Democracy & the Rule of Law
You Call This A Democracy
You Call This a Democracy? is a penetrating and
troubling look at how the U.S. ruling class and the power elite dominate
wealth, power and decision-making in all aspects of our lives and
institutions. Arguing that the United States has always had a ruling
class, this book does not focus on the current administration or rogue
corporations, but presents a deeper, longer-term analysis of how the
ruling class has created and uses the Constitution, corporations and the
courts, as well as a host of other mechanisms such as tax laws, wars,
buffer zones, and distractions, to dominate our society and accumulate
wealth. More >
Myth America
Myth America exposes the lag of major American
institutions behind the demands of the 21st century and the
reinforcement of this lag by the media and schools miseducating the
public. The author shows how the priorities of these institutions are
undermining rather than achieving ecological sustainability and social
justice. More >
Gaveling Down the Rabble
In Gaveling Down the Rabble, author/activist Jane
Anne Morris explores a century and a half of efforts by corporations and
the courts to undermine local democracy in the United States by using a
“free trade” model. It was that very nineteenth-century model that was
later adopted globally by corporations to subvert local attempts at
protecting the environment and citizen and worker health. More >
Challenging Corporate Rule
The complete text of the historic complaint by a
coalition of some 25 local, state and national women’s environmental and
other civil society organizations to the California Attorney General to
revoke the corporate charter of Union Oil Company of California
(UNOCAL). The foreword by Ronnie Dugger, Chair of the Alliance for
Democracy, and introduction by author Robert W. Benson, Professor of Law
at the Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, seek to place charter
revocation in the broader context of the struggle for democratic control
of giant corporations. The introduction also provides concrete
suggestions on challenging corporate rule in other states. A practical
guide to citizen action against corporations, and must reading for all
who cherish the democratic ideals on which this country was founded and
who are prepared to join the struggle for their realization. More >
Manifesto for Global Democracy
The U.S. ideology of Manifest Destiny, now at the
core of the U.S. assertion of the right to intervene anywhere and occupy
anyplace, in the name of freedom, security, and civilization, is akin
to South African apartheid. The roots of this exclusionary and violent
concept of freedom are explored in the first essay in this book, “On
Freedom and Equality,” and contrasted with the universal idea of
freedom, based on equality, espoused by Mahatma Gandhi and Rev. Martin
Luther King, Jr. The borders between capitalist and developing countries
separate people in the way Blacks and Whites in South Africa and in the
United States were forcibly segregated not so long ago. An end to this
global segregation is central to the struggle for global democracy and
human rights. More >
Rule of Power, Rule of Law
Rule of Power or Rule of Law? assesses U.S.
compliance with nine treaties addressing some of the most urgent global
security threats, ranging from proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction to global climate change. More >
Global Aggression
An expose by INFACT (now Corporate Accountability
International) of the role of the US-based tobacco corporations Philip
Morris and RJR Nabisco in aggressively promoting tobacco
internationally, contributing to the deaths of 3.5 million people
worldwide per year. Filled with examples of manipulation of public
policy and big Tobacco’s disregard for advertising restrictions in other
countries, Global Aggression builds a case for a combination of
consumer pressure and world standards to stop the spread of
tobacco-related diseases and hold tobacco transnationals accountable. More >
The Rule of Property
In The Rule of Property, Karen Coulter offers a
groundbreaking new perspective on the rise of private property over the
public domain by linking two popular streams of thought: the legal
history of the rise of corporate power developed by POCLAD (Program on
Corporations, Law and Democracy) together with the new thinking about
corporate encroachment on the ecological and social commons. Coulter, a
member of POCLAD, is also a forest activist who watchdogs public lands
against corporate theft. More >
Inhuman Rights
Winin Pereira’s ‘Inhuman Rights: The Western System
and Global Human Rights Abuse’ presents a sharply critical and revealing
account of how the West has actually misused conventionally defined
human rights set forth in the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of
Human Rights to promote and maintain its political and economic hegemony
over the rest of the world. More >
The Elite Consensus
Financial and business corporations throw millions
of dollars at think tanks, lobbyists and universities, exploiting
writers and artists galore. Their assignment? To twist words, gnarl
symbols, sell lies, whip people into line. The Elite Consensus fingers
the American Enterprise Institute, the Council on Foreign Relations, the
Chamber of Commerce, the Heritage Foundation, and many other
“educational” corporations, which men of property have unleashed on this
planet. The author shows how these corporate con artists teach us our
history, elect our representatives, write our laws, define ideas and
frame public policy debates. Originally published in 2000 by Blue
Mountains Biodiversity Project as The Corporate Consensus. More >
Defying Corporations, Defining Democracy
In these 70 essays, speeches, sermons and screeds,
POCLADers probe: corporations as “legal persons”; corporate social
responsibility as a ploy; strategies for amending state corporation
codes and challenging judge-made laws; and much, much more. More >
Building Unions
Your union local or activist community group is
doing good work against one corporate assault after another. But your
successes aren’t making the next campaigns easier. Or challenging public
officials who enable corporate usurpations.You’re itching to take
action. More >
Abuse of Power
The enormous size and global reach of multinational
corporations make it increasingly difficult for any one country to hold
them accountable when they behave recklessly. This book demonstrates
just how serious and urgent the problem has become by exposing Union
Carbide’s record of abuse of its workers and the environment. Abuse of
Power examines the inadequacy of existing mechanisms and presents new
ways of curbing corporate irresponsibility. More >
War and Peace and Democracy
Of all the possible responses to the attacks of
September 11, why did the U.S. government choose war? What can a
reactivated peace movement learn from the Iraq war and from 20th Century
social movement history to prepare us to do more than react to the
demands of empire? In other words: how can we fundamentally challenge
the power of corporations to turn our government against us and march
another generation off to war? More >
Taking Care of Business
From the Preface: Corporations cause harm every day.
Why do their harms go unchecked? How can they dictate what we produce,
how we work, what we eat, drink and breathe? How did a self-governing
people let this come to pass? More >
