The Bush administration's agenda aims to savage the United Nations, destroy the foundations of an emerging global community and ignore increasingly shrill alarms from an overstressed natural world. It is manifested in us attempts to sabotage constructive efforts in environmental negotiations, as Anju Sharma points this out in "Shucks & Aww" (April 30, 2003) [2]. But the article underestimates the extent to which corporate interests have completely usurped the political process in the us.

In this corporate state, quarterly reports determine public spending. Military dominance has become the method of choice for expanding market share. And marketing strategies have increasingly replaced judgment in determining the content of much of the us news media. (See box: Corporate mouthpiece). One result is that large numbers of Americans feel as trapped and deprived of representation as the 300 terror suspects in Guantanamo.

Take an issue at the top of the global agenda