We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Sunday, January 5, 2014

The Not-So-Tangled Web of Tear Gas Manufacturers

Click here to access article by Jay Cassano from Jadaliyya

The weapon of choice for most ruling classes to control and oppress their citizens is their use of tear and CS gas. Profit-making corporations will tend to produce whatever brings in their profits and will sell to anybody willing to buy these products. This piece provides some information on the profit-making corporations that supply these regimes. 

To supplement this piece, I recommend that you see the graph at this link (in place of the one in the article) regarding the connections between the corporations and their national regime customers, and this link from Wikipedia showing the five major corporate suppliers.