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marmar
marmar's Journal
marmar's Journal
November 15, 2014
from the WaPo:
How a national food policy could save millions of American lives
How we produce and consume food has a bigger impact on Americans’ well-being than any other human activity. The food industry is the largest sector of our economy; food touches everything from our health to the environment, climate change, economic inequality and the federal budget. Yet we have no food policy — no plan or agreed-upon principles — for managing American agriculture or the food system as a whole.
That must change.
The food system and the diet it’s created have caused incalculable damage to the health of our people and our land, water and air. If a foreign power were to do such harm, we’d regard it as a threat to national security, if not an act of war, and the government would formulate a comprehensive plan and marshal resources to combat it. (The administration even named an Ebola czar to respond to a disease that threatens few Americans.) So when hundreds of thousands of annual deaths are preventable — as the deaths from the chronic diseases linked to the modern American way of eating surely are — preventing those needless deaths is a national priority.
.......(snip).......
Because of unhealthy diets, 100 years of progress in improving public health and extending lifespan has been reversed. Today’s children are expected to live shorter lives than their parents. In large part, this is because a third of these children will develop Type 2 diabetes, formerly rare in children and a preventable disease that reduces life expectancy by several years. At the same time, our fossil-fuel-dependent food and agriculture system is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than any other sector of the economy but energy. And the exploitative labor practices of the farming and fast-food industries are responsible for much of the rise in income inequality in America. ...............(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-a-national-food-policy-could-save-millions-of-american-lives/2014/11/07/89c55e16-637f-11e4-836c-83bc4f26eb67_story.html
How a national food policy could save millions of American lives
from the WaPo:
How a national food policy could save millions of American lives
By Mark Bittman, Michael Pollan, Ricardo Salvador and Olivier De Schutter November 7
Mark Bittman, an opinion columnist and food writer for the New York Times, is the author of “How to Cook Everything Fast.” Michael Pollan, who teaches journalism at the University of California at Berkeley, is the author of “The Omnivore’s Dilemma.” Ricardo Salvador is a senior scientist and director of the food and environment program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. Olivier De Schutter, a professor of international human rights law at the Catholic University of Louvain, was the U.N. special rapporteur on the right to food from 2008 to 2014.
How we produce and consume food has a bigger impact on Americans’ well-being than any other human activity. The food industry is the largest sector of our economy; food touches everything from our health to the environment, climate change, economic inequality and the federal budget. Yet we have no food policy — no plan or agreed-upon principles — for managing American agriculture or the food system as a whole.
That must change.
The food system and the diet it’s created have caused incalculable damage to the health of our people and our land, water and air. If a foreign power were to do such harm, we’d regard it as a threat to national security, if not an act of war, and the government would formulate a comprehensive plan and marshal resources to combat it. (The administration even named an Ebola czar to respond to a disease that threatens few Americans.) So when hundreds of thousands of annual deaths are preventable — as the deaths from the chronic diseases linked to the modern American way of eating surely are — preventing those needless deaths is a national priority.
.......(snip).......
Because of unhealthy diets, 100 years of progress in improving public health and extending lifespan has been reversed. Today’s children are expected to live shorter lives than their parents. In large part, this is because a third of these children will develop Type 2 diabetes, formerly rare in children and a preventable disease that reduces life expectancy by several years. At the same time, our fossil-fuel-dependent food and agriculture system is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than any other sector of the economy but energy. And the exploitative labor practices of the farming and fast-food industries are responsible for much of the rise in income inequality in America. ...............(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-a-national-food-policy-could-save-millions-of-american-lives/2014/11/07/89c55e16-637f-11e4-836c-83bc4f26eb67_story.html
November 15, 2014
from the Guardian UK:
Europe's cycling economy has created 650,000 jobs
Cycling industry employs more people than mining and quarrying with potential for a million jobs by 2020, says new study
Europe’s cycling industry now employs more people than mining and quarrying and almost twice as many as the steel industry, according to the first comprehensive study of the jobs created by the sector.
Some 655,000 people work in the cycling economy – which includes bicycle production, tourism, retail, infrastructure and services – compared to 615,000 people in mining and quarrying, and just 350,000 workers directly employed in the steel sector.
If cycling’s 3% share of journeys across Europe were doubled, the numbers employed could grow to over one million by 2020, says the ‘Jobs and job creation in the European cycling sector’ study which will be published next month.
Kevin Mayne, the development director at the European Cyclists’ Federation (ECF) which commissioned the paper, said that it had a very simple message for governments and local authorities: “You know that investing in cycling is justified from your transport, climate change and health budgets. Now we can show clearly that every cycle lane you build and every new cyclist you create is contributing to job growth. Investing in cycling provides a better economic return than almost any other transport option. This should be your first choice every time.” ................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/nov/12/europes-cycling-economy-has-created-650000-jobs
Europe's cycling economy has created 650,000 jobs
from the Guardian UK:
Europe's cycling economy has created 650,000 jobs
Cycling industry employs more people than mining and quarrying with potential for a million jobs by 2020, says new study
Europe’s cycling industry now employs more people than mining and quarrying and almost twice as many as the steel industry, according to the first comprehensive study of the jobs created by the sector.
Some 655,000 people work in the cycling economy – which includes bicycle production, tourism, retail, infrastructure and services – compared to 615,000 people in mining and quarrying, and just 350,000 workers directly employed in the steel sector.
If cycling’s 3% share of journeys across Europe were doubled, the numbers employed could grow to over one million by 2020, says the ‘Jobs and job creation in the European cycling sector’ study which will be published next month.
Kevin Mayne, the development director at the European Cyclists’ Federation (ECF) which commissioned the paper, said that it had a very simple message for governments and local authorities: “You know that investing in cycling is justified from your transport, climate change and health budgets. Now we can show clearly that every cycle lane you build and every new cyclist you create is contributing to job growth. Investing in cycling provides a better economic return than almost any other transport option. This should be your first choice every time.” ................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/nov/12/europes-cycling-economy-has-created-650000-jobs
November 15, 2014
http://www.truthdig.com/cartoon/item/scotus_scraps_20141112
The Supreme Court & The Preamble (cartoon)
http://www.truthdig.com/cartoon/item/scotus_scraps_20141112
November 15, 2014
from TomDispatch:
Tomgram: David Vine, A Permanent Infrastructure for Permanent War
Posted by David Vine at 8:11AM, November 13, 2014.
In a September address to the United Nations General Assembly, President Barack Obama spoke forcefully about the “cycle of conflict” in the Middle East, about “violence within Muslim communities that has become the source of so much human misery.” The president was adamant: “It is time to acknowledge the destruction wrought by proxy wars and terror campaigns between Sunni and Shia across the Middle East.” Then with hardly a pause, he went on to promote his own proxy wars (including the backing of Syrian rebels and Iraqi forces against the Islamic State), as though Washington’s military escapades in the region hadn’t stoked sectarian tensions and been high-performance engines for “human misery.”
Not surprisingly, the president left a lot out of his regional wrap-up. On the subject of proxies, Iraqi troops and small numbers of Syrian rebels have hardly been alone in receiving American military support. Yet few in our world have paid much attention to everything Washington has done to keep the region awash in weaponry.
Since mid-year, for example, the State Department and the Pentagon have helped pave the way for the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to buy hundreds of millions of dollars worth of High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) launchers and associated equipment and to spend billions more on Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles; for Lebanon to purchase nearly $200 million in Huey helicopters and supporting gear; for Turkey to buy hundreds of millions of dollars of AIM-120C-7 AMRAAM (Air-to-Air) missiles; and for Israel to stock up on half a billion dollars worth of AIM-9X Sidewinder (air-to-air) missiles; not to mention other deals to aid the militaries of Egypt, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia.
....(snip)....
The Bases of War in the Middle East
From Carter to the Islamic State, 35 Years of Building Bases and Sowing Disaster
By David Vine
With the launch of a new U.S.-led war in Iraq and Syria against the Islamic State (IS), the United States has engaged in aggressive military action in at least 13 countries in the Greater Middle East since 1980. In that time, every American president has invaded, occupied, bombed, or gone to war in at least one country in the region. The total number of invasions, occupations, bombing operations, drone assassination campaigns, and cruise missile attacks easily runs into the dozens.
As in prior military operations in the Greater Middle East, U.S. forces fighting IS have been aided by access to and the use of an unprecedented collection of military bases. They occupy a region sitting atop the world’s largest concentration of oil and natural gas reserves and has long been considered the most geopolitically important place on the planet. Indeed, since 1980, the U.S. military has gradually garrisoned the Greater Middle East in a fashion only rivaled by the Cold War garrisoning of Western Europe or, in terms of concentration, by the bases built to wage past wars in Korea and Vietnam.
In the Persian Gulf alone, the U.S. has major bases in every country save Iran. There is an increasingly important, increasingly large base in Djibouti, just miles across the Red Sea from the Arabian Peninsula. There are bases in Pakistan on one end of the region and in the Balkans on the other, as well as on the strategically located Indian Ocean islands of Diego Garcia and the Seychelles. In Afghanistan and Iraq, there were once as many as 800 and 505 bases, respectively. Recently, the Obama administration inked an agreement with new Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to maintain around 10,000 troops and at least nine major bases in his country beyond the official end of combat operations later this year. U.S. forces, which never fully departed Iraq after 2011, are now returning to a growing number of bases there in ever larger numbers. ................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175922/tomgram%3A_david_vine%2C_a_permanent_infrastructure_for_permanent_war/
A Permanent Infrastructure for Permanent War
from TomDispatch:
Tomgram: David Vine, A Permanent Infrastructure for Permanent War
Posted by David Vine at 8:11AM, November 13, 2014.
In a September address to the United Nations General Assembly, President Barack Obama spoke forcefully about the “cycle of conflict” in the Middle East, about “violence within Muslim communities that has become the source of so much human misery.” The president was adamant: “It is time to acknowledge the destruction wrought by proxy wars and terror campaigns between Sunni and Shia across the Middle East.” Then with hardly a pause, he went on to promote his own proxy wars (including the backing of Syrian rebels and Iraqi forces against the Islamic State), as though Washington’s military escapades in the region hadn’t stoked sectarian tensions and been high-performance engines for “human misery.”
Not surprisingly, the president left a lot out of his regional wrap-up. On the subject of proxies, Iraqi troops and small numbers of Syrian rebels have hardly been alone in receiving American military support. Yet few in our world have paid much attention to everything Washington has done to keep the region awash in weaponry.
Since mid-year, for example, the State Department and the Pentagon have helped pave the way for the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to buy hundreds of millions of dollars worth of High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) launchers and associated equipment and to spend billions more on Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles; for Lebanon to purchase nearly $200 million in Huey helicopters and supporting gear; for Turkey to buy hundreds of millions of dollars of AIM-120C-7 AMRAAM (Air-to-Air) missiles; and for Israel to stock up on half a billion dollars worth of AIM-9X Sidewinder (air-to-air) missiles; not to mention other deals to aid the militaries of Egypt, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia.
....(snip)....
The Bases of War in the Middle East
From Carter to the Islamic State, 35 Years of Building Bases and Sowing Disaster
By David Vine
With the launch of a new U.S.-led war in Iraq and Syria against the Islamic State (IS), the United States has engaged in aggressive military action in at least 13 countries in the Greater Middle East since 1980. In that time, every American president has invaded, occupied, bombed, or gone to war in at least one country in the region. The total number of invasions, occupations, bombing operations, drone assassination campaigns, and cruise missile attacks easily runs into the dozens.
As in prior military operations in the Greater Middle East, U.S. forces fighting IS have been aided by access to and the use of an unprecedented collection of military bases. They occupy a region sitting atop the world’s largest concentration of oil and natural gas reserves and has long been considered the most geopolitically important place on the planet. Indeed, since 1980, the U.S. military has gradually garrisoned the Greater Middle East in a fashion only rivaled by the Cold War garrisoning of Western Europe or, in terms of concentration, by the bases built to wage past wars in Korea and Vietnam.
In the Persian Gulf alone, the U.S. has major bases in every country save Iran. There is an increasingly important, increasingly large base in Djibouti, just miles across the Red Sea from the Arabian Peninsula. There are bases in Pakistan on one end of the region and in the Balkans on the other, as well as on the strategically located Indian Ocean islands of Diego Garcia and the Seychelles. In Afghanistan and Iraq, there were once as many as 800 and 505 bases, respectively. Recently, the Obama administration inked an agreement with new Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to maintain around 10,000 troops and at least nine major bases in his country beyond the official end of combat operations later this year. U.S. forces, which never fully departed Iraq after 2011, are now returning to a growing number of bases there in ever larger numbers. ................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175922/tomgram%3A_david_vine%2C_a_permanent_infrastructure_for_permanent_war/
November 14, 2014
Published on Nov 13, 2014
This is Chris Hedges' talk at the November 2014 "Voices of Hope in a Time of Crisis" symposium, an event sponsored by Local Futures/ISEC. For more talks from the symposium, or to learn more about Local Futures' work, go to www.localfutures.org
Chris Hedges at the "Voices of Hope in a Time of Crisis" symposium
Published on Nov 13, 2014
This is Chris Hedges' talk at the November 2014 "Voices of Hope in a Time of Crisis" symposium, an event sponsored by Local Futures/ISEC. For more talks from the symposium, or to learn more about Local Futures' work, go to www.localfutures.org
November 14, 2014
from In These Times:
Chicago Progressives’ Midterms Performance Actually Wasn’t That Bad
Far from wringing their hands about last week’s election’s implications, Chicago progressives should take heart at their performance.
BY MARILYN KATZ
I just hate it when reporters write before they read and think, as Chicago Sun-Times reporter Dan Mihalopoulos did in his November 5 polemic against Chicago progressives, charging they didn’t turn out voters and speculating that their prospects for the municipal elections are bleak.
So I went through the real numbers and compared them against Mihalopoulos’s claims. Union and other progressive organizations, take heart. You did pretty well on Election Day. The Latino and black wards you targeted did well, mostly gaining votes and delivering them to your target. White folks, not so much.
In order to get a more accurate picture than the simple knee-jerk “Rauner won so Chicago progressives failed” message, you have to look at election turnout ward by ward.
My analysis comes from examining the Chicago Board of Elections data at the ward level. To begin with, while it might not be much solace to him, Gov. Pat Quinn won Chicago with a margin of victory over Rauner that was 1.4 percent higher than his margin over Brady when he won office in 2010.
.....(snip).....
In fact, five African-American wards and four Hispanic wards actually gained votes. And all voted for Quinn by enormous majorities, with many topping 90 percent or higher. That’s in sharp contrast to the 12 majority- or plurality-white wards where 2,000 or more voters who voted in 2010 didn’t show up last week. All majority- or plurality-white wards saw a drop of about 35,000 votes in total—compared to a loss of roughly 18,000 votes in majority-black and -Latino wards. Whites make up roughly one-third of the city, yet accounted for twice as many voter no-shows as blacks and Latinos, who make up almost two-thirds of the city. .............(more)
The complete piece is at: http://inthesetimes.com/article/17358/chicago_progressives_midterms_performance_actually_wasnt_that_bad
Chicago Progressives’ Midterms Performance Actually Wasn’t That Bad
from In These Times:
Chicago Progressives’ Midterms Performance Actually Wasn’t That Bad
Far from wringing their hands about last week’s election’s implications, Chicago progressives should take heart at their performance.
BY MARILYN KATZ
I just hate it when reporters write before they read and think, as Chicago Sun-Times reporter Dan Mihalopoulos did in his November 5 polemic against Chicago progressives, charging they didn’t turn out voters and speculating that their prospects for the municipal elections are bleak.
So I went through the real numbers and compared them against Mihalopoulos’s claims. Union and other progressive organizations, take heart. You did pretty well on Election Day. The Latino and black wards you targeted did well, mostly gaining votes and delivering them to your target. White folks, not so much.
In order to get a more accurate picture than the simple knee-jerk “Rauner won so Chicago progressives failed” message, you have to look at election turnout ward by ward.
My analysis comes from examining the Chicago Board of Elections data at the ward level. To begin with, while it might not be much solace to him, Gov. Pat Quinn won Chicago with a margin of victory over Rauner that was 1.4 percent higher than his margin over Brady when he won office in 2010.
.....(snip).....
In fact, five African-American wards and four Hispanic wards actually gained votes. And all voted for Quinn by enormous majorities, with many topping 90 percent or higher. That’s in sharp contrast to the 12 majority- or plurality-white wards where 2,000 or more voters who voted in 2010 didn’t show up last week. All majority- or plurality-white wards saw a drop of about 35,000 votes in total—compared to a loss of roughly 18,000 votes in majority-black and -Latino wards. Whites make up roughly one-third of the city, yet accounted for twice as many voter no-shows as blacks and Latinos, who make up almost two-thirds of the city. .............(more)
The complete piece is at: http://inthesetimes.com/article/17358/chicago_progressives_midterms_performance_actually_wasnt_that_bad
November 14, 2014
(In These Times) Dani Lea, a sophomore at Vanderbilt University, believes that Teach for America (TFA) teachers in her high school in Charlotte, North Carolina, were detrimental to her learning experience and for those around her. Lea claimed that her principal didn't even know which teachers were members of TFA and which weren't.
Upon hearing this, TFA co-CEO Matthew Kramer said, “That’s not our lived experience.” Lea responded, “That was my lived experience.”
The volley took place during an unusual open meeting at TFA’s midtown Manhattan headquarters November 13 between United Students Against Sweatshop (USAS) activists and TFA’s top leadership, which offered the meeting after a widespread USAS campaign against the organization that includes visiting college campuses to question the education organization’s projected image as crusading do-gooders in American public education.
USAS is the country’s largest student labor organization, which has emerged in recent years as a serious force to be reckoned on labor issues ranging from sweatshop apparel production to campus union drives. The group’s main gripes with TFA and its Peace Corps-like model for American education, bringing college students—most from elite universities—to teach for a short period of time in some of the country’s poorest school districts, are that it is inadequately training teachers and promoting a for-profit, anti-union education reform agenda. ...............(more)
The complete piece is at: http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17362/students_to_teach_for_america_ceos_you_are_complicit_in_corporate_education
Students to Teach for America CEOs: You Are ‘Complicit’ in Attacks on Public Education
(In These Times) Dani Lea, a sophomore at Vanderbilt University, believes that Teach for America (TFA) teachers in her high school in Charlotte, North Carolina, were detrimental to her learning experience and for those around her. Lea claimed that her principal didn't even know which teachers were members of TFA and which weren't.
Upon hearing this, TFA co-CEO Matthew Kramer said, “That’s not our lived experience.” Lea responded, “That was my lived experience.”
The volley took place during an unusual open meeting at TFA’s midtown Manhattan headquarters November 13 between United Students Against Sweatshop (USAS) activists and TFA’s top leadership, which offered the meeting after a widespread USAS campaign against the organization that includes visiting college campuses to question the education organization’s projected image as crusading do-gooders in American public education.
USAS is the country’s largest student labor organization, which has emerged in recent years as a serious force to be reckoned on labor issues ranging from sweatshop apparel production to campus union drives. The group’s main gripes with TFA and its Peace Corps-like model for American education, bringing college students—most from elite universities—to teach for a short period of time in some of the country’s poorest school districts, are that it is inadequately training teachers and promoting a for-profit, anti-union education reform agenda. ...............(more)
The complete piece is at: http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17362/students_to_teach_for_america_ceos_you_are_complicit_in_corporate_education
November 14, 2014
The Fall of the Berlin Wall and the Failures of Actually Existing Economic Systems
Wednesday, 12 November 2014 10:21
By Richard D Wolff, Truthout | News Analysis
Hype went wild coming into last week's 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. "Freedom" had been achieved. The German Democratic Republic (GDR), or what Western media preferred to call communist East Germany, had been rejected. Its hated official spying on its people - the massive "Stasi" apparatus - could not continue. Liberty and prosperity would and did arrive as the country rejoined the "free world." The people had peacefully overthrown actually existing socialism and returned to capitalism. No one could miss that (officially hyped) interpretation of the fall of the Wall. Yet it is hardly the only one, although that was rarely admitted.
True enough, a repressive regime collapsed amid promises of liberty and prosperity. That happened across much of Eastern Europe. Yet liberty and prosperity mostly proved elusive to achieve or keep. Where freedom ushered capitalism back in, capitalism quickly took over and imposed its heavy burdens. Euphoria, like springtime, never lasted.
Reintegrating into European capitalism via German reunification has not been the blessing so many Germans imagined back in 1989. They gave up secure jobs, incomes and generous social services. Retrieving freedom cost them heavily. The capitalism they rejoined has serious economic problems that keep constricting job opportunities and security, social services and future prospects. Gains in some freedoms keep costing losses of others.
Official and other pro-capitalist enthusiasts marked the 25th anniversary with rather suspicious exaggerations. Perhaps they celebrated so loudly to drown out - like drunks with alcohol - their rising anxiety about what capitalist freedom keeps delivering.
.....(snip).....
One lesson to draw from the GDR's history is that if socialist societies are to be run by, of and for the people, then the people have to be in charge and that includes within the economy. Democracies (both capitalist and socialist) will remain merely formal when the economy continues to be run by small self-selecting minorities (in capitalism, major shareholders and the boards of directors they select, and in socialism, state officials). Those minorities will dominate until they are overthrown. ............(more)
The complete piece is at: http://truth-out.org/news/item/27383-the-fall-of-the-berlin-wall-and-the-failures-of-actually-existing-economic-systems
Richard Wolff: The Fall of the Berlin Wall and the Failures of Actually Existing Economic Systems
The Fall of the Berlin Wall and the Failures of Actually Existing Economic Systems
Wednesday, 12 November 2014 10:21
By Richard D Wolff, Truthout | News Analysis
Hype went wild coming into last week's 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. "Freedom" had been achieved. The German Democratic Republic (GDR), or what Western media preferred to call communist East Germany, had been rejected. Its hated official spying on its people - the massive "Stasi" apparatus - could not continue. Liberty and prosperity would and did arrive as the country rejoined the "free world." The people had peacefully overthrown actually existing socialism and returned to capitalism. No one could miss that (officially hyped) interpretation of the fall of the Wall. Yet it is hardly the only one, although that was rarely admitted.
True enough, a repressive regime collapsed amid promises of liberty and prosperity. That happened across much of Eastern Europe. Yet liberty and prosperity mostly proved elusive to achieve or keep. Where freedom ushered capitalism back in, capitalism quickly took over and imposed its heavy burdens. Euphoria, like springtime, never lasted.
Reintegrating into European capitalism via German reunification has not been the blessing so many Germans imagined back in 1989. They gave up secure jobs, incomes and generous social services. Retrieving freedom cost them heavily. The capitalism they rejoined has serious economic problems that keep constricting job opportunities and security, social services and future prospects. Gains in some freedoms keep costing losses of others.
Official and other pro-capitalist enthusiasts marked the 25th anniversary with rather suspicious exaggerations. Perhaps they celebrated so loudly to drown out - like drunks with alcohol - their rising anxiety about what capitalist freedom keeps delivering.
.....(snip).....
One lesson to draw from the GDR's history is that if socialist societies are to be run by, of and for the people, then the people have to be in charge and that includes within the economy. Democracies (both capitalist and socialist) will remain merely formal when the economy continues to be run by small self-selecting minorities (in capitalism, major shareholders and the boards of directors they select, and in socialism, state officials). Those minorities will dominate until they are overthrown. ............(more)
The complete piece is at: http://truth-out.org/news/item/27383-the-fall-of-the-berlin-wall-and-the-failures-of-actually-existing-economic-systems
November 14, 2014
What Do Joni Ernst's Senate Win and Support for Embryo "Personhood" Really Tell Us?
Thursday, 13 November 2014 00:00
By Katie Klabusich, Truthout | News Analysis
Humans search for meaning in everything. This impulse can be hazardous when done in the immediate wake of defeat. And so it has been with the analysis of Election 2014, a day that has confused the masses and put political pundits in the tough position of telling the citizenry what it all means.
The Grand Old Party captured Congress - winning in districts where ballot measures to raise the minimum wage and end marijuana prohibition were overwhelmingly approved. A glance at the national returns left many with frustration migraines and an immediate impulse to learn lessons with the power to inform activism, party politics and strategies for the already underway 2016 elections.
Except, very little about the basic numbers and results should surprise anyone. Six in 10 Americans are frustrated with the economy and presidents haven't historically hung onto Congress for the final legislative session of their administrations. Results that should have prompted simply a disappointed shrug for the loss of the Senate and a relieved sigh for the defeat of the two personhood ballot measures, have been repeatedly picked apart and declared meaningful for pro-choice proponents over the past week.
One race in particular seems to be teaching people the wrong lesson. Joni Ernst edged out Bruce Braley in Iowa for the open US Senate seat left vacant by Tom Harkin's retirement. Much early ado was made about her pig castration ad (she knows how to reduce pork in Washington thanks to her farming roots!), but the campaign was quickly depicted nationally as a battle over her extremist legislative record in the Iowa State Senate. .............(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/27400-what-does-joni-ernst-s-support-for-embryo-personhood-really-tell-us
What Do Joni Ernst's Senate Win and Support for Embryo "Personhood" Really Tell Us?
What Do Joni Ernst's Senate Win and Support for Embryo "Personhood" Really Tell Us?
Thursday, 13 November 2014 00:00
By Katie Klabusich, Truthout | News Analysis
Stop saying Joni Ernst won because she ran from her personhood stance. We can't afford to learn the wrong lesson from the midterms as the campaign for 2016 gets underway.
Humans search for meaning in everything. This impulse can be hazardous when done in the immediate wake of defeat. And so it has been with the analysis of Election 2014, a day that has confused the masses and put political pundits in the tough position of telling the citizenry what it all means.
The Grand Old Party captured Congress - winning in districts where ballot measures to raise the minimum wage and end marijuana prohibition were overwhelmingly approved. A glance at the national returns left many with frustration migraines and an immediate impulse to learn lessons with the power to inform activism, party politics and strategies for the already underway 2016 elections.
Except, very little about the basic numbers and results should surprise anyone. Six in 10 Americans are frustrated with the economy and presidents haven't historically hung onto Congress for the final legislative session of their administrations. Results that should have prompted simply a disappointed shrug for the loss of the Senate and a relieved sigh for the defeat of the two personhood ballot measures, have been repeatedly picked apart and declared meaningful for pro-choice proponents over the past week.
One race in particular seems to be teaching people the wrong lesson. Joni Ernst edged out Bruce Braley in Iowa for the open US Senate seat left vacant by Tom Harkin's retirement. Much early ado was made about her pig castration ad (she knows how to reduce pork in Washington thanks to her farming roots!), but the campaign was quickly depicted nationally as a battle over her extremist legislative record in the Iowa State Senate. .............(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/27400-what-does-joni-ernst-s-support-for-embryo-personhood-really-tell-us
November 14, 2014
via truthdig:
For the World’s Sake: Revolution in the United States
Posted on Nov 13, 201
By Garry Leech
How can it be just that so few dictate the lives of so many? I’m not referring to the 1 percent and the 99 percent. I’m speaking of the voting population in the United States and in its minions Canada and Britain. Meanwhile, the billions of people around the world whose lives are directly impacted by the decisions made by elected officials in these wealthy nations have virtually no voice. The US Empire is far from democratic. It is authoritarian! It is imperialist! It is unjust! And a revolution is needed.
In the 2012 presidential election, 121 million Americans voted, which constituted 57 percent of the voting age population. This voter turnout, while not a significant majority, nevertheless provides legitimacy for the US political system, particularly in the eyes of many Americans.
But the political decisions made by elected US officials reach far beyond that nation’s borders. Through its foreign policy and its dominant role in international institutions such as the United Nations Security Council, NATO, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, the United States impacts the lives of virtually everyone on the planet. In other words, the electoral choices of 121 million Americans directly impact the lives of billions of people around the world. How is this democratic?
National borders are repeatedly decimated in the name of ‘free market’ capitalism so that corporations can freely move their capital and profits around the globe to take advantage of cheap labour and natural resources, particularly in the global South. But while the economy is becoming increasingly globalized, democracy remains rooted in the nation-state. ...................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/for_the_worlds_sake_revolution_in_the_united_states_20141113
For the World’s Sake: Revolution in the United States
via truthdig:
For the World’s Sake: Revolution in the United States
Posted on Nov 13, 201
By Garry Leech
This piece first appeared at CounterPunch.
Garry Leech is an independent journalist and author of numerous books including Capitalism: A Structural Genocide (Zed Books, 2012); Beyond Bogota: Diary of a Drug War Journalist in Colombia (Beacon Press, 2009); and Crude Interventions: The United States, Oil and the New World Disorder (Zed Books, 2006). He is also an editor of the Cape Breton Independent and a lecturer in the Department of Political Science at Cape Breton University in Canada.
How can it be just that so few dictate the lives of so many? I’m not referring to the 1 percent and the 99 percent. I’m speaking of the voting population in the United States and in its minions Canada and Britain. Meanwhile, the billions of people around the world whose lives are directly impacted by the decisions made by elected officials in these wealthy nations have virtually no voice. The US Empire is far from democratic. It is authoritarian! It is imperialist! It is unjust! And a revolution is needed.
In the 2012 presidential election, 121 million Americans voted, which constituted 57 percent of the voting age population. This voter turnout, while not a significant majority, nevertheless provides legitimacy for the US political system, particularly in the eyes of many Americans.
But the political decisions made by elected US officials reach far beyond that nation’s borders. Through its foreign policy and its dominant role in international institutions such as the United Nations Security Council, NATO, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, the United States impacts the lives of virtually everyone on the planet. In other words, the electoral choices of 121 million Americans directly impact the lives of billions of people around the world. How is this democratic?
National borders are repeatedly decimated in the name of ‘free market’ capitalism so that corporations can freely move their capital and profits around the globe to take advantage of cheap labour and natural resources, particularly in the global South. But while the economy is becoming increasingly globalized, democracy remains rooted in the nation-state. ...................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/for_the_worlds_sake_revolution_in_the_united_states_20141113
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