General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums‘Seventh Generation’ co-founder: We no longer live in a democratic society
In the video embedded below, Jeffrey Hollender the founder of the natural products company Seventh Generation and author of the book How to Make the World a Better Place, a Beginners Guide mused that the United States is no longer a truly democratic society.
The clip is excerpted from a talk Hollender gave at the 2013 Americas Business Council (ABC) Continuity Forum, which took place this week in Miami, FL.
Hollender was responding to a question about how corporations and companies get credit for doing the bare minimum toward sustainability and ethical business practices.
Hollender replied that we live in a culture that celebrates all the wrong things. If we took into account the true cost of doing things, of chemical agriculture, of wasteful energy policies, of under-compensated workers, he said, it would be more expensive to do things the way they are currently done.
Today, he said, you dont get rewarded for doing the right thing and it makes people who want to do it have to be a lot smarter and a lot more innovative to succeed.
At least in America, Hollender said, I no longer think we live in a democratic society. We live in a society where politics is controlled by money; wealthy individuals and big businesses. And until we deal with campaign finance reform to take money out of politics, until we overturn Citizens United, to take money away from corporations, its a challenge.
Watch the video, embedded below via YouTube:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/11/06/seventh-generation-co-founder-we-no-longer-live-in-a-democratic-society/
niyad
(113,205 posts)lunasun
(21,646 posts)I just cant buy Koch products
jeff47
(26,549 posts)2012: The folks with less money won.
Money can help. But it can only put so much polish on a turd.
bloomington-lib
(946 posts)Rebellious Republican
(5,029 posts)Trick question Mr. Hollander, there never has been one. Only the illusion, and only the illusion has been done away with recently. Why do they need to carry on the illusion when they, the 1 percenters own everything? Now all you indentured servants go back to work before we charge you more taxes and doc your pay.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)struggle4progress
(118,268 posts)Let it be the dream it used to be
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free
(America never was America to me) ...
I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars
I am the red man driven from the land
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak ...
O, let America be America again
The land that never has been yet -- and yet must be
The land where every man is free
The land that's mine -- the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME
Who made America, whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain
Must bring back our mighty dream again ...
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15609