So This Is What Victory Looks Like?
By Scott Ritter
Fireworks lit up the Baghdad sky on the evening of June 30th, signaling the advent of “National Sovereignty Day.” Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki declared the new holiday to commemorate the withdrawal of American combat troops from the Iraqi capital and all other major urban centers, although thousands of “advisers” would remain in the cities, embedded with Iraqi forces. The celebration transpired inside a city that has been radically transformed over the past six years. Even with American combat forces ostensibly withdrawn, Baghdad remains one of the most militarized urban areas in the world. It wasn’t always so. When I was in Baghdad during the 1990s, I was struck by the lack of an overt military presence for a nation purported to be governed by one of the world’s worst militaristic dictatorships.
Of course, in the city areas housing Saddam Hussein, his family and inner circle, and the seat of government, one would see green-clad soldiers of the Special Republican Guard standing watch over the gates controlling access into and out of these islands of power and privilege. But in the rest of the city—the vast majority of the city—there was no military presence. Traffic police stood on little islands in the middle of busy intersections, keeping the bustle of a modern city moving along at a brisk pace. There were soldiers in uniform around, but they carried no weapons, being on leave from their duties in Iraq’s conscript military. Just like their fellow servicemen in other cities around the world, they would enjoy a day or two walking the streets and markets of Baghdad, taking in the sights and sounds, grabbing a glass of tea, a quick meal and the sight of pretty girls neatly attired in Western-style dress.
Link to con.
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
Sunday, July 05, 2009
Street Farmer
By ELIZABETH ROYTE
Will Allen, a farmer of Bunyonesque proportions, ascended a berm of wood chips and brewer’s mash and gently probed it with a pitchfork. “Look at this,” he said, pleased with the treasure he unearthed. A writhing mass of red worms dangled from his tines. He bent over, raked another section with his fingers and palmed a few beauties.
It was one of those April days in Wisconsin when the weather shifts abruptly from hot to cold, and Allen, dressed in a sleeveless hoodie — his daily uniform down to 20 degrees, below which he adds another sweatshirt — was exactly where he wanted to be. Show Allen a pile of soil, fully composted or still slimy with banana peels, and he’s compelled to scoop some into his melon-size hands. “Creating soil from waste is what I enjoy most,” he said. “Anyone can grow food.”
Like others in the so-called good-food movement, Allen, who is 60, asserts that our industrial food system is depleting soil, poisoning water, gobbling fossil fuels and stuffing us with bad calories. Like others, he advocates eating locally grown food. But to Allen, local doesn’t mean a rolling pasture or even a suburban garden: it means 14 greenhouses crammed onto two acres in a working-class neighborhood on Milwaukee’s northwest side, less than half a mile from the city’s largest public-housing project.
Link to con.
By ELIZABETH ROYTE
Will Allen, a farmer of Bunyonesque proportions, ascended a berm of wood chips and brewer’s mash and gently probed it with a pitchfork. “Look at this,” he said, pleased with the treasure he unearthed. A writhing mass of red worms dangled from his tines. He bent over, raked another section with his fingers and palmed a few beauties.
It was one of those April days in Wisconsin when the weather shifts abruptly from hot to cold, and Allen, dressed in a sleeveless hoodie — his daily uniform down to 20 degrees, below which he adds another sweatshirt — was exactly where he wanted to be. Show Allen a pile of soil, fully composted or still slimy with banana peels, and he’s compelled to scoop some into his melon-size hands. “Creating soil from waste is what I enjoy most,” he said. “Anyone can grow food.”
Like others in the so-called good-food movement, Allen, who is 60, asserts that our industrial food system is depleting soil, poisoning water, gobbling fossil fuels and stuffing us with bad calories. Like others, he advocates eating locally grown food. But to Allen, local doesn’t mean a rolling pasture or even a suburban garden: it means 14 greenhouses crammed onto two acres in a working-class neighborhood on Milwaukee’s northwest side, less than half a mile from the city’s largest public-housing project.
Link to con.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
Monday, June 08, 2009
Thursday, June 04, 2009
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
The Howls of a Fading Species
By BOB HERBERT
One can only hope that the hysterical howling of right-wingers against the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court is something approaching a death rattle for this profoundly destructive force in American life. It’s hard to fathom the heights of hypocrisy currently being scaled by the foaming-in-the-mouth crazies who are leading the charge against the nomination. Newt Gingrich, who never needed a factual basis for his ravings, rants on Twitter that Judge Sotomayor is a “Latina woman racist,” apparently unaware of his incoherence in the “Latina-woman” redundancy in this defamatory characterization.
Karl Rove sneered that Ms. Sotomayor was “not necessarily” smart, thus managing to get the toxic issue of intelligence into play in the case of a woman who graduated summa cum laude from Princeton, went on to get a law degree from Yale and has more experience as a judge than any of the current justices had at the time of their nominations to the court.
It turns the stomach. There is no level of achievement sufficient to escape the stultifying bonds of bigotry. It is impossible to be smart enough or accomplished enough.
The amount of disrespect that has spattered the nomination of Judge Sotomayor is disgusting. She is spoken of, in some circles, as if she were the lowest of the low. Rush Limbaugh — now there’s a genius! — has compared her nomination to a hypothetical nomination of David Duke, a former head of the Ku Klux Klan. “How can a president nominate such a candidate?” Limbaugh asked.
Link to con.
By BOB HERBERT
One can only hope that the hysterical howling of right-wingers against the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court is something approaching a death rattle for this profoundly destructive force in American life. It’s hard to fathom the heights of hypocrisy currently being scaled by the foaming-in-the-mouth crazies who are leading the charge against the nomination. Newt Gingrich, who never needed a factual basis for his ravings, rants on Twitter that Judge Sotomayor is a “Latina woman racist,” apparently unaware of his incoherence in the “Latina-woman” redundancy in this defamatory characterization.
Karl Rove sneered that Ms. Sotomayor was “not necessarily” smart, thus managing to get the toxic issue of intelligence into play in the case of a woman who graduated summa cum laude from Princeton, went on to get a law degree from Yale and has more experience as a judge than any of the current justices had at the time of their nominations to the court.
It turns the stomach. There is no level of achievement sufficient to escape the stultifying bonds of bigotry. It is impossible to be smart enough or accomplished enough.
The amount of disrespect that has spattered the nomination of Judge Sotomayor is disgusting. She is spoken of, in some circles, as if she were the lowest of the low. Rush Limbaugh — now there’s a genius! — has compared her nomination to a hypothetical nomination of David Duke, a former head of the Ku Klux Klan. “How can a president nominate such a candidate?” Limbaugh asked.
Link to con.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Friday, May 29, 2009
Monsanto’s Harvest of Fear
Monsanto already dominates America’s food chain with its genetically modified seeds. Now it has targeted milk production. Just as frightening as the corporation’s tactics–ruthless legal battles against small farmers–is its decades-long history of toxic contamination.
by DONALD L. BARLETT and JAMES B. STEELE
Gary Rinehart clearly remembers the summer day in 2002 when the stranger walked in and issued his threat. Rinehart was behind the counter of the Square Deal, his “old-time country store,” as he calls it, on the fading town square of Eagleville, Missouri, a tiny farm community 100 miles north of Kansas City.
The Square Deal is a fixture in Eagleville, a place where farmers and townspeople can go for lightbulbs, greeting cards, hunting gear, ice cream, aspirin, and dozens of other small items without having to drive to a big-box store in Bethany, the county seat, 15 miles down Interstate 35.
Everyone knows Rinehart, who was born and raised in the area and runs one of Eagleville’s few surviving businesses. The stranger came up to the counter and asked for him by name.
“Well, that’s me,” said Rinehart.
As Rinehart would recall, the man began verbally attacking him, saying he had proof that Rinehart had planted Monsanto’s genetically modified (G.M.) soybeans in violation of the company’s patent. Better come clean and settle with Monsanto, Rinehart says the man told him—or face the consequences.
Link to con.
Monsanto already dominates America’s food chain with its genetically modified seeds. Now it has targeted milk production. Just as frightening as the corporation’s tactics–ruthless legal battles against small farmers–is its decades-long history of toxic contamination.
by DONALD L. BARLETT and JAMES B. STEELE
Gary Rinehart clearly remembers the summer day in 2002 when the stranger walked in and issued his threat. Rinehart was behind the counter of the Square Deal, his “old-time country store,” as he calls it, on the fading town square of Eagleville, Missouri, a tiny farm community 100 miles north of Kansas City.
The Square Deal is a fixture in Eagleville, a place where farmers and townspeople can go for lightbulbs, greeting cards, hunting gear, ice cream, aspirin, and dozens of other small items without having to drive to a big-box store in Bethany, the county seat, 15 miles down Interstate 35.
Everyone knows Rinehart, who was born and raised in the area and runs one of Eagleville’s few surviving businesses. The stranger came up to the counter and asked for him by name.
“Well, that’s me,” said Rinehart.
As Rinehart would recall, the man began verbally attacking him, saying he had proof that Rinehart had planted Monsanto’s genetically modified (G.M.) soybeans in violation of the company’s patent. Better come clean and settle with Monsanto, Rinehart says the man told him—or face the consequences.
Link to con.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Socialism? Hardly, Say Socialists
Under Obama, socialism chatter has permeated the media in 2009. But beyond sound bites, what is socialism?
By Moira Herbst
The first months of the Obama Administration have given rise to abundant talk about a U.S. drift into socialism. "We Are All Socialists Now," a Newsweek cover declared in February. On May 20 the Republican National Committee approved a resolution calling on Democrats to "stop pushing our country toward socialism." The resolution was predicated on the idea that, under Obama, Democrats are following the path of Western European countries in advocating expansive social safety nets and deeper government involvement in the economy.
Some conservative commentators have even likened Obama's economic stimulus and regulatory initiatives to a Soviet-style takeover of the country. In February, syndicated radio host Rush Limbaugh accused Obama of waging war on capitalism. "That's his objective. He wants to destroy capitalism," Limbaugh told a caller. "He wants to establish a very powerful socialist government, authoritarian. He wants control of the economy."
But real Socialists would vigorously disagree. They say if the Obama Administration were establishing a true socialist state, we'd have at least a $15-an-hour minimum wage (instead of the current $6.55 federal minimum) and 30-hour workweeks. Every American would be guaranteed employment and health-care coverage. Oh, and homeless people would be occupying vacant office buildings in cities and vacant McMansions in the suburbs.
Link to con.
Under Obama, socialism chatter has permeated the media in 2009. But beyond sound bites, what is socialism?
By Moira Herbst
The first months of the Obama Administration have given rise to abundant talk about a U.S. drift into socialism. "We Are All Socialists Now," a Newsweek cover declared in February. On May 20 the Republican National Committee approved a resolution calling on Democrats to "stop pushing our country toward socialism." The resolution was predicated on the idea that, under Obama, Democrats are following the path of Western European countries in advocating expansive social safety nets and deeper government involvement in the economy.
Some conservative commentators have even likened Obama's economic stimulus and regulatory initiatives to a Soviet-style takeover of the country. In February, syndicated radio host Rush Limbaugh accused Obama of waging war on capitalism. "That's his objective. He wants to destroy capitalism," Limbaugh told a caller. "He wants to establish a very powerful socialist government, authoritarian. He wants control of the economy."
But real Socialists would vigorously disagree. They say if the Obama Administration were establishing a true socialist state, we'd have at least a $15-an-hour minimum wage (instead of the current $6.55 federal minimum) and 30-hour workweeks. Every American would be guaranteed employment and health-care coverage. Oh, and homeless people would be occupying vacant office buildings in cities and vacant McMansions in the suburbs.
Link to con.
Monday, May 25, 2009
‘Clean’ Energy and Poisoned Water
By Chris Hedges
In the musical “Urinetown,” a severe drought leaves the dwindling supplies of clean water in the hands of a corporation called Urine Good Company. Urine Good Company makes a fortune selling the precious commodity and running public toilets. It pays off politicians to ward off regulation and inspection. It uses the mechanisms of state control to repress an increasingly desperate and impoverished population.
The musical satire may turn out to be a prescient vision of the future. Corporations in Colorado, Texas, Louisiana, Pennsylvania and upstate New York have launched a massive program to extract natural gas through a process that could, if it goes wrong, degrade the Delaware River watershed and the fresh water supplies that feed upstate communities, the metropolitan cities of New York, Philadelphia, Camden and Trenton, and many others on its way to the Chesapeake Bay.
“The potential environmental consequences are extreme,” says Fritz Mayer, editor of The River Reporter in Narrowsburg, N.Y. His paper has been following the drilling in the Upper Delaware River Valley and he told me, “It could ruin the drinking supply for 8 million people in New York City.”
Trillions of cubic feet of natural gas are locked under the Marcellus Shale that runs from West Virginia, through Ohio, across most of Pennsylvania and into the Southern Tier of New York state. There are other, small plates of shale, in the south and west of the United States. It takes an estimated 3 million to 5 million gallons of water per well to drill down to the natural gas in a process called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. The water is mixed with resin-coated sand and a cocktail of hazardous chemicals, including hydrochloric acid, nitrogen, biocides, surfactants, friction reducers and benzene to facilitate the fracturing of the shale to extract the gas.
Link to con.
By Chris Hedges
In the musical “Urinetown,” a severe drought leaves the dwindling supplies of clean water in the hands of a corporation called Urine Good Company. Urine Good Company makes a fortune selling the precious commodity and running public toilets. It pays off politicians to ward off regulation and inspection. It uses the mechanisms of state control to repress an increasingly desperate and impoverished population.
The musical satire may turn out to be a prescient vision of the future. Corporations in Colorado, Texas, Louisiana, Pennsylvania and upstate New York have launched a massive program to extract natural gas through a process that could, if it goes wrong, degrade the Delaware River watershed and the fresh water supplies that feed upstate communities, the metropolitan cities of New York, Philadelphia, Camden and Trenton, and many others on its way to the Chesapeake Bay.
“The potential environmental consequences are extreme,” says Fritz Mayer, editor of The River Reporter in Narrowsburg, N.Y. His paper has been following the drilling in the Upper Delaware River Valley and he told me, “It could ruin the drinking supply for 8 million people in New York City.”
Trillions of cubic feet of natural gas are locked under the Marcellus Shale that runs from West Virginia, through Ohio, across most of Pennsylvania and into the Southern Tier of New York state. There are other, small plates of shale, in the south and west of the United States. It takes an estimated 3 million to 5 million gallons of water per well to drill down to the natural gas in a process called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. The water is mixed with resin-coated sand and a cocktail of hazardous chemicals, including hydrochloric acid, nitrogen, biocides, surfactants, friction reducers and benzene to facilitate the fracturing of the shale to extract the gas.
Link to con.
Congressional Duck and Cover
By Stanley Kutler
Congress is broken. The framers of the Constitution, building on nearly six centuries of parliamentary experience, situated Congress at the heart of the American constitutional system. Representative government was believed to be the purest, and yet workable, means of self-government. For the past 25, however, Congress has made a joke of that system, as it has trivialized and mocked any meaningful representation in the sense that the makers of the Constitution framed it.
That sense was best captured by Edmund Burke (1729-1797), the great English parliamentarian and statesman, whose work became the lodestar for the rising intellectual conservative movement 50 years ago. Burke was a contemporary of the Founding Fathers and a keen observer of the American scene. Today, however, he is not in fashion; in particular, when neoconservatives and neo-liberals alike celebrate the historical expansion and maintenance of the American empire, they ignore Burke’s warning that “great empires and small minds go ill together.”
Burke had much to say about the role of people’s representatives. He acknowledged that representatives owed the “strictest union ... and the most unreserved communication” to their constituents, yet he insisted that representatives possess “independent judgment and enlightened conscience.” A representative must strike a delicate balance, offering constituents “his judgment,” said Burke, while bearing in mind that “he betrays, instead of serving [them], if he sacrifices it to [their] opinion.” Burke recognized it is easy to “run into the perilous extremes of servile compliance or wild popularity.” Instead, the interest of the whole community must be pursued, not some local, individual interest, or a “momentary enthusiasm.”
Link to con.
By Stanley Kutler
Congress is broken. The framers of the Constitution, building on nearly six centuries of parliamentary experience, situated Congress at the heart of the American constitutional system. Representative government was believed to be the purest, and yet workable, means of self-government. For the past 25, however, Congress has made a joke of that system, as it has trivialized and mocked any meaningful representation in the sense that the makers of the Constitution framed it.
That sense was best captured by Edmund Burke (1729-1797), the great English parliamentarian and statesman, whose work became the lodestar for the rising intellectual conservative movement 50 years ago. Burke was a contemporary of the Founding Fathers and a keen observer of the American scene. Today, however, he is not in fashion; in particular, when neoconservatives and neo-liberals alike celebrate the historical expansion and maintenance of the American empire, they ignore Burke’s warning that “great empires and small minds go ill together.”
Burke had much to say about the role of people’s representatives. He acknowledged that representatives owed the “strictest union ... and the most unreserved communication” to their constituents, yet he insisted that representatives possess “independent judgment and enlightened conscience.” A representative must strike a delicate balance, offering constituents “his judgment,” said Burke, while bearing in mind that “he betrays, instead of serving [them], if he sacrifices it to [their] opinion.” Burke recognized it is easy to “run into the perilous extremes of servile compliance or wild popularity.” Instead, the interest of the whole community must be pursued, not some local, individual interest, or a “momentary enthusiasm.”
Link to con.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Blue Double Cross
By PAUL KRUGMAN
That didn’t take long. Less than two weeks have passed since much of the medical-industrial complex made a big show of working with President Obama on health care reform — and the double-crossing is already well under way. Indeed, it’s now clear that even as they met with the president, pretending to be cooperative, insurers were gearing up to play the same destructive role they did the last time health reform was on the agenda.
So here’s the question: Will Mr. Obama gloss over the reality of what’s happening, and try to preserve the appearance of cooperation? Or will he honor his own pledge, made back during the campaign, to go on the offensive against special interests if they stand in the way of reform?
The story so far: on May 11 the White House called a news conference to announce that major players in health care, including the American Hospital Association and the lobbying group America’s Health Insurance Plans, had come together to support a national effort to control health care costs.
Link to con.
By PAUL KRUGMAN
That didn’t take long. Less than two weeks have passed since much of the medical-industrial complex made a big show of working with President Obama on health care reform — and the double-crossing is already well under way. Indeed, it’s now clear that even as they met with the president, pretending to be cooperative, insurers were gearing up to play the same destructive role they did the last time health reform was on the agenda.
So here’s the question: Will Mr. Obama gloss over the reality of what’s happening, and try to preserve the appearance of cooperation? Or will he honor his own pledge, made back during the campaign, to go on the offensive against special interests if they stand in the way of reform?
The story so far: on May 11 the White House called a news conference to announce that major players in health care, including the American Hospital Association and the lobbying group America’s Health Insurance Plans, had come together to support a national effort to control health care costs.
Link to con.
Why We Can't See the Trees or the Forest
The Torture Memos and Historical Amnesia
By Noam Chomsky
The torture memos released by the White House elicited shock, indignation, and surprise. The shock and indignation are understandable. The surprise, less so.
For one thing, even without inquiry, it was reasonable to suppose that Guantanamo was a torture chamber. Why else send prisoners where they would be beyond the reach of the law -- a place, incidentally, that Washington is using in violation of a treaty forced on Cuba at the point of a gun? Security reasons were, of course, alleged, but they remain hard to take seriously. The same expectations held for the Bush administration's "black sites," or secret prisons, and for extraordinary rendition, and they were fulfilled.
More importantly, torture has been routinely practiced from the early days of the conquest of the national territory, and continued to be used as the imperial ventures of the "infant empire" -- as George Washington called the new republic -- extended to the Philippines, Haiti, and elsewhere. Keep in mind as well that torture was the least of the many crimes of aggression, terror, subversion, and economic strangulation that have darkened U.S. history, much as in the case of other great powers.
Accordingly, what's surprising is to see the reactions to the release of those Justice Department memos, even by some of the most eloquent and forthright critics of Bush malfeasance: Paul Krugman, for example, writing that we used to be "a nation of moral ideals" and never before Bush "have our leaders so utterly betrayed everything our nation stands for." To say the least, that common view reflects a rather slanted version of American history.
Link to con.
The Torture Memos and Historical Amnesia
By Noam Chomsky
The torture memos released by the White House elicited shock, indignation, and surprise. The shock and indignation are understandable. The surprise, less so.
For one thing, even without inquiry, it was reasonable to suppose that Guantanamo was a torture chamber. Why else send prisoners where they would be beyond the reach of the law -- a place, incidentally, that Washington is using in violation of a treaty forced on Cuba at the point of a gun? Security reasons were, of course, alleged, but they remain hard to take seriously. The same expectations held for the Bush administration's "black sites," or secret prisons, and for extraordinary rendition, and they were fulfilled.
More importantly, torture has been routinely practiced from the early days of the conquest of the national territory, and continued to be used as the imperial ventures of the "infant empire" -- as George Washington called the new republic -- extended to the Philippines, Haiti, and elsewhere. Keep in mind as well that torture was the least of the many crimes of aggression, terror, subversion, and economic strangulation that have darkened U.S. history, much as in the case of other great powers.
Accordingly, what's surprising is to see the reactions to the release of those Justice Department memos, even by some of the most eloquent and forthright critics of Bush malfeasance: Paul Krugman, for example, writing that we used to be "a nation of moral ideals" and never before Bush "have our leaders so utterly betrayed everything our nation stands for." To say the least, that common view reflects a rather slanted version of American history.
Link to con.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Obama and the Environment
The Politics of Bait-and-Switch
By JEFFREY ST. CLAIR and JOSHUA FRANK
After little more than 100 days in office, the Democrats, under the leadership of Barack Obama, have unleashed a slew of anti-environmental policies that would have enraged any reasonable conservationist during the Bush years.
Take the delisting of the gray wolf in the Western Great Lakes and parts of the Northern Rockies, which was announced during the waning days of the Bush era and upheld by Obama earlier this spring. About 200 packs of wolves live in the northern Rocky Mountains today. But only 95 of these packs are led by a breeding pair of wolves, which is significantly less than half of what most biologists consider to be a healthy number in order to fend off imminent decline and long-term genetic problems for the species.
In Idaho, free roaming wolves have been radio-collared, allowing their human killers to track and gun them down by helicopter. Freed from the protections of the Endnagered Species Act (ESA), the state plans on permitting hundreds of these wolves to be murdered this coming winter. Only a few environmental groups have stepped up in the wolf’s defense, with the Center for Biological Diversity based in Tucson, Arizona leading the charge.
Link to con.
The Politics of Bait-and-Switch
By JEFFREY ST. CLAIR and JOSHUA FRANK
After little more than 100 days in office, the Democrats, under the leadership of Barack Obama, have unleashed a slew of anti-environmental policies that would have enraged any reasonable conservationist during the Bush years.
Take the delisting of the gray wolf in the Western Great Lakes and parts of the Northern Rockies, which was announced during the waning days of the Bush era and upheld by Obama earlier this spring. About 200 packs of wolves live in the northern Rocky Mountains today. But only 95 of these packs are led by a breeding pair of wolves, which is significantly less than half of what most biologists consider to be a healthy number in order to fend off imminent decline and long-term genetic problems for the species.
In Idaho, free roaming wolves have been radio-collared, allowing their human killers to track and gun them down by helicopter. Freed from the protections of the Endnagered Species Act (ESA), the state plans on permitting hundreds of these wolves to be murdered this coming winter. Only a few environmental groups have stepped up in the wolf’s defense, with the Center for Biological Diversity based in Tucson, Arizona leading the charge.
Link to con.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Monday, May 18, 2009
The Disease of Permanent War
By Chris Hedges
Posted on May 18, 2009
The embrace by any society of permanent war is a parasite that devours the heart and soul of a nation. Permanent war extinguishes liberal, democratic movements. It turns culture into nationalist cant. It degrades and corrupts education and the media, and wrecks the economy. The liberal, democratic forces, tasked with maintaining an open society, become impotent.Link
Friday, May 15, 2009
What smells at Whole Foods?
The grocery store chain cultivates an image of social responsibility, but its workers tell a different story.
WHOLE FOODS Market is a highly profitable corporation that far outperforms its competitors, while maintaining an aura of commitment to social justice and environmental responsibility. Its clientele is attracted not only to its brightly lit array of pristine fruits and vegetables, organically farmed meats and delectable (yet healthy) recipes, but also to the notion that the mere act of shopping at Whole Foods is helping to change the world.
In 2007, Whole Foods launched its "Whole Trade Guarantee," stating its aim as advancing the Fair Trade movement--encouraging higher wages and prices paid to farmers in poor countries while promoting environmentally safe practices. In addition, Whole Foods announced that 1 percent of proceeds will be turned over to its own Whole Planet Foundation, which supports micro-loans to entrepreneurs in developing countries.
Meanwhile, the company's Animal Compassion Foundation seeks to improve living conditions for farm animals, while stores periodically hold "5 Percent Days," when they donate 5 percent of sales for that day to an area non-profit or educational organization
Link to con.
The grocery store chain cultivates an image of social responsibility, but its workers tell a different story.
WHOLE FOODS Market is a highly profitable corporation that far outperforms its competitors, while maintaining an aura of commitment to social justice and environmental responsibility. Its clientele is attracted not only to its brightly lit array of pristine fruits and vegetables, organically farmed meats and delectable (yet healthy) recipes, but also to the notion that the mere act of shopping at Whole Foods is helping to change the world.
In 2007, Whole Foods launched its "Whole Trade Guarantee," stating its aim as advancing the Fair Trade movement--encouraging higher wages and prices paid to farmers in poor countries while promoting environmentally safe practices. In addition, Whole Foods announced that 1 percent of proceeds will be turned over to its own Whole Planet Foundation, which supports micro-loans to entrepreneurs in developing countries.
Meanwhile, the company's Animal Compassion Foundation seeks to improve living conditions for farm animals, while stores periodically hold "5 Percent Days," when they donate 5 percent of sales for that day to an area non-profit or educational organization
Link to con.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
What the fu**!
Boy Scouts depict US Iraq vets as terrorists in bizarre paramilitary training for teenage Scouts
http://www.americablog.com/2009/05/boy-scouts-depict-us-iraq-vets-as.html
Boy Scouts depict US Iraq vets as terrorists in bizarre paramilitary training for teenage Scouts
http://www.americablog.com/2009/05/boy-scouts-depict-us-iraq-vets-as.html
Thriving Norway Provides an Economics Lesson
When capitalism seemed on the verge of collapse last fall, Kristin Halvorsen, Norway’s Socialist finance minister and a longtime free market skeptic, did more than crow. As investors the world over sold in a panic, she bucked the tide, authorizing Norway’s $300 billion sovereign wealth fund to ramp up its stock buying program by $60 billion — or about 23 percent of Norway ’s economic output.
“The timing was not that bad,” Ms. Halvorsen said, smiling with satisfaction over the broad worldwide market rally that began in early March.
The global financial crisis has brought low the economies of just about every country on earth. But not Norway.
With a quirky contrariness as deeply etched in the national character as the fjords carved into its rugged landscape, Norway has thrived by going its own way. When others splurged, it saved. When others sought to limit the role of government, Norway strengthened its cradle-to-grave welfare state.
Link to con.
When capitalism seemed on the verge of collapse last fall, Kristin Halvorsen, Norway’s Socialist finance minister and a longtime free market skeptic, did more than crow. As investors the world over sold in a panic, she bucked the tide, authorizing Norway’s $300 billion sovereign wealth fund to ramp up its stock buying program by $60 billion — or about 23 percent of Norway ’s economic output.
“The timing was not that bad,” Ms. Halvorsen said, smiling with satisfaction over the broad worldwide market rally that began in early March.
The global financial crisis has brought low the economies of just about every country on earth. But not Norway.
With a quirky contrariness as deeply etched in the national character as the fjords carved into its rugged landscape, Norway has thrived by going its own way. When others splurged, it saved. When others sought to limit the role of government, Norway strengthened its cradle-to-grave welfare state.
Link to con.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
(First "they" buyout the word organic now local....!!)
When ‘Local’ Makes It Big
WHEN Jessica Prentice, a food writer in the San Francisco Bay area, invented the term “locavore,” she didn’t have Lay’s potato chips in mind. But never mind. On Tuesday, five potato farmers rang the bell of the New York Stock Exchange, kicking off a marketing campaign that is trying to position the nation’s best-selling brand of potato chips as local food.
Five different ads will highlight farmers who grow some of the two billion pounds of starchy chipping potatoes the Frito-Lay company uses each year. One is Steve Singleton, who tends 800 acres in Hastings, Fla. “We grow potatoes in Florida, and Lays makes potato chips in Florida,” he says in the ad. “It’s a pretty good fit.”
Mr. Singleton’s ad and the other four will be shown only in the farmer’s home state. A national spot featuring all five potato farmers begins next week.
Link to con.
When ‘Local’ Makes It Big
WHEN Jessica Prentice, a food writer in the San Francisco Bay area, invented the term “locavore,” she didn’t have Lay’s potato chips in mind. But never mind. On Tuesday, five potato farmers rang the bell of the New York Stock Exchange, kicking off a marketing campaign that is trying to position the nation’s best-selling brand of potato chips as local food.
Five different ads will highlight farmers who grow some of the two billion pounds of starchy chipping potatoes the Frito-Lay company uses each year. One is Steve Singleton, who tends 800 acres in Hastings, Fla. “We grow potatoes in Florida, and Lays makes potato chips in Florida,” he says in the ad. “It’s a pretty good fit.”
Mr. Singleton’s ad and the other four will be shown only in the farmer’s home state. A national spot featuring all five potato farmers begins next week.
Link to con.
Friday, May 08, 2009
Thursday, May 07, 2009
It's Time to Put the Great Bear Back on the Endangered Species List
The Fate of the Yellowstone Grizzly
By DOUG PEACOCK
The Yellowstone grizzly bear population is once again in serious trouble. During 2008, the bears suffered a double disaster: grizzlies died in record numbers and global warming dealt what could be a death blow to the bear’s most important food source.
Some 54 grizzly bears were known to have died in 2008, the highest mortality ever recorded; this number probably exceeds the extensive killings of forty years ago, when Yellowstone National Park closed down its garbage dumps and bears wandered into towns and campgrounds. The Yellowstone grizzly population sharply declined in the early 1970s and, consequently, the bear was listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 1975.
Related to the high mortality of 2008 was the massive die-off of whitebark pine trees, whose nuts are the bear’s principal fall food. Mountain pine beetles killed the trees; the warm winters of the past decade allowed the insects to move up the mountains into the higher whitebark pine forests.
Link to con.
The Fate of the Yellowstone Grizzly
By DOUG PEACOCK
The Yellowstone grizzly bear population is once again in serious trouble. During 2008, the bears suffered a double disaster: grizzlies died in record numbers and global warming dealt what could be a death blow to the bear’s most important food source.
Some 54 grizzly bears were known to have died in 2008, the highest mortality ever recorded; this number probably exceeds the extensive killings of forty years ago, when Yellowstone National Park closed down its garbage dumps and bears wandered into towns and campgrounds. The Yellowstone grizzly population sharply declined in the early 1970s and, consequently, the bear was listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 1975.
Related to the high mortality of 2008 was the massive die-off of whitebark pine trees, whose nuts are the bear’s principal fall food. Mountain pine beetles killed the trees; the warm winters of the past decade allowed the insects to move up the mountains into the higher whitebark pine forests.
Link to con.
Monday, May 04, 2009
Media sensationalism, corporate power and the swine flu outbreak
The handling of the swine flu outbreak underscores the difficulty, in the present political environment, of separating medical science from corporate interests and the political agendas of governments that are beholden to them. The matter has been both sensationalized and mystified, to the detriment of any rational response to the health threat posed by swine flu.
The mass media and public authorities, particularly in the United States, have now subjected the population to constant, breathless coverage of the swine flu epidemic for over a week. But for all the hours of television reportage and reams of press commentary, little light has been shed on the nature of the virus or the underlying conditions of poverty and decay of the social infrastructure that play a huge role in the potential human toll of such a flu outbreak, should it, in fact, develop into a global pandemic.
On April 30, the media reported that the World Health Organization (WHO) was expected to soon designate the swine flu as a full pandemic, at level six on the WHO's six-point scale. WHO director-general Margaret Chan declared, "It is really all of humanity that is under threat during a pandemic."
Shortly afterwards, however, the WHO said that it would continue to use the term "pandemic" even if "the new virus turns out to cause mainly mild symptoms."
Link to con.
The handling of the swine flu outbreak underscores the difficulty, in the present political environment, of separating medical science from corporate interests and the political agendas of governments that are beholden to them. The matter has been both sensationalized and mystified, to the detriment of any rational response to the health threat posed by swine flu.
The mass media and public authorities, particularly in the United States, have now subjected the population to constant, breathless coverage of the swine flu epidemic for over a week. But for all the hours of television reportage and reams of press commentary, little light has been shed on the nature of the virus or the underlying conditions of poverty and decay of the social infrastructure that play a huge role in the potential human toll of such a flu outbreak, should it, in fact, develop into a global pandemic.
On April 30, the media reported that the World Health Organization (WHO) was expected to soon designate the swine flu as a full pandemic, at level six on the WHO's six-point scale. WHO director-general Margaret Chan declared, "It is really all of humanity that is under threat during a pandemic."
Shortly afterwards, however, the WHO said that it would continue to use the term "pandemic" even if "the new virus turns out to cause mainly mild symptoms."
Link to con.
The return of civil war in Iraq?
A surge of violence in Iraq has exposed the conventional wisdom dominant among U.S. politicians and the mainstream media that the occupation of Iraq has succeeded in establishing stability.
More than 200 Iraqis died in a series of suicide bombings and other attacks in a 10-day stretch at the end of April. Also killed were some 80 Shia Muslims from Iran who were on a religious pilgrimage.
U.S. and Iraqi government officials blamed the violence on al-Qaeda-linked groups. But there are signs of a deeper conflict between the Shia-dominated government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and the Awakening Councils--Sunni militias made up of fighters from the earlier anti-occupation insurgency that the U.S. has been funding and supplying on the promise that they turn their guns on al-Qaeda.
Michael Schwartz is author of War Without End: The Iraq War in Context. He explained to Ashley Smith why the renewed violence is a sign of continuing fault lines in Iraqi politics--and could shake up the Obama administration's plan to shift U.S. forces to the war on Afghanistan.
Link to interview
A surge of violence in Iraq has exposed the conventional wisdom dominant among U.S. politicians and the mainstream media that the occupation of Iraq has succeeded in establishing stability.
More than 200 Iraqis died in a series of suicide bombings and other attacks in a 10-day stretch at the end of April. Also killed were some 80 Shia Muslims from Iran who were on a religious pilgrimage.
U.S. and Iraqi government officials blamed the violence on al-Qaeda-linked groups. But there are signs of a deeper conflict between the Shia-dominated government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and the Awakening Councils--Sunni militias made up of fighters from the earlier anti-occupation insurgency that the U.S. has been funding and supplying on the promise that they turn their guns on al-Qaeda.
Michael Schwartz is author of War Without End: The Iraq War in Context. He explained to Ashley Smith why the renewed violence is a sign of continuing fault lines in Iraqi politics--and could shake up the Obama administration's plan to shift U.S. forces to the war on Afghanistan.
Link to interview
Friday, May 01, 2009
The NAFTA flu
Robert Wallace, a professor and frequent writer on socio-ecological and health issues, including at his blog Farming Pathogens, explains how agribusiness' thirst for cheap labor and cheap land set the stage for the swine flu epidemic to spread so quickly.
CASES OF swine flu H1N1 are now reported in Honduras, Costa Rica, Brazil, Argentina, Austria, Thailand, Israel, etc. Can't keep up at this point.
H1N1 is making its way across the world by hierarchical diffusion. By the world's transportation network, it is bouncing down a hierarchy of cities defined by their size and economic power, and their interconnectedness to Mexico City, the international city closest to the initial outbreak. It's no coincidence that New York and San Diego were among the first cities hit. The virus is also engaged in contagious diffusion, spreading out within each new country hit.
For the most part, only a few cases have been reported in countries other than Mexico. But as influenza, unlike SARS, can transmit before symptoms show, there may be no way to stop H1N1 now. New York now reports hundreds infected.
What is clear is that the more countries affected, the more likely the virus will find chinks in the world's epidemiological armor. The new strain may develop the right epidemiological momentum once it reaches those countries whose public health infrastructures are underdeveloped or undermined by structural adjustment programs.
Link to con.
Robert Wallace, a professor and frequent writer on socio-ecological and health issues, including at his blog Farming Pathogens, explains how agribusiness' thirst for cheap labor and cheap land set the stage for the swine flu epidemic to spread so quickly.
CASES OF swine flu H1N1 are now reported in Honduras, Costa Rica, Brazil, Argentina, Austria, Thailand, Israel, etc. Can't keep up at this point.
H1N1 is making its way across the world by hierarchical diffusion. By the world's transportation network, it is bouncing down a hierarchy of cities defined by their size and economic power, and their interconnectedness to Mexico City, the international city closest to the initial outbreak. It's no coincidence that New York and San Diego were among the first cities hit. The virus is also engaged in contagious diffusion, spreading out within each new country hit.
For the most part, only a few cases have been reported in countries other than Mexico. But as influenza, unlike SARS, can transmit before symptoms show, there may be no way to stop H1N1 now. New York now reports hundreds infected.
What is clear is that the more countries affected, the more likely the virus will find chinks in the world's epidemiological armor. The new strain may develop the right epidemiological momentum once it reaches those countries whose public health infrastructures are underdeveloped or undermined by structural adjustment programs.
Link to con.
The story of May Day
Elizabeth Schulte tells the history of May Day, a socialist holiday founded to honor the Haymarket Martyrs and celebrate international workers' solidarity.
"THERE WILL be a time when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you strangle today." Those were the last words of August Spies, one of four innocent men executed for an explosion at Chicago's Haymarket Square in May 1886.
The real "crime" for which Spies and his comrades were condemned was being labor militants fighting for workers' rights and the eight-hour day. The national strike for the eight-hour day that they organized was called for May 1, 1886--it was the first May Day.
Their struggle, and the struggle of thousands alongside them, convinced a generation of labor militants and radicals to devote their lives for the fight for workers' rights and for socialism.
Still, although May Day was founded to honor a U.S. labor struggle, few workers in this country typically know its origin, because the history is largely untold. This has changed, however--since the mass immigrant workers' May Day marches that began in 2006.
Link to con.
Elizabeth Schulte tells the history of May Day, a socialist holiday founded to honor the Haymarket Martyrs and celebrate international workers' solidarity.
"THERE WILL be a time when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you strangle today." Those were the last words of August Spies, one of four innocent men executed for an explosion at Chicago's Haymarket Square in May 1886.
The real "crime" for which Spies and his comrades were condemned was being labor militants fighting for workers' rights and the eight-hour day. The national strike for the eight-hour day that they organized was called for May 1, 1886--it was the first May Day.
Their struggle, and the struggle of thousands alongside them, convinced a generation of labor militants and radicals to devote their lives for the fight for workers' rights and for socialism.
Still, although May Day was founded to honor a U.S. labor struggle, few workers in this country typically know its origin, because the history is largely untold. This has changed, however--since the mass immigrant workers' May Day marches that began in 2006.
Link to con.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Drugs in Portugal: Did Decriminalization Work?
By Maia Szalavitz
Pop quiz: Which European country has the most liberal drug laws? (Hint: It's not the Netherlands.)
Although its capital is notorious among stoners and college kids for marijuana haze–filled "coffee shops," Holland has never actually legalized cannabis — the Dutch simply don't enforce their laws against the shops. The correct answer is Portugal, which in 2001 became the first European country to officially abolish all criminal penalties for personal possession of drugs, including marijuana, cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine.
At the recommendation of a national commission charged with addressing Portugal's drug problem, jail time was replaced with the offer of therapy. The argument was that the fear of prison drives addicts underground and that incarceration is more expensive than treatment — so why not give drug addicts health services instead? Under Portugal's new regime, people found guilty of possessing small amounts of drugs are sent to a panel consisting of a psychologist, social worker and legal adviser for appropriate treatment (which may be refused without criminal punishment), instead of jail.
Link to con.
By Maia Szalavitz
Pop quiz: Which European country has the most liberal drug laws? (Hint: It's not the Netherlands.)
Although its capital is notorious among stoners and college kids for marijuana haze–filled "coffee shops," Holland has never actually legalized cannabis — the Dutch simply don't enforce their laws against the shops. The correct answer is Portugal, which in 2001 became the first European country to officially abolish all criminal penalties for personal possession of drugs, including marijuana, cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine.
At the recommendation of a national commission charged with addressing Portugal's drug problem, jail time was replaced with the offer of therapy. The argument was that the fear of prison drives addicts underground and that incarceration is more expensive than treatment — so why not give drug addicts health services instead? Under Portugal's new regime, people found guilty of possessing small amounts of drugs are sent to a panel consisting of a psychologist, social worker and legal adviser for appropriate treatment (which may be refused without criminal punishment), instead of jail.
Link to con.
The Banality of Bush White House Evil
WE don’t like our evil to be banal. Ten years after Columbine, it only now may be sinking in that the psychopathic killers were not jock-hating dorks from a “Trench Coat Mafia,” or, as ABC News maintained at the time, “part of a dark, underground national phenomenon known as the Gothic movement.” In the new best seller “Columbine,” the journalist Dave Cullen reaffirms that Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris were instead ordinary American teenagers who worked at the local pizza joint, loved their parents and were popular among their classmates.
On Tuesday, it will be five years since Americans first confronted the photographs from Abu Ghraib on “60 Minutes II.” Here, too, we want to cling to myths that quarantine the evil. If our country committed torture, surely it did so to prevent Armageddon, in a patriotic ticking-time-bomb scenario out of “24.” If anyone deserves blame, it was only those identified by President Bush as “a few American troops who dishonored our country and disregarded our values”: promiscuous, sinister-looking lowlifes like Lynddie England, Charles Graner and the other grunts who were held accountable while the top command got a pass.
Link to con.
WE don’t like our evil to be banal. Ten years after Columbine, it only now may be sinking in that the psychopathic killers were not jock-hating dorks from a “Trench Coat Mafia,” or, as ABC News maintained at the time, “part of a dark, underground national phenomenon known as the Gothic movement.” In the new best seller “Columbine,” the journalist Dave Cullen reaffirms that Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris were instead ordinary American teenagers who worked at the local pizza joint, loved their parents and were popular among their classmates.
On Tuesday, it will be five years since Americans first confronted the photographs from Abu Ghraib on “60 Minutes II.” Here, too, we want to cling to myths that quarantine the evil. If our country committed torture, surely it did so to prevent Armageddon, in a patriotic ticking-time-bomb scenario out of “24.” If anyone deserves blame, it was only those identified by President Bush as “a few American troops who dishonored our country and disregarded our values”: promiscuous, sinister-looking lowlifes like Lynddie England, Charles Graner and the other grunts who were held accountable while the top command got a pass.
Link to con.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Monday, April 20, 2009
The Aura of Arugulance
By MAUREEN DOWD
The first thing I wanted to do in the Bay Area was go out to Skywalker Ranch and ask George Lucas about a disturbing conversation we’d had at an Obama inaugural party in Washington. Lucas, the creator of “Star Wars,” had told me that I had gotten Dick Cheney completely wrong, that Cheney was no Darth Vader. I felt awful. Had I been too hard on Vice? Lucas explained politely as I listened contritely. Anakin Skywalker is a promising young man who is turned to the dark side by an older politician and becomes Darth Vader. “George Bush is Darth Vader,” he said. “Cheney is the emperor.”
I was relieved. In “Star Wars” terms, Dick Cheney was more evil than Darth Vader. I hadn’t been hard enough on Vice! Lucas was on his way to Europe and didn’t have time to elaborate in person. But he sent me this message confirming our conversation: “You know, Darth Vader is really a kid from the desert planet near Crawford, and the true evil of the universe is the emperor who pulls all the strings.”
Link to con.
By MAUREEN DOWD
The first thing I wanted to do in the Bay Area was go out to Skywalker Ranch and ask George Lucas about a disturbing conversation we’d had at an Obama inaugural party in Washington. Lucas, the creator of “Star Wars,” had told me that I had gotten Dick Cheney completely wrong, that Cheney was no Darth Vader. I felt awful. Had I been too hard on Vice? Lucas explained politely as I listened contritely. Anakin Skywalker is a promising young man who is turned to the dark side by an older politician and becomes Darth Vader. “George Bush is Darth Vader,” he said. “Cheney is the emperor.”
I was relieved. In “Star Wars” terms, Dick Cheney was more evil than Darth Vader. I hadn’t been hard enough on Vice! Lucas was on his way to Europe and didn’t have time to elaborate in person. But he sent me this message confirming our conversation: “You know, Darth Vader is really a kid from the desert planet near Crawford, and the true evil of the universe is the emperor who pulls all the strings.”
Link to con.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Lies they tell about marijuana
Helen Redmond explains the terrible consequences of the "war on drugs" on the life-improving potential of medical marijuana.
IN PRESIDENT Obama's first virtual town-hall meeting, questions about legalizing marijuana ranked at the top of the "green jobs," "financial stability" and "budget" sections, and came in a close second in the health care section. Obama took up the question, saying voters wanted to know "whether legalizing marijuana would improve the economy and job creation"--then joking, "I don't know what this says about the online audience." After the laughter subsided, Obama's answer was "no" to legalizing marijuana.
But there's nothing to laugh about. A person is arrested every 38 seconds in the U.S. for violating marijuana laws. In 2007, police arrested an estimated 872,720 people, the highest annual total ever recorded, according to statistics compiled by the FBI. Over the last 10 years, close to 15 million people have been arrested; 89 percent of them were charged with possession only. A marijuana conviction has given millions of Americans criminal records, and deprived them of jobs, housing and financial aid to attend school.
Link to con.
Helen Redmond explains the terrible consequences of the "war on drugs" on the life-improving potential of medical marijuana.
IN PRESIDENT Obama's first virtual town-hall meeting, questions about legalizing marijuana ranked at the top of the "green jobs," "financial stability" and "budget" sections, and came in a close second in the health care section. Obama took up the question, saying voters wanted to know "whether legalizing marijuana would improve the economy and job creation"--then joking, "I don't know what this says about the online audience." After the laughter subsided, Obama's answer was "no" to legalizing marijuana.
But there's nothing to laugh about. A person is arrested every 38 seconds in the U.S. for violating marijuana laws. In 2007, police arrested an estimated 872,720 people, the highest annual total ever recorded, according to statistics compiled by the FBI. Over the last 10 years, close to 15 million people have been arrested; 89 percent of them were charged with possession only. A marijuana conviction has given millions of Americans criminal records, and deprived them of jobs, housing and financial aid to attend school.
Link to con.
From Iraq to Appalachia
Ronald Teska explains why two places half a world apart share similar experiences--because both are occupied territories of American energy companies.
WHAT DO Iraq and Appalachia have in common? More than you may think. Both are occupied by U.S. energy corporations, resulting in colonization. It's oil in one case and coal in the other, but make no mistake about it: The modus operandi and consequences are strikingly similar.
Soldiers and coal miners have a shared camaraderie as both are enforcers of the will of the oil and coal corporations for the purpose of increasing bottom-line profits at any cost. This is depicted on a billboard in Beckley, W. Va., showing soldiers and coal miners arm in arm. The major difference being that coal miners do not have to kick down the doors of Appalachians to get the coal, as the coal companies already own most all of it.
In Iraq, private contractors (working for Halliburton and Blackwater, for example) are killed and not counted as U.S. casualties. In Appalachia, independent contractors killed are also not tallied as coal company deaths.
Link to con.
Ronald Teska explains why two places half a world apart share similar experiences--because both are occupied territories of American energy companies.
WHAT DO Iraq and Appalachia have in common? More than you may think. Both are occupied by U.S. energy corporations, resulting in colonization. It's oil in one case and coal in the other, but make no mistake about it: The modus operandi and consequences are strikingly similar.
Soldiers and coal miners have a shared camaraderie as both are enforcers of the will of the oil and coal corporations for the purpose of increasing bottom-line profits at any cost. This is depicted on a billboard in Beckley, W. Va., showing soldiers and coal miners arm in arm. The major difference being that coal miners do not have to kick down the doors of Appalachians to get the coal, as the coal companies already own most all of it.
In Iraq, private contractors (working for Halliburton and Blackwater, for example) are killed and not counted as U.S. casualties. In Appalachia, independent contractors killed are also not tallied as coal company deaths.
Link to con.
Behind the right's insani-tea
Elizabeth Schulte reports on the right-wing Tax Day protests--and the nasty politics that lie beneath the surface.
IN WHAT they called the "spirit of the American revolution," conservatives organized protests in cities and towns across the country on April 15--Tax Day--dubbing them "tea parties." "Tea" stood for "Taxed Enough Already," according to organizers, who took aim at the Obama administration for spreading "socialism" and "big government," and "wasting" taxpayer money on social spending in the economic stimulus package.
"They want us to hold our noses and take a little bit of socialism, like a child taking a bitter pill," Washington state Sen. Janéa Holmquist told a crowd in Olympia. "You can get pregnant with a little socialism, and sooner or later, you're going to give birth to a full-blown Marxist." The protesters brought teabags, to symbolize the American colonists who dumped tea into Boston Harbor in 1773 to protest unjust taxation imposed by the British king. The repeated use of the word "teabag" (as in "We're going to teabag the White House") made the arch-conservatives shilling for the protests--including Dick Armey, oh my!--the target of justified derision, and plenty of semi-naughty jokes.
Link to con.
Elizabeth Schulte reports on the right-wing Tax Day protests--and the nasty politics that lie beneath the surface.
IN WHAT they called the "spirit of the American revolution," conservatives organized protests in cities and towns across the country on April 15--Tax Day--dubbing them "tea parties." "Tea" stood for "Taxed Enough Already," according to organizers, who took aim at the Obama administration for spreading "socialism" and "big government," and "wasting" taxpayer money on social spending in the economic stimulus package.
"They want us to hold our noses and take a little bit of socialism, like a child taking a bitter pill," Washington state Sen. Janéa Holmquist told a crowd in Olympia. "You can get pregnant with a little socialism, and sooner or later, you're going to give birth to a full-blown Marxist." The protesters brought teabags, to symbolize the American colonists who dumped tea into Boston Harbor in 1773 to protest unjust taxation imposed by the British king. The repeated use of the word "teabag" (as in "We're going to teabag the White House") made the arch-conservatives shilling for the protests--including Dick Armey, oh my!--the target of justified derision, and plenty of semi-naughty jokes.
Link to con.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Monday, April 13, 2009
Tea Parties Forever
By PAUL KRUGMAN
This is a column about Republicans — and I’m not sure I should even be writing it. Today’s G.O.P. is, after all, very much a minority party. It retains some limited ability to obstruct the Democrats, but has no ability to make or even significantly shape policy.
Beyond that, Republicans have become embarrassing to watch. And it doesn’t feel right to make fun of crazy people. Better, perhaps, to focus on the real policy debates, which are all among Democrats.
But here’s the thing: the G.O.P. looked as crazy 10 or 15 years ago as it does now. That didn’t stop Republicans from taking control of both Congress and the White House. And they could return to power if the Democrats stumble. So it behooves us to look closely at the state of what is, after all, one of our nation’s two great political parties.
Link to con.
By PAUL KRUGMAN
This is a column about Republicans — and I’m not sure I should even be writing it. Today’s G.O.P. is, after all, very much a minority party. It retains some limited ability to obstruct the Democrats, but has no ability to make or even significantly shape policy.
Beyond that, Republicans have become embarrassing to watch. And it doesn’t feel right to make fun of crazy people. Better, perhaps, to focus on the real policy debates, which are all among Democrats.
But here’s the thing: the G.O.P. looked as crazy 10 or 15 years ago as it does now. That didn’t stop Republicans from taking control of both Congress and the White House. And they could return to power if the Democrats stumble. So it behooves us to look closely at the state of what is, after all, one of our nation’s two great political parties.
Link to con.
Market illusions vs. the reality of capitalist crisis
A month-long upturn in the stock market has sparked a round of optimistic media commentaries and statements by Obama administration officials suggesting that the US economy is on the road to recovery. But any serious examination of the state of both the financial system and the broader economy suggests that such celebrations are unwarranted.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average has risen some 1,500 points since hitting an 11-year low of 6,547 on March 9. The market closed April 9 at 8,083. Far from marking a definitive end to the financial crisis, the recent rise is the third such surge since the crash of September-October 2008 that followed the failure of Lehman Brothers and the federal bailout of American International Group (AIG).
There was a similar 1,500-point run-up during the week that culminated in the election of Barack Obama as US president last November 4, after which the Dow lost 2,000 points over the next three weeks. The average staged another 1,500-point gain in December, triggered by Obama’s selection of Wall Street favorite Timothy Geithner as treasury secretary, before plunging 2,500 points during the first two months of 2009.
Link to con.
A month-long upturn in the stock market has sparked a round of optimistic media commentaries and statements by Obama administration officials suggesting that the US economy is on the road to recovery. But any serious examination of the state of both the financial system and the broader economy suggests that such celebrations are unwarranted.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average has risen some 1,500 points since hitting an 11-year low of 6,547 on March 9. The market closed April 9 at 8,083. Far from marking a definitive end to the financial crisis, the recent rise is the third such surge since the crash of September-October 2008 that followed the failure of Lehman Brothers and the federal bailout of American International Group (AIG).
There was a similar 1,500-point run-up during the week that culminated in the election of Barack Obama as US president last November 4, after which the Dow lost 2,000 points over the next three weeks. The average staged another 1,500-point gain in December, triggered by Obama’s selection of Wall Street favorite Timothy Geithner as treasury secretary, before plunging 2,500 points during the first two months of 2009.
Link to con.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Friday, April 10, 2009
The Debate Over Online News: It's the Consumer, Stupid
Arianna Huffington
The discussion about the aggregation and distribution of content on the web heated up this week when the Associated Press announced plans to "launch an industry initiative" designed "to protect news content" online.
The announcement -- characterized by the New York Times' Saul Hansell as a "war on search engines and aggregators" -- drew considerable fire, including blasts from Google, BusinessWeek, the Online Journalism Review, TechCrunch, and this classic broadside from Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land.
The conversation continued last night when Charlie Rose invited me to discuss the issue with Tom Curley, AP's president and CEO. The video of the segment is below.
As you'll see, for me the key question is whether those of us working in the media (old and new) embrace and adapt to the radical changes brought about by the Internet or pretend that we can somehow hop into a journalistic Way Back Machine and return to a past that no longer exists and can't be resurrected.
Link to con.
Arianna Huffington
The discussion about the aggregation and distribution of content on the web heated up this week when the Associated Press announced plans to "launch an industry initiative" designed "to protect news content" online.
The announcement -- characterized by the New York Times' Saul Hansell as a "war on search engines and aggregators" -- drew considerable fire, including blasts from Google, BusinessWeek, the Online Journalism Review, TechCrunch, and this classic broadside from Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land.
The conversation continued last night when Charlie Rose invited me to discuss the issue with Tom Curley, AP's president and CEO. The video of the segment is below.
As you'll see, for me the key question is whether those of us working in the media (old and new) embrace and adapt to the radical changes brought about by the Internet or pretend that we can somehow hop into a journalistic Way Back Machine and return to a past that no longer exists and can't be resurrected.
Link to con.
Thursday, April 09, 2009
The UAW’s silence
9 April 2009
It has been well over a week since US President Barack Obama rejected the restructuring plans of General Motors and Chrysler and threatened to throw the car companies into bankruptcy if they did not drastically downsize and impose even more “painful concessions” on auto workers.
Top executives at the two companies immediately pledged to accelerate plans to close more factories, lay off tens of thousands and impose deeper wage and benefit cuts on workers and retirees. If this cannot be achieved through negotiations, GM interim CEO Fritz Henderson said, it would be done through the bankruptcy courts.
In the face of this, the organization that claims to represent the 90,000 unionized workers and nearly 1 million retirees at GM and Chrysler has said nothing. United Auto Workers President Ronald Gettelfinger has not uttered a word, nor have any public statements appeared on the union’s web site. Asked why, a UAW spokeswoman told the WSWS, “the union has chosen not to issue a statement” and would not be “pressured” to do so.
Link to con.
9 April 2009
It has been well over a week since US President Barack Obama rejected the restructuring plans of General Motors and Chrysler and threatened to throw the car companies into bankruptcy if they did not drastically downsize and impose even more “painful concessions” on auto workers.
Top executives at the two companies immediately pledged to accelerate plans to close more factories, lay off tens of thousands and impose deeper wage and benefit cuts on workers and retirees. If this cannot be achieved through negotiations, GM interim CEO Fritz Henderson said, it would be done through the bankruptcy courts.
In the face of this, the organization that claims to represent the 90,000 unionized workers and nearly 1 million retirees at GM and Chrysler has said nothing. United Auto Workers President Ronald Gettelfinger has not uttered a word, nor have any public statements appeared on the union’s web site. Asked why, a UAW spokeswoman told the WSWS, “the union has chosen not to issue a statement” and would not be “pressured” to do so.
Link to con.
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
Resist or Become Serfs
By Chris Hedges
America is devolving into a third-world nation. And if we do not immediately halt our elite’s rapacious looting of the public treasury we will be left with trillions in debts, which can never be repaid, and widespread human misery which we will be helpless to ameliorate. Our anemic democracy will be replaced with a robust national police state. The elite will withdraw into heavily guarded gated communities where they will have access to security, goods and services that cannot be afforded by the rest of us. Tens of millions of people, brutally controlled, will live in perpetual poverty. This is the inevitable result of unchecked corporate capitalism. The stimulus and bailout plans are not about saving us. They are about saving them. We can resist, which means street protests, disruptions of the system and demonstrations, or become serfs.
We have been in a steady economic decline for decades. The Canadian political philosopher John Ralston Saul detailed this decline in his 1992 book “Voltaire’s Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West.” David Cay Johnston exposed the mirage and rot of American capitalism in “Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You With the Bill),” and David C. Korten, in “When Corporations Rule the World” and “Agenda for a New Economy,” laid out corporate malfeasance and abuse. But our universities and mass media, entranced by power and naively believing that global capitalism was an unstoppable force of nature, rarely asked the right questions or gave a prominent voice to those who did. Our elites hid their incompetence and loss of control behind an arrogant facade of specialized jargon and obscure economic theories.
Link to con.
By Chris Hedges
America is devolving into a third-world nation. And if we do not immediately halt our elite’s rapacious looting of the public treasury we will be left with trillions in debts, which can never be repaid, and widespread human misery which we will be helpless to ameliorate. Our anemic democracy will be replaced with a robust national police state. The elite will withdraw into heavily guarded gated communities where they will have access to security, goods and services that cannot be afforded by the rest of us. Tens of millions of people, brutally controlled, will live in perpetual poverty. This is the inevitable result of unchecked corporate capitalism. The stimulus and bailout plans are not about saving us. They are about saving them. We can resist, which means street protests, disruptions of the system and demonstrations, or become serfs.
We have been in a steady economic decline for decades. The Canadian political philosopher John Ralston Saul detailed this decline in his 1992 book “Voltaire’s Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West.” David Cay Johnston exposed the mirage and rot of American capitalism in “Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You With the Bill),” and David C. Korten, in “When Corporations Rule the World” and “Agenda for a New Economy,” laid out corporate malfeasance and abuse. But our universities and mass media, entranced by power and naively believing that global capitalism was an unstoppable force of nature, rarely asked the right questions or gave a prominent voice to those who did. Our elites hid their incompetence and loss of control behind an arrogant facade of specialized jargon and obscure economic theories.
Link to con.
Monday, April 06, 2009
Will the Debtors Fight Back?
The IMF Rules the World
By MICHAEL HUDSON
Not much substantive news was expected to come out of the G-20 meetings that ended on April 2 in London – certainly no good news was even suggested. Europe, China and the United States had too deeply distinct interests. American diplomats wanted to lock foreign countries into further dependency on paper dollars. The rest of the world sought a way to avoid giving up real output and ownership of their resources and enterprises for yet more hot-potato dollars. In such cases one expects a parade of smiling faces and statements of mutual respect for each others’ position – so much respect that they have agreed to set up a “study group” or two to kick the diplomatic ball down the road.
The least irrelevant news was not good at all: The attendees agreed to quadruple IMF funding to $1 trillion. Anything that bolsters IMF authority cannot be good for countries forced to submit to its austerity plans. They are designed to squeeze out more money to pay the world’s most predatory creditors. So in practice this G-20 agreement means that the world’s leading governments are responding to today’s financial crisis with “planned shrinkage” for debtors – a 10 per cent cut in wage payments in hapless Latvia, Hungary put on rations, and permanent debt peonage for Iceland for starters. This is quite a contrast with the United States, which is responding to the downturn with a giant Keynesian deficit spending program, despite its glaringly unpayable $4 trillion debt to foreign central banks.
Link to con.
The IMF Rules the World
By MICHAEL HUDSON
Not much substantive news was expected to come out of the G-20 meetings that ended on April 2 in London – certainly no good news was even suggested. Europe, China and the United States had too deeply distinct interests. American diplomats wanted to lock foreign countries into further dependency on paper dollars. The rest of the world sought a way to avoid giving up real output and ownership of their resources and enterprises for yet more hot-potato dollars. In such cases one expects a parade of smiling faces and statements of mutual respect for each others’ position – so much respect that they have agreed to set up a “study group” or two to kick the diplomatic ball down the road.
The least irrelevant news was not good at all: The attendees agreed to quadruple IMF funding to $1 trillion. Anything that bolsters IMF authority cannot be good for countries forced to submit to its austerity plans. They are designed to squeeze out more money to pay the world’s most predatory creditors. So in practice this G-20 agreement means that the world’s leading governments are responding to today’s financial crisis with “planned shrinkage” for debtors – a 10 per cent cut in wage payments in hapless Latvia, Hungary put on rations, and permanent debt peonage for Iceland for starters. This is quite a contrast with the United States, which is responding to the downturn with a giant Keynesian deficit spending program, despite its glaringly unpayable $4 trillion debt to foreign central banks.
Link to con.
Dear New York Times -
By Anonymous
I am canceling my print subscription in Austin, Texas. I am saddened in part because my carrier has been outstanding in consistently delivering excellent service. The Times editors on the other hand, not so much.
This is a time of unprecedented corruption and fraud causing worldwide ruin. Along with our misadventures in Iraq, it is the story of a generation. But, there on the front page of the Sunday print edition - not a single story about our gilded class of robber barons on Wall Street. Just as the Times served assisted the Bush administration in its Iraq lies and fabrications, the Times finds itself again aiding and abetting the criminals who pillaged our treasury. So where is the story? In a snaky puff piece about executive salaries in the "business" section? And instead, what is on the front page? A business story about malls and water slides- what the???? Over and over corporate white collar crime gets treated as business as usual in the “Business“ section.
You recently devoted a major portion of your op-ed section to the insufferable ruminations of an unapologetic and defiant Wall Street banker whose company is at the center of our current disaster. Crocodile tears are still streaming. In many respects this piece serves to illustrate exactly why the Times will ultimately fail. It is not a viable entity delivering news and information that people need to make informed choices and decisions in their life. As you have reduced the physical size of your print format , you have also devoted less space to reader comments. It’s as if we don’t matter.
Published comments and opinions are too often from industry or political insiders defending or agreeing with an editorial position. The Times has doubled down on elitist contributors - crafting an artificial ecosystem for nurturing propaganda. Meanwhile, Brooks and Dowd offer little of substance in your shrinking universe of opinion. Dowd almost redeemed herself in a scathing piece about Judith Miller. It showed her as a woman with enviable intellectual and writing skills. Since then, however, the contributions pale in the face of excellent, informative writing found in hundreds of blogs. At best Dowd could find some corner in the weekly review section and her op-ed space should be turned over to the best of the aforementioned blog contributors.
Your "Mea Culpa" over the Iraq reporting gave me hope that the Times would start taking on the establishment. Like an unwitting investor in a Wall Street ponzi scheme - I have been fooled by the Times ownership, expecting big returns for my $50 a month investment. .......I just can't continue to support an entity that is operating in a passive aggressive way against the values we teach our children - truth, integrity and justice. For raw reporting and core journalistic integrity, the passion for excellence just isn't at the top of the Times. I simply can't continue to support your editorial enterprise.
Signed...
By Anonymous
I am canceling my print subscription in Austin, Texas. I am saddened in part because my carrier has been outstanding in consistently delivering excellent service. The Times editors on the other hand, not so much.
This is a time of unprecedented corruption and fraud causing worldwide ruin. Along with our misadventures in Iraq, it is the story of a generation. But, there on the front page of the Sunday print edition - not a single story about our gilded class of robber barons on Wall Street. Just as the Times served assisted the Bush administration in its Iraq lies and fabrications, the Times finds itself again aiding and abetting the criminals who pillaged our treasury. So where is the story? In a snaky puff piece about executive salaries in the "business" section? And instead, what is on the front page? A business story about malls and water slides- what the???? Over and over corporate white collar crime gets treated as business as usual in the “Business“ section.
You recently devoted a major portion of your op-ed section to the insufferable ruminations of an unapologetic and defiant Wall Street banker whose company is at the center of our current disaster. Crocodile tears are still streaming. In many respects this piece serves to illustrate exactly why the Times will ultimately fail. It is not a viable entity delivering news and information that people need to make informed choices and decisions in their life. As you have reduced the physical size of your print format , you have also devoted less space to reader comments. It’s as if we don’t matter.
Published comments and opinions are too often from industry or political insiders defending or agreeing with an editorial position. The Times has doubled down on elitist contributors - crafting an artificial ecosystem for nurturing propaganda. Meanwhile, Brooks and Dowd offer little of substance in your shrinking universe of opinion. Dowd almost redeemed herself in a scathing piece about Judith Miller. It showed her as a woman with enviable intellectual and writing skills. Since then, however, the contributions pale in the face of excellent, informative writing found in hundreds of blogs. At best Dowd could find some corner in the weekly review section and her op-ed space should be turned over to the best of the aforementioned blog contributors.
Your "Mea Culpa" over the Iraq reporting gave me hope that the Times would start taking on the establishment. Like an unwitting investor in a Wall Street ponzi scheme - I have been fooled by the Times ownership, expecting big returns for my $50 a month investment. .......I just can't continue to support an entity that is operating in a passive aggressive way against the values we teach our children - truth, integrity and justice. For raw reporting and core journalistic integrity, the passion for excellence just isn't at the top of the Times. I simply can't continue to support your editorial enterprise.
Signed...
Sunday, April 05, 2009
Saturday, April 04, 2009
Toward a less efficient and more robust food system
by Tom Philpott
I’ve been asked to talk about how to create a robust, diversified food system here in the High Country.
Now the High Country is a largely rural area, constructed around a relatively small town called Boone. But I’m going to start by doing something odd. I’m going to quote someone who’s probably the most famous urban theorist of our time: Jane Jacobs, who died in 2006. Don’t worry, I will circle back to what an urban theorist’s work has to do with our situation here in rural north Carolina.
In her great book, The Economy of Cities, Jacobs praised what she called the “valuable inefficiencies and impracticalities of cities.” To illustrate her point, she invited readers to consider two examples from Victorian England: Manchester and Birmingham—or as she put it, “Efficient Manchester,” and “Inefficient Birmingham.”
A 19th century marvel and widely hailed as the “city of the future,” Manchester represented a break from the past. What Manchester did that was so new and different was simple—it specialized. The city threw its lot with one industry—textiles. Jacobs refers to the “stunning efficiency of its textile mills.” By the 1840s, the textile industry dominated the city entirely, Jacob tells us. The industry was brutally competitive; less efficient producers got swallowed up by larger, more streamlined players.
Link to con.
by Tom Philpott
I’ve been asked to talk about how to create a robust, diversified food system here in the High Country.
Now the High Country is a largely rural area, constructed around a relatively small town called Boone. But I’m going to start by doing something odd. I’m going to quote someone who’s probably the most famous urban theorist of our time: Jane Jacobs, who died in 2006. Don’t worry, I will circle back to what an urban theorist’s work has to do with our situation here in rural north Carolina.
In her great book, The Economy of Cities, Jacobs praised what she called the “valuable inefficiencies and impracticalities of cities.” To illustrate her point, she invited readers to consider two examples from Victorian England: Manchester and Birmingham—or as she put it, “Efficient Manchester,” and “Inefficient Birmingham.”
A 19th century marvel and widely hailed as the “city of the future,” Manchester represented a break from the past. What Manchester did that was so new and different was simple—it specialized. The city threw its lot with one industry—textiles. Jacobs refers to the “stunning efficiency of its textile mills.” By the 1840s, the textile industry dominated the city entirely, Jacob tells us. The industry was brutally competitive; less efficient producers got swallowed up by larger, more streamlined players.
Link to con.
Friday, April 03, 2009
This Is the Truth on Drugs ... Any Questions?
By David Sirota
Finally, a little honesty.
Finally, after America has frittered away billions of taxpayer dollars arming Latin American death squads, airdropping toxic herbicide on equatorial farmland and incarcerating more of its own citizens on nonviolent drug charges than any other industrialized nation, two political leaders last week tried to begin taming the most wildly out-of-control beast in the government zoo: federal narcotics policy.
It started with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stating an embarrassingly obvious truth that politicians almost never discuss. In a speech about rising violence in Mexico, she said, “Our insatiable demand for illegal drugs fuels the drug trade,” and then added that “we have co-responsibility” for the cartel-driven carnage plaguing our southern border.
She’s right, of course. For all the Rambo-ish talk about waging a “war on drugs” that interdicts the supply of narcotics, we have not diminished demand—specifically, the demand for marijuana that cartels base their business on.
Link to con.
By David Sirota
Finally, a little honesty.
Finally, after America has frittered away billions of taxpayer dollars arming Latin American death squads, airdropping toxic herbicide on equatorial farmland and incarcerating more of its own citizens on nonviolent drug charges than any other industrialized nation, two political leaders last week tried to begin taming the most wildly out-of-control beast in the government zoo: federal narcotics policy.
It started with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stating an embarrassingly obvious truth that politicians almost never discuss. In a speech about rising violence in Mexico, she said, “Our insatiable demand for illegal drugs fuels the drug trade,” and then added that “we have co-responsibility” for the cartel-driven carnage plaguing our southern border.
She’s right, of course. For all the Rambo-ish talk about waging a “war on drugs” that interdicts the supply of narcotics, we have not diminished demand—specifically, the demand for marijuana that cartels base their business on.
Link to con.
Reps Paul, Frank introduce bill to legalize industrial hemp
Stephen C. Webster
One of the earliest plants domesticated by man may be on the verge of a resurgence in popular production across the United States.
Industrial hemp, a non-drug variety of the cannabis plan, used for centuries for its versatile fibers, is the subject of a new bill filed by Congressmen Ron Paul (R-TX) and Barney Frank (D-MA). They and eight cosponsors, both Republican and Democrat, hope to legalize the plant so American farmers can begin supplying fibers for a wide array of products, with the overreaching goal of opening a new sector in American agriculture.
To view the bill's status, full text and list of sponsors, or to follow new developments, visit Govtrack.us.
"It is unfortunate that the federal government has stood in the way of American farmers, including many who are struggling to make ends meet, from competing in the global industrial hemp market," said Representative Ron Paul during his introduction of the bill and in a media advisory issued by advocacy group VoteHemp.
Link to con.
Stephen C. Webster
One of the earliest plants domesticated by man may be on the verge of a resurgence in popular production across the United States.
Industrial hemp, a non-drug variety of the cannabis plan, used for centuries for its versatile fibers, is the subject of a new bill filed by Congressmen Ron Paul (R-TX) and Barney Frank (D-MA). They and eight cosponsors, both Republican and Democrat, hope to legalize the plant so American farmers can begin supplying fibers for a wide array of products, with the overreaching goal of opening a new sector in American agriculture.
To view the bill's status, full text and list of sponsors, or to follow new developments, visit Govtrack.us.
"It is unfortunate that the federal government has stood in the way of American farmers, including many who are struggling to make ends meet, from competing in the global industrial hemp market," said Representative Ron Paul during his introduction of the bill and in a media advisory issued by advocacy group VoteHemp.
Link to con.
Thursday, April 02, 2009
Marijuana helps in battle against cancer: study
The main chemical in marijuana appears to aid in the destruction of brain cancer cells, offering hope for future anti-cancer therapies, researchers in Spain wrote in a study released Thursday.
The authors from the Complutense University in Madrid, working with scientists from other universities, found that the active component of marijuana, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), causes cancer cells to undergo a process called autophagy -- the breakdown that occurs when the cell essentially self-digests.
The research, which appears in the April edition of US-published Journal of Clinical Investigation, demonstrates that THC and related "cannabinoids" appear to be "a new family of potential antitumoral agent."
Link to con.
The main chemical in marijuana appears to aid in the destruction of brain cancer cells, offering hope for future anti-cancer therapies, researchers in Spain wrote in a study released Thursday.
The authors from the Complutense University in Madrid, working with scientists from other universities, found that the active component of marijuana, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), causes cancer cells to undergo a process called autophagy -- the breakdown that occurs when the cell essentially self-digests.
The research, which appears in the April edition of US-published Journal of Clinical Investigation, demonstrates that THC and related "cannabinoids" appear to be "a new family of potential antitumoral agent."
Link to con.
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
State of the Birds
Ken Salazar, the secretary of the interior, released a new, nationwide survey last month that assesses the state of bird populations in America. The news is grievous. Over all, a third of the bird species in this country are endangered, threatened or in serious decline.
There is special concern for grassland birds — whose habitat has been vanishing steadily for decades — for birds in Hawaii, where a variety of species face a variety of threats, and for coastal species. The good news is that wherever nature is allowed to recover, especially in the case of wetland birds, it shows its usual resilience.
But there is no glossing over these staggering losses, and there is no dismissing what they mean. There is nothing accidental or inevitable about the vanishing of these birds. However unintentional, it is the direct result of human activity — of development, of global warming, of air and water pollution and of our failure to set aside the habitat these birds need to flourish. Every threatened species reveals some aspect of our lives that could be adjusted.
link to con.
Ken Salazar, the secretary of the interior, released a new, nationwide survey last month that assesses the state of bird populations in America. The news is grievous. Over all, a third of the bird species in this country are endangered, threatened or in serious decline.
There is special concern for grassland birds — whose habitat has been vanishing steadily for decades — for birds in Hawaii, where a variety of species face a variety of threats, and for coastal species. The good news is that wherever nature is allowed to recover, especially in the case of wetland birds, it shows its usual resilience.
But there is no glossing over these staggering losses, and there is no dismissing what they mean. There is nothing accidental or inevitable about the vanishing of these birds. However unintentional, it is the direct result of human activity — of development, of global warming, of air and water pollution and of our failure to set aside the habitat these birds need to flourish. Every threatened species reveals some aspect of our lives that could be adjusted.
link to con.
How I Learned to Love Goat Meat
By HENRY ALFORD
YOU never know where goat will take you. When I asked the smiley butcher at Jefferson Market, the grocery store near my apartment in the West Village, whether he had any goat meat, he told me: “No. I got a leg of lamb, though — I could trim it nice and thin to make it look like goat.” I politely declined. We fell into conversation.
I found myself telling him: “Koreans think eating goat soup increases virility. It can lead to better sexytime.” My new friend responded: “My lamb does that a little. You won’t want to every night, but maybe every other night.” Reaching toward his counter to pick up a mound of hamburger, he paused to ask, “It’s for you, the goat?”
Mine is the tale of the recent convert. Admittedly, I’m late to the party: goat is the most widely consumed meat in the world, a staple of, among others, Mexican, Indian, Greek and southern Italian cuisines. Moreover, it’s been edging its way into yuppier climes for a year or so now, click-clacking its cloven hooves up and down the coasts and to places like Houston and Des Moines. (When New York magazine proclaimed eating goat a “trendlet” last summer, one reader wrote on the magazine’s Web site, “Here are white people again!!!! Acting like they invented goat meat.”) A famed beef and pork rancher, Bill Niman, returned from retirement to raise goats in Bolinas, Calif.; New York City has a chef (Scott Conant) who’s made kid his signature dish.
Link to con.
By HENRY ALFORD
YOU never know where goat will take you. When I asked the smiley butcher at Jefferson Market, the grocery store near my apartment in the West Village, whether he had any goat meat, he told me: “No. I got a leg of lamb, though — I could trim it nice and thin to make it look like goat.” I politely declined. We fell into conversation.
I found myself telling him: “Koreans think eating goat soup increases virility. It can lead to better sexytime.” My new friend responded: “My lamb does that a little. You won’t want to every night, but maybe every other night.” Reaching toward his counter to pick up a mound of hamburger, he paused to ask, “It’s for you, the goat?”
Mine is the tale of the recent convert. Admittedly, I’m late to the party: goat is the most widely consumed meat in the world, a staple of, among others, Mexican, Indian, Greek and southern Italian cuisines. Moreover, it’s been edging its way into yuppier climes for a year or so now, click-clacking its cloven hooves up and down the coasts and to places like Houston and Des Moines. (When New York magazine proclaimed eating goat a “trendlet” last summer, one reader wrote on the magazine’s Web site, “Here are white people again!!!! Acting like they invented goat meat.”) A famed beef and pork rancher, Bill Niman, returned from retirement to raise goats in Bolinas, Calif.; New York City has a chef (Scott Conant) who’s made kid his signature dish.
Link to con.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Obama declares war on auto workers
President Barack Obama's speech on the auto industry Monday was nothing less than a declaration of war against the working class. In a statement dripping with class arrogance and cynicism, he rejected the cost-cutting proposals of General Motors and Chrysler as insufficient and demanded more concessions from auto workers.
No one could be unaware of the blatant double standard that has governed the administration's response to the economic crisis. Up to $10 trillion has been handed over to the giant banks and hedge funds. These sums have been turned over, with no restrictions, to institutions whose reckless speculation was a critical factor in creating the economic crisis.
These vast funds are not going toward the production of socially useful goods and real value, but rather to bolster the bank accounts and investment portfolios of the financial aristocracy. Just this past week the administration came out in opposition to any attempt to reclaim bonuses to executives at AIG and other institutions bailed out by the government.
Link to con.
President Barack Obama's speech on the auto industry Monday was nothing less than a declaration of war against the working class. In a statement dripping with class arrogance and cynicism, he rejected the cost-cutting proposals of General Motors and Chrysler as insufficient and demanded more concessions from auto workers.
No one could be unaware of the blatant double standard that has governed the administration's response to the economic crisis. Up to $10 trillion has been handed over to the giant banks and hedge funds. These sums have been turned over, with no restrictions, to institutions whose reckless speculation was a critical factor in creating the economic crisis.
These vast funds are not going toward the production of socially useful goods and real value, but rather to bolster the bank accounts and investment portfolios of the financial aristocracy. Just this past week the administration came out in opposition to any attempt to reclaim bonuses to executives at AIG and other institutions bailed out by the government.
Link to con.
Socialism in a new era
Alan Maass examines a discussion about the relevance of socialism today taking place at the Nation magazine.
THE S-WORD is back.
You're still most likely to hear it as a term of abuse flung around by Republicans trying to smear a far-from-radical president with the lingering scare effects of McCarthyism. Or, alternatively, from media commentators grasping at the first handy label to attach to government policies that deviate, however slightly, from the neoliberal orthodoxies they preached for so long.
But beyond the fear-mongering and foolishness, a more serious discussion of socialism is reviving, as a consequence of the profound crisis of capitalism.
Several weeks ago, the hardest ticket to find in London was for a conference on "The Idea of Communism," with Slovenian Marxist philosopher Slavoj Žižek as the featured speaker. The event was organized not by some small radical group, but the University of London's Birkbeck College. Žižek got a full-page write-up in the Financial Times.
Link to con.
Alan Maass examines a discussion about the relevance of socialism today taking place at the Nation magazine.
THE S-WORD is back.
You're still most likely to hear it as a term of abuse flung around by Republicans trying to smear a far-from-radical president with the lingering scare effects of McCarthyism. Or, alternatively, from media commentators grasping at the first handy label to attach to government policies that deviate, however slightly, from the neoliberal orthodoxies they preached for so long.
But beyond the fear-mongering and foolishness, a more serious discussion of socialism is reviving, as a consequence of the profound crisis of capitalism.
Several weeks ago, the hardest ticket to find in London was for a conference on "The Idea of Communism," with Slovenian Marxist philosopher Slavoj Žižek as the featured speaker. The event was organized not by some small radical group, but the University of London's Birkbeck College. Žižek got a full-page write-up in the Financial Times.
Link to con.
A Scary Corporate Coup Is Under Way -- We've Got to Stop It
By William Greider, TheNation.com.
A reassuring new story line is emanating from our leaders. I heard Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., chairman of the House Banking Committee, explain it. Then I read the same line in a Washington Post news story. That tells me people in high places are selling it.
Dynamic capitalism, they explain, invents ways to create greater wealth, but sometimes it goes a little too far. Then government has to step in to correct things. This need typically occurs every generation or so, all in a day's work.
The Obama administration is proposing "sweeping" new regulatory laws so capitalism can continue its good works.
The story makes disturbing current events sound practically normal. But what are the storytellers leaving out?
They aren't saying that this financial catastrophe was not merely an inevitable development of history but a manmade disaster. Greedheads on Wall Street did their part, but so did Washington. The reason we need new rules is that a generation of Democrats and Republicans systematically repealed or gutted the old ones -- the regulatory controls enacted 80 years ago to remedy the last breakdown of capitalism (better known as the Great Depression).
Link to con.
By William Greider, TheNation.com.
A reassuring new story line is emanating from our leaders. I heard Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., chairman of the House Banking Committee, explain it. Then I read the same line in a Washington Post news story. That tells me people in high places are selling it.
Dynamic capitalism, they explain, invents ways to create greater wealth, but sometimes it goes a little too far. Then government has to step in to correct things. This need typically occurs every generation or so, all in a day's work.
The Obama administration is proposing "sweeping" new regulatory laws so capitalism can continue its good works.
The story makes disturbing current events sound practically normal. But what are the storytellers leaving out?
They aren't saying that this financial catastrophe was not merely an inevitable development of history but a manmade disaster. Greedheads on Wall Street did their part, but so did Washington. The reason we need new rules is that a generation of Democrats and Republicans systematically repealed or gutted the old ones -- the regulatory controls enacted 80 years ago to remedy the last breakdown of capitalism (better known as the Great Depression).
Link to con.
Monday, March 30, 2009
GOP Senator from Texas: It's "World War III" if the winner of the Minnesota Senate race, Al Franken, is seated
by Joe Sudbay (DC)
Republicans are desperate to keep Al Franken out of the Senate. How desperate? Threatening "World War III" desperate:
Texas Sen. John Cornyn is threatening “World War III” if Democrats try to seat Al Franken in the Senate before Norm Coleman can pursue his case through the federal courts.
Cornyn, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, acknowledges that a federal challenge to November’s elections could take “years” to resolve. But he’s adamant that Coleman deserves that chance — even if it means Minnesota is short a senator for the duration.
A three-judge panel is expected to rule any day now on legal challenges to the November election.
Link to con.
by Joe Sudbay (DC)
Republicans are desperate to keep Al Franken out of the Senate. How desperate? Threatening "World War III" desperate:
Texas Sen. John Cornyn is threatening “World War III” if Democrats try to seat Al Franken in the Senate before Norm Coleman can pursue his case through the federal courts.
Cornyn, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, acknowledges that a federal challenge to November’s elections could take “years” to resolve. But he’s adamant that Coleman deserves that chance — even if it means Minnesota is short a senator for the duration.
A three-judge panel is expected to rule any day now on legal challenges to the November election.
Link to con.
From Populist Rage to Revolution
Americans clearly are capable of being outraged. Missing, however, is a sustained, vibrant demand for deep reforms of our political and government system. You hear a lot about populist rage these days, especially connected to the AIG bonus debacle. But populist rage as a reflection of class conflict and anger about our economic meltdown does not necessarily make a political revolution. The saddest thing about Obama winning the presidency was that his change message drained what might have been sufficient national energy for true revolutionary political reforms.
With the Bush-corrosion of our Constitution and collapse of the economic system after it had been exploited by the rich and corrupt, what better time for revolution? Instead, we got a president with a glib tongue, a terrific smile and a deep commitment to the two-party plutocracy and corporate state. Obama is no populist, not even close. Nor is he a genuine reformer. At best, he is a master exploiter of populism.
Link to con.
Americans clearly are capable of being outraged. Missing, however, is a sustained, vibrant demand for deep reforms of our political and government system. You hear a lot about populist rage these days, especially connected to the AIG bonus debacle. But populist rage as a reflection of class conflict and anger about our economic meltdown does not necessarily make a political revolution. The saddest thing about Obama winning the presidency was that his change message drained what might have been sufficient national energy for true revolutionary political reforms.
With the Bush-corrosion of our Constitution and collapse of the economic system after it had been exploited by the rich and corrupt, what better time for revolution? Instead, we got a president with a glib tongue, a terrific smile and a deep commitment to the two-party plutocracy and corporate state. Obama is no populist, not even close. Nor is he a genuine reformer. At best, he is a master exploiter of populism.
Link to con.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
How the great AIG heist was pulled off
Alan Maass traces the rise and fall of insurance giant AIG--from the part it played in the mid-decade Wall Street financial boom, to its new incarnation as a government-backed conduit for transferring bailout money to the big banks.
IMAGINE YOURSELF at a casino where you start gambling on games of chance you don't understand, where the rules are being made up on the spot. You bet hundreds of times more money than you have, and you lose. You're not only broke yourself, but you're taking down other players who let you play with their money--and the casino itself, which didn't ask to see your chips when you made bets.
You'd consider yourself lucky to stay out of jail, right?
Ah, but you aren't a Wall Street executive!
In the world of high finance, the rules are a little different. When you lose, the federal government steps in to cover your losses. You get to keep paying yourself a nice bonus, more in a year than most people will see in a lifetime of work. And you--along with colleagues who've changed job descriptions and now work for the government--get to plan the "rescue" to your collective advantage.
Link to con.
Alan Maass traces the rise and fall of insurance giant AIG--from the part it played in the mid-decade Wall Street financial boom, to its new incarnation as a government-backed conduit for transferring bailout money to the big banks.
IMAGINE YOURSELF at a casino where you start gambling on games of chance you don't understand, where the rules are being made up on the spot. You bet hundreds of times more money than you have, and you lose. You're not only broke yourself, but you're taking down other players who let you play with their money--and the casino itself, which didn't ask to see your chips when you made bets.
You'd consider yourself lucky to stay out of jail, right?
Ah, but you aren't a Wall Street executive!
In the world of high finance, the rules are a little different. When you lose, the federal government steps in to cover your losses. You get to keep paying yourself a nice bonus, more in a year than most people will see in a lifetime of work. And you--along with colleagues who've changed job descriptions and now work for the government--get to plan the "rescue" to your collective advantage.
Link to con.
Forging a Hot Link to the Farmer Who Grows the Food
By BRAD STONE and MATT RICHTEL
America, meet your farmer.
The maker of Stone-Buhr flour, a popular brand in the western United States, is encouraging its customers to reconnect with their lost agrarian past, from the comfort of their computer screens. Its Find the Farmer Web site and special labels on the packages let buyers learn about and even contact the farmers who produced the wheat that went into their bag of flour.
The underlying idea, broadly called traceability, is in fashion in many food circles these days. Makers of bananas, chocolates and other foods are also using the Internet to create relationships between consumers and farmers, mimicking the once-close ties that were broken long ago by industrialized food manufacturing.
Link to con.
By BRAD STONE and MATT RICHTEL
America, meet your farmer.
The maker of Stone-Buhr flour, a popular brand in the western United States, is encouraging its customers to reconnect with their lost agrarian past, from the comfort of their computer screens. Its Find the Farmer Web site and special labels on the packages let buyers learn about and even contact the farmers who produced the wheat that went into their bag of flour.
The underlying idea, broadly called traceability, is in fashion in many food circles these days. Makers of bananas, chocolates and other foods are also using the Internet to create relationships between consumers and farmers, mimicking the once-close ties that were broken long ago by industrialized food manufacturing.
Link to con.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Thursday, March 26, 2009
America's union-busters on the warpath
Corporate America's anti-union crusaders have raised $200 million to combat the Employee Free Choice Act.
THE U.S. corporate class has always been notorious for its ferocious opposition to unions. And true to form, business leaders reacted with collective hysteria to the introduction of legislation in the House and Senate on March 10 that would make it just a bit easier for workers to unionize.
The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) would allow unions to win recognition once a majority of workers at a given workplace signs union cards, rather than allowing managers to force their workers to suffer through a drawn-out union election by secret ballot.
Employers typically prefer to force a union election because it allows them to delay the decision by months while they fire union supporters and force their workers to endure "captive audience" meetings with managers, who threaten to close down the company or move elsewhere in the case of a union victory.
Link to con.
Corporate America's anti-union crusaders have raised $200 million to combat the Employee Free Choice Act.
THE U.S. corporate class has always been notorious for its ferocious opposition to unions. And true to form, business leaders reacted with collective hysteria to the introduction of legislation in the House and Senate on March 10 that would make it just a bit easier for workers to unionize.
The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) would allow unions to win recognition once a majority of workers at a given workplace signs union cards, rather than allowing managers to force their workers to suffer through a drawn-out union election by secret ballot.
Employers typically prefer to force a union election because it allows them to delay the decision by months while they fire union supporters and force their workers to endure "captive audience" meetings with managers, who threaten to close down the company or move elsewhere in the case of a union victory.
Link to con.
Where imagination meets farming
Local-food pioneer Pete Johnson's movable greenhouses have yielded a lettuce harvest in the dead of a Vermont winter.
By Nancy Humphrey Case
When Pete Johnson, a leader among New England’s organic farmers, set out one day last fall to pull an 18,000-pound greenhouse, in fits and starts, over a field-grown plot of lettuce, he inched forward an idea that could help make fresh local produce available year-round, even in Vermont.It was late October. For most of his fellow farmers, harvest time was over until spring. But Mr. Johnson was just revving up his tractor – and his dream.
He wants to extend the growing season into winter, and to start spring crops in late winter, in ground protected temporarily by movable greenhouses. Johnson had seen this done experimentally elsewhere. But he was trying it on a commercial scale, with greenhouses 200 feet long – twice the length of a basketball court and two-thirds as wide.
He had been warned the project could be risky with such big structures. But Johnson – a young, well-educated trendsetter – was willing to take that risk.
Link to con.
Local-food pioneer Pete Johnson's movable greenhouses have yielded a lettuce harvest in the dead of a Vermont winter.
By Nancy Humphrey Case
When Pete Johnson, a leader among New England’s organic farmers, set out one day last fall to pull an 18,000-pound greenhouse, in fits and starts, over a field-grown plot of lettuce, he inched forward an idea that could help make fresh local produce available year-round, even in Vermont.It was late October. For most of his fellow farmers, harvest time was over until spring. But Mr. Johnson was just revving up his tractor – and his dream.
He wants to extend the growing season into winter, and to start spring crops in late winter, in ground protected temporarily by movable greenhouses. Johnson had seen this done experimentally elsewhere. But he was trying it on a commercial scale, with greenhouses 200 feet long – twice the length of a basketball court and two-thirds as wide.
He had been warned the project could be risky with such big structures. But Johnson – a young, well-educated trendsetter – was willing to take that risk.
Link to con.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
America Is in Need of a Moral Bailout
By Chris Hedges
In decaying societies, politics become theater. The elite, who have hollowed out the democratic system to serve the corporate state, rule through image and presentation. They express indignation at AIG bonuses and empathy with a working class they have spent the last few decades disenfranchising, and make promises to desperate families that they know will never be fulfilled. Once the spotlights go on they read their lines with appropriate emotion. Once the lights go off, they make sure Goldman Sachs and a host of other large corporations have the hundreds of billions of dollars in losses they incurred playing casino capitalism repaid with taxpayer money.
We live in an age of moral nihilism. We have trashed our universities, turning them into vocational factories that produce corporate drones and chase after defense-related grants and funding. The humanities, the discipline that forces us to stand back and ask the broad moral questions of meaning and purpose, that challenges the validity of structures, that trains us to be self-reflective and critical of all cultural assumptions, have withered. Our press, which should promote such intellectual and moral questioning, confuses bread and circus with news and refuses to give a voice to critics who challenge not this bonus payment or that bailout but the pernicious superstructure of the corporate state itself. We kneel before a cult of the self, elaborately constructed by the architects of our consumer society, which dismisses compassion, sacrifice for the less fortunate, and honesty. The methods used to attain what we want, we are told by reality television programs, business schools and self-help gurus, are irrelevant. Success, always defined in terms of money and power, is its own justification. The capacity for manipulation is what is most highly prized. And our moral collapse is as terrifying, and as dangerous, as our economic collapse.
Link to con.
By Chris Hedges
In decaying societies, politics become theater. The elite, who have hollowed out the democratic system to serve the corporate state, rule through image and presentation. They express indignation at AIG bonuses and empathy with a working class they have spent the last few decades disenfranchising, and make promises to desperate families that they know will never be fulfilled. Once the spotlights go on they read their lines with appropriate emotion. Once the lights go off, they make sure Goldman Sachs and a host of other large corporations have the hundreds of billions of dollars in losses they incurred playing casino capitalism repaid with taxpayer money.
We live in an age of moral nihilism. We have trashed our universities, turning them into vocational factories that produce corporate drones and chase after defense-related grants and funding. The humanities, the discipline that forces us to stand back and ask the broad moral questions of meaning and purpose, that challenges the validity of structures, that trains us to be self-reflective and critical of all cultural assumptions, have withered. Our press, which should promote such intellectual and moral questioning, confuses bread and circus with news and refuses to give a voice to critics who challenge not this bonus payment or that bailout but the pernicious superstructure of the corporate state itself. We kneel before a cult of the self, elaborately constructed by the architects of our consumer society, which dismisses compassion, sacrifice for the less fortunate, and honesty. The methods used to attain what we want, we are told by reality television programs, business schools and self-help gurus, are irrelevant. Success, always defined in terms of money and power, is its own justification. The capacity for manipulation is what is most highly prized. And our moral collapse is as terrifying, and as dangerous, as our economic collapse.
Link to con.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
The Least of These - Trailer
The Least of These explores one of the most controversial aspects of American immigration policy: family detention. As part of the Bush administration policy to end what they termed the catch and release of undocumented immigrants, the U.S. government opened the T. Don Hutto Residential Center in May 2006 as a prototype family detention facility. The facility is a former medium-security prison in central Texas operated by CCA, the largest private prison operator in the country. The facility houses immigrant children and their parents from all over the world who are awaiting asylum or deportation.
The Least of These explores one of the most controversial aspects of American immigration policy: family detention. As part of the Bush administration policy to end what they termed the catch and release of undocumented immigrants, the U.S. government opened the T. Don Hutto Residential Center in May 2006 as a prototype family detention facility. The facility is a former medium-security prison in central Texas operated by CCA, the largest private prison operator in the country. The facility houses immigrant children and their parents from all over the world who are awaiting asylum or deportation.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Israeli crisis deepens
In his bid to form a coalition government, Benyamin Netanyahu, leader of the right-wing Likud Party, has signed an agreement with the far-right Yisrael Beiteinu party that will give it five cabinet posts. Party leader Avigdor Lieberman is to become Israel's foreign secretary.
Likud won 27 seats in the elections in February, one less than Kadima. But Netanyahu was asked to form a government because the rightist parties together have 65 seats in the 120-member Knesset.
It will need further political horse trading to bring the smaller right-wing parties, Shas, Jewish Home and United Torah Judaism, on board. But if Netanyahu succeeds, then his will be the most right-wing government in Israel's history—beholden to parties based on the Jewish settlers in the Occupied Territories and with a racist advocate of ethnic cleansing as its international representative.
Link to con.
In his bid to form a coalition government, Benyamin Netanyahu, leader of the right-wing Likud Party, has signed an agreement with the far-right Yisrael Beiteinu party that will give it five cabinet posts. Party leader Avigdor Lieberman is to become Israel's foreign secretary.
Likud won 27 seats in the elections in February, one less than Kadima. But Netanyahu was asked to form a government because the rightist parties together have 65 seats in the 120-member Knesset.
It will need further political horse trading to bring the smaller right-wing parties, Shas, Jewish Home and United Torah Judaism, on board. But if Netanyahu succeeds, then his will be the most right-wing government in Israel's history—beholden to parties based on the Jewish settlers in the Occupied Territories and with a racist advocate of ethnic cleansing as its international representative.
Link to con.
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