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marmar
marmar's Journal
marmar's Journal
March 7, 2016
(The Intercept) MARK STRYNAR AND Andrew Lindstrom walked down the muddy bank of the Cape Fear River toward the water, sampling equipment in hand. It was the summer of 2012, and the scientists, who both work for the Environmental Protection Agency, were taking the first steps in what would be more than two years of detective work. The Cape Fear winds its way for over 200 miles through North Carolina before flowing into the Atlantic, but Strynar and Lindstrom were focused on a 20-mile stretch that runs from a boat dock outside Fayetteville south to the little town of Tar Heel. About halfway between the two points, on the western bank of the river, sits a large plant built by DuPont.
Fayetteville Works, as the sprawling site is called, previously manufactured C8, a chemical that DuPont used for more than 50 years to make Teflon and other products. After a massive class-action lawsuit revealed evidence of C8’s links to cancer and other diseases, DuPont agreed in a deal with the EPA to phase out its use of the chemical. But Strynar and Lindstrom were among many scientists who feared that DuPont and the other companies that used C8 might have swapped it out for similar compounds with similar problems. To see if they were right — and whether any of these replacements might have ended up in the river — they took water samples from the Cape Fear, some upstream the plant, others from points below its outflow.
Perfluorooctanoic acid, commonly known as PFOA or C8, is a “perfluorinated” chemical, which means that its base includes carbon chains attached to fluorine atoms. Because the fluorine-carbon bond is one of the strongest in chemistry, these compounds are incredibly stable, which makes them useful in industry. But that stability also makes them endure in the environment. Indeed, C8, which has recently been detected in upstate New York, in Vermont, and in Michigan’s Flint River, among other places, is expected to remain on the earth long after humans are extinct. And evidence suggests that many of its replacements are just as persistent.
The potential permanence of the problem was only one reason the EPA team was mucking around on the banks of the Cape Fear River. There were short-term dangers, too. Strynar and Lindstrom knew well that the Cape Fear is a source of drinking water and that if perfluorinated chemicals — known as PFCs — had contaminated the river, they would soon make their way into human bodies. Strynar had spent eight years documenting the presence of these molecules in fish, food, air, house dust, and humans. Lindstrom, an expert on measuring PFCs in the environment who has worked for the EPA for more than two decades, had also been documenting the steady proliferation of the chemicals. Both knew that the potential for contamination around the plant was great, because C8 had spread into the water around many of the facilities that made and used it, including plants in West Virginia, Minnesota, New Jersey, Alabama, Germany, and Japan. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control, 99.7 percent of Americans already had C8 in their blood. ....................(more)
https://theintercept.com/2016/03/03/how-dupont-concealed-the-dangers-of-the-new-teflon-toxin/
A Chemical Shell Game: How DuPont Concealed the Dangers of the New Teflon Toxin
(The Intercept) MARK STRYNAR AND Andrew Lindstrom walked down the muddy bank of the Cape Fear River toward the water, sampling equipment in hand. It was the summer of 2012, and the scientists, who both work for the Environmental Protection Agency, were taking the first steps in what would be more than two years of detective work. The Cape Fear winds its way for over 200 miles through North Carolina before flowing into the Atlantic, but Strynar and Lindstrom were focused on a 20-mile stretch that runs from a boat dock outside Fayetteville south to the little town of Tar Heel. About halfway between the two points, on the western bank of the river, sits a large plant built by DuPont.
Fayetteville Works, as the sprawling site is called, previously manufactured C8, a chemical that DuPont used for more than 50 years to make Teflon and other products. After a massive class-action lawsuit revealed evidence of C8’s links to cancer and other diseases, DuPont agreed in a deal with the EPA to phase out its use of the chemical. But Strynar and Lindstrom were among many scientists who feared that DuPont and the other companies that used C8 might have swapped it out for similar compounds with similar problems. To see if they were right — and whether any of these replacements might have ended up in the river — they took water samples from the Cape Fear, some upstream the plant, others from points below its outflow.
Perfluorooctanoic acid, commonly known as PFOA or C8, is a “perfluorinated” chemical, which means that its base includes carbon chains attached to fluorine atoms. Because the fluorine-carbon bond is one of the strongest in chemistry, these compounds are incredibly stable, which makes them useful in industry. But that stability also makes them endure in the environment. Indeed, C8, which has recently been detected in upstate New York, in Vermont, and in Michigan’s Flint River, among other places, is expected to remain on the earth long after humans are extinct. And evidence suggests that many of its replacements are just as persistent.
The potential permanence of the problem was only one reason the EPA team was mucking around on the banks of the Cape Fear River. There were short-term dangers, too. Strynar and Lindstrom knew well that the Cape Fear is a source of drinking water and that if perfluorinated chemicals — known as PFCs — had contaminated the river, they would soon make their way into human bodies. Strynar had spent eight years documenting the presence of these molecules in fish, food, air, house dust, and humans. Lindstrom, an expert on measuring PFCs in the environment who has worked for the EPA for more than two decades, had also been documenting the steady proliferation of the chemicals. Both knew that the potential for contamination around the plant was great, because C8 had spread into the water around many of the facilities that made and used it, including plants in West Virginia, Minnesota, New Jersey, Alabama, Germany, and Japan. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control, 99.7 percent of Americans already had C8 in their blood. ....................(more)
https://theintercept.com/2016/03/03/how-dupont-concealed-the-dangers-of-the-new-teflon-toxin/
March 7, 2016
from YES! Magazine:
Craft Beer vs. Budweiser: How Small-Brewers Are Winning Back the Neighborhood
Good beer comes from collaboration, not competition. By working together, small-brewers everywhere are giving corporations a run for their money.
A.C. Shilton posted Mar 02, 2016
When Sierra Nevada Brewing Company was looking for a city to host its new brewery, it had a stringent list of requirements: The city had to be near outdoor recreational opportunities, it needed to be centrally located on the East Coast, and the state’s laws had to be friendly toward craft brewers.
Asheville, North Carolina, seemed like an obvious choice. It’s centrally located on the East Coast, with easy distribution channels to New York and Miami, and outdoor recreational activities are abundant. But it was struck from the company’s list for one key reason. “We didn’t want to go into any city where we’d be within 50 miles of another craft brewery,” said Brian Grossman, Sierra Nevada’s general manager. “We didn’t want to be the 800-pound gorilla that came into town.” While this may seem unusual for a profit-driven business, it wasn’t for a craft beer company.
Since the beginning, craft beer has been about community. Before your neighborhood taproom started stocking hoppy IPAs, before most of us sampled nitro-infused coffee porters, before growlers were part of our dinner party lexicon—the craft beer movement was mostly a loose coalition of home brewers tinkering in their basements and sharing recipes over the beginnings of the Internet. And since beer brews in batches, they needed friends to help drink it. In living rooms and back porches across the country, the gospel of good beer was spread one kicked keg at a time.
“Most professional brewers started as home brewers,” says Julia Herz, craft beer program director for the Brewers Association. She adds that although many small-brewers have turned pro, they’ve largely stayed loyal to their homebrew roots—meaning they believe the best way to brew good beer is through collaboration, not competition.
In the past two decades, craft beer has seen remarkable growth. According to the Brewers Association, in 1994 only 1.3 percent of America’s beer market was craft beer. By 2014, though, it had gulped up 11 percent of market share. .............(more)
http://www.yesmagazine.org/new-economy/craft-beer-vs-budweiser-how-small-brewers-are-winning-back-the-neighborhood-20160302
Craft Beer vs. Budweiser: How Small-Brewers Are Winning Back the Neighborhood
from YES! Magazine:
Craft Beer vs. Budweiser: How Small-Brewers Are Winning Back the Neighborhood
Good beer comes from collaboration, not competition. By working together, small-brewers everywhere are giving corporations a run for their money.
A.C. Shilton posted Mar 02, 2016
When Sierra Nevada Brewing Company was looking for a city to host its new brewery, it had a stringent list of requirements: The city had to be near outdoor recreational opportunities, it needed to be centrally located on the East Coast, and the state’s laws had to be friendly toward craft brewers.
Asheville, North Carolina, seemed like an obvious choice. It’s centrally located on the East Coast, with easy distribution channels to New York and Miami, and outdoor recreational activities are abundant. But it was struck from the company’s list for one key reason. “We didn’t want to go into any city where we’d be within 50 miles of another craft brewery,” said Brian Grossman, Sierra Nevada’s general manager. “We didn’t want to be the 800-pound gorilla that came into town.” While this may seem unusual for a profit-driven business, it wasn’t for a craft beer company.
Since the beginning, craft beer has been about community. Before your neighborhood taproom started stocking hoppy IPAs, before most of us sampled nitro-infused coffee porters, before growlers were part of our dinner party lexicon—the craft beer movement was mostly a loose coalition of home brewers tinkering in their basements and sharing recipes over the beginnings of the Internet. And since beer brews in batches, they needed friends to help drink it. In living rooms and back porches across the country, the gospel of good beer was spread one kicked keg at a time.
“Most professional brewers started as home brewers,” says Julia Herz, craft beer program director for the Brewers Association. She adds that although many small-brewers have turned pro, they’ve largely stayed loyal to their homebrew roots—meaning they believe the best way to brew good beer is through collaboration, not competition.
In the past two decades, craft beer has seen remarkable growth. According to the Brewers Association, in 1994 only 1.3 percent of America’s beer market was craft beer. By 2014, though, it had gulped up 11 percent of market share. .............(more)
http://www.yesmagazine.org/new-economy/craft-beer-vs-budweiser-how-small-brewers-are-winning-back-the-neighborhood-20160302
March 7, 2016
from TomDispatch:
Three Times When the World Broke Open -- and Two When It Might Again
In Praise of Impractical Movements
By Mark Engler and Paul Engler
Bernie Sanders's insurgent presidential campaign has opened up a debate about how social change happens in our society. The official version of how progress is won -- currently voiced by mainstream pundits and members of a spooked Democratic Party establishment -- goes something like this: politics is a tricky business, gains coming through the work of pragmatic insiders who know how to maneuver within the system. In order to get things done, you have to play the game, be realistic, and accept the established limits of debate in Washington, D.C.
A recent article in the Atlantic summed up this perspective with the tagline, "At this polarized moment, it's incremental change or nothing." This view, however, leaves out a critical driver of social transformation. It fails to account for what might be the most important engine of progress: grassroots movements by citizens demanding change.
Social change is seldom either as incremental or predictable as many insiders suggest. Every once in a while, an outburst of resistance seems to break open a world of possibility, creating unforeseen opportunities for transformation. Indeed, according to that leading theorist of disruptive power, Frances Fox Piven, the “great moments of equalizing reform in American political history” -- securing labor rights, expanding the vote, or creating a social safety net -- have been directly related to surges of widespread defiance.
.....(snip).....
Civil Rights: An "Unwise and Untimely" Movement
In hindsight, it's easy enough for people today to imagine that progress on civil rights was preordained. But that's hardly how things looked as the 1960s began. Six years after the Supreme Court's 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling declared "separate educational facilities... inherently unequal," defiance of the law had become a badge of honor for officials throughout the South. White Citizens' Councils had come to dominate local politics in much of the region, and ever more vocally racist politicians were winning elections to Congress over more genteel (if still bigoted) Southern politicians of a previous generation.
Civil rights bills had passed in Washington, D.C., in 1957 and 1960, but only after they were watered down to homeopathic levels. Activists even debated whether to ask President Dwight Eisenhower to veto the first of those bills, and Thurgood Marshall deemed the second "not worth the paper it's written on." However inadequate those bills were, Eisenhower had expressed doubts that any further legislation would be enacted for at least a decade, possibly two. On taking office, President John Kennedy was hardly more hopeful and possibly even less enthusiastic when it came to taking action of any sort. As journalist Todd Purdum has noted, Kennedy “believed that strong civil rights legislation would be difficult if not impossible to pass, and that it could well jeopardize the rest of his legislative program.” ................(more)
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176111/tomgram%3A_engler%2C_the_transformative_power_of_democratic_uprisings/#more
Three Times When the World Broke Open -- and Two When It Might Again
from TomDispatch:
Three Times When the World Broke Open -- and Two When It Might Again
In Praise of Impractical Movements
By Mark Engler and Paul Engler
Bernie Sanders's insurgent presidential campaign has opened up a debate about how social change happens in our society. The official version of how progress is won -- currently voiced by mainstream pundits and members of a spooked Democratic Party establishment -- goes something like this: politics is a tricky business, gains coming through the work of pragmatic insiders who know how to maneuver within the system. In order to get things done, you have to play the game, be realistic, and accept the established limits of debate in Washington, D.C.
A recent article in the Atlantic summed up this perspective with the tagline, "At this polarized moment, it's incremental change or nothing." This view, however, leaves out a critical driver of social transformation. It fails to account for what might be the most important engine of progress: grassroots movements by citizens demanding change.
Social change is seldom either as incremental or predictable as many insiders suggest. Every once in a while, an outburst of resistance seems to break open a world of possibility, creating unforeseen opportunities for transformation. Indeed, according to that leading theorist of disruptive power, Frances Fox Piven, the “great moments of equalizing reform in American political history” -- securing labor rights, expanding the vote, or creating a social safety net -- have been directly related to surges of widespread defiance.
.....(snip).....
Civil Rights: An "Unwise and Untimely" Movement
In hindsight, it's easy enough for people today to imagine that progress on civil rights was preordained. But that's hardly how things looked as the 1960s began. Six years after the Supreme Court's 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling declared "separate educational facilities... inherently unequal," defiance of the law had become a badge of honor for officials throughout the South. White Citizens' Councils had come to dominate local politics in much of the region, and ever more vocally racist politicians were winning elections to Congress over more genteel (if still bigoted) Southern politicians of a previous generation.
Civil rights bills had passed in Washington, D.C., in 1957 and 1960, but only after they were watered down to homeopathic levels. Activists even debated whether to ask President Dwight Eisenhower to veto the first of those bills, and Thurgood Marshall deemed the second "not worth the paper it's written on." However inadequate those bills were, Eisenhower had expressed doubts that any further legislation would be enacted for at least a decade, possibly two. On taking office, President John Kennedy was hardly more hopeful and possibly even less enthusiastic when it came to taking action of any sort. As journalist Todd Purdum has noted, Kennedy “believed that strong civil rights legislation would be difficult if not impossible to pass, and that it could well jeopardize the rest of his legislative program.” ................(more)
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176111/tomgram%3A_engler%2C_the_transformative_power_of_democratic_uprisings/#more
March 7, 2016
Revealed: the 30-year economic betrayal dragging down Generation Y’s income
Exclusive new data shows how debt, unemployment and property prices have combined to stop millennials taking their share of western wealth
(Guardian UK) The full scale of the financial rout facing millennials is revealed today in exclusive new data that points to a perfect storm of factors besetting an entire generation of young adults around the world.
A combination of debt, joblessness, globalisation, demographics and rising house prices is depressing the incomes and prospects of millions of young people across the developed world, resulting in unprecedented inequality between generations.
A Guardian investigation into the prospects of millennials – those born between 1980 and the mid-90s, and often otherwise known as Generation Y – has found they are increasingly being cut out of the wealth generated in western societies.
Where 30 years ago young adults used to earn more than national averages, now in many countries they have slumped to earning as much as 20% below their average compatriot. Pensioners by comparison have seen income soar.
In seven major economies in North America and Europe, the growth in income of the average young couple and families in their 20s has lagged dramatically behind national averages over the past 30 years. ..................(more)
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/07/revealed-30-year-economic-betrayal-dragging-down-generation-y-income
Revealed: the 30-year economic betrayal dragging down Generation Y’s income
Revealed: the 30-year economic betrayal dragging down Generation Y’s income
Exclusive new data shows how debt, unemployment and property prices have combined to stop millennials taking their share of western wealth
(Guardian UK) The full scale of the financial rout facing millennials is revealed today in exclusive new data that points to a perfect storm of factors besetting an entire generation of young adults around the world.
A combination of debt, joblessness, globalisation, demographics and rising house prices is depressing the incomes and prospects of millions of young people across the developed world, resulting in unprecedented inequality between generations.
A Guardian investigation into the prospects of millennials – those born between 1980 and the mid-90s, and often otherwise known as Generation Y – has found they are increasingly being cut out of the wealth generated in western societies.
Where 30 years ago young adults used to earn more than national averages, now in many countries they have slumped to earning as much as 20% below their average compatriot. Pensioners by comparison have seen income soar.
In seven major economies in North America and Europe, the growth in income of the average young couple and families in their 20s has lagged dramatically behind national averages over the past 30 years. ..................(more)
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/07/revealed-30-year-economic-betrayal-dragging-down-generation-y-income
March 5, 2016
(WaPo) Soon after they start competing, participants in the Iditarod — Alaska’s iconic, 1,000-mile sled dog race — find themselves cold and lonely, darting across the state’s vast, snowy expanse.
But that’s not how the so-called “Last Great Race” begins. The Iditarod’s ceremonial beginning in Anchorage is half parade, half sporting event: Spectators line the streets, cameras are out and balloons bob above sponsor banners.
It’s 11 miles of off-the-clocks pomp. Usually.
When this year’s iteration of the Iditarod starts Saturday, the ceremonial route will be much shorter than normal — just three miles — because of a lack of snow.
Alaska’s winter has been so mild that even that abbreviated route will have to be lined with imported powder.
(As the Arctic roasts, Alaska bakes in one of its warmest winters ever)
“It’s a rare occasion that there isn’t enough snow in Anchorage,” said Tim Sullivan, spokesman for the Alaska Railroad, which delivered seven cars full of snow to Anchorage for the event on Thursday morning. ...............(more)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-lead/wp/2016/03/04/alaskas-winter-is-so-warm-the-iditarod-is-importing-snow-and-shortening-its-ceremonial-start/
Alaska’s winter is so warm, the Iditarod is importing snow and shortening its start
(WaPo) Soon after they start competing, participants in the Iditarod — Alaska’s iconic, 1,000-mile sled dog race — find themselves cold and lonely, darting across the state’s vast, snowy expanse.
But that’s not how the so-called “Last Great Race” begins. The Iditarod’s ceremonial beginning in Anchorage is half parade, half sporting event: Spectators line the streets, cameras are out and balloons bob above sponsor banners.
It’s 11 miles of off-the-clocks pomp. Usually.
When this year’s iteration of the Iditarod starts Saturday, the ceremonial route will be much shorter than normal — just three miles — because of a lack of snow.
Alaska’s winter has been so mild that even that abbreviated route will have to be lined with imported powder.
(As the Arctic roasts, Alaska bakes in one of its warmest winters ever)
“It’s a rare occasion that there isn’t enough snow in Anchorage,” said Tim Sullivan, spokesman for the Alaska Railroad, which delivered seven cars full of snow to Anchorage for the event on Thursday morning. ...............(more)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-lead/wp/2016/03/04/alaskas-winter-is-so-warm-the-iditarod-is-importing-snow-and-shortening-its-ceremonial-start/
March 4, 2016
(WaPo) Soon after they start competing, participants in the Iditarod — Alaska’s iconic, 1,000-mile sled dog race — find themselves cold and lonely, darting across the state’s vast, snowy expanse.
But that’s not how the so-called “Last Great Race” begins. The Iditarod’s ceremonial beginning in Anchorage is half parade, half sporting event: Spectators line the streets, cameras are out and balloons bob above sponsor banners.
It’s 11 miles of off-the-clocks pomp. Usually.
When this year’s iteration of the Iditarod starts Saturday, the ceremonial route will be much shorter than normal — just three miles — because of a lack of snow.
Alaska’s winter has been so mild that even that abbreviated route will have to be lined with imported powder.
(As the Arctic roasts, Alaska bakes in one of its warmest winters ever)
“It’s a rare occasion that there isn’t enough snow in Anchorage,” said Tim Sullivan, spokesman for the Alaska Railroad, which delivered seven cars full of snow to Anchorage for the event on Thursday morning. ...............(more)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-lead/wp/2016/03/04/alaskas-winter-is-so-warm-the-iditarod-is-importing-snow-and-shortening-its-ceremonial-start/
Alaska’s winter is so warm, the Iditarod is importing snow and shortening its start
(WaPo) Soon after they start competing, participants in the Iditarod — Alaska’s iconic, 1,000-mile sled dog race — find themselves cold and lonely, darting across the state’s vast, snowy expanse.
But that’s not how the so-called “Last Great Race” begins. The Iditarod’s ceremonial beginning in Anchorage is half parade, half sporting event: Spectators line the streets, cameras are out and balloons bob above sponsor banners.
It’s 11 miles of off-the-clocks pomp. Usually.
When this year’s iteration of the Iditarod starts Saturday, the ceremonial route will be much shorter than normal — just three miles — because of a lack of snow.
Alaska’s winter has been so mild that even that abbreviated route will have to be lined with imported powder.
(As the Arctic roasts, Alaska bakes in one of its warmest winters ever)
“It’s a rare occasion that there isn’t enough snow in Anchorage,” said Tim Sullivan, spokesman for the Alaska Railroad, which delivered seven cars full of snow to Anchorage for the event on Thursday morning. ...............(more)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-lead/wp/2016/03/04/alaskas-winter-is-so-warm-the-iditarod-is-importing-snow-and-shortening-its-ceremonial-start/
March 4, 2016
Poisoned City: Flint and the Specter of Domestic Terrorism
Thursday, 03 March 2016 00:00
By Henry A. Giroux, Truthout | News Analysis
In the current age of free-market frenzy, privatization, commodification and deregulation, Americans are no longer bound by or interested in historical memory, connecting narratives or modes of thinking that allow them to translate private troubles into broader systemic considerations. As Irving Howe once noted, "the rhetoric of apocalypse haunts the air" accompanied by a relentless spectacle that flattens time, disconnects events, obsesses with the moment and leaves no traces of the past, resistance or previous totalitarian dangers. The United States has become a privatized "culture of the immediate," in the words of Zygmunt Bauman and Carlo Bordoni: It is a society in which the past is erased and the future appears ominous. And as scholar Wendy Brown has noted in Undoing the Demos, under the rule of neoliberalism, the dissolution of historical and public memory "cauterizes democracy's more radical expressions."
Particularly now, in the era of Donald Trump, US politics denotes an age of forgetting civil rights, full inclusion and the promise of democracy. There is a divorce between thought and its historical determinants, a severance of events both from each other and the conditions that produce them. The growing acceptance of state violence, even its normalization, can be found in repeated statements by Trump, the leading Republican Party presidential candidate, who has voiced his support for torture, mass deportations, internment camps and beating up protesters, and embraced what Umberto Eco once called a cult of "action for action's sake" - a term Eco associated with fascism. Ominously, Trump's campaign of violence has attracted a commanding number of followers, including the anti-Semitic and former Klu Klux Klan leader David Duke, and other white supremacists. But a death-dealing state can operate in less spectacular but in no less lethal ways. Cost-cutting negligence, malfeasance, omissions, and the withholding of social protections and civil rights can also inflict untold suffering.
The recent crisis over the poisoning of the water supply in Flint, Michigan, and the ways in which it has been taken up by many analysts in the mainstream media provide a classic example of how public issues have been emptied of any substance and divorced from historical understanding. This is a politics that fails to offer a comprehensive mode of analysis, one that refuses to link what is wrongly viewed as an isolated issue to a broader set of social, political and economic factors. Under such circumstances shared dangers are isolated and collapse into either insulated acts of governmental incompetence, a case of misguided bureaucratic ineptitude or unfortunate acts of individual misconduct, and other narratives of depoliticized disconnection. In this instance, there is more at work than flawed arguments or conceptual straitjackets. There is also a refusal to address a neoliberal politics in which state violence is used to hurt, abuse and humiliate those populations who are vulnerable, powerless and considered disposable. In Flint, the unimaginable has become imaginable as 8,657 children under 6 years of age have been subjected to potential lead poisoning. Flint provides a tragic example of what happens to a society when democracy begins to disappear and is surpassed by a state remade in the image of the corporation.
A more appropriate way to analyze the water crisis in Flint is to examine it within wider contexts of power and politics, addressing it as a form of domestic terrorism - or what Mark LeVine has called in a different context a "necropolitics of the oppressed." This is a form of systemic terror and violence instituted intentionally by different levels of government against populations at home in order to realize economic gains and achieve political benefits through practices that range from assassination, extortion, incarceration, violence and intimidation to coercion of a civilian population. Angela Davis details much of this violence in her new book Freedom Is a Constant Struggle. ................(more)
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/35080-poisoned-city-flint-and-the-specter-of-domestic-terrorism
Poisoned City: Flint and the Specter of Domestic Terrorism
Poisoned City: Flint and the Specter of Domestic Terrorism
Thursday, 03 March 2016 00:00
By Henry A. Giroux, Truthout | News Analysis
In the current age of free-market frenzy, privatization, commodification and deregulation, Americans are no longer bound by or interested in historical memory, connecting narratives or modes of thinking that allow them to translate private troubles into broader systemic considerations. As Irving Howe once noted, "the rhetoric of apocalypse haunts the air" accompanied by a relentless spectacle that flattens time, disconnects events, obsesses with the moment and leaves no traces of the past, resistance or previous totalitarian dangers. The United States has become a privatized "culture of the immediate," in the words of Zygmunt Bauman and Carlo Bordoni: It is a society in which the past is erased and the future appears ominous. And as scholar Wendy Brown has noted in Undoing the Demos, under the rule of neoliberalism, the dissolution of historical and public memory "cauterizes democracy's more radical expressions."
Particularly now, in the era of Donald Trump, US politics denotes an age of forgetting civil rights, full inclusion and the promise of democracy. There is a divorce between thought and its historical determinants, a severance of events both from each other and the conditions that produce them. The growing acceptance of state violence, even its normalization, can be found in repeated statements by Trump, the leading Republican Party presidential candidate, who has voiced his support for torture, mass deportations, internment camps and beating up protesters, and embraced what Umberto Eco once called a cult of "action for action's sake" - a term Eco associated with fascism. Ominously, Trump's campaign of violence has attracted a commanding number of followers, including the anti-Semitic and former Klu Klux Klan leader David Duke, and other white supremacists. But a death-dealing state can operate in less spectacular but in no less lethal ways. Cost-cutting negligence, malfeasance, omissions, and the withholding of social protections and civil rights can also inflict untold suffering.
The recent crisis over the poisoning of the water supply in Flint, Michigan, and the ways in which it has been taken up by many analysts in the mainstream media provide a classic example of how public issues have been emptied of any substance and divorced from historical understanding. This is a politics that fails to offer a comprehensive mode of analysis, one that refuses to link what is wrongly viewed as an isolated issue to a broader set of social, political and economic factors. Under such circumstances shared dangers are isolated and collapse into either insulated acts of governmental incompetence, a case of misguided bureaucratic ineptitude or unfortunate acts of individual misconduct, and other narratives of depoliticized disconnection. In this instance, there is more at work than flawed arguments or conceptual straitjackets. There is also a refusal to address a neoliberal politics in which state violence is used to hurt, abuse and humiliate those populations who are vulnerable, powerless and considered disposable. In Flint, the unimaginable has become imaginable as 8,657 children under 6 years of age have been subjected to potential lead poisoning. Flint provides a tragic example of what happens to a society when democracy begins to disappear and is surpassed by a state remade in the image of the corporation.
A more appropriate way to analyze the water crisis in Flint is to examine it within wider contexts of power and politics, addressing it as a form of domestic terrorism - or what Mark LeVine has called in a different context a "necropolitics of the oppressed." This is a form of systemic terror and violence instituted intentionally by different levels of government against populations at home in order to realize economic gains and achieve political benefits through practices that range from assassination, extortion, incarceration, violence and intimidation to coercion of a civilian population. Angela Davis details much of this violence in her new book Freedom Is a Constant Struggle. ................(more)
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/35080-poisoned-city-flint-and-the-specter-of-domestic-terrorism
March 3, 2016
Do they really think resurrecting a serial loser will sway a Repug electorate that loves strongman/big daddy types? .... The utter cluelessness of the establishment in this election cycle is astounding.
Do Reince Priebus & RNC powers-that-be realize how badly rolling out Mittens is going to backfire?
Do they really think resurrecting a serial loser will sway a Repug electorate that loves strongman/big daddy types? .... The utter cluelessness of the establishment in this election cycle is astounding.
March 3, 2016
A Secret About Oil You Won’t Find Anywhere Else
by Porter Stansberry • March 2, 2016
[font color="blue"]This is going to be a far larger problem than Wall Street realizes.[/font]
By Porter Stansberry, Daily Wealth:
In early 1983 – the first week of February, to be precise – the inventory of crude oil in the U.S. reached an all-time economic high. I say “economic high” because nominal supply of crude oil has since far surpassed its 1983 number. In fact, current U.S. crude-oil inventory (504 million barrels) is the actual all-time high. Supply today is about 150 million barrels more than total supply in 1983.
Obviously, we have a lot more oil in storage than we’ve ever had before – about 40% more. But nominal supply numbers aren’t as important as you might think. Demand for crude oil in our economy has grown a lot since 1983.
To make a bona fide “apples-to-apples” comparison to today’s supply glut, we should measure the amount of oil supply relative to consumption. In 1983, the number of days’ worth of consumption in the U.S. hit a peak of 33.4. That’s the largest amount of crude oil we’ve ever held in private storage, relative to demand. That’s the all-time highest amount of “economic supply” – supply in relation to actual demand.
Much like today’s glut, the glut of oil from the mid-1980s was caused by a sustained increase in U.S. production. More oil was coming from Alaska’s North Slope. The Trans-Alaska pipeline began operation in July 1977. It had an immediate effect on total U.S. supply.
U.S. oil production grew from 227 million barrels per month in 1977 to almost 270 million barrels per month in July 1986 – an increase in monthly production of 18.9% over nine years. As you might remember, gasoline prices fell to well below $1 per gallon… and we saw a commercial real estate and banking crisis in Texas. Houston real estate didn’t recover for 20 years. .............(more)
http://wolfstreet.com/2016/03/02/a-secret-about-oil-you-wont-find-anywhere-else/
A Secret About Oil You Won’t Find Anywhere Else
A Secret About Oil You Won’t Find Anywhere Else
by Porter Stansberry • March 2, 2016
[font color="blue"]This is going to be a far larger problem than Wall Street realizes.[/font]
By Porter Stansberry, Daily Wealth:
In early 1983 – the first week of February, to be precise – the inventory of crude oil in the U.S. reached an all-time economic high. I say “economic high” because nominal supply of crude oil has since far surpassed its 1983 number. In fact, current U.S. crude-oil inventory (504 million barrels) is the actual all-time high. Supply today is about 150 million barrels more than total supply in 1983.
Obviously, we have a lot more oil in storage than we’ve ever had before – about 40% more. But nominal supply numbers aren’t as important as you might think. Demand for crude oil in our economy has grown a lot since 1983.
To make a bona fide “apples-to-apples” comparison to today’s supply glut, we should measure the amount of oil supply relative to consumption. In 1983, the number of days’ worth of consumption in the U.S. hit a peak of 33.4. That’s the largest amount of crude oil we’ve ever held in private storage, relative to demand. That’s the all-time highest amount of “economic supply” – supply in relation to actual demand.
Much like today’s glut, the glut of oil from the mid-1980s was caused by a sustained increase in U.S. production. More oil was coming from Alaska’s North Slope. The Trans-Alaska pipeline began operation in July 1977. It had an immediate effect on total U.S. supply.
U.S. oil production grew from 227 million barrels per month in 1977 to almost 270 million barrels per month in July 1986 – an increase in monthly production of 18.9% over nine years. As you might remember, gasoline prices fell to well below $1 per gallon… and we saw a commercial real estate and banking crisis in Texas. Houston real estate didn’t recover for 20 years. .............(more)
http://wolfstreet.com/2016/03/02/a-secret-about-oil-you-wont-find-anywhere-else/
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