Banana, Blood and Fungus Describe Unregulated Corporatism's Weakness for Greed

Huffington Post contributor Johann Hari offers a metaphor for unsustainable corporate practices in a telling of the history of the world's most popular fruit: the banana.

Is there a parable for our times in this odd milkshake of banana, blood and fungus? For a hundred years, a handful of corporations were given a gorgeous fruit, set free from regulation, and allowed to do what they wanted with it. What happened? They had one good entrepreneurial idea - and to squeeze every tiny drop of profit from it, they destroyed democracies, burned down rainforests, and ended up killing the fruit itself.

Read more of Why Bananas are a Parable For Our Times.

Congo and the Fight for Minerals

Often seen as a theater of ethnic cleansing, the Congo suffers from the brutal repercussions of being a mineral rich land. Here, mercenary profit drives genocide and systematic rape. As a Belgium colony, the Congo produced large amounts of gold which helped to fund WWII efforts. Now overseen by warlords and guarded by glassy-eyed gun-bearing youths, this once rich land produces the minerals required to make our electronic goods and gold jewelry. Writer and activist Ann Garrison offers this interview to Pacifica Radio's KPFA.