instituted and exploited spyware:

"The biggest factor behind the rapid increase in spyware is the amount of money at stake. Ads for such blue-chip companies as Motorola Inc., Verizon Communications Inc. and JP Morgan Chase & Co. appear in spyware programs.

The businesses most often accused of distributing spyware, including privately held Claria Corp., WhenU Inc. and 180Solutions Inc., say they are providing legitimate "adware" services to customers who approved the installation. But their disclosures are often misleading or buried: A recent Claria license ran for more than 60 electronic pages, first mentioning the phrase "pop-up" on page 18"
[in, Menn, Joseph, "No more Internet for them," Los Angeles Times, January 14, 2005;  source, registration is required ]

Even before the electorate finally begins to comprehend the significance of these developments to them, I guarantee, that there is already building in the greater public that slow rage that must and will eventually be released by what is called a "trigger" or "precipitating incident." Such an incident is of itself often trivial.   But then hell on earth will have been unchained. These kind of encroaching challenges to our freedom amount to a chronic, sometimes subliminal, but relentless abuse that afflicts us even before we we speak of the gross abuse that will be the focus of the remainder of this introduction.

Q: You know, I have found myself stuffing my real feelings about those kinds of  assaults that I have already noticed myself.  This is mostly because I don't know what to do.  Besides, doing anything takes hassle time and effort and sometimes risk.  May be I am just lazy.

P: Laziness, and ignorance of the costs of laziness, are a core problem today.

Let me continue with my assertion that pervasive and unjust corporate control over the public and its workers has been a tradition in American capitalism.  In the early 20th century, coal was the foundation of our industrial energy.  In the mining areas of Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Kentucky, the coal companies owned everything about their coal mines.  They owned the land over the mines, the town and villages, and the commerce.  Every minor was paid by the mining company, but the miners and their families had to pay that money back through crushing rent to live in squalid company housing. They had to pay through the company store, their only source of food, clothing, and necessities.  In effect, to work for a living, they were forced to sell their soul to that company store. [re Tennessee Ernie Ford, Frankie Lane, and others, Merle Travis's,  Sixteen Tons]   The groundwork for a return to those days is already being laid by our corporate masters, but this time their scope ranges far beyond any local community.  It is nationwide and international, and is inclusive of every industry.  The public sleeps--they reelected George W. Bush to continue that assault on personal freedom everywhere.

New York me article about McClain scandle: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/21/us/politics/21mccain.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ei=5088&en=33711052dbdd623d&ex=1361250000&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

  P: First, and probably foremost in the public mind are the recent corporate abuses by fraud that managed to make the headlines.  Of course, even in the consciousness of an apathetic and confused American public, the names WorldCom, Enron, and their accounting firm Arthur Anderson, now strikes a responsive chord. [See sequence of events defining the scandal]   A plethora of legislation has been triggered at every level. [source]   Nevertheless, few of the dozens of co-conspirators and collaborators have been brought to account after almost four years since the collapse.  But in a major betrayal of citizen rights in support of corporate malfeasance, no less than the Supreme Court of the United States, has struck down the conviction of Anderson in regard to their role of cooking the books that led to the the collapse of Enron and the loss of 28,000 Anderson jobs not to mention the costs and losses due to Enron's liabilities for its own culpability.  [source]

The damage done to thousands of innocent and vulnerable parties can hardly be calculated, especially when you factor in the purely intangible human costs of depression, despair, and unrequited anger. Worse, this scandal exposes the sleazy underbelly of American business from which the public has politely turned away. Most citizens are required to work for a business, a corporation, or the government these entities control.

This pathological corporate dominance began in earnest over 100 years ago at the turn into the 20th century [evidence] Evidence has been uncovered that no less a personage than Vice President Cheney was responsible for altering his corporation's accounting methodology when he served as Haliburton's CEO, by which he hid millions of dollars of losses from its stock holders.  [source]

In addition, consumers are helpless before the power of the banking industry alone.  Their so called "regulatory" bodies are managed by politicians bought and paid for by the banking lobby. The heavy handed abuse of consumers has only begun. [ example.]

Q: I recall from my studies some of the debates about the so called robber barons and other criminal actions and the struggle between owners and workers.

 P:  Those early struggles from the beginning of the 20th Century continue today.  Independent of overt waste and fraud, a constant goal of corporations and their lobbies is to create a low wage economy. Thus they act to fund, influence, and warp the political process in their favor. [source]   The DSA (Democratic Socialists of America) who have reported this data are among those groups that are reactively demonized by conservative capitalists and right wing groups of every stripe and shade from moderate to extreme.  Such liberal groups as the DSA and other populist and progressive expressions of public will, were they to find a fair hearing, would seriously threaten the choke hold of indefensible myths and claims advanced by the predatory capitalists and their right wing apologists and benefactors.

The public accepts the deception that any form of socialist expression is tarred with the brush of extremist Stalinist style communism. An uninformed and apathetic public cannot even try to find, let alone examine, a justification of those pejorative arguments proclaimed by the political right.  There are many other fact based informative articles that are a part of this DSA site. [source]
...
Regardless of right wing religious and political groups' chronic polemic and exhortations against so called liberalism, a bitter Truth for these reactionary groups  remains:

Life is RAW. Only TRUTH defines the only Reality that Always Wins. The uncorrupted facts are the blunt evidence of Reality which is filtered by our ego intellect and may not even be detected by any element of the public.

Q: Since you paint with such a broad brush yourself, can you name some specific corporate abuses most folks would agree with?

P: The retail corporation that has earned the worst reputation for abuse of its employees, whose competence and reliability have insured its success, is Wal-Mart. [Re: Wal-Mart's war on its workers]  They are now flying in the face of these facts by funding commercials that promote themselves as a good place to work, where there are ample opportunities for advancement, and where the alleged rewards are testified to by selected employees willing to proudly proclaim these hypocrisies on TV. The price of advancement for any manager is slavish devotion to Wal-Mart's bottom line, Profit.  This is profit at whoever's expense and at whatever sacrifice is required, e.g., their low wage, no fringe benefit employees.  A recent documentary won European praise for tracking the consistent abuse of its workers and the communities it exploits. [Evidence]  [Community opposition finally arising to counter Wal*Mart and other "big box" stores.]

Corporations have become active in reducing fringe benefits along with wages, and the jobs themselves, one of the more recent of which is Microsoft. [source] One perk area now receiving the most significant effort by corporations to reduce their support is for employee these days is family health care, except of course, for their executives. [source]

Q: But doesn't our free enterprise system stimulate creative solutions to these kinds of problems?  For example the diseases of the world are being conquered by the skill and resourcefulness of our pharmaceutical industry. 

Direct and indirect abuse by the health care industry

P: The health care industry, which includes the functions of doctors, hospitals, nursing homes, ancillary facilities, insurance companies, and pharmaceutical companies is beyond meaningful public control.  Working through their lobbies, they have conspired to totally control the care of patients in this country, and to set exorbitant fees for the need to stay healthy.  The patient has no rights except as approved by the health care industry who works through the various legislatures and the national, state and local levels to ensure that they will constantly profit from patients, from pre cradle to the grave.   The pharmaceutical industry is just one example.  

Far from being the solution, the pharmaceutical industry and its world wide predatory agenda is a major part of the problem.  Their agenda is nothing less than to force all "solutions" to disease and human defects to work through their industry.   Further, they too directly abuse their own employees and the communities they live in by reducing benefits, wages, and by firing staff as fast as they can find a way to save money, e.g., by moving entire facilities off shore.  When they move their business off shore, away from US controls and tax requirements, they cheat the taxpayers of their legitimate taxes. 

This process began more than a decade ago, aided and abetted by the government and our tax payers themselves. This evil was documented more than a decade ago by courageous investigative journalism. [Barlett & Steele, 1992]  More about this shortly.  No political action has since been taken.  Democrat John Kerry who promised to act against the corporate outsourcing of jobs and facilities was defeated, and fact, corporate apologists, led by the White House, continues to advance a defense of these social and economic outrages against the middle and lower classes. [source]

Regardless of their location, the pharmaceutical companies want those who are vulnerable to illness all over the world to pay a stiff toll to their industry as they work to displace all alternative, less costly, approaches to healing, regardless of objective merit. They oppose and act to suppress and defeat alternative low cost solutions such as food and nutritional supplements which they cannot patent and control. [example]   But I will defer any focus on this dimension of our problems until you have been prepared to enter our dialogue 5, on the nature and abuses of ego power and control and how they manifest in the persons of the corporate and political power and greed monger.

Q:  So how do corporations work through the government to control how  we get health care?

P:  The complexities by which this abuse occurs is its own vastly complex topic.  It far exceeds the limited objective for this sub dialogue.   But let me give you just one appalling example from the nursing home industry:

In 1991, an elderly woman entered a so-called "continuous care facility" that was owned and operated by an establishment church.   The family willingly turned over their mother's entire modest estate to the facility, given their promise that their mother would be fully cared for until she died.  In the mid 90's, due to gross mismanagement and alleged fraud, the facility went belly up.  A "for-profit" company purchased the facility, and promptly repudiated all existing contracts.  The family was given the choice of having their mother put out on the street right then, or accept a revised contract.  Since there was insufficient remaining funds in the original contract for them to even think of moving her elsewhere, they were forced to accept a new contract that consumed her remaining funds at an accelerated rate.  

In September of 1994 the remaining funds in her deposited account were gone, and the home informed the family that their mother would have to leave immediately.  None of her children were in a position to take her in.  The family paid the balance of the monies due for September, and arranged to have state funds pay for ongoing care at another facility.  The requirement for this "Medical Assistance" from Medicaid through the state is such that she must be totally impoverished of all funds, except for approximately $3,000 cash for funeral expenses.   In her first month in the new nursing home, her account was billed a total amount of $15,000 for room, board, and services that came out of the Medicaid fund.   She died three months later in January, 2005.

Had this women died in Canada, or most of western Europe, her family would have inherited an estate of close to $250,000 dollars because the $51,000 sale of he home in 1991 would have been deposited in an interest bearing account to earn compound interest for 12 years.   This woman had cared for her totally disabled cerebral palsied child for 45 years.  Since this child was eligible for "Medical Assistance" at birth, due to her extreme condition,  this woman's decision to care for her child herself without state support saved the federal government and State of Pennsylvania millions of dollars for the care of this child, who is still alive, and now finally under Medical Assistance in a personal care home.

P: This single example is repeated hundreds of times every day across America, thanks to the political control of our health care system by the AMA (American Medical Association,) and the other profiteers in the health care and insurance industries.

Q: I guess your message here is that they get away with this due to the ignorant indifference of the electorate.

P: Absolutely, and let me give you one more example from Pennsylvania, that is also likely to apply elsewhere.

A man chooses to execute a DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) order to prevent any medical interventions that would cause his life to be prolonged against his will.  Suppose then, that he has a severe automobile accident, or sudden stroke in public, but not in the hospital where his DNR is on file.  An EMS (Emergency Medical Service) team reaches him, and because there is no DNR status available on his person, they give him emergency treatment that causes him to survive, but in a permanent vegetative state once he reaches the hospital.  

An out-of-hospital do-not-resuscitate (DNR) order is a written order that is issued by an attending physician that directs EMS providers to withhold CPR from the person in the event of cardiac or respiratory arrest. Thus, if an ambulance is called to attend to a person for whom an out-of-hospital DNR order has been issued and the ambulance crew is shown a copy of the out-of-hospital DNR order with original signatures, or observes that the person is wearing an out-of-hospital DNR bracelet or necklace, the ambulance crew will not attempt CPR...

Who can request an out-of-hospital DNR order?
A person who is in a terminal condition who is competent and 18 years of age or older or, if under 18 years of age, has graduated from high school, has been married or is emancipated may request an out-of hospital DNR order."  [color emphasis added, source]

You see by this obscene example, you are not permitted to die, unless the health care system, localized in a physician, says it is OK for you to die.  You cannot obtain a DNR bracelet on your own, and a physician must certify that your are already "terminal."  In this way, the health care industry ensures that they will have the opportunity to extract every possible dollar from your estate before they will let you die.  

Q:  My God!  That is obscene!  And I assume from your remarks that this status exists because of corporate control over our legislative bodies But the public is ignorant of this until it afflicts them, and then it is too late.

P: Sad but true. And because corporate power has a lock on the legislatures regardless of which party is in control, there is no promise of establishing friendly regulations to suppress these evil practices.  I could go on at length, but there is no time here for any of the numerous additional examples.

Q: But aren't there also crusaders, like Ralph Nader, who are taking on these kind of problems?

P: Ralph Nader is a steady champion in efforts to overcome corporate abuses, per these remarks on the need for greater regulation in general, as noted in his book, Crashing the Party:

"Despite the recent financial disasters, Congress agreed to the new deregulation in 1999- and many of the financial combinations created by that deregulation are intertwined in the current corporate scandals.

Are we about to repeat this same sad cycle in dealing with the current corporate fraud and crime wave that has cost millions of Americans trillions of dollars? Will this year's headlines, a few limited reforms and a tap on the wrist be the end result-with no real protections in place for the public, investors, workers and the economy? We should not allow such a result. We need to prove that our political and economic system is better than that. We can make lasting-effective-change as citizens. This time, we need to keep the issues on the front burner until we have true reforms, not fake facsimiles that do nothing but lull the public into a false sense of security."  [Nader, 2002]

Q:  I have to admit I have not been paying attention even to the headlines, let alone behind the headlines,  Too many folks are like me, it appears.  But as you just affirmed by your examples, I do know from the headlines that the entire health care industry may be culpable in denying or frustrating genuine quality health care for the public.

P: I can focus my criticism from corporate abuses in general, to concentrate on one more gross and obscene example from the heath care industry.  This is an incredible example of putting profit before a patient's health.  It is the  steadfast but indefensible campaign of the medical establishment through their lobby, the AMA, to deny EDTA (ethylenediamine tetra-acetic acid) chelation [pronounced, key lay' shun] therapy to their cardiovascular patients.[evidence]  The cost of chelation therapy is one tenth the cost of a cardiac bypass, and corrects the root of the problem,and not just its symptoms.

Were chelation to become widely known and paid for by the health insurance industry, 50 to 75  percent of cardiac surgeons would have to find other work.  The "Do no harm" [from their Hippocratic Oath] medical profession considers such a condition of potential unemployment anathema, to be put far ahead of their patients' economic and physical well being. Therefore, there is an incestuous, tacit agreement that is closely held by the profiteers in the medicine and insurance industries.  They will go to the most extreme means to suppress and keep the lid on the availability and effectiveness of chelation therapy. 

Q:  But can't you get the therapy if you ask for it?

P: The insurance industry will not pay for it.  Drs. who have tried to provide it any way have been persecuted. But the results are so effective that individuals will pay, out of pocket if they possible can, as much as $5,000 for a typical course of treatment.  There are numerous resources that describe this therapy and the unethical suppression of its merits, and access to it by the public.
[See: Nash, 2000;  Halstead & Rozema, 1997;  Cranton 1996;  McDonagh,1983]  [information sources on EDTA chelation therapy]

Q: But  haven't we have created the vast insurance industry to support our health care needs.  For example, I will pay for coverage for health care over the healthy years of my youth. Then I will benefit when I am old and in failing health for the coverage I in fact invested in for the prior decades of my life.

P:  Alas! for your child like hope and blind faith in one of the most gross and cruel of the many myths that define today's predatory capitalism.  The insurance industry is out in front with abuse of their consumers. [evidence]   Government promises to US workers that they would benefit from their investment in social security has already been compromised by the government itself for its own federal workers.  Those workers who dutifully served in the private sector to fully earn their credits and qualify for their right to receive complete social security benefits are having as much as two thirds of their earned benefits denied under the euphemism called  an "offset penalty."  This penalty was enacted by Congress to affect any annuitant who happened to earn his/her retirement from the federal government.   Some who are spouses to such federal workers are entirely denied social security benefits attached to their spouse, even after the death of the spouse.  [information]

Health insurance companies run scams on their consumers involving physician and other health care providers who in effect allow the company to pay less for the services that the consumer is being charged for by the company. In addition they act to restrict those services, allegedly because of costs. [evidence]

Unfortunately though, the corporations are not the only bad guys.  Insurance companies have been identified as a fair target for various kinds of scams and other forms of fraud that is perpetrated on them. This cost is of course passed on the their consumers.  These abuses gives credence to insurance company claims that blame fraud for driving up the costs.  [evidence]  The nature of corporate abuse is not just national, not confined to the United States, as Canada has learned in their own "no fault" insurance scandal.  [source]

Now there is frantic activity among those high up in the business world, because they finally figured out that corruption in high places affects the stock market, and that affects them.  Never mind the other human costs.  The changing balance of power between citizens and the corporations across the 20th century has gone heavily against the citizens. "They" means you and me, Pilgrim.

The following reference provides some guidelines for dealing with corporate fraud of the type that Enron perpetrated on the American public. [source] Remember my thesis that I keep repeating, that the solutions we see proposed and attempted are all ego driven intellectually grounded efforts.  Regardless of their good will and intent, because the change agents and electorate are not infused with the required Spiritually grounded dimension of Consciousness, therefore, their corrective efforts lack the Spiritual dimension of Wisdom and thus will be compromised or fail.  But we must allow more time for you to immerse yourself in the MP for you to notice these defects and for me to fully make my point.

P: As I already noted, what exploitation of workers and our government cannot be achieved in the United States, thanks to what protective regulations there are, corporations now freely export US jobs to third world countries where their foreign employees will work for subsistence wages and no perks. [source] Of course these conditions cannot exist were it not for the reliable behaviors of US consumers who, in exchange for the reduced costs of items they buy, are prepared to ignore the hidden social and other enormous costs. The brutal costs are charged to those who slave in the clothing and other US and third world sweat shops that create the products we purchase.  These chambers of abuse cannot be recognized, let alone acknowledged for what they Really are.  This is because our consumers uniformly suffer from inadequate Spiritual Consciousness.

For an example, just prior to the 1992 election, a major expose of the costs of outsourcing was presented in a series of articles by two Pulitzer Prize winning investigative reporters for the Philadelphia Inquirer, Donald Barlett and James Steele [now reporting for Time Magazine].  Their two years of research into the details of this problem led to a best-selling book [1992] and to a PBS documentary, Listening to America,  [source] hosted by the well established and respected liberal, Bill Moyers.   This expose of systematic and widespread corporate betrayal of their workers, the communities in which they once worked, and the citizens of the United States, may have helped shape the Clinton victory in the 1992 election. But their expose has not changed the conditions about which they reported.  On the contrary, these conditions have worsened, especially in the nurturing permissiveness of the current Republican administration.

But as usual, where the media is concerned, no further follow-up was done on this topic. Few such vigorous and informed corporate exposes have followed.  As a part of their public service cover, corporations do provide funds for PBS.  We can ask whether they "suggest" what such moneys should be used for? what ought be restrained?  Animal shows?  or hard hitting but truthful corporate exposes?  I note there is a chronic behind the scenes effort by corporate lobbies and conservative groups to alter the content of PBS programming, and to gut PBS of its dwindling federal funding. [source] Today, there are other pressures due to media evolution that threaten PBS as a relatively objective source for fact based public interest documentaries. [source]

Unfortunately, but for their temporary peace of mind, the greater public remains unaware of these conditions.  And when they do find out about such abuse, even abuse that directly affects them or their loved ones, they don't know what to do. They do have to eat, to own clothing and other necessities.  They must not lose their jobs no matter how odious.

Q: And besides, what can they do if they find out about corporate injury being done to others if not themselves?

P: First, one must find out.  At the outset of 2004, as an enormous public service, CNN (Lou Dobbs Tonight) has been publishing a list of US corporations who are exporting American jobs overseas. [reference]   Then there are resources that you can follow up to learn more about what can and is being done, [sources]  even though, as the MP predicts, they will fall short if not fail utterly.

Remember that major tenet of MP which holds that what is not first held in C/consciousness cannot be processed by the intellect.  Therefore, because of inadequate Spiritual Consciousness among most of these "do gooders," erratic progress has been made. Nevertheless, where one's Spiritual health is concerned, fortunately for those who try to make a positive difference, any effort stands them in good stead for it is the effort that counts Spiritually, not worldly success or acknowledgment. [example].

While sweatshops are mostly associated with low grade, low skilled wage earners, US corporate ingenuity has now found ways to apply the same principles to skilled white collar professional level workers, especially in the information and high tech areas.  [Information resource on  corporate sweatshops]

Current indictments of US high tech industries demonstrate a ruthless disregard for the rights of Americans who have played the American game of life by the rules as taught in child hood.  These rules may be summed to say in over simplified terms,  "work hard and succeed."  This promise is being steadily betrayed by American corporations on a large scale. [source]

 "Summary:   The alliance between contribution-hungry politicians and profit-hungry Silicon Valley patrons has resulted in HUGE increases in issuance of "temporary work visas" to skilled foreign workers who replace U.S. Citizens in our high tech industries.  Industry hype is that the U.S. can't supply enough skilled workers, but what Silicon Valley really means is that they don't want to pay decent salaries to U.S. workers.  Older U.S. citizens are being frozen out of the Valley by this policy -- digital age discrimination for the millennium!" [source]

"...is also concerned that it has only been a year since Congress nearly doubled the annual ceiling on H-1B visas from 65,000 to 115,000 in 1999 and 2000. It is premature for Congress to consider another increase until it has time to review the results of the studies of high tech labor markets conditions that were mandated in last year's H-1B visa legislation - studies that won't be completed until this Fall. The American Association of Engineering Societies has joined IEEE-USA in calling on Congress to defer consideration of any increase until the National Research Council can complete its congressionally-mandated study on the high tech workforce."  [source]

"In light of the findings in the NRC [National Research Council] report — and the lack of evidence of the industry-claimed severe shortage of high tech workers — Congress's action in increasing the visa program appears to have been premature and unjustified. Congress apparently chose to respond to the pleas (and campaign contributions) of high tech firms rather than to the data presented by FAIR and a coalition of high-tech professionals groups that opposed both the extension and the increase."  [source]

Efforts have been made to facilitate the ability of interested persons to find out who these corporations are and where they are located, in order to more fully document this betrayal of American workers.  [source]

There are numerous sources which track and document the abuses of the tobacco industry in selling their poisonous products world wide, including marketing to children. [source] Other forms of poisoning are associated with the willful neglect of corporate landfills and dumping sites where a variety of dangerous chemicals have been permitted to percolate into the ground water that feeds family and community wells. [