Also, the commercial media in a superior position, really, to any other corporate lobby, because where would people hear about commercial media or corporate media criticism, where would they hear criticism of them other than in the commercial media?

What I've found is that there is a tremendous interest in these issues, across the political spectrum, sort of left-right terms we used to describe people don't really hold here exactly.

So the system we have in radio and television today is the direct result of government policies that have been made in our name, in the name of the people, on our behalf, but without our informed consent.

The public gets not one penny from them in return for those airwaves.

Also, the commercial media in a superior position, really, to any other corporate lobby, because where would people hear about commercial media or corporate media criticism, where would they hear criticism of them other than in the commercial media?

The commercial broadcasters have tremendous influence in Washington, D.C., for a couple of reasons. First, they're extremely rich and they have lots of money and they have had for a long time, so they can give money to politicians, which gets their attention.

And understand that scarce spectrum is used today for example for cell phone operators, they have to pay for the airwaves they use, for their services.

When the government picked companies and gave them monopoly rights to frequencies in San Francisco and Los Angeles and New York and Chicago, it was picking the winners of the competition; it wasn't setting the terms of the competition.

The relationship between the media owner, their relationship isn't strictly with people and audiences. It's also with advertisers, and that's the most relationship in radio; in fact it pays the bills.

Basically what they're saying is, if you want to be on TV, if you want to be a credible candidate, you've got to buy ads. And if you're not buying ads, you're not a credible candidate, we don't cover you.

The number one lobby that opposes campaign finance reform in the United States is the National Association of Broadcasters.

As the mainstream media has become increasingly dependent on advertising revenues for support, it has become an anti-democratic force in society.

Because what's going on now, and this applies mostly to television stations in the largest markets too, but TV stations basically are now the primary receivers of campaign spending.

Our existing media system today is the direct result of government laws and subsidies that created it.

The whole process of getting licenses to broadcast, which took place decades ago, was done behind closed doors by powerful lobbies, and wealthy commercial interests got all the licenses with no public input, no congressional input for that matter.

Local television news, on both radio and television, is so appalling. Makes print journalism look like the greatest stuff ever written.

When the government allocates monopoly rights to frequency, and there are only a handful in each community, it's picking the winners in the competition.

Which is supposed to mean they're doing something in their broadcasting they would not do is they were simply out to maximize profit; if they were really public service institutions, not purely profit maximizing institutions.

So that what you tend to see is someone like a Rush Limbaugh, he's the classic case because he's the most successful, he didn't sort of like come out of his mother's womb with the highest ratings in the country.

One survey that I saw that was published I think in Variety or Electronic Media within the last three weeks says that now the average hour of radio in the United States has 18 minutes of commercials.

But having said that, what's happening with campaign finance reform and our political culture is devastating.

So the competition isn't once you got the license, running the station; it's getting the license.

So it's a much more difficult issue to organize around, because you can't get media at all to make your case. And that's where cases tend to be made politically.

If you look at the history of broadcasting, what you find is the National Association of Broadcasters is a trade association whose mission is to protect the interests of the commercial broadcasters.

If you're running for reelection in the House of Representatives race, you know, it's very important to you that you be on fairly good terms with the local affiliates in the largest market in your area. I mean you don't want to antagonize them.

You know, a left-winger, the barrier to success if you're on the left in commercial radio is a mile and a half higher than it is if you're on the right.

The cost of congressional and presidential campaigns has been leaping every two or four years. I think this year it will be 60 percent more than 1996; well over twice as much as in 1992 in the presidential and congressional races.

But having said that, there's also a sea change in attitude towards media.

And they've got to be held accountable; our broadcasting system has to be made accountable; and unless it is, it's going to be very hard to change anything else for the better in this country.

Because Hightower's problem, among other things, is that advertisers would be a lot less interested in his show than in Limbaugh's, even if they have similar ratings, because of what Hightower is saying.

Maybe if you and ten of your friends could pool your savings and borrow some money and actually buy some obscure station in Sonoma, and then take some chances and have some fun.

Corporate partners help UNICEF fund our programmes for children, advocate with us on their behalf, or facilitate our work through logistical, technical, research or supply support.

If we can just take a few companies, and use those as models, as examples, to show the rest of corporate America how they can become more competitive, that's what I'd like to do and that's what I hope to do.

I don't see it in terms of changing things, but rather using language and music as weapons for fighting a mainstream media which is predominately right wing, and loyal to the political framework and its corporate interests.

The cultivation of sensibility on purely personal lines may, in fact, be the very worst training for a world where only the corporate and the cooperative will matter.

I think most corporate executives are good honorable honest men and women who do good work.

My expertise was in public finance, particularly corporate taxation, since I had worked at the US Treasury.

Pulling the plug on the BlackBerry could cost corporate America millions of dollars. The BlackBerry is more than e-mail but a handheld office, and if you shut down the BlackBerry, you shut off the data that powers American business.

First, his job approval ratings have been trending down for many months, a trend that has accelerated in recent weeks as the war on terrorism has been supplanted in the public's mind by corporate scandals, stock market declines, and a growing sense of economic insecurity.

The number of great museums and nonprofits versus the number of corporate headquarters is incredibly out of whack.

This is a struggle for the soul of the Democratic Party, which in too many cases has become so corporate and identified with corporate interests that you can't tell the difference between Democrats and Republicans.

Yes, we have the freedom to do what we please, but it only works because we don't do everything we might please - we should exercise some degree of personal, and corporate, responsibility.

Pixar is going in the direction of the early Disney. And it's also corporate, where they have four or five projects in the works. I don't want to get into that subject.

We have in this country a federal government that increasingly is engaged in trying to determine which business, which regions, which industries will succeed, which will not through a whole range of economic development, regional development corporate subsidization programs.

Welfare distorts behavior, makes one less personally responsible and reduces the role of private charity. This principle applies to corporate welfare.

When we give a subsidy, the benefits to the public ought to exceed the benefits to the company. When it doesn't, that's our definition of corporate welfare.

The corporate outings were fun, but after doing them for 25 years, they got to be a little old hat.

Even now it is no longer composed of the traditional political class, but of a composite layer of corporate leaders, high-level administrators, and the heads of the major professional, labor, political, and religious organisations.

The most meaningful engine of change, powerful enough to confront corporate power, may be not so much environmental quality, as the economic development and growth associated with the effort to improve it.