Voices from Chernobyl or Unequal Protection

Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster

Author: Svetlana Alexievich

 

Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award

 

On April 26, 1986, the worst nuclear reactor accident in history occurred in Chernobyl and contaminated as much as three quarters of Europe. Voices from Chernobyl is the first book to present personal accounts of the tragedy. Journalist Svetlana Alexievich interviewed hundreds of people affected by the meltdown---from innocent citizens to firefighters to those called in to clean up the disaster---and their stories reveal the fear, anger, and uncertainty with which they still live. Comprised of interviews in monologue form, Voices from Chernobyl is a crucially important work, unforgettable in its emotional power and honesty.

Look this: Macroéconomie

Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights

Author: Thom Hartmann

Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights

Was the Boston Tea Party the first WTO-style protest against transnational corporations? Did Supreme Court sell out America's citizens in the nineteenth century, with consequences lasting to this day? Is there a way for American citizens to recover democracy of, by, and for the people?

Thom Hartmann takes on these most difficult questions and tells a startling story that will forever change your understanding of American history. He begins by uncovering an original eyewitness account of the Boston Tea Party and demonstrates that it was provoked not by "taxation without representation" as is commonly suggested but by the specific actions of the East India Company, which represented the commericial interests of the British elite.

Hartmann then describes the history of the Fourteenth Amendment--created at the end of the Civil War to grant basic rights to freed slaves--and how it has been used by lawyers representing corporate interests to extend additional rights to businesses far more frequently than to freed slaves. Prior to 1886, corporations were referred to in U.S. law as "artificial persons." but in 1886, after a series of cases brought by lawyers representing the expanding railroad interests, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations were "persons" and entitled to the same rights granted to people under the Bill of Rights. Since this ruling, America has lost the legal structures that allowed for people to control corporate behavior.

As a result, the largest transnational corporations fill a role today that has historically been filled by kings. They control mostof the world's wealth and exert power over the lives of most of the world's citizens. Their CEOs are unapproachable and live lives of nearly unimaginable wealth and luxury. They've become the rudder that steers the ship of much human experience, and they're steering it by their prime value--growth and profit and any expense--a value that has become destructive for life on Earth. This new feudalism was not what our Founders--Federalists and Democratic Republicans alike--envisioned for America.

It's time for "we, the people" to take back our lives. Hartmann proposes specific legal remedies that could truly save the world from political, economic, and ecological disaster.

Booknews

Hartmann is not trained as a historian, economist, or political scientist, but then he does not expect his readers to be either. He presents general readers an alternative story to the one they received growing up. To that end, he writes in the style of high school textbooks<-->difficult terms explained in parentheses, end notes not referenced from the text, and some simplification of historical and economic details. His fundamental message is that Americans have been fighting corporate power since the Boston Tea Party, and that even in these dark times it is possible to wrest rights back. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

What People Are Saying

Paul Hawken
Beneath the success and rise of American enterprise is an untold history that is antithetical to every value Americans hold dear. This is a seminal work, a godsend really, a clear message to every citizen about the need to reform our country, laws, and companies.

David C. Korten
Hartmann combines a remarkable piece of historical research with a brilliant literary style to tell the grand story of corporate corruption and its consequences for society with the force and readability of a great novel. I intended to take a first quick glance and then couldn't put it down.

Table of Contents:

	Introduction	1
	Prologue	7
Part 1	The Nature of Community, Values, and Government
Chapter 1	The Values We Choose to Live by	11
Chapter 2	Banding Together for the Common Good: Corporations, Government, and the Commons	24
Part 2	From the Birth of American Democracy Through the Birth of Corporate Personhood
Chapter 3	The Boston Tea Party Revealed	45
Chapter 4	Jefferson's Dream: The Bill of Rights	64
Chapter 5	The Early Role of Corporations in America	74
Chapter 6	The Deciding Moment	95
Chapter 7	The Corporate Conquest of America	120
Chapter 8	Transnational Corporations: the Ghost of the East India Company Rises Again	136
Part 3	Unequal Consequences
Chapter 9	Unequal Uses for the Bill of Rights	157
Chapter 10	Unequal Regulation	161
Chapter 11	Unequal Protection from Risk	165
Chapter 12	Unequal Taxes	173
Chapter 13	Unequal Responsibility for Crime	183
Chapter 14	Unequal Privacy	187
Chapter 15	Unequal Citizenship and Access to the Commons	190
Chapter 16	Unequal Wealth	201
Chapter 17	Unequal Trade	212
Chapter 18	Unequal Media	223
Chapter 19	Unequal Influence	238
Chapter 20	Capitalists and Americans Speak Out for community	244
Part 4	Restoring Democracy as the Founders Imagined it
Chapter 21	End Corporate Personhood	251
Chapter 22	A New Entrepreneurial Boom	257
Chapter 23	A Democratic Marketplace	269
Chapter 24	Restoring the Global Dream of Government of, by, and for the People	275
Chapter 25	Our First Steps Forward	279
	Postscript: A Message from a President of the United States	286
	Passing a Resolution to Educate Your Community About Corporate Personhood	291
	Model Ordinances to Rescind Corporate Personhood	294
	Constitutional Amendments for Each State	315
	Endnotes	327
	Resources	342
	Acknowledgments	343
	Index	345