#big corp

[emvisual]

Publicidad contra la gentrificación. Tu Airbnb era mi casa / Your Airbnb was my home

Lo que está pasando pasa por permitir a las grandes corporaciones buscar atajos legales (para mi eso es fraude de ley) para saltarse las leyes y cualquier tipo de regulación: Airbnb, Glovo, Amazon...

[awed-frog]

For someone who is super interested in the reason why our current food system is unsustainable/destructive to the earth, but has absolutely zero knowledge why, is there a book, articles or papers that start at zero and break down the issues?

Hello, I’m not a big reader on this topic because I just can’t take it, so I’m sure you’ll find a way more comprehensive list on a vegan society website or by asking on r/vegan on reddit, but I can suggest

George Monbiot’s articles - he’s a British journalist who writes on all kinds of issues, and he’s very good

The China Study, which is more about nutrition

If you’re on Netflix, they’re screening The Game Changers, Cowspiracy and What the Health rn, which are different takes on the same subject

James Walvin’s How Sugar Corrupted the World is specifically about the sugar industry, but there are a couple of chapters about the catastrophe sugarcane plantations inflicted on the natural world over the last two centuries, and since sugar remains the world’s largest crop (!!!) it’s very relevant

It’s so great you’re taking an interest in the subject! I hope this is enough to start, and I’m sure you’ll find plenty of reference material along the way (Monbiot, for instance, always links to all sort of books and articles).

[miramise]

I feel a need to explain. And this is just my personal feels and I'm not speaking for anyone else.

I am one of those who knows US holidays are not world holidays, so anything I say is strictly related to US practices and I don't in the least think anyone else should bother with this. In fact, feel free to ignore this if you want, I don't mind.

Anyway, some people complain about how Thanksgiving is all but ignored in favour of Christmas. I don't necessarily care about either holiday in regards to how they're celebrated. But I am so damn sick and tired of corporations shoving the holidays down my throat before Halloween is even over. (legit, middle of October and my local Dollar Tree had Christmas inventory up) I'm tired of the sales and ads and you have to bury yourself in debt to have a decent holiday. Even grocery stores, whom you'd think would focus on Thanksgiving because it's based on food, but no, they're shoving Christmas at me, too. And those poor workers in customer service now have to listen to carols on repeat ad infinitum for two months instead of one. It's no wonder some quit, or worse, snap.

It's the rampant commercialism that drives me batty. I don't have any problem with individuals or groups who want to enjoy the holidays for two months. I've been debating about decorating my window early myself. But when companies are just using it to pressure people into spending their money for the sake of 'the holidays', yeah, I have issues. I'm perfectly ok with Christmas being seen as a secular holiday (I'm not that religious myself), but does it really have to be a capitalist one?

And I must mention whenever Thanksgiving does get a nod, it's in the form of 'Black Friday', which is all well and good, the friday after Thanksgiving is a major day for retailers. Except now every friday in November is black friday, according to big corp.

Again, this is just little ol' me living in the US complaining about US corporations' practices. I really enjoy seeing Christmas celebrated in other parts of the world or on tumblr, and if I can see it in November, all the better! I just don't like being told I have to buy buy buy for three months. Oh? Why three? Well we can't forget all the after Christmas sales in January. Well, we could, and I try very hard to, but big corp continues to bombard with their sales. And if it's not the after Christmas sales, well surely it's never too early to start buying for Valentine's Day. (Not gonna touch on the bullshit mattress companies have done to MLK day, either)

On second thought, this isn't a rant about big corps' holiday practices, but just big corp using any holiday to push a sale down our throats.

[actvistmama-blog]

When Local Business Sells You Out

When choosing our family pharmacy we wanted to stay away from the "Big Box" chains. There's a lot of reasons why but I'm sure you can guess most of them without my saying. They sell your information. They use collective marketing. They make you sign up for a discount card to be able to get the regular price for  an item that without the card, you will be forced to overpay. You get the gist. So when we found THIS guy...

...we were totally excited to get the win-win; be treated like real people AND support local business.

Conveniently located just 5 minutes from our home, we felt so lucky to have such a friendly, local store to put our faith and trust in and to know that our family medical needs were going to be met in such a safe and protected environment.

And they had a cow.

Two weeks ago, a FB friend had a post that totally grabbed my attention. Her words gutted me to the core in more ways than one. It went something like "There's nothing better than coming back home from vacation to find out that you're unemployed and your boss has closed the store."

Husband and I were floored! Mostly because we felt really sorry for this poor girl who had just lost her job. Also because we felt really sorry for whatever tragedy had bestowed our pharmacist that he had to close the doors so abruptly. I mean, surely it was a terrible fate that had devastated his family. His precious children? His loving wife? We were immediately sorrowful for this awful situation that had now affected all of these great people. Except...

It turns out that Mr. Pharmacy hadn't closed up in a hurry. He had actually been in the process of closing up for some time. He had struck a deal with CVS pharmacy up the street. In this deal, they were going to purchase our information. ALL of it.

So for those of you who really don't know how this works, he basically sold them our lives. Name, date of birth, social security number, address, telephone number, reproductive history and preventions, medications we're allergic to or need on a daily basis. Heart disease, diabetes; whatever the ailment, big corp now has their hands in collecting that information and selling it out to whomever they so desire. -- Let the junk mail commence --

My FB friend was contacted by her boss and was offered a job in one of his other locations. It's actually a location that is just a short 20 minute drive from my house.

She accepted his offer (as no fault of hers; I mean, ya gotta have a JOB) and promptly deleted her FB post within 24 hours of posting.

Within 2 or 3 more days, the store was closed and we received an automated telephone call from the CVS informing us (and most of his customers for the VERY first time) that our loyal, local pharmacy had closed and that we could now get our services fulfilled through their store with an address and telephone number of how to reach them. The standard automated calls that one can expect from Big Corp.

So what's the problem, right? Poor guy couldn't keep his store open; couldn't fight against the Walmart, the Walgreens and the CVS, all of which were just a few doors down from his own location. Maybe we should just give the poor chap a break!

Well...

South Oaks Pharmacy wasn't really closing up shop. They were only closing up THIS shop. The one at this particular location. This would be a whole separate matter if Mr. Pharmacy couldn't pay his bills, couldn't support his business and didn't have the means to continue on with his customers. I would still think that selling personal information is a sleazy thing to do but I could at least understand it. Half-heartedly.

The thing is -- Mr. Pharmacy could have done a number of things. He could have called his clients individually. He could've sent out a letter or even an automated call. He could've said:

"Hey there. I can't keep my store open but I want you to know that I have another location just a short 20 minutes away. I can serve you from over there or you can take this warning time to find yourself a new pharmacy."

He could've recommended some his local pharmacist friends with whom to move our business, which they DID, suggesting that we transfer our ALREADY SOLD information from the CVS over to "his best friend" who has a pharmacy up the street the other direction. (I'm guessing Best Friend just didn't have the big $$$ that CVS had to offer)

He could've offered to continue service from the farther location with a delivery stipulation of $10 per transaction. I know our family probably would've stuck with him.

But simply speaking, Mr. Pharmacy didn't do any of these things because it was never about the customer. CVS Pharmacy doesn't care about his small stash of pills, his one cash register, his three shelving units or his mini cooler dispenser with overpriced bottled water. They don't want his crappy strip-mall space, perfectly suited for small business, nor the three boxes of tampons and condoms sitting dusty on his shelves. They want our INFO. That is exactly what the big $$$ is paid out to get. It's all about collection of information.

One step forward for Big Corp, one step back for Local Biz. And all the while our hearts just break a little. bit. more.

[fallintoubiquity]

Aspartame Being Re-Branded as AminoSweet: The Next Chapter in Aspartame’s Dangerous History

[As if NutraSweet wasn't misleading enough, now they're cloaking their poison as some kind of implied amino acid derivative with AminoSweet. What a wicked sham. Warn others. Zen]

READ MORE:http://www.zengardner.com/aspartame-re-branded-aminosweet-next-chapter-aspartames-dangerous-history/

[wesleeptheylive]

Awesome article!  One of the best in a while!  Do read

[morteamore]

This is an all too common practice, and it churns my guts every time I see it.But there's always a grey zone with it, too, and sometimes a little assessment needs to occur before a stance is chosen.

For one thing, it's the major reason I refuse to acknowledge AMC's version of The Walking Dead. What the company (who are classic-censoring, bastard possible lobbyists, anyway) did to everyone involved with that show, from the creator to the actors, was kept hush hush for awhile. But by the time NY and SD 2011 Comic Cons had rolled around, the royal assfucking AMC had given those guys broke out and went viral pretty quickly. I'm not a fan of the original comics, maybe read the first TP vol. or so. I'm hit or miss with zombies. But the thing is, Robert Kirkman wrote and drew every single issue of The Walking Dead himself, and I think continues to do so. He's the creator, and the TV scripts are based on that core work. For AMC to take a legal route to a loophole that acquires his work for their own exploits is disgraceful. It's not about money, it's not about Kirkman not having a grasp of the legal understandings required for his contract with AMC. It's about a company with bigger pockets, sleazier lawyers, and a lot more to gain stomping out the little guy.

Because Kirkman might be big in comics, but even the big guys can't even touch a TV execs salary. Comic creators and artists on Kirkman's level work their asses off for a pretty good salary in normal terms, but they just aren't that valued in society yet.

The problem here is the work-for-hire thing, which separates Kirkman form Kirby.  I think if Jack Kirby were alive, then there's no question that Kirby should've been given a percentage of royalties from Marvel from the The Avengers film. If they refused, then yes, that's absolutely the gross injustice on the level of Kirkman and AMC. But Kirby's estate? I'm a little on the fence about that.  Don't get me wrong. I absolutely believe to the fullest extent that the Kirby's should see some of that ridiculous gross that is likely to occur.  It's the decent thing to do for the people who gave these characters to the world that became such powerful cultural icons. But is Marvel obligated to do that? 

Well, no.

It's a shame. It's definitely cutthroat business politics. It's ugly. And the more it's allowed to happen, the more it happens to living creators who get initiated into this pop culture game while they're still bright eyed and busy tailed. Not that none of them know what they're getting into, or that they can't make their own decisions, because I would never promote that mindset, but that our society is set up in a way that can make the majority of comic creators humble. Hollywood egos versus the humble one? Advantage just gets taken. Just compare creators like Alan Moore's relationships with the corporate powerhouse that is DC in the 80's compared to his relationship with them now, and it just shows the natural progression of these situations.

I don't condone Marvel's actions. I'm skeptical and wary of their comic products and politics ever since they threw in with Disney, even though DC has Warner Bros (it's not like DC has impressed me of late recently, either). But sometimes people get a bit extreme without hearing the whole story. Nobody knows what the Kirby's have to say about this, after all, since they haven't come forward like others. There has to be respect for their opinions, too, and nobody should assume anything.