#dumping greedy ceos in toxic waste

[ivereadthemanual]

My two current obsessions stopped fighting in my head and started to make out with each other instead.

Now I want Dagon and Poison Ivy to become besties and save the ocean together. Violently.

[skies-diary]

You are not the problem for driving a car instead of biking to work. You are not the problem for buying food wrapped in plastic. You are not the problem for leaving the light on overnight.

You are not the cause of the problems the world faces today. Late stage capitalism is.

Yes, driving a car causes air pollution. Yes, plastic is a cancer upon this land. Yes, using electricity burns coal.

Chances are, however, that you don't have any other choice - particularly if you live in America. I've never worked a job that was a comfortable walking distance away, because in America, walking cities aren't really a thing. Public transportation used to be common, but that's changed (because of multiple factors).

Food wrapped in plastic is, more often than not, the only option people have to be able to eat (particularly in food deserts, where the food is far more processed and, therefore, nearly always wrapped in layers of plastic, as opposed to produce and other less processed foods).

Civilian use only accounts for about 1/3 of electricity use; the rest is used by the "industrial and commerical" sectors. Yes, civilian use adds up, but it's nothing compared to manufacturing plants sucking down energy day after day. Using solar power is pushed hard for civilians, but the truth is many people do not have access to solar power; many people live in apartments where they cannot install solar panels, and other live in areas where the HOA forbids solar panels. If you dont live in the customer range of a company that produces green energy, you're out of luck as well.

The truth is individuals are not causing the climate crisis. Wanna know who is?

Here's a good starting point:

Emissions:

Plastic waste creation:

While this is by no means comprehensive, it's a launching point.

Through a mix of disinformation campaigns and lobbying for favorable laws, the corporations of America have convinced the public of America that the climate crisis is whatever the CEOs want it to be. First the narrative was that it wasn't real. But we can see the world burn, we see the fires in Californa and Australia. We see the disturbances in weather, causing natural disasters in rapid succession. We see the start of a mass extinction due to the planet beginning to fail. The lie that climate change is a hoax no longer holds water with the majority of the population.

So, new strategy. The corporate machine develops a new theroy, one still in use today: climate change is real, and it's your fault. You, as a consumer, have been reckless and greedy. Only you have to power to stop the oncoming climate crisis.

This is, of course, entirely false, but it allows corporations to continue, unpunished and unaccoutable, while consumers are saddled with the blame. The truth is, however, we cannot fix this from the civilian side. You can take all the five minute showers you want; that wont save the fish while factories are dumping toxic waste into oceans, while energy companies run pipelines under lakes and rivers which explode and poison the waters and all that live in or drink from them. You can trade in your car for a bike; Amazon and Walmart still runs delivery trucks across the nation day and night. You can bring your own bags to the grocery store and go without plastic straws; marine animals are more likely to be trapped in and drown by fishing nets.

So what does this mean? Give up?

No, of course not. What it means is to be critical of what you're being told about climate change. Recycling, cutting down on plastic use, going vegan, driving a hybrid; all of these are incredible places to start.

But - and I hate to say this - it's not enough. We cannot solve this by ourselves. The charts of corporate giants above; they're the ones that have to change.

So, we press them.

Call the customer complaint lines of companies like Nestle, Coca cola and Pepsi, as well as oil giants, and, keeping in mind that the person on the other end is also a working class person who has not caused any of this, tell them that you're boycotting their company because of their disregard for climate change. Encourage them to do R & D into things like biodegradable plastics if they want your business back. (I know some people cannot boycott these companies; that's okay. If you can, boycott. If you cannot, still call. You just need make them believe you're boycotting. Make them nervous. Make them change their behavior.)

Advocate for green energy; call your electric company and ask what they're doing in terms of green energy. Write or call your representatives and demand that green energy in your state be expanded via government backing like subsidies. Also tell your representatives to back the Green New Deal. Threaten to cast your vote elsewhere if they refuse.

Educate yourself on the facts about climate change and green energy so that when the media giants, megaphones for big oil politicians, and corporations try to tell you lies, you know they're full of shit. Also educate yourself on the views of your local and state representatives. If they're not governing in a way that is in your best interest, throw them out next election cycle. Unfortunately, we cant solve this without major policy and legal changes; your elected representatives are the ones who control those.

It can be hard to fight when you feel overwhelmed by all this. I understand. This is overwhelming to me every day. However, you need to remember: you are not powerless. The phone you're holding right now is a tool. Use it to write to and call the people who need an attitude adjustment. Use it to research. Use it to make a change.

Other great ideas for those who have the means to do so: Take public transport instead if driving. Grow a garden in your backyard; not only for yourself, also for your neighbors. Buy food at farmer's markets or other locally-sourced food (local is best as transporting food is a major polluter). Shop at thrift stores and buy secondhand.

Not everyone can do this. That's okay. You still have a voice. Use it.

Together, we are strong. Remind the bad guys of that.

[loominggaia]

Anonymous asked:

Why are Dworfs and Humans treated so negatively in Looming Gaia. It’s not their faults that they literally can’t use magic at all and are some of the weakest people, forcing them to use tech or beast taming to defend themselves and not be oppressed/enslaved/eaten by the other peoples/Nymphs, and it isn’t their fault that their ruling kingdoms are so awful. *part one*

*Part 2* meanwhile, nobody talks back against the nymphs for being racist, murderous pricks perfectly willing to kill children for not being able to sing good, as well as forcing people to let animals eat them or die from the common cold! (I’m really sorry for this rant, I just needed to get this off my chest, I just feel as though the Humans and Dworfs in general are treated too negatively in the stories, meanwhile most of the nymphs get away with the stuff I just typed (I like looming Gaia).

I totally get what you’re saying, and this is actually the same argument that Zareen Empire basis all of their actions off of. I’ll get back to that in a moment

So, humans and dworfs...they are commoners. Commoners are resistant to iron, they can lie, and they can’t use magic. To compete with the strong gaians and the magical fae, commoners have adapted in a few different ways:

1) Assimilated with gaians and fae (Matuzu Kingdom, several others)

2) Rejected/enslaved/committed genocide against gaians and fae (Evangeline Kingdom)

3) Use dirty industrial technology to defend themselves against gaians and fae (Zareen Empire)

Nymphs scrutinize commoners harder than other peoples because of #3. Because they are resistant to iron and a lot of toxic chemicals moreso than other species, using dirty industrial technology is the path of least resistance for commoners. They COULD develop greener technologies or use their innovative brains to come up with alternative solutions, but that’s not the path Zareen took. Because of its large size, Zareen Empire has become one of the “faces” of commoner kind. Evangeline Kingdom is another face.

Nymphs universally hate Zareen Empire, but most of them have no problem with Evangeline Kingdom, which is another commoner-dominant civilization. Evangeline culture, for all its faults, is quite eco-friendly. It’s also a rich and powerful nation, which proves that commoners don’t HAVE to take the dirty industrial path to survive like Zareen Empire wants everyone to think.

Because that’s Zareen’s whole justification for their pollutive, exploitive ways: “But we commoners NEED all this dirty technology! We HAVE to exploit the environment! We don’t have a choice, sorry! UwU” But Evangeline has already proven that this isn’t true. So has Matuzu, which also has a very significant commoner population. Commoners are creative, innovative, and adaptable enough to be better than that. Alternative green tech, diplomacy, and creativity can replace dirty industry--and god knows Zareen is advanced enough to shift into cleaner technology if it wanted to...but it doesn’t want to because that’s expensive, and Zareen culture is all about money. It’s more profitable to keep dumping filth into the ocean than to process it into clean water.

“meanwhile, nobody talks back against the nymphs...“

Oh, not true at all! Zareen Empire’s entire culture is centered around anti-nymph rhetoric, painting them as violent psychopaths who just want to destroy commonerkind for no reason. Damijana spews the same propaganda at its citizens too. There is TONS of pushback against the nymphs all over Looming Gaia, it’s one of the main conflicts of the series and the cause of many wars.

Burmek Commonwealth started a massive war with the local nymphs over their restrictions. The nymphs just happened to win that war and Burmek collapsed. Zareen Empire and Damijana are constantly fighting off nymph attacks every day. Small-scale battles between peoples and nymphs happen regularly, like in Yerim-Mor Kingdom for example. People aren’t just laying down and taking shit from the nymphs, they are defending themselves the best they can.

I say this all the time, but I’ll say it again: nymphs are not a hivemind. Each one is an individual. There are violent radicalist nymph factions and peaceful friendly ones. Some even go out of their way to defend peoples from their sisters, to their own detriment. The story “Nymph’s Hollow” explores this concept; basically the local nymphs decide that they don’t want peoples in their forest anymore, but Flora stands up to them and with her help, the refugees are allowed back in Drifter’s Hollow.

All nymphs love their Mother Gaia and want to defend her. They’re just stuck in a shitty situation where they must make a choice: defend their mother or defend the people destroying her. Some nymphs choose violence to deal with this, others try to solve things peacefully with diplomacy and compromise.

I also should point out that commoners aren’t the only ones getting scrutinized and attacked by nymphs. Damijana, for example, is 95% elven and they’re at the very top of the nymphs’ shit-list. Just because a society uses magic doesn’t mean it isn’t pollutive or destructive. The Seelie and Unseelie Courts are a good example of this. They almost completely ruined their local ecosystem by slinging magic around irresponsibly, and if it weren’t for Green Witch defending the western forest, the entire continent of Umory-Ond would probably be barren by now. Magic can be just as harmful to Mother Gaia as dirty industry when used incorrectly. Nymphs hate this too and will attack any nation--no matter their species--for causing too much destruction of any kind, magic or otherwise.

I hope that makes sense! If I’m doing a bad job at portraying this in the series, then I’d like to examine and correct that ASAP because “commoners bad” is definitely not the vibe I’m going for.

I think there are some things that are just objectively evil, like greedy Zareenite CEOs poisoning sirenes to save money on waste processing. Or nymphs murdering random young men because they blame all commonerkind for the actions of that CEO. Just like in the real world, there are some behaviors that can’t--and shouldn’t--be excused. 

But there are also gray areas where most of Looming Gaia’s population lies, where they don’t mean any harm and they’re just trying to live their lives the best way they know how. Those are the stories I want to tell. I want to present a story about a characters’ life without passing judgement on it and let the reader come to their own conclusion about what’s going on.

If I’ve presented a bias in my narrative, then I did something wrong. I don’t want to impose my own opinions on the reader. I’ve been accused of writing Captain Planet-esque “nature good, people bad” narratives in the past, but it’s NOT what I’m going for, I promise. I’ve tried to correct that by showing the other side of the coin too, that nature is not good or bad, it is just IS, and it is equal parts beautiful and absolutely brutal.

[foxofthedesert]

Arrow FF | Dinah x Laurel | A Christmas Miracle

A Christmas Miracle, Part 1 - The Pursuit (Click to read on AO3)

Winter has arrived in earnest to Star City, a little late to the party but right on time for the main event. The holidays are right around the corner. Literally. Christmas Eve is already fading into history along with the setting sun.

After a benign autumn, meteorologists had predicted this season would be Northern California cold at worst, which is to say mild compared to the rest of the country with temperatures hovering between the high forties and fifties. Up til now, they'd been spot on with their forecasts. Unfortunately their crystal balls ran out of juice yesterday while today a never ending assembly line of huge gray clouds rolls is currently lazily by, announcing more of the same dreary, wintry weather. If Dinah didn't know better, she'd think it was about to snow. In Coastal California.

Teeth chattering, she tugs her coat tighter around her shoulders to ward off the chill of an uncommonly cold afternoon. This is exactly the kind of shitty weather she thought she left behind when Central City was firmly in her rear view mirror. California was supposed to be sunny and warm, or so said the movies. Well, from where Dinah stands they were lying because she is a bundled up in several layers, a thick coat and scarf atop a sweater and tee with mittens on her hands and woolly socks on her feet, just like she always used to in Missouri.

Dammit. And I just had to wear jeans. Oh well, at least my boots are keeping my toes from freezing.

Cursing the weather and her own foolish choice to be out it in when she doesn't have to be, Dinah curls her shoulders in, stuffs her hands into her coat pockets, and soldiers on. She is on mission right now and has no time to feel sorry for herself.

The sidewalks of the Triangle are bustling with activity in spite of the cold and the waxing evening hour. Shoppers flitting about care little for the rules of polite etiquette in their single-minded pursuit of last minute gifts for their friends and loved ones. Others are meandering aimlessly about, stopping every now and then to gawk at the intrepid shops that bothered to put up decorations or lights or both. Others still have their heads down like Dinah, trying to blend in with the crowd and filter through on their way home or to their jobs. That Dinah's motive for laying low is far less innocuous is beside the point.

Earlier this afternoon she got a surprise call from the District Attorney's office informing her of a prosecutorial change for a current case. Not just any current case, either, but one involving a corrupt, insanely powerful chemical manufacturer based in Gotham which had spread its disease into Star City while the government was occupied preventing one disaster after another. For the better part of a month, Dinah has been grinding through evidence and conducting interview after interview with the one and only Laurel Lance. Since the beginning Laurel has been her partner in overseeing the Ace Chemical case and they were really just hitting their stride on it when the rug got pulled out from underneath her feet. Finally after months of tedious police work and highly stressful court appearances, the CEO and a bevy of her criminally corrupt lapdogs all guilty as sin of dumping toxic waste in the Triangle right on the outskirts of a school zone were fixing to go to jail. Dinah had thought Laurel would want to see it through seeing as she put as many grueling hours in than Dinah has, if not more, ensuring all the I's were dotted and ever T was crossed. With one call from A.D.A Martinez, Dinah was dispelled of that notion and it caught her completely off guard.

The case being pawned off to the longest tenured A.D.A. would not have sat so wrong with Dinah if it hadn't seemed to be as intensely personal to Laurel as it is to her. Normally Laurel Lance acted the prototype of a picture perfect D.A.: a bulldog who is always in control in the courtroom, professional to a fault in the office, and able to politic with the best of them. This case was different, though, even more so than when Laurel went to bat for Oliver while he was still stuck in Slabside. She was burning the midnight oil like never before and spent more hours with Dinah at SCPD going over investigative and arrest reports over and over again until they both had just about memorized them to the letter. Also Laurel's intensity levels were constantly through the roof, and that was saying something considering she is, in every avenue of her life, perpetually cut throat and high strung. Laurel often chastises her staff for no good reason, such as failure to include one minor detail in a relatively inconsequential report due for filing, which is par for the course for a hothead with a combative streak as wide as the Space Needle is tall. But she never did so publicly until working this case. Only last week when one of her paralegals forgot to pass on an innocuous enough message from a DAI, she berated him in front of half the office so badly the poor kid burst into tears, so traumatized that he fled work early and missed the entire next day as well. Once the outrage ebbed, Laurel actually confessed to Dinah that she felt intense guilt over her treatment of that employee.

Laurel Lance. Formerly of Black Siren notoriety. Felt guilty for hurting an underling's feelings. That alone told Dinah how important this case was to Laurel. That she went on to say that this was the first case she'd worked on since assuming Earth-Prime Laurel's life that she categorically refused to lose. Once she went on a bender working on the case, refusing any and all attempts by her employees to get her to go home. Finally after thirty-six hours they called in the cavalry.

"All those people that soulless, greedy bitch made sick deserve justice," Laurel had told Dinah upon being confronted about her obsessive, incredibly unhealthy behavior. "And I'm gonna get it for them. If that means I don't sleep until I get a guilty verdict, then so be it."

If Dinah hadn't put her foot down, she's pretty sure Laurel would have made good on that promise. As it was, she had to all but drag Laurel out of the Court House into the parking garage and then deposit the District Attorney in her shiny new Lexus with perhaps a little less gentleness than was called for.

The point of all this is that Dinah is worried – a lot – about Laurel shrugging off a responsibility she has been obsessing about so religiously over the past two months. Worried that something is wrong or worse, that Laurel has at last fallen off the reformation wagon. Dinah sort of hates herself for jumping to such a cynical conclusion, but there it is. Sometimes those old feelings of bitter acrimony crop up and taint the progress she has made with her former enemy.

Enemy. There's a word Dinah hasn't associated with Laurel in almost two years. Since they teamed up with Felicity to free Oliver from Slabside, she and Laurel have made such significant strides that she would consider Laurel her closest female friend. Which is still sort of shocking when she actually sits down and thinks about where they came from to arrive at what she would categorize as as intimate a friendship as she is capable of forming. No one could have predicted the turn their relationship would take thanks to Felicity's meddling, least of all Dinah, who had once believed the aptly utilized designation of frenemies would be the best she could ever attain with the woman who killed the man she loved. Yet here she is, wading through a sea of people on the streets in ass-clenching cold just to make sure Laurel is alright when she could be at home bundled up on the couch in her favorite blanket sipping on hot cocoa. And it's Christmas Eve for Christ's sake! That alone speaks volumes about how much she actually cares for Laurel.

What's even more amazing is that there is not a shred of doubt in her heart of mind that Laurel feels the same for her. Of course, there is some cause to call that into question, or at least to redefine what care means from Laurel's end. Of late, Dinah has been getting these weird vibes from Laurel, who has started looking at her and even treating her differently than she used to before they tackled this case together. Ordinarily that would be a bothersome development. Except the change is not in a negative direction. If anything, Laurel has been noticeably more attentive and considerate, which when combined with those vibes produce strange feelings and urges in Dinah she has yet to figure out the meaning behind. And that's not to mention what she is supposed to do about this sudden spike of awkward, nervous, excited energy that buzzes between them whenever they are in the same room together. There is a word for it, she is sure, though right now she is not prepared to break out her dictionary so that she can officially print the term on a label to slap upon the deeply complicated relationship she shares with Laurel Lance.

That said, not yet being ready to face what her subconscious has been screaming at her is going on but her conscious has been deliberately and stubbornly annoying does not preclude Dinah from springing into action whenever Laurel starts acting wonky. Such as today when she dropped a case they were both so passionate about for no reason this morning and then inexplicably cut out of work after lunch without so much as an explanation to her immediate subordinate beyond a clipped response, "Worry less about what I'm doing with my afternoon and more about closing this case. Your future here depends on it."

Since getting the call from A.D.A. Martinez, Dinah has been unable to shake a feeling in her gut that something is going on. Something she should be concerned about. So she did what she does best. Pulled rank at the precinct and decided to indulge her nosy side. Leaning upon all she has learned as a vigilante and as a cop, she stalked Laurel on the traffic cams to the street she is currently plodding down, having covered six blocks already, only to lose sight of her at the intersection of Weisinger and Papp. There is only one significant place of interest Dinah can think of at that location, and she cannot for the life of her figure out what Laurel would be doing there. Her gut feeling tells her to follow through, though, so she complies without further complaint other than some more grumbling about the weather.

Upon rounding the corner, Dinah spots the homeless shelter, the city's second largest, and trudges down the sidewalk towards the entrance. Foot traffic here has dwindled down to a negligible amount. Only the inhabitants of the shelter and what few individuals are willing to brave being seen among such a lowly, somewhat dangerous element. Such as Laurel. For whatever reason…

Once perpendicular from the shelter, Dinah quickly cuts across the street when the street traffic gives her a pause. She gives no thought to the fact she, a police captain, has just blatantly broken the law. Jaywalking isn't the first misdemeanor she's committed today and probably won't be the last. Now on the correct side of the street, she picks around the exterior of the shelter until she finds a bedraggled older man perched on a cinder block just inside the alleyway on the east side of the building. Prepared for just this opportunity, she pulls out her badge and then the stock photo of Laurel she'd snatched off her desk.

"Calm down," she says to the startled man warily eyeing her badge – former military judging by his close cropped hair, rigid posture, and army surplus jacket. "I'm not here to arrest you. Or anyone else. What's your name?"

He exhales, fiddling with an exotic, expensive looking watch on his wrist that seems off beyond it being worn by someone without means to purchase it. A second later he offers her a shaky nod, then responds, "Name's Marv."

"Nice to meet you, Marv. I'm Dinah." Dinah's eyes are again drawn to the strange watch, only to have it quickly hidden under a well worn jacket sleeve. For a split second she considers pressing about how a homeless vet came by such an extravagant piece of a bling, only to change her mind in favor of an expedient end to her mission to find out what the hell Laurel is doing here. Now that proper introductions are made, she doesn't feel bad about thrusting the photo of Laurel in his face. "Have you, by chance, seen this woman this afternoon?"

"Yep. That's Dinah. Been here every day this week. First time before eight, though."

Brows searching for her hairline, Dinah almost comments on the name Laurel gave out before she remembers that it actually is Laurel's name. Dinah Laurel Lance. Whose mother's maiden name was Dinah Drake. The synchronicity of those facts alone are enough to keep Dinah awake at night. When factoring in all that conspired to throw them into a collision course trajectory, which they somehow survived only to be caught up in a mutual orbit, she can't help but feel there is some unknown force at work. Call it fate, kismet, destiny or any other whimsical designation, something out there clearly wants her and Laurel close to each other, and Dinah isn't sure how she feels about that. Well, that's a lie. She knows how she feels, just doesn't want to admit it – even to herself.

"What's she doing coming here every night?" she asks around the lump in her throat that often forms when thinking about Laurel. When the man she's questioning shoots her a dryly outraged glare, she quickly amends herself. "Not that I'm judging. Just curious."

Marv accepts her apology with a shrug of his broad shoulders. "No sweat. I was a little skeptical too when she started comin' to help the staff and residents – ya know, pitchin' in where she can. Cookin' and cleanin' and all that domestic shit. Done some electrical repair work that needed doin'. Good at it, too. Also did most of the decorating for Christmas. Real talented gal."

Dinah's eyebrows shoot up into her hair line. Laurel Lance cooking and cleaning and fixing stuff and...decorating for Christmas? She fights the urge to pinch herself to make sure she isn't dreaming.

Marv laughs at her expression. "Don't blame ya lookin' that way. When she pulled up in that fancy car and came stridin' through the doors in that expensive suit, I figured she was some politician out for a photo op or somethin'. Only never was no cameras or reporters around and she outworked everybody the four hours she was here. And the next time she showed up, she dressed down for the occasion. To fit in better, ya know? Worn out tee, ripped jeans, nose ring, hair braided up nice and tight. Got down in the trenches without a single complaint. Nothin' like the high class bitch that strutted her fancy ass into a world she don't belong in. Nah. Figured out right quick she belonged alright. Just hides it real good out there." He indicates toward the wider world by a tip of the chin. "Good heart in that one, too. She don't know I know, but she's helped more'n a few us land jobs that start up after the Holidays. Like Jordie and Lew. I, uh, I'm one of 'em, too. Asked the guy who hired me why he did it. Wouldn't say anything except a pretty lady who has a way with words convinced him to give me a chance, that he wouldn't regret it. I knew who it was just like that." He snaps his fingers to accentuate the point.

Dinah hardly knows what to say to what she's heard. Never has she been given a less Laurel-like description, and yet she can sense beyond all doubt that she is being told the truth. The paradox being presented to her is confusing as all hell, and it only incites her curiosity into irresistible fascination. Another layer of the Laurel onion is being peeled away right before her very eyes and she is a captive audience spellbound at the unraveling.

"Wow. Uh...I have to say that surprises me," she says after a brief moment of speechlessness. "That doesn't sound like the Lau -" she stops herself short of giving out Laurel's name out of respect for her privacy, "Dinah I know."

"Guess that means you don't know her like you thought," Marv says, eyeing her wryly. "You showed up looking for her, though, which means she's awful important to you. What're you her girl or somethin'?"

"No!"

The denial comes a little too quickly and too defensively and too disingenuous underneath the abrasiveness for Dinah's liking. Her poor reaction only serves as an additional reminder that she is all too aware of her feelings for Laurel and is in that stage where she just can't accept them. Their ugly past is the main obstacle, and that should be enough, right? There is enough baggage between them to fill up the terminal in the O'Hare Airport claim center.

And then there is the fact that Dinah is pretty sure Laurel is straight. She has caught Laurel checking a few ladies out here and there, but chalked those smoldering glances up to either zealous admiration or incendiary envy. Most of the ogling Dinah has caught Laurel doing has been directed toward one particularly unavailable man who just so happens to be married to her closest friend on this earth and who treats her like shit most of the time – the latter of which seems aligned with Laurel's history of being attracted to men who treat her like shit, which is another subject Dinah would rather not dwell on to keep her blood pressure in check. Not that Dinah can use any of this evidence as definitive proof that Laurel is, in fact, straight seeing as the same could be said of her.

In so far as her friends-slash-teammates know, she has only dated men when that is not quite the truth. In college she had several experimental hook ups with hot coeds from other sororities, one of whom was a steady girlfriend for nearly a year whose name was Lynne. It was Lynne who helped Dinah sort through the mess of her emerging identity to figure out she was actually bisexual and not simply going through a phase. Since then she has primarily dated men since that is her preference, but she has slept with a few women in between boyfriends, the most recent a one night stand in Hub City right before Oliver Queen interrupted her misguided quest for vengeance. That said, Laurel has been the first she's thought of the way she did Lynne, and even then the comparison is lacking. What she feels for Laurel rivals how she felt about Vince when he stopped being her undercover partner and became her lover. And that frightens Dinah so badly that every time the thought crosses her mind she panics and quickly stuffs down all of those complicated feelings Laurel provokes.

Sucking in a breath through her teeth, she lets it out slowly to compose herself before giving a more rational response. "I mean...I know her, yes. We work together. We're also friends. Of a sort. I just..." she trails off into a sigh. "Look, it's complicated. And not that it's any of your business but I was worried about her. She took off from work early, which she never does, and then abandoned a case really important us both. Seeing as she has a penchant for self-destruction, here I am."

After a contemplative hum, Marv nods to himself. "So she is some sort of bigwig politician."

"How do you figure that?"

Marv chuckles drolly. "Ain't hard to figure out. To be workin' with a police captain – got that from your badge by the way – she has to either be a cop or someone real important. And she ain't no cop. Heard her let loose some salty language about some of y'all. Don't leave much else possible. Lawyer, I'm guessin'. No, wait." He snaps his fingers again, eyes alighting. "Now I know why I though she looked so damn familiar. She's the D.A. ain't she? What's her name? Laura? Laurel! That's it. Laurel Lance. Well. I'll be damned."

The expression of utter amazement upon Marv's face is mirrored in Dinah's. "You and me both buddy," she says, taking a pause to process all she's learned. That Laurel has been volunteering at a homeless shelter for the past two weeks. That while still her sassy self, the Laurel that threaded in so seamlessly into the upper echelons of Star City society just as fluidly accommodated to the acclaim-repellent, elbow-grease-required strata of the most humble of the most humble that the mass production and low human value culture of America can produce. Laurel has also made another and even more drastic transformation in shedding the cold, calculating, vicious skin of Black Siren only to casually adopt the fully functional, productive citizen persona of the woman so beloved by so many a statue was built in her honor as if it were no big deal at all. All taken together, her series of adaptations is in Dinah's estimation an accomplishment of which few aside from the most elite social chameleons can boast.

All of that begs the question: who is the real Laurel Lance? And that is a question to which Dinah has no answer except to say she is dying to find out. Laurel is a jigsaw puzzle with a million jumbled up, radically disparate pieces spilled out before her as if to taunt that part of her brain that craves a challenge. Solving the unsolvable was one of many reasons she decided to become a cop after serving her enlistment in the Marine Corps, and there aren't many she's encountered that have her more vexed – and more invested – than Laurel.

As much as she would love to say that was the only reason she's out here in the tit-freezing cold talking to a complete stranger, her heart is not absent of engagement in the mystery of Laurel, either. Something about Laurel has tugged at Dinah's heartstrings for a long time now, since far earlier than their detente to aid Felicity's quest to exact vengeance upon the Dragon and the subsequent cooperation to free Oliver from prison. Maybe it was watching a shell-shocked daughter silently grieve when Quentin died while maintaining a facade of strength in support of a sister she didn't even know. Or maybe it was watching her, with Quentin's devoted fatherly guidance, slowly but surely step out of the inky blackness she inhabited out into the light of a nascent dawn and prove one day, one act, one speech at a time that there really was a fleshly, beating heart in her chest capable of great warmth that courses with red blood that bleeds like every one else upon the infliction of a wound. Or maybe, just maybe, it was getting to know the woman behind the innumerable masks and finding her to be as infinitely interesting, and surprisingly funny and charming on top of that, as the projections she offers up to the world to protect a heart that is far more fragile than she could ever bear to admit. Whatever the cause, there is no denying that Laurel has – probably without even trying – slipped past Dinah's own inner defenses and taken up residence in a place precious few have ever occupied.

"So, is she still here?" Dinah asks after deciding she best not think too much longer about this lest she become unnerved and tuck tail to run for the hills. Which is distinct possibility as scary as these unfurling feelings for Laurel are.

As if ignorant of her internal turmoil, Marv nods sharply, then indicates back toward the building with his head. "Yep. You'll find her inside. In the kitchen probably. Or out serving. Dinner ran over 'cause she got here a little late. All she did, wasn't right to start without her. Worth the wait though. Prime eatin' in there."

"Glad to hear it." Dinah means that in more than one way, though she declines commenting along those lines out of curiosity as to why Marv here is out in the cold with her instead inside and warm tucking into some dessert or something. "By the way, why aren't you inside? Gotta be better than freezing your ass off out here, especially if the food is as good as you said it was."

In response, Marv grins as he gives his belly a satisfied rub. "Already been through the line. I'm stuffed, and it can get loud in there, so I came out for some peace and quiet. Besides, it's a nice evenin'. I'm from New York, ya know. This cold reminds me of home."

"Missouri here by way of St. Louis." Select few outside of Team Arrow know that about Dinah, and that prompts her to wonder why she feels so comfortable sharing it with a total stranger. There is just something about Marv that she can't quite put her finger on. Something familiar. Hmm. "Gotta say, I don't miss the winters down there and they're a far cry from what y'all get in New York," she then adds as she studies the older gentlemen, noting his features remind her a bit of her grandfather, which satisfies that pique of curiosity for the time being.

"Yeah," says Marv, one corner of his lips quirking up just like Laurel's do – a ridiculous comparison that comes out of left field and is swiftly dismissed by Dinah. "But it ain't Christmas less it's cold, you've been fed like a prince, and you're with family. Guess two outta three ain't too bad for a washed up old vet."

Dinah's heart goes out to Marv. She knows the loneliness of having no roots left to speak of worth contacting this time of year. An only child of two only children, her mother's death the year she enlisted signaled the end of any familial obligations. So she cut clean after her discharge, moved to Central and never looked back. Thankfully she has since discovered a new family in Star City, one she did not inherit but chose of her own volition. Also known as the best kind of family.

"Not bad at all. I don't have any family left either. Gotta take what you can get around the holidays, right? Also, you're not all washed up. You figured my rank out with a single glance at my shield."

"My eyes still work. It's the rest of me that don't. And no offense, Cap, but that question you asked me earlier can apply to you, too. What the hell're you doin' standin' out here in the cold yappin' with an old geezer like me? Didn't you come here for a reason?"

Brow raised at his cheek, Dinah nonetheless shifts nervously from side to side. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess I did. Just..."

"Not what you expected to find, eh?" Marv interjects, rich green eyes twinkling in amusement. "Looks like your girl's got some surprises up her thousand buck sleeves."

"That she does. And I told you, she's not my girl."

Marv chuckles amiably at the denial that rings hollow to them both despite it being the truth. Laurel may not be her girl, but Dinah is increasingly becoming aware of the fact that she wants her to be.

"Yea, sure," he says. "Keep tellin' yourself that, Cap, maybe some day you'll convince yourself." Abruptly he shifts on his cinder block throne, clears his throat, and just like that Dinah knows the conversation is about to be over. "Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to enjoy a few minutes of that peace and quiet I came out here to get before I go back in and rejoin the rabble."

Dinah holds her hands up in surrender, recognizing the dismissal not as a suggestion but as the command that it is. "Alright. Message received." Unwilling to depart just yet for the fondness for this man she has so swiftly developed, she hesitates for a second as her analytic brain sifts through various potential scenarios in which they might meet again. For a variety of reason, not the least of which is statistical probability, most of them aren't good. "Listen," she says after the silence stretches out too long, causing Marv to arch a brow impatiently. "Stay out of trouble, you hear? I don't wanna see you in my station for any reason. Got it?"

Her reply is a mock salute and an equally sardonic, "Sure, boss. No need to worry, though. I don't got any plans to get locked up until at least the New Year. But I'll be sure to target your precinct if I change my mind just for the repeat pleasure of your company."

Recognizing the joke at her expense, Dinah rolls her eyes and quips, "In that case I'll keep the cell warm I reserve for unrepentant smart asses," before swirling to beat a hasty retreat. Back at the alley entry, she veers in the wrong direction only to be course corrected by Marv's consequent shout of, "Hey, Cap? That's the wrong way to the door, ya know." Dinah does know. She was just too damn nervous and uncertain all of a sudden to go through with confronting Laurel about her unexpected injection of the Christmas Spirit. Apparently being called out for her cowardice by a down-on-his-luck vet is the cure for that malady. Straightening her shoulders, she nods her appreciation at a man who in such a small span of time made such a large impression upon her.

"My bad," she calls back. "Thanks!"

She can see Marv's cheesy, smug grin even in the low light afforded by the street lamps and the single outside fixture attached to the outer wall of the shelter. And she certainly has no problem hearing his reply.

"You're welcome! Now, stop lyin' to yourself, march inside there and do what you gotta do to get your girl and make this a Christmas to remember."

To her astonishment and a degree of elation she has not experience since she in High School, Dinah does not bother to correct him this time. In light of all the revelations she experienced tonight about herself and Laurel, along with Marv's timely encouragement just now, clarity descends upon her with an intensity that cannot be denied. For far too long she has been too terrified – albeit for oh-so-many very good reasons – to directly confront the undeniable reality that she is falling in love with Laurel. And instead of inciting a panic that will derail the astounding progress she has made in the process of a single conversation with a man with whom she has only just become acquainted, instead of making her want to run away as fast as her legs will carry her, it does the exact opposite.

Against all rational explanation, and wildly contrary to how she felt on seconds ago, all Dinah wants to do right now is run straight to Laurel. So that's precisely what she does.

[clubofinfo]

Expert: Note that the title begins with an indefinite article for there are many roots of evil, but the one most invasive and destructive is America’s corpocracy. It is the mother root with two branches that are slowly snuffing out America and the world with it. Those two branches are corporate America and government America. This essay is about the first, corporate America, and specifically, evil corporate leadership, defined here as profoundly immoral, socially irresponsible, and harmfully consequential behavior. There are many scholarly theories of leadership, but neither a scholar nor theory is needed, just ordinary common sense to define leadership. It is simply “the capacity to control the means to get desired ends.” One sentence replaces thousands of pages in dozens of books I have read on the subject. I may have just saved you a lot of unnecessary reading. Great Corporate Leadership: Where? If, instead of being evil, corporate leadership were great we could have great corporations. But we don’t—let me know if you know of any. A great corporation would be one that uses positive means to achieve positive ends. Another way to put it is that a great corporation would be one that is socially responsible, and no corporation can ever meet all six of my criteria for corporate social responsibility. Here are the six: A socially responsible corporation: 1. stays financially viable over the long haul; 2. Provides socially beneficial products and/or services without, 3. knowingly causing any physical, psychological, financial or ecological harm, 4. without externalizing costs (e.g., job outsourcing, waste disposal), 5. without seeking or depending on “warfare welfare” or other government favors such as corporate personhood, campaign financing, lobbying, subsidies, revolving doors, laissez-faire regulations, or criminal immunity, and, 6. conducts business ethically and legally while treating all stakeholders fairly and with dignity. If a corporation and its leadership fail to meet any one or more of those criteria they are socially irresponsible. And the fewer they meet the more evil they are. And all corporations I have ever studied, observed or experienced have flunked one or more of the six. I once followed up on two scholars’ separate lists of what they claimed to be 100 some great corporations due to their sustained profits. Their conventional bottom lines were indeed in the black, but these corporations’ unconventional bottom lines were indeed in the red, falling below the acceptable line of good corporate behavior as evidenced by the incidents in “The Different Police Gazette” to be shown later in this essay. They ought to tell us that corporate greatness requires far more than just being money deep. What exactly keeps corporations from being great? After all, they have the capacity, or power, to become great if that were their aspiration and thus their standard of performance. But neither their aspiration nor standard of performance call for being a socially responsible corporation. Fattening their conventional line is their Holy Grail. But that is not a sufficient answer to the question. The conventional bottom line and the primacy given to it are just two of several intrinsic factors preventing corporate greatness. Other intrinsic factors include a hierarchical organizational structure, or pyramid, in which wrongdoing of any kind is orchestrated at and denied by the top while being carried out at the bottom; rewards for “negative” success (i.e., ill begotten success); and, above all, evil leadership. The latter thrives in a pyramid. Here’s how it works in a pyramid: An ignoble expectation or order starts somewhere higher up and goes down the pyramid in one version or another until it gets to the doers who cannot get rid of it without doing its bidding or getting fired. Here is an illustrative scenario: Top Level-Unrealistically high goals are set without issuing an explicit order to cut legal or ethical corners. Next Level- Translates goals into specific targets and gives hints or wink and nods on unethical or unlawful means of accomplishing them. Next Level- Tells subordinates, the doers, to “do whatever is necessary” or may even spell out the necessary means, such as get the “toxics dumped at night,” or “keep two sets of books.” Thus, the expectation/order may start implicitly, gets less implicit, and eventually becomes blunt as it cascades downward.  However it is couched, the expectation/order is expected to be met or else.  Moral considerations become situational, and the situation is defined by the boss next up the line. As for the intrinsic barrier, evil leadership, we shall return to and expand on it momentarily.. Then there are several extrinsic barriers to greatness that ought to be obvious to anyone reading this essay. They include government handouts even for, or especially for, corporate failures, government either looking the other way, giving wrist slaps, or making lawful in so many different ways what should be unlawful corporate wrongdoing that ranges from the “ordinary” to the truly evil, and, of course, global gobbling capitalism. A Topsy-Turvy Metaphor Roots thrive at the bottom, so my metaphor is topsy-turvy. The evil roots of corporate leadership thrive at the top, as I have illustrated. Evil corporate leadership is synonymous with evil corporations for the latter are under the stewardship of the former. I have never been an insider at the top echelons of corporate pyramids, but I have studied them enough to understand the people there and their internal workings. What follows next are a few pertinent generalizations that obviously do not apply in every instance. What I call “warped” boards of directors tends to have limited influence on who gets to be the CEO. Directors are generally handpicked and usually back the CEO. The average tenure of nearly one-half million CEOs in America is about 10 years, and then a new CEO is ensconced. Nearly 70% of all CEOs are bred internally, which means they have back stabbed and clawed their way to the top. There’s no need to pity discarded CEOs. Their severance pay is more than the average American could amass in several lifetimes. So CEOs come and go, but only the faces and names change. Their “PMU” or psychological make-up stays basically unchanged, one that only their grandmothers could love. CEOs tend to be imperious, if not before getting to the top spot, then while in it by being seduced by the power of the position itself. CEOs personal flaws don’t stop there. From my extensive review of the literature I have concluded that CEOs tend to be greedy, irresponsible shepherds of “their” companies (actually owned by investors), lack of virtue, materialistic values, moral frailty, narcissism (including unbridled hubris), narrowly educated and narrow-minded. These flaws usually go together. A CEO with one tends to have all of the rest, too. The flaws are not unique to the corner office but are more pronounced and more destructive there. Conceivably great corporations could exist if they followed my models proposed elsewhere for corporate reform and for a socially responsible capitalism, but those proposals will never materialize so there is no point in referencing them here. Then, too, Americans could continue weaning themselves away from corporations by turning to alternative forms of business such as cooperatives. That trend is occurring slowly but will never replace the corporation as a mode of doing big business. The Different Police Gazette Given the ubiquity of evil doing at the top of the corporate pyramid and the corresponding evil doing of government, is it any wonder why I was able for many years long ago to compile a different police gazette, one that records the corpocracy’s crimes and other forms of evil doing? I was motivated to do so because “our” government records everything about us but corporate crime, probably because doing so would clearly implicate government as an accomplice and often an instigator (as in forever buying weapons from the weapons’ makers). While my compilations have tapered off considerably over the last decade or two, the gazette would be book size had I continued to this day. I am going to close this essay with a decidedly non-scientific sampling of incidents of corporate evil doings from my gazette as shown in Exhibit A. I simply chose some incidents and stopped choosing more when I got tired of choosing, an escape I could never get by with writing for so-called scientific journals. You will notice some redundancy among the incidents because the more egregious industry-wide incidents are repeated when found in the industry-specific entries. While many of the incidents were the doings of people below the CEO, we can be sure the CEO didn’t disapprove. All of the incidents are taken directly from my files and are unedited, yet they clearly speak for themselves in their raw form, like unwashed and naked filth. By the time you finishing reading them you may feel more outraged and worried than before. Blame it not on me but on the corporate Devil. The incidents are numbered across categories to facilitate any referencing. As you pour over the incidents think about how they deviate from the criteria of social responsibility and from the following universal moral values found by Michael Josephson, the lawyer turned ethicist (that’s a bizarre twist), to traverse time and place: accountability, commitment to excellence, concern for others, fairness, honesty, integrity, law abiding, loyalty, promise keeping, and respect for others. As you go along consider flagging the top 10 or so incidents that you judge to be the most evil in their intentions, in their means, and in their consequences, and perhaps also the 10 least evil ones in your judgment. I refuse to pick the 10 least evil ones. Evil is evil and I wouldn’t wish any of them on anyone. The first group of incidents depicts the two scholars’ picks of “great corporations” that I cited earlier. Exhibit A. Sampling “The Different Police Gazette” Incidents from the Purportedly “Great” Corporations 1. Involved in antitrust lawsuits and settlements. 2. Accused of breach of contract and fraud in dealing with retailers. 3. Violated securities laws. 4. Falsification of financial accounting. 5. Infringement of copyrights and patents. 6. Disbarred from further government contracts (must have really irritated Uncle Sam). 7. Employment discrimination lawsuits. 8. False advertising consent decrees. 9. Filing lawsuits against public complaints. 10. Forcing applicants to sign dispute resolution agreements. 11. Hiring illegal aliens. 12. Implanting “spy” chips in products. 13. Privacy violation lawsuit settlements. 14. Serious malpractice lawsuits. 15. Serious product failures and liability settlements. 16. Racial profiling and redlining. 17. Selling returned merchandise as new. 18. Sexual harassment suits. 19. Stonewalling investigations. 20. Union busting. Incidents from Industry in General 21. Tell-tale documents were shredded to impede governmental investigation. 22. Knowing company was about to collapse, top management officials cashed over one billion dollars in stock options while preventing employees from selling company stock in their retirement plans. 23. During settlement talks on severance pay for workers, labor lawyers weren’t told about the lavish bonuses received by top management. 24. Board of directors twice voted to suspend its own code of ethics to allow for unethical activities. 25. Fabricated earnings to hide debt and inflate profits to give top management a windfall. 26. Pocketed millions in tax money from a subsidiary. 27. Puts positive spin on layoff notices. 28. Buys cheap labor overseas. 29. Hijacks the constitution (e.g. in proclaiming free speech). 30. Shapes the political agendas of both parties. 31. Lobbies for favors (e.g., subsidies) and against regulations. 32. Privatizes public services. 33. Gets favors through campaign financing. 34. Holds high government posts via the ‘‘revolving door.” 35. Ghost writes regulations favorable to corporate self-interests. 36. Stonewalls government investigations. 37. Creates monopolies. 38. Promotes excessive consumerism. 39. Bullies vendors (e.g. suppliers and dealers). 40. Scams state and local governments for subsidies. 41. Abandons communities in bad times. 42. Plunders and poisons natural resources. 43. Treats workers as vassals. 44. Sells databases of personal information to parties known for defrauding the public. 45. After years of under-funding their pension plans, now go to bankruptcy court to dispose of employee pensions. 46. Freezes pension plans. 47. Fails to provide meal breaks to nearly 116,000 hourly workers as required by a state law. 48. Designs complex rebate rules to keep redemption rates low. 49. Initiates layoffs to take advantage of huge tax breaks meant to generate cash for hiring. 50. Retrieves foreign-held profits at a huge discount off the normal tax rate. 51. Gives kickbacks to buyers in foreign countries 52. Violates a USA embargo to deal with the embargoed country. 53. Foreign branch of a U.S. corporation aided the suppression and torture of troublesome workers during that country’s dictatorship. 54. Outsources to contractors in other countries knowing about their inhumane treatment of workers. 55. Brags to news media about its progressive stance in preferring to mediate instead of going to court, when in reality the company mediates only if there’s a good chance of losing in court. 56. Company buys a landmark plant located in one state, closes it down, lays off loyal workers with long service, opens facility in a less-taxing, adjacent state, and uses same product name to market to both states. 57. Fires whistleblowers after slowly and deliberately covering tracks to disguise the decision. 58. Underpays female workers. 59. Using illegal immigrants as slave labor. 60. Sold off a division and then declared that its employees had “resigned,” allowing it to confiscate their pensions. 61. CEOs engaging in insider trading. 62. Reduces allowable sick days. 63. Substantially increases employee contributions to and deductibles under their health insurance coverage. 64. Executives reaped millions with little financial risk by creating shell or phantom partnerships; 65. Establishes phony ethics and social responsibility programs. Incidents from Some More Certain Life Threatening and Ending Industries Agriculture/Chemical/Food Industries 66. Sued a farmer claiming he was using the company’s patented seeds. 67. Outspending food safety and organic advocacy groups nearly seven to one to defeat a ballot initiative mandating labeling of food containing GMOs. 68. Industry is playing with “genetic fire.” 69. Controlling our everyday food-buying choices with misleading messaging, artificially low prices, and heavy control over legislation and regulation. 70. Causing more climate change from production and waste than any other source.. 71. Clearing two acres of rain forest each minute to raise cattle or crops to feed them. 72. Polluting 35,000 miles of American rivers with animal waste. 73. Using 100 times more water and 5 times more land to raise animal protein than plant protein. 74. Causing billions of dollars to be spent yearly for healthcare, subsidies, environmental damage, and more from producing and consuming foods laced with pesticides, antibiotics and GMOs. 75. Factory fishing ships over fishing the world’s oceans probably leading in a few decades to the extinction of all commercially fished species. 76. Using unsafe antibiotics and growth hormones on animals. 77. Produced as much potentially harmful waste as a city of half a million. 78. Manufacturing unhealthy pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers for feed production. 79. Using forced labor living in shanties. 80. Refusing to compensate veterans and families for exposure to Agent Orange. 81. Producing and selling artificial sweeteners linked to cancer. 82. Making oil-based plastics that are never biodegradable and that release cancer-causing benzene into the environment for a thousand years. 83. Purchasing, trading and profiting from palm oil grown on stolen lands. 84. Sold millions of pounds of ground meat tainted with antibiotic-resistant salmonella. 85. Backing bills in various statehouses that would criminalize undercover investigations of livestock farms’ atrocious operations. 86. Hijacking a cultural exchange program to get a source of cheap labor. 87. Mass producing toxic chemicals. 88. Aggressively running small farms out of business or forcing them into factory farming. 89. Fooling the public with slogans like “life sciences.” 90. Coercing, infiltrating and bribing government officials around the globe to get their genetically modified products approved. 91. Smuggling its product into countries. 92. Using the “revolving door” to assume policy making positions and then squelching subordinates’ warnings about industry products. 93. Cooking the books of their research studies and/or hiding the damaging results. Pharmaceutical Industry 94. Selling pills that kill about 100,000 Americans annually. 95. Using improper techniques to test drugs. 96. Intimidates and threatens their in-house scientists. 97. Used falsified trial results to swindle the U.S. government out of hundreds of millions of dollars for an inadequate vaccine. 98. Used animal antibodies to artificially inflate test results. 99. Hires ghost writers to write up studies avoiding unfavorable findings and signs on academics as “authors.” 100. Withheld data on side effects from final report to FDA. 101. In submitting a new generic product for testing, hid regular brand under the pill coating fearful that the generic brand wouldn’t pass the test. 102. Heavily outsources drug development to foreign suppliers, some with dubious records of quality control in order to reduce costs and increase profits. 103. Fabricated drug safety data and lied to the FDA. 104. “Sells” a disease (e.g., “it’s under-recognized”) to justify a new drug. 105. Gets quick FDA approval by saying its products are duplicates of other products previously approved. 106. Routinely bribing doctors with luxury vacations and paid speaking gigs. 107. Helping doctors over-bill the state for medicines bought by the doctors. 108. Providing drugs to doctors at a discount so they can be sold to patients at a big profit. 109. Rewarded doctors handsomely for doing nothing more in their drug “research” than write down brief notes of their observations of patient outcomes. 110. Skirting the rules against advertising drugs for unapproved uses by sponsoring seminars where doctors are paid to make presentations promoting their drugs, including the “off label” uses. 111. Marketed a drug that is more expensive than alternative drugs and deadly among adults and children. 112. Sponsors health and illness awareness days in public schools and then blitzes them with promotions. 113. Secretly puts media stars on their payrolls to slyly slip in lines about some real or fake ailment and a drug cure on TV. 114. Spends sizeable percent of research on “me-too” drugs designed to make a profit, but are therapeutically useless. 115. Sales reps tells purchasers how to bill the government at full prices for free or discounted non-prescription products. 116. Charges what the market will bear rather than keep price increases in line with inflation. 117. Markets “off-label drugs,” versions of drugs different from those tested by federal regulators. Uses consumers’ private medical information for commercial purposes. 118. Raises drug prices before new legislation passed seeking to curb drug prices. 119. Sued to stop a program that lets states create preferred drug lists for Medicare patients and then demanded steep discounts from drug companies that want to get on the list. 120. Opposed pending legislation to create lists of preferred, lower-cost drugs for Medicare patients and hid their intent by secretly funding advocacy groups believed to oppose the same legislation but for different reasons. 121. Hires PR firms to establish diseases as “public health threats” and massive direct-to-consumer advertising. 122. The industry was aware for at least a decade of animal studies linking breast implants to cancer and other illnesses, but women were not told of the risks until years later. 123. Responded to questions about product safety and lawsuits with a full-court press to keep internal memos and studies from reaching the public. 124.Began buying the new ingredients of one of its key drugs from a new supplier and never followed up on the ingredient’s effects until reports of serious problems patients were experiencing. 125.Finally owned up to deadly products in wake of bacteria scandal. 126.Knew for 20 yrs that its product was unreliable, but didn’t believe it would cause a health problem, did very little testing, and stonewalled in liability case before finally trying to make amends. 127.Relied on its deceptive practices to earn billions of dollars selling potentially dangerous drugs to unsuspecting consumers and medical patients; didn’t deny any of it, simply paid the paltry fine, apologized to its customers, and continue doing wrongdoing as usual. 128.Compounds drugs that are often too week or too strong. 129. Sold a concentrated product even though executives were warned of the dangerous side effects. 130.Diluted cancer drugs to boost profits. 131.Mislabeled and adulterated several of its drugs used by millions of consumers and then masterminded a massive cover up of its activities. 132. Made a drug that caused thousands of deformities and then was again involved years later in yet another disputed drug case in court. 133. Hid behind court secrecy proceedings in defending itself against hundreds of lawsuits brought by patients and thus avoided the disclosure of several important documents sought by the congressional investigative committee. 134. Sells to other countries a drug taken off the US market because of concerns about the drug’s adverse effects. 135. Knew of many deaths among overseas users of one of its drugs before the FDA approved the drug for domestic sale. 136. The industry blocked state legislation designed to lower drug prices for state residents w/o insurance coverage. 137. Cut off supplies to Canada licensed pharmacies that continue to sell its lower-priced medicines to Americans. 138. Falsified production records to meet federal standards. 139. Kept a book entitled “Off-the-Record Production” in which unauthorized production changes and manufacturing short-cuts were secretly recorded. 140. Abandoned its headquarters in a town after getting big tax breaks and forcing people to move out of their homes so it could locate on their land. Big pharma has over 600 lobbyists in the nation’s capital and outspends all other industries in lobbying politicians. As a result of its lobbying, the industry succeeded in: 141. Defeating mandatory discount pricing. 142. Protecting drug patents in trade agreements. 143. Preventing medicare price negotiations with companies. 144. Prohibiting government listing of preferred drugs. 145. Delaying availability of generic pediatric drugs. 146. Speeding up government drug safety reviews. 147. Defeating bill to make generic drugs more accessible. 148. Making it harder for government to issue warning letters. 149. Easing restrictions on direct-to consumer advertising. 150. Easing licensing and continuous reviews of new sites for making drugs. 151. Getting government to drop price controls. 152. Being allowed to pay fee for faster reviews. 153. Making it easier for brand-name makers to sue generic makers. War/Gun/Ammunition Industries 154. Places through the revolving door key people in influential government positions. 155. Goes around DoD to Congress to sell an expensive airplane DoD didn’t want anymore. 156. Lobbied to prevent foreign sale of the world’s most expensive weapon from being halted. 157. Pays picayune fines for defrauding the government. 158. Makes and sells weapons riddled with flaws and way above promised cost. 159. Named the “war profiteer of the month.” 160. Invested heavily in and profited immensely from adding spy contractor on its resume. 161. Gave a 10-year employee a layoff notice the very day the employee returned from bereavement leave following the death of the employee’s young son. 162. Provides technology to government for spying on anyone it wants to spy on. 163. Tells government what its annual war/security budget should be, what its war/security purchases should be, for what purposes, and how much they should cost, and what minimal legislation and oversight would be acceptable. 164. Strategically locating their facilities in their Congressional districts and States to ensure that contracts will be steered to them. 165. Give politicians junket trips and other goodies. 166. Exports for sale more weapons than any other country. 167. War industry’s investor relations people tell investors war is good for returns on their investing. 168. Gun industry executives say mass shootings are good for business. 169. The multi-billion dollar gun industry uses the NRA as their official pimp. 170. Bullies politicians into passing laws making it easier to sell more rifles and handguns. 171. Promotes gun sales by stoking fear and racism. 172. Links patriotism with gun ownership. 173. Got the U.S. Supreme Court to misinterpret the 2nd Amendment. 174. Slowly kills people from after effects of atomic testing and nuclear weapons development. 175. Makes and sells products that kill more Americans than auto deaths. 176. Makes and sells products deliberately intended to kill. 177. Makes products deliberately intended to spy. Incidents from Some Other Industries Energy/Extractive Industries 178. Controls supply and manipulates prices of critical resources. 179. Spilling countless barrels of oil offshore and onshore. 180. Despoiling mountain sides scraped clean to get coal. 181. Leaving elevated levels of arsenic and other heavy metals in groundwater near natural gas fracking sites. 182. Permanently contaminating aquifers. 183. Authorized an air raid during an anti guerilla operation at a village in South America where one of its pipelines is located, killing many civilians, including children. 184. Poorly designing and operating pipelines that burst and release contaminating spills. 185. Delays for years cleaning up after major spills. 186. Using super-hazardous, poisonous chemicals to extract oil. 187. Utility company cuts a secret quid quo pro deal with the government in exchange for price concessions. 188. Operated a nuclear power plant in violation of federal fire regulations and then lied about it to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. 189. Used inadequate and falsified tests of the reliability of its nuclear power plant. 190. Hires a consulting company to teach nuclear power plant operators how to deceive the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. 191. Knowingly sold transformers containtaining hazardous levels of PCBs, then acted as if they did no wrong when signing the consent decree. 192. Underground coal mine operators systematically cleaning dust samples before sending to federal safety inspectors. 193. An oil company executive personally ordered the rigging of gasoline pumps to shortchange customers. 194. Uses goon squads to intimidate, threaten, and harm striking miners protesting company policies and conditions. 195. Exaggerated the amount and success of its environmental cleanup after one of its tankers spilled an unprecedented amount of oil. 196. Plant managers retaliated against a technician at a nuclear plant who had publicly complained about safety by ordering him to do useless work in a room filled with toxic and radioactive materials. 197. Oil companies pressure dealers to keep long hours and push sales. 198. Oil companies raise prices in a time of pending war. 199. Energy company spins off an insurance company subsidiary, deliberately neglecting to tell buyers that there might be millions of dollars in suits for asbestos claims filed against the subsidiary. Financial Industry 200. Created and marketed fantasy financial products plummeting U.S. into 2nd greatest depression. 201. Planning on confiscating customer deposits. 202. Bank rolling the polluting coal industry. 203. Peddling falsified debt documents to collection firms. 204. Getting default payments by filing thousands of collection lawsuits against consumers expecting them not to contest the claims. 205. Selling unreliable credit card debts. 206. Succeeded in getting law separating depositing and investing banking overturned. 207. Big banks lobbying to end competitive credit unions. 208. Acquired risky loans to grow faster and increase executive compensation. 209. Preying on customers, hiding costs and penalties, downplaying the effects of variable rates, and pressing unaffordable loans for the purchase of fraudulently overvalued homes. 210. Publishes favorable but false stock ratings. 211. Helping corporations devise shelters letting them operate tax free while exaggerating profits. 212. Confuses policyholders about their benefits’ forms 213. Unduly denies insurance coverage. 214. Constantly raising deductibles while shrinking coverage. 215. Auto insurers coercing car repair shops to using cheap and sometimes dangerous parts. 216. Disputing in court and finally settling personal injury claims. 217. Overcharging policy holders. 218. Requiring in some areas, unlimited personal injury protection and no-fault coverage. 219. Hem hawing in honoring claims and short changing legitimate claims. 220. Using various tactics to reduce, avoid, or stall home insurance claims in an effort to boost their own earnings. 221. Home insurers routinely refusing to pay market prices for homes and replacement contents. 222. Changing insurance policy coverages with no clear explanation. 223. Asking claims adjusters to lie to customers and to overestimate their losses and vastly overprice premiums. 224. Soaking credit card holders with excessive rates. 225. Mortgage brokers rewarded for putting borrowers into the costliest loans possible. 226. Falsifying home mortgage program to increase defaults and then “sending foreclosure notices, scheduling auction dates, and even selling consumers’ homes prematurely. 227. Finances wars. 228. Launders drug money. Media/Entertainment Industries 229. A few big corporations control the news media. 230. Hollywood submits its war glorifying movie scripts to the military for review and gets access to dazzling military equipment to use for props in profitable movies. 231. Telephone company removes pay phones from low-income districts to prevent people from using them as  “offices”  to  receive incoming calls. 232. Prominent newspaper belatedly and half-heartedly acknowledges its mistake in rushing to judgment based on questionable sources to publish very derogatory info about a person. 233. Newspaper publishes ads designed to look like news. 234. Network shows commercials disguised as talk shows, panel discussions, self-improvement seminars, etc. 235. Pays sources for information. 236. Editor prods reporters to be news hounds who stretch limits to get a source, a document, a witness. 237. To scoop the competitors, a mass media organization goes forward with a story before they had all the facts. 238. Plays to the lowest common denominator of audience/readership with sensationalism, sex, and violence. 239. National TV network shows reenactment of a newsworthy event without telling viewers it wasn’t live. 240. Knowingly misled the public on reasons for the Iraq war. Transportation Industry 241. Builds cars “unsafe at any speed.” Does anything more need to be added? Well, yes. 242. A financially ailing airline routinely ignored vital repairs and maintenance to minimize downtime of planes and then falsified records to make it appear as if the work had been done. 243. Airline, knowing a flight departure will be delayed, boards passengers anyway to prevent them from seeking alternative flights. 244. Car maker stages a large truck being dropped from a crane onto a new model without telling viewers the car had been reinforced to withstand the impact. 245. A worker was crushed to death because an automaker was lax in ensuring safety measures in one of its plants. 246. Automaker set back the odometer settings and sold the cars as new to dealers. 247. Automaker knew millions of its transmissions were faulty. 248. Automaker knowingly allowed plant workers to be overexposed to deadly levels of lead and arsenic. 249. US tire manufacturer recalls its tires on foreign cars abroad after safety problems arise but delays a much more costly recall of domestic tires until after mounting fatalities cause publicity and outcries. 250. Automakers sometimes instruct their dealers to fix certain common defects free of charge or at reduced cost but only if auto owners demand that the repair be made under warranty. 251. Automaker goes to court to try and bar the use of cheaper copycat repair parts not made by the automaker. 252. It wasn’t until after pressure from federal and state authorities along with consumer advocate groups that an automaker recalled thousands of ambulances to correct mechanical defects that had resulted in some fires and injuries. 253. Ever since the early 20th century when auto and bus makers tore up the trolley tracks, the transportation industry has been hitting the public, especially the poor, below their belt. 254. Imposing demanding and unrealistic schedules on truck drivers. 255. Skimping on truck fleet maintenance overhauls. The End—Except for an Addendum Incidents from many more industries could have been added to the 255, but it would have been more of the same generally, and there is more than enough evil to have read in one setting! You will have noticed the incidents involving corporations where they mistreat their own people. I am reminded of Alice in the Dilbert comic strip bellowing “I am not a resource!” in reaction to the company’s “Human Resource Department.” Alice, be glad you don’t work for a real corporation! And since corporations treat their own people so badly, it should come as no surprise how much they mistreat America and the world at large. The evil in the gazette is not evil in the abstract. It is evil that reaches out and afflicts you, me and particularly the powerless in so many different short-term and long-term ways through getting us killed, poisoned, injured, starved, homeless, unemployed, bankrupted, deceived, short changed, and ad infinitum. And it is not going to stop until—. http://clubof.info/