The views expressed on this web site are those of the founder and other independent authors and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Air Force, Department of the Defense, or the U.S. Government.
The views expressed on this web site are those of the founder and other independent authors and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Air Force, Department of the Defense, or the U.S. Government.
William C. Gladish earned a Bachelor of Science degree in finance from Indiana University. He received a U.S. Air Force officer's commission in 1982 and served on active duty for over ten years as a pilot and navigator—allowing him to observe the Earth and humanity's impact on it from 30,000 feet for many years. In 1992, he completed a master's degree in aeronautical science from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. He is a graduate of many professional military programs, including Air Command and Staff College. Bill has served as an assistant professor and has received numerous leadership awards from the Air Force. In 2001, he established the Critical Decision Foundation to study the influences of economic forces (especially large corporations) on society, the importance of biodiversity, and the relationship of these subjects toward humanity's long-term physical and spiritual health. He presently serves as the foundation's director and as a Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Air Force Reserve. Bill continues to study the impact of large corporations on humanity and the environment and their threat to the U.S. Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In 2005, he presented the Decision Footprint concept at the annual conference of the North American Association for Environmental Education and was named a Fellow at the International Professors Project.
The Critical Decision Foundation is an educational organization that encourages citizens around the world to study and question the influences large corporations have obtained over democracy, technology, religion, families, society, population growth, and the environment (our life-support system). Why is the Environment so Important?
Although large corporations have created many enjoyable products and services, there are numerous costs associated with them that are rarely analyzed in the mainstream media. Corporations now control much of the world's resources, technology, money, and power. Of the 100 largest economies in the world, 51 of them are not nations, but corporations. The top 200 corporations have combined sales of over 7 trillion dollars—greater than the combined Gross National Product of all but nine of the largest nations and more than the combined economies of 182 nations. They account for 28 percent of the world's Gross Domestic Product, yet, they only employ a tiny fraction of the world's population—less than one-third of one percent.1
Before multinational corporations arrived in many developing countries, citizens were at least able to feed and shelter themselves on a sustainable basis. Although large corporations may initially bring a small increase to the standard of living for these citizens, it comes at a great price. After extracting the natural resources and polluting the environment, multinationals quickly leave the scene and the local citizens are left behind to survive in the aftermath: a devastated environment that is unable to even sustain basic food, fresh water, and shelter requirements for the original inhabitants—let alone the increased population caused by the short-term influx of wealth. Many of the citizens die of starvation and disease or move to overcrowded cities and endure agonizing poverty. Nevertheless, this perverted process has made people that own a significant amount of corporate stock wealthy—a group that includes most of the world's business and governmental leaders.
The world's resources, technology choices, and public policy measures are governed not by elected officials or society, but by corporate executives who dominate the political process with billions of dollars and at the expense of society and the environment. For additional information concerning corporate behavior, please visit The Multinational Monitor: Index of Articles.
As for the recently passed Campaign Finance Reform Act, while a noble cause for reformers and democracy, the resulting act (greatly influenced by corporate money) does little to change the balance of power. Nevertheless, it does set the stage and establish the momentum for further democratic reform. All of us, including corporate executives and employees, have too much at stake to allow the concentration of power and the destruction of the environment to continue. Serious and meaningful reform is urgently needed to preserve our life-support system and safeguard our democracy. To learn more about how to accomplish this reform, just keep reading. We also hope you will enjoy our nature gallery. It's our way of saying "thank you" for your time and concern.
"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices."
—Adam Smith, (1723-1790)
"The wisdom of every state or commonwealth endeavours, as well as it can, to employ the force of the society to restrain those who are subject to its authority, from hurting or disturbing the happiness of one another."
—Adam Smith
"I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country."
—Thomas Jefferson, 1816
"Corporations have been enthroned...An era of corruption in high places will follow and the money power will endeavor to prolong its reign by working on the prejudices of the people...until wealth is aggregated in a few hands...and the Republic is destroyed."
—Abraham Lincoln, 1864
"This is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people no longer. It is a government of corporations, by corporations, and for corporations."
—Rutherford B. Hayes, 1876
"Corporations, which should be the carefully restrained creatures of the law and the servants of the people, are fast becoming the people's masters."
—Grover Cleveland, 1888
"The citizens of the United States must effectively control the mighty commercial forces which they have themselves called into being. There can be no effective control of corporations while their political activity remains. To put an end to it will be neither a short nor an easy task, but it can be done."
—Theodore Roosevelt, 1910
"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic State itself."
—Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1938
"In view of the constant expansion of the 'global marketplace,' the transgressions of transnational corporations are likely to become increasingly significant in the future."
—David O. Friedrichs, Ph.D., author of Trusted Criminals: White Collar Crime in Contemporary Society, 1996
"The intertwining of corporations and government has become so extensive in this century that the notion of a democratic balancing act has become a dangerous illusion—and one of the cornerstones of the corporate mystique."
—Charles Derber, Ph.D., author of Corporation Nation: How Corporations Are Taking Over Our Lives and What We Can Do About It, 1998
1Sarah Anderson & John Cavanagh, Top 200: The Rise of Global Corporate Power (Washington, DC: Institute for Policy Studies, 1996), 1 July 2000 www.corpwatch.org/trac/corner/glob/ips/top200.html and David C. Korten, The Post-Corporate World (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, West Hartford, CT: Kumarian Press, 1999) p. 42.
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