October 30, 2013

Ben Carson jumps the shark, three whales and a walrus

"You know Obamacare is really, I think, the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery. ... It is slavery in a way, because it is making all of us subservient to the government, and it was never about health care. It was about control."

- Dr. Ben Carson, October 11, 2013

Dr. Ben Carson is a world-renowned American neurosurgeon. He is a brilliant physician with an incredibly compelling and motivational story. Born into poverty in Detroit in 1951 and raised by a single mother with a third-grade education, Carson became the first surgeon to separate conjoined twins joined at the head and the youngest to lead a surgical department. His focus, work ethic and commitment to excellence should be emulated by as many as possible.

In the past year, Dr. Carson has emerged on the political scene as a spokesperson for conservative interests. Most recently he addressed the 2013 Values Voter Summit in Washington, DC, making the remarks referenced above.

"Obamacare" - or more accurately the Affordable Care Act (ACA) - is the worst thing in this nation since slavery? Really? I understand political diatribes and hyperbole, but the worst thing in America since slavery? How can reducing the number of uninsured Americans through an expansion of Medicaid and the creation of new health insurance exchange marketplaces be worse than slavery?

The 13th Amendment abolished slavery in America except as punishment for a crime in 1865. Since then, African-Americans have been lynched, had their farms confiscated, dealt with mass-incarceration, been denied the right to vote and had limited or no access to public and private facilities. For an African-American of Dr. Carson's intellect and stature to publically make such assertions is historically inaccurate, irresponsible and promotes many of the racist stereotypes that are being used to garner support to overturn the law. ...................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/19681-dr-ben-carson-jumps-jim-crow

October 30, 2013

Professor Richard Wolff: Corporate rule hurts the US more than shutdown

Published on Oct 26, 2013

The federal government reopened Thursday, as the country narrowly avoided defaulting on its debts, which could have led to a global financial meltdown. Yet, instead of focusing on the financial and global consequences of congressional inaction, politicians in Washington seemed more concerned with furthering their political agendas. Earlier in the week, President Barack Obama said he hoped that Congress wouldn't take a crisis-driven approach in the future, such as when the continuing resolution and the debt ceiling deals run out in early 2014. RT's Ameera David talks to Richard Wolff, professor of economics emeritus at UMass-Amherst, about how governing by crisis and brinkmanship is having a negative effect on the US economy

October 30, 2013

Chris Hedges on the 12 year Afghanistan war anniversary

October 30, 2013

Professor Richard Wolff: US Political Dysfunction and Capitalism’s Withdrawal

by Richard Wolff.
Published on October 27, 2013

This article originally appeared at e-International Relations


After 200 years of concentrating its centers in western Europe, north America, and Japan, capitalism is moving most of its centers elsewhere and especially to China, India, Brazil and so on. This movement poses immense problems of transition at both poles. The classic problems of early, rapid capitalist industrialization are obvious daily in the new centers. What we learn about early capitalism when we read Charles Dickens, Emile Zola, Maxim Gorky and Jack London, we see now again in the new centers.

What the October 2013 shutdown of the US government teaches us are new lessons about what is happening to the increasingly abandoned old centers of capitalism. Similar lessons flow from the long, painful economic crises now besetting western Europe and Japan. In simplest terms, these old centers of capitalism are suffering the effects of capitalism’s withdrawal.

The causes of withdrawal are well known. In the century before 1970, it became quite clear that the long history of class struggles inside the old centers of capitalism had produced a basic compromise. Capitalists retained their nearly total control over enterprise decisions: what to produce, how to produce, where to produce, and what to do with the profits. Employees, in exchange for ceding that control, obtained rising real wages. Over the same period, capitalists reorganized the world economy (via formal and informal colonialisms) to serve as the “hinterland” for the capitalist centers in western Europe, north America, and Japan. That hinterland provided the food, raw materials, migrant laborers and part of the market for those old capitalist centers. Real wages in that hinterland stagnated or fell.

In the 1970s, the gap between real wages in the old capitalist centers and those in the hinterland had become enormous. At the same time, the development of jet engines and modern telecommunications opened new opportunities for capitalists in the old centers. Their response is transforming the world. Those capitalists realized that they could manage production and distribution facilities almost anywhere in the world as easily as before they had managed facilities within their town, cities, and countries. The more competitive among them moved quickly to take advantage of the much lower real wages in the hinterland by moving old facilities or establishing new facilities there. The laggards are quickly following to avoid competitive destruction. .....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://rdwolff.com/content/us-political-dysfunction-and-capitalism%E2%80%99s-withdrawal

October 30, 2013

Dick Cheney, one-man zombie apocalypse

Dick Cheney, one-man zombie apocalypse
The former VP has returned from the shadows – weirdly, to court the Tea Party for daughter Liz's Senate run. Happy Halloween!

Ana Marie Cox
theguardian.com, Wednesday 30 October 2013 08.20 EDT


Rationally, I realize that the reappearance of Dick Cheney in the media landscape is tied to his promoting his new book, Heart: An American Medical Odyssey. And, with equal clear-mindedness, I know that his publisher no doubt timed the book's debut to capitalize on the roll-out of the Affordable Care Act – Cheney has gravely insisted in interviews that the ACA would limit the technological innovations that allow his own survival.

A more primal part of me simply sees "Cheney", "heart" and "Halloween" and I clutch my own chest in fear.

The Republican party has even more to fear than I do. Cheney – never very shy with advice – has used his book tour to continue his relentless campaign on behalf of torture and totalitarian tactics. And he's using it, paradoxically, to insist that he and his daughter Liz (now running for Senate in Wyoming) are allies of the Tea Party and that he supports their cause. "These are Americans", he says, not so much as a rebuttal against an accusation but as an accusation itself.

The Tea Party "rebellion", says Cheney is "a normal, healthy reaction, and the fact that the GOP is having to adjust to it is positive." Less generally, he has offered that Liz is just the kind of adjustment Republicans need. "My own daughter is running for the US Senate in Wyoming," he not-at-all-self-servingly-brought up in one interview, "partly motivated by the concern that Washington's not working, that the system is breaking down and that it's time for new leadership." .......................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/30/dick-cheney-zombie-apocalypse

October 30, 2013

GOP to Moms of Slain Black Sons: Stand Your Ground Laws Help Black People

(Mother Jones) When it was his turn to ask a question at Tuesday's Senate hearing on Stand Your Ground laws, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) lowered his voice and spoke cautiously about the pain Sybrina Fulton, the mother of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin, must feel. But then he got to his point. Addressing Fulton, who had traveled from Florida to express her opposition to the spread of these laws, Cruz sought to downplay the significance of her message.

"I understand, for the family, you're simply mourning the loss of your son, and I understand that," he said, "but there are other players that are seeking to do a great deal more based on what happened that Florida night."

Cruz, his Republican colleagues, and the witnesses they'd summoned before the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights, had a different point to make: Stand Your Ground laws—which allow a person to kill another if he feels his life is endangered—benefit black people if you hold the data up to the light and squint a little. And those who would say otherwise are using race as a cudgel to force through their anti-gun agenda. "With whom do we stand?" Cruz asked. "I for one believe we should stand for the innocent against aggressors." ....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/10/gop-trayvon-martin-stand-your-ground-good-black-people

October 30, 2013

The New War on Abortion Drugs

(Mother Jones) Can a state ban a type of abortion, entirely? That's the question the US Supreme Court is now weighing.

In June, the court agreed to hear a challenge to a 2011 Oklahoma law that bars doctors from prescribing abortion drugs, unless they follow the FDA label. Supporters of the bill argue the goal is to protect women's health. "Oklahoma has acted to regulate a dangerous off-label use of a drug regimen that is tied to the deaths of at least eight women," says Mailee Smith, a lawyer for Americans United for Life, which drafted the legislation. But critics maintain the language is so broad it would block access to all abortion drugs—including those used to treat life-threatening ectopic pregnancies. And the Oklahoma Supreme Court agrees. In response to a query from the US Supreme Court, on Tuesday the state court ruled that the bill effectively "bans all medication abortions" and thus is unconstitutional.

It may seem counterintuitive that following the FDA labeling would hamper access. But two of the three most commonly used abortion drugs, misoprostol and methotrexate, were initially approved to treat other conditions. The World Health Organization and independent researchers have since found that they are a safe and effective way to end an early pregnancy, and doctors routinely prescribe them for this purpose. But the drugs' manufacturers never went through the costly process of updating their FDA labels. This is not unusual. Once a drug is approved, the FDA normally doesn't change the label unless new risks come to light. But doctors are free to tailor treatments to reflect the latest research, which is one reason that roughly 20 percent of all outpatient prescriptions are off label. .......................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/10/oklahoma-supreme-court-abortion-decision

October 30, 2013

NYT: From China to Los Angeles, Taking the Electric Bus

[font size="1"Nick Ut/Associated Press
BYD’s eBus, shown in Los Angeles, can run 155 miles on a charge and has led to contracts with transit agencies in Los Angeles and Long Beach.[/font]


LOS ANGELES — THERE’S a newcomer to this city’s auto row. Compared to the shiny showrooms displaying the latest Mercedeses and Toyotas, the Chinese carmaker BYD’s outpost in the shadow of downtown skyscrapers looks rather forlorn.

Just two of its models — a red electric sport utility vehicle and a brown gasoline-powered sedan — are on view in an otherwise empty storefront.

But it’s the pair of 40-foot-long battery-powered buses parked across the street that is driving the company’s ambitions to become the first Chinese automaker to break into the United States market.

BYD this year became the first Chinese vehicle company to open manufacturing sites in the United States, building an electric bus assembly plant and a separate battery factory in Lancaster, a desert community 75 miles north of Los Angeles. ..................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/30/automobiles/from-china-to-los-angeles-taking-the-electric-bus.html?_r=0

October 30, 2013

Reimagine the Good Life

Reimagine the Good Life
Measure your quality-of-life with Utne Reader's Commons Checklist

| by Jay Walljasper
Originally published in Utne Reader


Ah, the Good Life. Fine wine. Fast cars. Beautiful people. The beach house on St. Bart’s. The ski chalet in Switzerland. The apartment overlooking Central Park. The ranch in Montana. The castle atop . . .

Dream on!

For the overwhelming majority of us, living like this is about as likely as pitching for the Yankees. Our days are not spent on the beach or the ski slopes, but rather commuting to work, struggling with bills, and perhaps sensing that the best things in life are passing us by. It’s easy to feel small and drab compared to the millionaires and movie stars whose exploits are chronicled across the media. Making money—lots more money—comes to seem the only way to ensure a meaningful life, a point hammered home incessantly by advertising, financial experts, and political leaders.

This rising obsession with getting and spending has prodded authors John de Graaf, David Wann, and Thomas H. Naylor to observe that “a powerful virus has infected American society, threatening our wallets, our friendships, our families, our communities, and our environment. We call the virus ‘affluenza.’ “

They define this affliction as “a painful, contagious, socially transmitted condition of overload, debt, anxiety, and waste resulting from the dogged pursuit of more.” In their insightful soon-to-be-published book, Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic (Berrett-Koehler, $24.95), they report that in-creasing numbers of Americans are growing concerned about affluenza’s long-term symptoms—a view confirmed by the Merck Family Fund, whose national poll found that “there is a universal feeling in this nation that we’ve become too materialistic, too greedy, too self-absorbed, too selfish.” ...................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://onthecommons.org/magazine/reimagine-good-life#sthash.v4V0fY0x.dpuf

October 30, 2013

BP's "Widespread Human Health Crisis"

BP's "Widespread Human Health Crisis"

Tuesday, 29 October 2013 09:34
By Dahr Jamail, Al Jazeera English | Report


New Orleans - Peter Frizzell never thought his watersports off the coast of Florida would destroy his health.

"After sea kayaking after BP's spill happened, I was sitting at my desk and started coughing up loads of blood," Frizzell, an avid outdoorsman, told Al Jazeera. "My doctor ran a scope down to the top of my lungs and said my bronchi were full of blood."

Frizzell's medical records bear out that he was exposed to toxic chemicals, and he is far from alone.

Since the spill began in April 2010, Al Jazeera has interviewed hundreds of coastal residents, fishermen, and oil cleanup workers whose medical records, like Frizzell's, document toxic chemical exposure that they blame on BP's oil and the toxic chemical dispersants the oil giant used on the spill. ...................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://truth-out.org/news/item/19676-bps-widespread-human-health-crisis