In the Public Interest

In the 1970s, reformers successfully fought for rules to ensure that the making of the nation’s laws would be carried out in sessions open to the public, not behind closed doors of Congressional Committees. The reforms were supposed to mean open hearings and open meetings to consider and vote amendments to bills as well as…

The recent announcement of the $100 million fine slapped on agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) for price fixing put corporate crime — one of the important but under-reported issues of our time — at the top of the news hour and in the morning newspaper headlines. If past history is any guide, however, the…

The Commission on Presidential Debates! Sounds like an official agency of or appointed by the government. It is neither. The Commission is an arm of the Republican and Democratic Parties through and through from its co-chairmen (former heads of their respective Parties) on down. The commission is funded by corporations (Philip Morris, Ford, R.J. Reynolds,…

Apart from the call for job formation, labor issues, such as strengthening the collective bargaining or job safety laws, rarely receive much attention by candidates for national office. Corporate pension plans, funded, underfunded or looted, are another example of this glaring omission. “Pension security is looming large in public opinion polls, but politicians keep ducking…

Twenty years ago I met Robert Clampitt, then in middle age, who had a vision that successfully occupied him for the rest of his life. He wanted the media, in his words, “to rethink dramatically how they cover children and children’s issues. Like canaries in a coal mine, the voices of American children have for…

With the selection of economist-activist, Pat Choate by Ross Perot as his vice-presidential running mate, the issues of the controversial NAFTA and GATT trade agreements may be receiving greater visibility in this fall’s Presidential campaigns. The two major party candidates — Clinton and Dole — supported these autocratic systems of international governance over our democratic…

For citizens who are vague about what money from business lobbies to political campaigns will buy, try silence! Here is a list of subjects over-ripe for candidates attention except for the dollar-sealed politicians for whom the slogan is “mum’s the word:” 1. The Federal Reserve is the banking industry’s government in residence. It is the…

Chicago: Strolling through the walkways and inside the giant United Center, where the Democratic Party convened last week to nominate the Clinton/Gore ticket, one has to recall Shakespeare’s title Much Ado About Nothing Fifteen thousand members of the media, hundreds of corporate hospitality occasions and a couple thousand Party delegates came together to observe a…

Corporate over-regulation of the daily lives of Americans is growing fast. With business lobbies focusing relentless attention on government regulation, which after sixteen years of Reagan, Bush and Clinton is in a state of slumber, isn’t it time to take a look at corporate regulation? Corporate regulation, as any small business franchisee knows, is imposed…

Can the late evening television news get any worse? I put this question recently to some television news reporters who rolled their eyes and together said “not much worse.” Three national consulting firms have convinced most local television news executives that the formula of pursuing tragedy (street crime and natural disasters) and trivia (chitchat, fluff…