Green Criminal Activity

Crime statistics often present a distorted view of crime because they fail to include the large volume and scope of crime and harm that ecological disorganization produces. In short, green criminologists often reference this harm in comparison to traditional ‘street’ crimes that the state records for statistical purposes for crimes such as murder, rape, robbery, assault, larceny and motor vehicle theft. Green crimes easily surpass the volume and number of victims reported in crime statistics that are kept by the state. There are a wide variety of green crimes, and the victims of green crimes include non-traditional victims whom criminologists do not ordinarily examine. In addition to human victims, green crimes also have non-human victims including animals, plants, and ecosystems. Green crimes do not outnumber the crimes reported by the police such as murder, rape, assault, larceny, burglary and motor vehicle theft simply because there are more categories of victims. For instance, green-harms often victimize larger numbers of human victims in a single incident compared with typical street crimes.

A single green crime may produce hundreds, thousands or even millions of human victims. Some of those victims suffer repeated victimization as green crimes can also unfold over long periods of time and have a duration not typically associated with street crimes. Each of these factors increases the scope, intensity, and numbers of green victimizations, making these forms of victimization quite different from the typical street crime victimization incident. Green harm and crime are important conceptually and theoretically as well because they have the ability to cause forms of ecological damage that change the very nature of the world.

These green harms can also make the world uninhabitable. Abandoned towns and communities exist because of the health hazards posed by toxic pollutants and other related environmental disasters that are counted among green crimes. In the United States, for example, these locations include: Times Beach, Missouri (due to dioxin pollution); Centralia, Pennsylvania (due to underground mining fires); Love Canal, Niagara Falls, NY (due to widespread disposal of toxic waste); Pitcher, Oklahoma (due to concentrations of lead and zinc pollution); Treece, Kansas (due to lead pollution). These cities, and others around the world, stand as monuments to the tremendous harms green crimes can produce. In addition to these abandoned cities, there are currently 1,163 Superfund sites that are portions of cities, towns, and communities in the United States listed as containing sufficient levels of ground pollution to require remediation.

The environmental impacts of the international capitalist economy include escalated carbon dioxide pollution and other hazardous pollutants. As some researchers note, corporations fail to consider how their behaviours impact ecological disorganization because they externalize the costs of ecological harms—ecological problems that are produced by corporations become social problems which the government, rather than the private firms that create those problems, must address. This shifts the expense of anti-environmental practices to the state, which must tax citizens to generate the funds for remedies. Corporations benefit from the combination of weak environmental regulations and a pseudo-free market which enables the corporations to externalize costs to the state. This, in turn, facilitates private-sector accumulation by transferring corporate costs to individual tax-payers.

Exerpts from “IS IT A CRIME TO PRODUCE ECOLOGICAL DISORGANIZATION?” by Michael J. Lynch, Michael A. Long, Kimberly L. Barrett and Paul B. Stretesky. BRIT. J. CRIMINOL. (2013) 53, 997–1016

Photo courtesy CoastalCare.org

 

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Psychopathic Corporate Ideology

Social Darwinism views self-interest and competition as values to be placed above all others: injustice and inequality are justified as the strong (the richest, in corporate theology) rise to the top, and the weak do not deserve compassion, they deserve what they get. Social Darwinistic values and thought, spearheaded by corporate America, are deeply ingrained at this point in history in the United States, and the spread of this vicious belief system is what is benignly referred to as “globalization.”

International legal scholar Joel Bakan has expanded the discussion of corporate institutional power to specifically address the “psychopathic” characteristics of the drive for corporate profit. These institutional qualities are very similar to those characterizing individual psychopaths, indicating tendencies toward irresponsibility, lack of empathy and antisocial behavior, manipulation, grandiosity, a refusal to accept responsibility, lack of empathy and antisocial behavior, manipulation, grandiosity, a refusal to accept responsibility for their own actions, and an inability to feel remorse. They are basically publicly and socially irresponsible in their need to realize the corporate goal, shareholder profit, and the externalization of social and environmental costs, thus putting others at the risk of great harm.

Perhaps the most dangerous personality characteristic of this institutional psychopath is the overwhelming motivation to represent itself as caring, compassionate, and socially responsible. Bakan draws a parallel between the human psychopath’s penchant to use charm to mask his or her own narcissistic self-absorbed behavior and that of the corporate institution. Public relations thus becomes the primary directive of the corporate sociopath, to carefully present itself to the public as a caring and compassionate “person,” at once concerned with social and environmental responsibility. This presentation to the public, however, is designed to hide its own selfish motivations, the externalization of social and environmental costs onto an unsuspecting public. This public relations machine, relentless in its drive to charm the public, essentially displays sociopathic qualities, for the sociopath functions quite well in society and superficially appears quite caring and compassionate. Nevertheless, the charm masks an inherent disdain for ethical and moral concerns, norms, and rules.

Excerpt from the book, “Oil, Globalization, and the War for the Arctic Refuge“, Chapter “Neoconservative Corporate Theology”, by David M. Standlea

Photo Courtesy geralt on pixabay

 

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The American Pathocracy Kept 6 Secrets About 9/11

On the 15th anniversary of one of the most tragic days in recent American history, U.S. citizens are bombarded with patriotic imagery, messages, and the oft-repeated 9/11 slogan of “Never Forget.”

Over the course of the day, mainstream media and the like will show the horrific images of planes crashing into towers and the disturbing scene of ground zero in the aftermath.

In the midst of all the grieving, the flag waving, and the speeches from opportunistic presidential hopefuls, there will be an uncomfortable moment of silence. This silence, however, will not be in remembrance of the victims that day, but rather the complete lack of coverage given to the unanswered questions and suspicious facts surrounding that fateful morning.

A slew of unprovable conspiracy theories is associated with the events leading up to and occurring on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. However, the Free Thought Project does not delve into such speculation. We only deal in facts.

The list below contains six hard-hitting facts that the mainstream media and the political powers have relentlessly attempted to keep hidden from the public.

Fact 1:

Coming in at number 1 is perhaps one of the most perplexing of all the facts. Amazingly enough, some folks still believe that only two towers fell that day. The fact that Tower 7, a 47-story building, collapsed, was but a small blip in the media. Since 9/11, World Trade Center Tower 7 is rarely, if at all mentioned in the mainstream media.

Insanely enough, when Tower 7 is mentioned to some people, they think that it’s a conspiracy theory that it fell.

However, Tower 7, which was not hit by a plane, in fact, collapsed into its own footprint at free-fall speed.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology, (the government agency assigned to investigate the building collapse in the video above) attributes the collapse to the failure of a single column, in a complex scenario involving thermal expansion of beams supporting the column, caused by office furniture burning; a theory that is largely disputed by many experts.

Fact 2:

BBC, CNN, FOX, and MSNBC reported the collapse of WTC 7 — well before it happened.

Fact 3:

The 9/11 Commission was railroaded. Not only were the commissioners given extremely limited funds to conduct their investigation, but they were also met with dead ends in almost every direction.

For starters, only $15 million was given to investigate 9/11. Compare that to the over $60 million that was spent investigating Clinton’s affairs with Monica and the travesty becomes greater. This was the largest act of murder in recent US history, and more money was spent investigating a philandering president!

Fact 4:

Staying on the topic of the 9/11 commission, in 2004, President George Bush and VP Dick Cheney told the Commission that they would not be formally interviewed in relation to the attacks on September 11.

On April 27, 2004 the White House released a statement saying there would be no recording or formal transcription of the interview. The duo also demanded to be interviewed together, against the wishes of the commissioners.

Fact 5:

After the myriad of holes began to form in the official narrative, several dedicated engineers and architects took to their own investigation. Today, there are over 2,300 architects and engineers who’ve signed on to the initiative, all declaring the official story to be false.

Fact 6:

The US government admitted they covered up the fact that the Saudi Arabian government supported the hijackers.

“I had to stop every couple pages and…try to rearrange my understanding of history. It challenges you to rethink everything.” – Congressman Thomas Massie describing his experience reading the 28 pages in March 2014.

“The 28 Pages” – part of an 838-page Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001 – have been kept almost entirely classified since 2002.

Former Sen. Bob Graham, a co-chairman of the investigation committee and strong advocate of declassifying the information, said, “The 28 pages primarily relate to who financed 9/11 and they point a very strong finger at Saudi Arabia as being the principal financier.”

In July, the 28 pages were finally released, although many parts are still redacted. They show that Graham was right—several figures in the Saudi Arabian government provided assistance to the 9-11 hijackers from within the U.S.

“There is information, primarily from FBI sources, that at least two of those individuals were alleged by some to be Saudi intelligence officers,” reads the first of 28 pages. “The Joint Inquiry’s review confirmed that the Intelligence Community also has information, much of which has yet to be independently verified, indicating that individuals associated with the Saudi Government in the United States may have other ties to al-Qa’ida and other terrorist groups.”

 

Excerpt from “Six Hard Facts Americans Forgot About 9/11 After Being Reminded Every Year to “Never Forget”” by Matt Agorist, September 11, 2016

 

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