Free enterprise
"Oil refineries, power plants and other large industrial operations in California typically pay fines of a few thousand dollars for exceeding air pollution standards, not enough to deter them from repeated violations." — Los Angeles Times, July 29.
Free press
"Since May 2003, when the [US] Department of Homeland Security took over immigration and border control, more than a dozen foreign journalists have been detained at the border and deported... Elena Lappin, a freelance British journalist who has previously made several trips to the United States without a visa and had never had any trouble at the border, was one of the deportees. After being stopped at the Los Angeles International Airport, Lappin was interrogated for four hours, body-searched, fingerprinted, and then taken in handcuffs to a detention center — where she spent the night in a cell with no bed or chair and with a toilet in full view of anyone passing by — before being sent back to London." — Boston Globe, August 16.
Putting safety first
"A public relations firm with ties to the automobile industry has launched ads suggesting that a proposed California rule to cut carbon dioxide exhaust could cause more people to die in traffic accidents." — Los Angeles Times, August 26.
Expert opinion
"I take no comfort in predicting that there will be more [corporate collapses]... It might seem odd... to be suggesting that capitalism is under threat. But I am not alone in believing this to be the case." — Westpac director Ted Evans, September 15.
From Green Left Weekly, September 22, 2004.
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