RALPH NADER: Well, first of all, the corporations are very involved in the war machine. Remember President Eisenhower's statement about the military-industrial complex. He might have called it today the industrial-military complex, because the industrial part is now a supreme influence on the US military budget, which now is half of the entire federal government's operating budget, and as well as effecting foreign policy. Even Mr. Koppel has written that oil is very much involved in the invasion of Iraq. In fact, he went on to say it's mostly about oil in an op-ed in the New York Times -- Ted Koppel. So the domination, the corporate sovereignty over our political economy is very much related to our foreign, military and economic policy, including GATT and NAFTA, which are architectures of corporate supremacy over civil values and the rights of workers, environment and consumers.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you recap from this conference of three days -- people coming at corporations, dealing with them in many different ways -- what you think are the biggest problems and the most effective strategies for dealing with them?

RALPH NADER: Well, the biggest problem is that the avenues to challenge corporate power, to restrain it, to break it up in its present concentrated form, to take it away from the political arena, because corporations are artificial entities. They're not real human beings. They don't vote. They don't die in Iraq. They don't have children. They are entities that are dominating our politics, our electoral systems, our universities, increasingly, dominate almost everything, even moving into areas that were once prohibited by custom in our country, like commercializing childhood.
And so, this conference really challenges the corporations at every interface that affects people -- taxpayers, consumers, workers, communities, children, healthcare, living wage, the varieties of opportunities that people should have that are being denied. We are in the advanced stages of being a corporate state, where -- as Franklin Delano Roosevelt warned Congress in 1938 that when government is controlled by private economic power, he called that fascism. And he would consider today's control by private economic power -- namely, giant corporations astride the world -- as an even more advanced form of what he called fascism: control of government by corporate interests.

AMY GOODMAN: Does George W. Bush matter anymore?

RALPH NADER: Yeah, he matters, because he's a national security menace. He's a destroyer of our Constitution, a violator of our statutes, a revoker of our regulations. He's a war monger. He's a war criminal, clinically a war criminal. And he's still in charge. And I said some time ago, he's a giant corporation in the White House masquerading as a human being, although I sometimes wonder about the word "human." I don't think it's possible to see a more obsessively compulsive person with so much contempt for the traditions of our country, including conservative traditions, which is why so many libertarians and conservatives like Pat Buchanan have opposed him again and again.
What's important is to basically get back to self-determination. Do we really believe in self-government? Do we really believe in accountable government? And do we really believe that the supremacy of the people has to be reinstalled over the supremacy of what Jefferson called the moneyed interests and which today are the giant corporations? And I think that in addition to the various tools of accountability that we've discussed here at this conference, such as regulation; litigation; investor power; public delivery systems, when the corporations aren't interested, like the Tennessee Valley Authority; stronger labor unions; organized consumers; cooperatives; here's what we really need in a broad sense: we need to exercise the ownership that we already have of the great public assets of the United States of America, from the public airwaves to the public lands, to the government's research and development, to trillions of dollars of labor pension funds, all of which are owned by the people and controlled by corporations. And so, that's no big deal, theoretically, is it? To revert control back to the owners? That's a basic conservative principle.
The second thing we have to do is increasingly displace the operations of corporations with better operations: more efficient energy, more renewable energy, more credit unions that are accountable to their small investors, more Medicare replacing the HMOs. All over the country, we see examples of displacement of corporation, and that is really a very powerful and exciting movement, if it obtains a magnitude of significance.
And then, the third, we have to structurally, constitutionally -- every way -- subordinate this robot called the corporate entity, not its employees or its people. The robot has to be subordinated to the supremacy of human rights of real individuals. And that shouldn't be a hard sell, either, if we start talking about these things more often, if we don't leave it up to Democracy Now! to talk about it, if we don't leave it up to an occasional TV, you know? An occasional TV, a very occasional TV.

We have to increase our expectation levels. It all starts with increasing our expectation levels of what kind of society we want and what kind of world we want to bequeath to our descendants. If we're not motivated enough by the past great reformers and civic patriots of our past, the fighters against slavery, women's rights and all the rest of the social justice movement, if that isn't enough to motivate us, then just look around this country and see the tragedies, the dispossession, the injustice, the exclusions, the disrespect, the gouging, the rip-offs, the using of taxpayer dollars against those small taxpayers themselves, the lack of health and safety, the hundreds of thousands of lives lost every year in occupational disease and medical malpractice and air and water pollution and denial of healthcare and so on -- who weeps for those people?

And we have to stop making excuses for ourselves. That's the key. We have to multiply our own civic energies with our neighbors, our relatives, our coworkers, our friends. When that happens, when word of mouth takes over as the prime communications system in this country, nothing can stop it. We have to replace big talk with small talk. And we have to make it apparent to millions of people that striving for justice is one of life's greatest gratifications. In fact, outside of the family, it is the greatest gratification. Without justice, there's no such thing as liberty and freedom, there's no such thing as fulfilling life's possibilities. And I want to thank the people who came to this conference and lent us their energies and energized themselves and hope they'll go throughout the country and do the same thing.

EPA Scaled Back Rules On Wetlands
After a concerted lobbying effort by property developers, mine owners and farm groups, the Bush administration scaled back proposed guidelines for enforcing a key Supreme Court ruling governing protected wetlands and streams.
The administration last fall prepared broad new rules for interpreting the decision, handed down by a divided Supreme Court in June 2006, that could have brought thousands of small streams and wetlands under the protection of the Clean Water Act of 1972. The draft guidelines, for example, would allow the government to protect marsh lands and temporary ponds that form during heavy rains if they could potentially affect water quality in a nearby navigable waterway.
But just before the new guidelines were to be issued last September, they were pulled back in the face of objections from lobbyists and lawyers for groups concerned that the rules could lead to federal protection of isolated and insignificant swamps, potholes and ditches.
The Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers, charged with enforcing the Clean Water Act, finally issued new guidelines last month, which environmental and recreational groups complained were much more narrowly drawn. These groups argue that the final guidelines will leave thousands of sensitive wetlands and streams unprotected.
The draft guidelines, leaked to environmental groups by someone within the government, allowed officials to look at the impact of dredging or discharge of pollutants on a wide region or watershed, potentially putting millions of acres of land adjacent to streams and wetlands off limits to industry, agriculture and development. Lobbyists for these groups immediately raised objections. The National Cattlemen's Beef Association and Alliance Coal, one of the nation's largest coal producers, also weighed in on the proposed guidelines, expressing concern that the new rules would affect temporary drainage ditches and "ephemeral" streams that appear only after heavy rain.

More Than 250 Dead in Weekend of Iraq Violence
In Iraq, more than two-hundred fifty people were killed this weekend in a wave of violence across the country. At least one-hundred fifty people died Saturday in a massive truck bombing in the northern town of Tuz Khurmato. Locals compared the aftermath to scene of an earthquake. More than one hundred shops and homes were destroyed with dozens of bodies feared dead beneath the rubble. It was the second-deadliest insurgent bombing attack since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

Witnesses: U.S. Troops Shoot Iraqi Civilians
Meanwhile in Baghdad, witnesses say U.S. forces shot dead six Iraqi civilians in a raid on the Shia area of Sadr City. Two brothers aged eleven and fifteen years-old are believed among the dead.

Sadr City resident Abu Haider: "We do not know why they were killed by the Americans. We do not know the reasons behind attacking those poor innocent men who worked to earn their livings. Islam and Christianity can not accept this!"

125 Afghans Feared Dead in NATO Strikes
Villagers in a remote western area of Afghanistan are claiming at least one hundred civilians were killed in U.S.-led NATO airstrikes over two days last week. The attack was said to take place in the Bala Baluk district. Residents of another area in the northeast province of Konar say twenty-five villagers were killed in a separate attack. The claims were impossible to verify because both areas are out of reach to journalists and independent researchers. Recent figures show more Afghan civilians have died in NATO airstrikes than in Taliban attacks this year.

Poll: Record Support for Impeaching Bush, Cheney
A new poll shows record public support for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. According to the American Research Group, forty-five percent of Americans would back impeachment proceedings against Bush, while fifty-four percent would back the same against Cheney. A measure to impeach Cheney has attracted nine co-sponsors since Ohio Democratic Congressmember Dennis Kucinich introduced it earlier this year.

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Sheehan Mulls Pelosi Challenge
Meanwhile the peace mom Cindy Sheehan has announced she may run against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi if Pelosi fails to introduce articles of impeachment against President Bush. Sheehan set a deadline of July 23rd -- the same day she arrives in Washington, DC from a two-week caravan starting at Sheehan's former protest site near President Bush's Crawford estate.
Sheehan, who announced in late May that she was departing the peace movement, said she decided to run against Pelosi unless the congresswoman moves to oust Bush in the next two weeks.
"I think all politicians should be held accountable," Sheehan told The Associated Press on Sunday. "Democrats and Americans feel betrayed by the Democratic leadership. We hired them to bring an end to the war... I'm doing it to encourage other people to run against Congress members who aren't doing their jobs, who are beholden to special interests.
You can't keep a good gal down. Nice t-shirt, Cindy.

NYT Calls for Iraq Withdrawal
In media news, the New York Times has come out in favor of a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. In an editorial published on Sunday, the Times editors write: "It is time for the United States to leave Iraq, without any more delay than the Pentagon needs to organize an orderly exit." The Times was widely criticized in the lead-up to the Iraq war for its coverage mirroring the Bush administration's claims on Saddam Hussein's non-existent weapons of mass destruction.

Military Judge OKs New Trial for Watada
A military court has issued a new judgment in the case of First Lieutenant Ehren Watada, the first commissioned officer to refuse to serve in the Iraq war. On Friday, Lieutenant Colonel John Heed ruled military officials have the right to charge Watada for a second time. Watada's lawyers had argued a second trial would amount to double jeopardy. Watada's first trial in a mistrial. Watada faces six years in prison if convicted.

Powell: "I Tried to Stop Bush from War"
Former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell is claiming he tried to dissuade President Bush from invading Iraq. Speaking at the Ideas Festival in Colorado, Powell said he tried to avoid the war by explaining to Bush "the consequences of going into an Arab country and becoming the occupiers." Powell delivered the infamous speech alleging Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction at the UN in Feburary 2003 just one month before the war.
He didn't try too hard.

Drummond Trial Begins in Colombia Union Slayings
In Alabama, a civil trial begins today accusing the coal company Drummond of ordering the killing of three Colombian union leaders. In a sworn statement submitted to the trial, a former senior official at Colombia's executive intelligence agency testifies he saw Drummond officials hand over a suitcase full of money to pay for the assassinations of two labor leaders in 2001.

Shocking Link - Psych Drugs, Suicide, Mass Murder

From Columbine to Virginia Tech, every time another headline-making mass murderer is discovered to have taken antidepressants or other psychiatric drugs, rumors and speculation abound regarding the possible connection between the medications and the violence. To begin with, many of the most notorious mass killers in recent memory have been on, or just coming off, prescription mood-altering drugs. Remember these headline names?

• Andrea Yates, in one of the most heartbreaking crimes in modern history, drowned all five of her children – aged 7 years down to 6 months – in a bathtub. Insisting inner voices commanded her to kill her kids, she had become increasingly psychotic over the course of several years. Yates had been taking the antidepressant Effexor. In November 2005, more than four years after Yates drowned her children, Effexor manufacturer Wyeth Pharmaceuticals quietly added "homicidal ideation" to the drug's list of "rare adverse events." But "rare" is defined by the FDA as occurring in less than one in 1,000 people. And since, according to an Associated Press report, about 19.2 million prescriptions for Effexor were filled in the U.S. alone in 2005, that means statistically almost 20,000 Americans could experience "homicidal ideation" – that is, murderous thoughts – as a result of taking just this one antidepressant drug.
• Columbine mass-killer Eric Harris was taking the widely prescribed antidepressant Luvox when he and fellow student Dylan Klebold went on a hellish school shooting rampage in 1999, killing 12 students and a teacher and wounding 24 others before turning their guns on themselves.
  Dr. Peter Breggin, a top expert on the adverse effects of psychiatric drugs, has analyzed in detail "the clinical and scientific reasons for believing that Eric Harris's violence was caused by prescribed Luvox."
  Beyond showing how meds like Luvox can cause "command auditory hallucinations" and many other scary, suicidal and homicidal "rare adverse events," Breggin cites Luvox manufacturer Solvay Pharmaceuticals as conceding that 4 percent of children and youth taking Luvox developed mania during short-term controlled clinical trials.
  "Mania," explains Breggin, "is a psychosis which can produce bizarre, grandiose, highly elaborated destructive plans, including mass murder."
  
• Authorities investigating Cho Seung-Hui, who murdered 32 at Virginia Tech in April, reportedly found "prescription drugs" for the treatment of psychological problems among his possessions. Joseph Aust, Cho's roommate, told the Richmond Times-Dispatch Cho's routine each morning had included taking prescription drugs.
  And while the autopsy report says no drugs were found in Cho's bloodstream on the day of the murders, April 16, Breggin says Cho could well "have been tipped over into violent madness weeks or months earlier by a drug like Prozac, Paxil or Zoloft."Cho's medical records have yet to be released to the public – authorities claiming it's because a criminal investigation is ongoing, while Breggin suspects "maybe they're protecting drug companies," citing the serious problems withdrawal from psychiatric drugs have been known to cause.
• Patrick Purdy's 1989 schoolyard shooting rampage in Stockton, Calif., was the catalyst for the legislative frenzy to ban "semiautomatic assault weapons" in California and the nation. The 25-year-old Purdy, who murdered five children and wounded 30, had been on Amitriptyline, an antidepressant, as well as the antipsychotic drug Thorazine.
  
• Kip Kinkel, 15, murdered his parents in 1998 and the next day went to his school, Thurston High in Springfield, Ore., and opened fire on his classmates, killing two and wounding 22 others. He had been prescribed both Prozac and Ritalin.
  
• In 1988, 31-year-old Laurie Dann went on a shooting rampage in a second-grade classroom in Winnetka, Ill., killing one child and wounding six. She had been taking the antidepressant Anafranil as well as Lithium, long used to treat mania.
  
• In Paducah, Ky., in late 1997, 14-year-old Michael Carneal, son of a prominent attorney, traveled to Heath High School and started shooting students in a prayer meeting taking place in the school's lobby, killing three and leaving another paralyzed. Carneal reportedly was on Ritalin.
  
• In 2005, 16-year-old Native American Jeff Weise, living on Minnesota's Red Lake Indian Reservation, shot and killed nine people and wounded five others before killing himself. Weise had been taking Prozac.
  
• In another famous case, 47-year-old Joseph T. Wesbecker, just a month after he began taking Prozac, shot 20 workers at Standard Gravure Corp. in Louisville, Ky., killing nine. Eli Lilly, which makes Prozac, later settled a lawsuit brought by survivors.

All very interesting, you may be thinking, but what do the drug companies say in their defense?
One of the most widely prescribed antidepressants today is Paxil, manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline.
Paxil's known "adverse drug reactions" – according to the drug's own 2001 FDA-approved label – include "mania," "insomnia," "anxiety," "agitation," "confusion," "amnesia," "depression," "paranoid reaction," "psychosis," "hostility," "delirium," "hallucinations," "abnormal thinking," "depersonalization" and "lack of emotion," among others.
With a rap sheet like that, no wonder pharmaceutical companies are nervous about liability lawsuits over the "rare adverse effects" of their medications.
In 1998, for example, GlaxoSmithKline was ordered to pay $6.4 million to Donald Schnell's surviving family members after the 60-year-old man, just two days after taking Paxil, murdered his wife, daughter and granddaughter in a fit of rage.