What Is Thy Bidding, My Master?

“ My friends, we have to drill off shore. We have to do it. It's out there and we can do it. And we can do that. The oil executives say within a couple of years we could be seeing results from it. So why not do it?

— John McCain - July 22, 2008

Exhibit #88491 why McCain shouldn't be president. John McCain takes his energy advice directly from the rich oil executives, no questions asked. Get that? We have to drill, because the oil executives told him it was the right thing to do.

And as for the results, read this for the real story on oil drilling.

Tell Congress To Keep Toxic Chemicals Out Of Everyday Products

From Consumers Union:

Potentially harmful chemical bisphenol-A (BPA) is in the blood of 93 percent of Americans aged 6 and older and enters infants through baby bottles. Studies have shown that BPA -- which is used to make plastics such as hard, clear plastic baby bottles -- may lead to breast and prostate cancer, obesity, reproductive system abnormalities and, in infants, developmental problems.

Canada has already banned BPA from baby bottles. The U.S. Congress should do the same, plus more: BPA is also found in items ranging from food packaging and water bottles to dental sealants.

From witnessing the effects of BPA in experiments, scientists believe this is a toxin the government cannot ignore. Congress needs to act to eliminate this potential health threat before it's too late. Tell Congress to ban BPA and any other potentially harmful chemical from products that serve as gateways to our bodies.

Read my previous blog on this very topic, "We Are Walking Bags of Toxic Chemicals".

You can learn a lot about the priorities of a country by whether they care more about consumer safety or corporate profits. In Canada, they care about their citizens, so they ban things like this. In the US, they care more about corporate profit than protecting their citizens, even babies, thus we have tons of toxic chemicals in our products that have been banned in Europe and Canada because they've been shown to harm people. It's all about priorities, and our country is an embarrassment. Even China (toxic waste dump), Romania and Mexico have banned this stuff. Read more about it here.

Plutocracy

“ We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both.

— Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis (1856 - 1941)

The Corporate Welfare State

It is ironic that conservatives have demonized terms like "socialism" and "welfare state" for decades, turning the philosophy that the state should look out for the welfare of its citizens, especially those less fortunate, into some fiery source of evil. Yet instead of socialism, they promote unbridled greed, pure capitalism without bounds (if they had their way, luckily the Democratic Party has prevented them from giving corporations 100% free reign, instead they are stuck at maybe 90% free reign), and no matter how much damage that does to the planet, to society, to all the values Americans profess to hold sacred, somehow they've managed to keep up the charade that the private sector is the answer to everything, and the public sector is the worst thing since Saddam, you know, after we were done supporting him and giving him chemical weapons.

What is even more ironic though as they can parade their market fundamentalism around, and condemn anything even remotely aimed at promoting social good as "socialism", yet the second big corporations need any help (and often times even when they don't need any help), you can count on the Republicans to come running to their aid. Somehow it is weak, "bleeding heart", and horrible when liberals want to help out people who can't pay for gas, or pay their rent, or their bills or for food or education. God forbid we raise the minimum wage. Yet when Republicans dump billions of dollars in corporate welfare into the private sector, that is OK. Somehow helping people is an attack on the sacred rules of market fundamentalism, yet when the government subsidizes failed corporations (which they do constantly), that is somehow just. The best part is, the CEO's and shareholders of these corporations get to keep their profits and giant paydays, while their loses are "socialized", meaning taxpayers get stuck with the bill.

Now I'm a firm believer in Democratic Socialism, and I think it is a great thing for taxpayers to pool their resources to lift everyone up, to provide great benefits for the society as a whole. In other countries they may pay a bit more in taxes, but they get free universal health care, they get free college education, they get taken care of, and the government makes sure no one gets neglected. THAT is worth it. In that system everyone gives some, and everyone gets back a lot in return. In the conservative "corporate welfare state", everyone gives some, and corporations get to pocket it, whether it be in the form of corporate bailouts for irresponsible lenders, subsidies for corporations that shouldn't be subsidized, or the ever-popular hugely wasteful no-bid contracts to defense contractors like Halliburton that actually make more profit the more taxpayer money they waste.

Isn't it ironic that they have fooled us into believing that the government helping us is "evil socialism", while the government bending over backwards to give our money to the already rich and powerful is macho capitalism at its finest? I think much in this country would change if people had a deeper understanding of the economy, and how screwed up our national priorities really are when we have a disintegrating middle class, and ever-expanding lower class, while the rich get richer and corporations enjoy record profits, all while they ignore (and profit from) huge crises like global warming. It is just amazing that they have done such a great job at convincing so many voters to vote against their own best interest. This is of course where wedge issues like abortion (even though Republican policies actually increase abortions), gay marriage, and immigration. And that is also why John McCain won't focus on the issues, because the issues are against him, and indefensible, so you'll continue to see him attacking Obama's patriotism, and his wife, and his faith, and his race, and anything else that will distract voters from how the Republican Party has been playing them for fools for decades.

Let's hope it doesn't work this time, but it won't be easy, because the corporate-owned media would love nothing better than to see the status quo continue, so they hype up the non-stories, they focus on the wedge issues, they focus on everything but real issues like the fundamental flaws in our economy, or the environment, or any of that.

Anyway, read Robert Borosage's piece on "Wall Street Socialism".

"Health Care For America Now" Abandons Real Solutions For Universal Health Care

A slew of progressive organizations including MoveOn and Campaign for America's Future just launched a new health care coalition, called Health Care for America Now (HCAN), which basically pushes the mainstream Democratic proposals for health care reform, or namely, incremental bandaid solutions that completely miss the point. I hate to say it, but Obama's plan fits this category. Now I'm sure most, if not all, of these groups know single payer universal health care (the kind run by the government) is the best solution, but, like Obama, just don't believe it is politically feasible, so they support this half-solution. They propose leaving the private insurance companies largely in control of our health care system, with a little added regulation, and they add some public plans to compete.

Is this better than what we have now? Yes, certainly. Most significantly it prohibits insurance companies from denying coverage based on preexisting conditions, which is a large part of how they screw people now (although I'm not at all convinced that the insurance companies won't find new ways of screwing people). It is also a hell of a lot better than McCain's plan, which isn't really a plan at all, it is just a continuation of the status quo, but it is actually worse because he takes the burden for benefits from employers, and dumps it on individuals, leaving them to the mercy of the private insurance companies. Read the AFL-CIO's analysis for more details.

But just because it is better than really bad, doesn't make it good. The root of the multitude of problems in our health care system is the insurance companies. They, like all corporations, have one concern, one legal responsibility, and that is to their shareholders, and profit. They look out for the bottom line, period. If it isn't good for business, if it doesn't give them more profit, they don't do it. And nothing makes more profit than cutting corners and screwing customers. Do you notice something missing? I'll give you a hint: It's HEALTH CARE! Simply put, GREED is at the core of our health care system, and it will continue to make private insurance companies look for new, more inventive ways to screw over customers. The preexisting conditions exception is one of the many ways they screw people over, but even if that is closed, they still have many more ways to screw you, and they will never stop finding new loopholes.

The private insurance industry is a cancer in our health care system. It is malignant. The HCAN plan is to try to stunt the cancer's growth, responding to new growths with targeted chemotherapy and radiation, but never actually trying to attack the main tumor. They leave it there to spread and continue to kill the system. What we need is to cut it out, completely, for the health of everyone.

The funny thing is, a completely public universal system is so much simpler than trying to tape together and regulate a private-public hybrid. Remember all that "mandates vs no mandates" debate during the Democratic primary? All the crap about enforcement and fears of people cheating the system? If the plans were public and truly universal, none of that would have been an issue, because that system would cover EVERYONE, period. Those debates and regulations and clauses to try to eliminate all of these problems, and the anticipation of future problems, all those issues were symptoms of trying to piece together a broken, bleeding system with spare body parts and duct tape. Our health care system is dead, and HCAN's plan is to give it life, by turning it into Frankenstein. What we need is a rebirth, from scratch, WITHOUT the tumor of greed. The government needs to take the lead in making sure everyone has access to health care. The government's job is to look out for its citizens, and it is accountable to those citizens. The government could administer health care just like it administers Social Security and Medicare, with a goal of helping people, not screwing them over for a profit. The role of corporations is to look out for their shareholders, to make them rich. Corporate America is incompatible with public health--the goal of corporations is not the same goal as the health care system, in fact it is directly opposed. Greed is incompatible with public health. We will never have a good system of health care with the insurance companies in the middle, exacting their pound of flesh.

I'm not alone in seeing HCAN's plan as a complete cop-out. Take it from experts, like Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the California Nurses Association (CNA):

Why is Health Care for America Now giving up on real reform?

The big splash of news and internet coverage for the new Health Care for America Now coalition of labor, progressive and liberal groups is a reminder of the critical importance of health care reform. And a reminder that partial solutions, such as those proposed by the coalition, will only perpetuate, not end the health care crisis.

The groups behind the new coalition are working in concert with the Obama campaign and Democratic leaders in Congress to build "consensus" around a plan that would presumably be introduced in the first days of the next administration, and pushed through to a quick vote before opponents can mount a "Harry and Louse"-style counter attack.

But, in search of a supposedly politically viable plan, the advocates of this approach have surrendered in advance on the only overhaul that will actually cure the disease, a single-payer, expanded and improved Medicare for all reform.

Their good intentions will leave the same failed system in place, and will not even blunt the political opposition from those on the right and corporate interests who will continue to challenge anything that looks like even modest reform.

They create a false hope of systemic change that won't be, squandering the opportunity to achieve the fundamental reform so desperately needed with so many lives in the balance.

They've also missed one of the most important lessons of the failure of the Clinton plan of 1993-94 which collapsed in part due to the absence of a broad, grassroots, activist movement needed to counter the insurance industry. Only single payer engenders such a movement, the very reason the single payer bill now in Congress, HR 676, has more co-sponsors than any other reform bill with tens of thousands around the country already working to enact it.

Health Care for America Now has identified the main culprit and obstacle to genuine reform. As their inaugural ad proclaims, "Will health insurance companies ever put your health ahead of their profits? We can't trust insurance companies to fix the healthcare mess."

There's just one problem -- the coalition's proposal does nothing to end the actual practice of insurance companies putting their profits ahead of your health. Nor does it fix the two central components of the health care morass -- insurance company denials of care and the financial squeeze facing American families due to ever skyrocketing healthcare costs which is exacerbated by the escalating credit crisis.

Consider the four healthcare questions posed by families in the first 30-second ad: "Will they pay for his inhaler? Is my surgery covered? Can I choose my child's doctor? Will they cover the chemo?"

All are the direct result of care denials and price gouging by the insurers -- and none would be solved by the HCAN "statement of common purpose."

How does the HCAN coalition propose to crack down on the insurance pirates? With a "watchdog role" on the plans "to assure that risk is fairly spread" and that "insurers do not turn people away, raise rates or drop coverage based on a person's health history or wrongly delay or deny care."

You can watch someone rob your bank, but unless you stop them, the vaults are still going to be stripped bare. If you're looking for the hammer or any enforcement mechanism in the HCAN proposal, don't bother, it's not there.

The insurers don't care if we know they are thieves, they will continue to deny and delay care because it's in their DNA. It's how they are set up to operate, it's how they make money for their shareholders, it's how they generate plush pay packages for their executives, and it's how they compete with the other insurance giants.

Nor does the HCAN proposal contain any effective cost controls on the insurers. Their commitment to basing pricing on "ability to pay" is a recipe for merely getting the healthcare you can afford, not what you need. It also fails to assure real choice of providers beyond the limited network established by all private insurance plans.

The bone the coalition sponsors throw to single payer advocates is the false promise of a public plan side by side with private insurance. The public plan, they contend, will be so much more attractive that the private plans will just wither away. Don't count on it.

The insurance companies will always be able to lower their prices with cut rate plans with lower standards that they can aggressively market through massive advertising, tele-marketing, even door to door salesmen (as some do now) with a marketing campaign that the public plans will not have the funding to be able to match.

The private plans can then continue to cherry pick the younger and healthier patients while the sicker and older patients are dumped in the public plan, wrecking the whole idea of a risk pool and driving up the costs for the public plan to operate. The competition won't starve the private plans and cause them to wither away, they'll starve the public plan.

There's only one way to stop the insurance industry abuses -- it's to actually stop them. The rest of the world has figured this one out -- see the study in Britain earlier this year that found that the U.S. ranks last in preventable deaths among 19 industrialized nations even though we spend twice as much on healthcare as anyone else. Isn't it time we figured it out here as well?

Or Dr. David Himmelstein with his response "A Policy Response to Health Care for America Now" (worth the read), as well as Dr. Don McCanne's "What is 'Health Care for America Now' Doing?". They all point out what should be obvious to everyone, HCAN is missing the point, and totally fails to cure (remove) the root cause of the health care crisis.

Like I said before, I believe these groups know that single payer universal coverage is the best solution, but they just don't think it is politically possible, so they are starting out by conceding meaningful reform. That isn't how you negotiate. You start with what you really want, and if it is impossible, you make concessions. You don't concede reform before you even try. There is a movement for single payer health care. People want real solutions and they want the government to lead the way. We just have to put pressure on our representatives so they realize truly universal health care is popular, and should be pursued. We are going to be in a perfect position to push meaningful reform next year, with Democrats controlling the White House and having large majorities in both houses of Congress. Who knows how long this position will last, or when we'll be in this position again? We can't squander this historic moment of great opportunity on bandaid solutions and piecemeal change. We must FIGHT for REAL health care reform. I intend to focus on this quite a bit going forward, especially after the election, because the debate can't be allowed to end with pseudo-reform, if it does the Republicans and private insurance companies have already won.

With that I have nothing left to say, except that I am really disappointed that so many progressive organizations have essentially given up on meaningful reform, and abandoned their mission to push the progressive agenda forward. They have left us hanging, and now it is our job to pick up the slack and pressure those who usually do the pressuring. It won't be easy, but it isn't impossible. So please, do everything you can to push single payer universal health care. And check out the Physicians for a National Health Program website to stay informed and get involved.

And even if you are cynical and pessimistic and don't think we can win this fight for truly universal health care, remember the Overton Window, and help us push it in the right direction, because that will ensure we'll get there eventually, even if we lose the battle (which hopefully we won't).

For The Republicans And War Profiteers

♫
Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build the big bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks

You that never done nothin'
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it's your little toy
You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes
And you turn and run farther
When the fast bullets fly

Like Judas of old
You lie and deceive
A world war can be won
You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drain

You fasten the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you set back and watch
When the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansion
As young people's blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud

You've thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain't worth the blood
That runs in your veins

How much do I know
To talk out of turn
You might say that I'm young
You might say I'm unlearned
But there's one thing I know
Though I'm younger than you
Even Jesus would never
Forgive what you do

Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul

And I hope that you die
And your death'll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I'll watch while you're lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I'll stand o'er your grave
'Til I'm sure that you're dead.

— Bob Dylan - Masters of War (1963)

McCain Gets Money From Terrorist Funders And Arms Traffickers

John McCain is on a trip to Colombia, and he made some comments about the Colombian terrorist group FARC, which he called "one of the worst" terrorist groups, and then baselessly accused Obama of being unwilling to help fight terrorism in Colombia. If you are familiar with McCain, you might know where this is going.

Yes, last week Carl H. Lindner Jr., former CEO of Chaquita Brands International, co-hosted a $25,000-per-person fundraiser for McCain and the Republican Party, which raised about $2 million. In addition to that, Lindner also serves on McCain's Ohio Victory Team.

Now Chaquita, while Linder was CEO, gave millions of dollars to FARC, and later to AUC, a violent right-wing paramilitary group designated a terrorist group by the US. Chaquita, via subsidiary Banadex, also engaged in arms trafficking, and provided 3,000 AK-47 rifles and millions of rounds of ammunition to AUC. AUC was also funded by the drug trade.

So of course, McCain criticizes FARC, and Obama for being "soft on terror", yet McCain gets millions from an event co-hosted by a former CEO who oversaw the funding of FARC and another terrorist organization, and was also involved in illegal arms trafficking. But AUC is also opposed to FARC, so I suppose McCain would list this terrorist group as his "allies" on the "war on terror" that Obama doesn't want to support. Maybe it is because Obama doesn't deal with terrorists, and isn't funded by people who support terrorists.

Oh yes, and Charlie Black, McCain's chief advisor and superlobbyist, lobbied for Chaquita multiple times. And we are supposed to believe McCain doesn't have any conflicts of interest in dealing with these issues? Oh yeah, did I mention that McCain has already used his political power to do favors for Lindner?:

However, in the past, McCain has done favors on Lindner's behalf. Last May, the Washington Post reported that in the late 1990s, McCain "promoted a deal in Arizona's Tonto National Forest involving property part-owned by Great American Life Insurance, a company run by billionaire Carl H. Lindner Jr., a prolific contributor to national political parties and presidential candidates."

Quid pro quo. Quid pro quo.

Why is it that McCain's campaign is run by lobbyists with seedy connections to dictators, terrorists and corporate America, yet the media doesn't seem to care at all, even when he is hypocritically attacking Obama and FARC when he is being funded by terrorist supporters and arms traffickers? Why doesn't the media care? Why do they give McCain a free pass on EVERYTHING? This isn't an isolated incident, this scenario has cropped up over and over again with McCain, and every time no one seems to care.

McCain's Tax Plan Gives Top Corporations $45 Billion In Tax Cuts

You can tell a lot about a society by its taxes, and how it allocates money. Our society throws an incredible amount of money into sustaining our ability to kill people, while putting very little into education.

Our society also used to have a much more progressive tax code, yet the tax burden has shifted from the rich to the middle and lower classes over the last couple decades. At the end of World War II the top tax bracket was 94%. Then from 1964 until Reagan took office the rate was in the 70-80% range. Then Reagan came into office, bringing with him the new Republican philosophy of helping the rich and screwing the rest. In 1982 the top tax bracket was cut to 50%. In 1987 it was 38.5%. In 1988 it was cut again to 28%. Today it is at 35%. Over the years corporate taxes have been cut as well, to say nothing of the countless loopholes that let corporations evade the vast majority of their taxes. Taxes are about giving back to society, they are about the common good. When we cut taxes for the rich, we aren't just saying we think the rich aren't rich enough, we are saying that the rich being richer is more important than society having that money to invest in education, or health care, or alleviating poverty, or program that money had supported before. The modern Republican Party is about three things, helping the rich get richer, leaving the poor to fight for survival against the market, and cutting government revenue to the point where the government can't function properly. They achieve most of this through taxation, and the rest they achieve through stuffing the only part of government they care about, the part that kills people, with as much money as possible (which then gets transferred to corporations like Halliburton and Lockheed Martin, to make them and their CEOs/shareholders wealthier--do you see a pattern here?).

You can also tell a lot about a politician by their priorities.

John McCain is no exception. He wants to double Bush's tax cuts for the rich, which have contributed to the largest budget deficit in history (also began with Reagan) and led to a starving of public services (you may recall the bridge collapse in Minneapolis, this is a direct result of this conservative pro-rich, anti-government ideology). Think Progress exposes McCain's warm embrace of Bush's corporate-loving policies that have done so much to screw up the country for the last 8 years:

If you’re a CEO of one of America’s largest corporations and have enjoyed the Presidency of George W. Bush, a contribution to the McCain campaign is looking like a pretty good investment.

A new report from the Center For American Progress Action Fund finds that a key piece of John McCain’s tax plan — cutting the corporate tax rate from 35% to 25% — would cut taxes by almost $45 billion every year for America’s 200 largest corporations as identified by Fortune Magazine.

Eight companies — Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Exxon Mobil Corp., ConocoPhillips Co., Bank ƒƒof America Corp., AT&T, Berkshire Hathaway Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co., and Microsoft Corp. — would each receive over $1 billion a year.

The following table shows the tax savings to America’s five largest firms. See a full list of all 200 companies and their savings under McCain here:



These giveaways are just one part of McCain’s doubling of the Bush tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy which would create the largest deficits in 25 years and drive the United States into the deepest deficits since World War II.

A recent analysis by the Public Campaign Action Fund found that John McCain’s campaign has received $5.6 million from the PACs and executives of the Fortune 200.

Over the past eight years, under George W. Bush, American workers have seen their wages stagnate as corporate profits have skyrocketed. John McCain’s misguided priorities show he’s more of the same: the same $45 billion in tax cuts for America’s 200 largest companies could be used to lift over 9 million Americans out of poverty.

How exactly does McCain intend to fool Americans into believing that he isn't planning 4-8 more years of Bush's failed greedy conservative policies? You also have to realize what this means for our country. We have a record budget deficit, we waste over $400 billion on paying interest on our national debt every single year, and McCain wants to take more money from the government and give it to rich corporations and their rich CEOs. And which public programs are going to be cut because of McCain's $45 billion corporate tax gift? Is it going to be Head Start? Medicare? Investment in alternative energy? All of the above? McCain also voted against raising the minimum wage, and a bill that would have increased educational benefits for veterans. McCain opposed health care for children because he said it cost too much ($35 billion over 5 years, or just about 15% of his tax cut to the rich). Now what does that say about John McCain's priorities? We have enough money for a $45 billion dollar a year tax cut for the richest corporations, yet we can't spare 15% of that for uninsured children to get health care. It is disgusting. But that is John McCain, and that is Bush, and that is the Republican Party.

It's all about priorities.

And clearly McCain doesn't care about the national debt or programs that help millions of people, especially those who weren't born with a whole dining set of silver spoons in their mouthes. He is just like Bush. All his talk to the contrary is nothing but more lying to voters, also just like Bush.

Update: Oh yes, and that GI Bill McCain opposed? He is now taking credit for it on the campaign trail, isn't that interesting?:

I'm happy to tell you that we probably (probably? does he not know?) agreed to an increase in educational benefits for our veterans that not only gives them increase in their educational benefits, but if they stay in for a certain period of time than they can transfer those educational benefits to their spouses and or children. That's a very important aspect I think of incentivizing people of staying in the military.

Yes, a bill he actively spoke out against. How shameless.

Put CEOs On Trial

Finally, someone who gets it:

James Hansen, one of the world's leading climate scientists, will today call for the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies to be put on trial for high crimes against humanity and nature, accusing them of actively spreading doubt about global warming in the same way that tobacco companies blurred the links between smoking and cancer.

[...]

"When you are in that kind of position, as the CEO of one the primary players who have been putting out misinformation even via organisations that affect what gets into school textbooks, then I think that's a crime."

[...]

"The problem is not political will, it's the alligator shoes - the lobbyists. It's the fact that money talks in Washington, and that democracy is not working the way it's intended to work."

It is shocking how many problems in the world can be traced directly back to corporate greed. The war in Iraq was in large part a direct result of corporate greed. Skyrocketing cancer rates are almost certainly a direct result of corporate greed (filling our food, environment, bodies full of toxic chemicals free from regulation). The tainted food and toys, corporate greed (and again, corporations fighting against government regulation, with Republican help). Our broken health care system? Corporate greed. The crippling poverty in the third world, and the billion people in the world who are slowly (or quickly) starving to death, greed greed greed. Do you think there isn't enough food in the world? There is enough food in the world for every person on the planet to eat over 2,700 calories per day, that is enough for everyone in the world to be overweight. And yet we have a large percentage of the world starving. Greed, and in large part corporations are responsible when you really look at the way food is distributed globally. And virtually every single environmental problem on the planet can be traced back to corporate greed--deforestation, pollution, waste, global warming, all of it. And yes, just like tobacco companies knowingly made a ton of money while slowly killing millions with products they knew were dangerous and addictive, corporations like Exxon are complicit, criminally negligent, responsible for global warming denial and for stonewalling every single attempt to combat global warming. When big species like polar bears go extinct because their habitat has been destroyed, it will be the oil companies and climate change deniers (including the politicians who fought against the solutions) who will bear responsibility. When sea levels rise and the billions of people in the world who live in coastal areas are displaced and disease and overcrowding cause a global crisis, it will be these people and their greed that let it happen. When more Katrina-like hurricanes and unprecedented extreme flooding and droughts occur due to the changes global warming produces in our weather, it will be the corporations who profited off the death and destruction.

So hell yes, these people are criminals. If stealing a car is a felony, I'd say covering up and exacerbating climate change for decades all for corporate profit is a crime to say the least. Yes, it is a crime against humanity. Sure, it isn't as directly evil as what Hitler, Stalin, Suharto or Bush have done, and it effects our felt much more subtly, but the end result is still death, the end result it still destruction, poverty, pain and ruined lives. And the motivation is greed, these CEO's and lobbyists knowingly advocating against critical changes that would reverse global warming and spare us all of its grave impacts, speeding us toward the point of no return, all to pad their pockets with cash they don't even need.

That's criminal. That's theft of lives. That's a silent slaughter. They shouldn't be allowed to do this for decades and then retire comfortably with their millions keeping them safe and happy while billions upon billions of less-fortunate people around the world suffer for their greed.

Update: Check this out for more of Hansen's take on the immediate necessity of action to combat global warming.

Republicans Protect Record Oil Profits, Stop Investment In Alternative Energy, While Oil Companies Screw Over Americans

So you know how gas prices are at record numbers while oil companies are getting rich with record profits (Exxon made $1,287 in pure profit every single second in 2007)? The Democrats in Congress were trying to tax these excess profits and invest that money toward wind, solar and other alternative energy development. These windfall profits taxes would discourage oil companies from screwing over motorists with excessive prices at the pump, as would provisions that would have given the federal government more power to address oil market speculation that has been driving up prices, but the Republicans, as usual, have come to the rescue of their corporate big oil friends, to defend their disgustingly enormous profits that they are making at the expense of everyday Americans.

The Republicans, as usual, have threatened to filibuster the legislation because they think oil companies should be able to amass record profits on the backs of Americans, without any consequences. Yes, the poor poor oil companies. Meanwhile they don't give a shit about the financial plight of millions of Americans, the soaring health care costs, the soaring price of education, the soaring price of gas, the soaring price of food, the soaring rate of unemployment and the soaring rate of home foreclosures and bankruptcies. But hey, don't worry, they are looking out for big corporate CEO's and their record profits, as usual.

The most despicable part, however, may be that they would threaten to filibuster investment in renewable and alternative energy right in the middle of an energy crisis and a looming global warming catastrophe, both of which are only going to get worse in coming years. Our dependence on foreign oil (and oil in general) drives up oil prices and hurts Americans already struggling to get by financially. It exacerbates global warming, pollution and environmental degradation even as we rocket past the point of no return on the path to global ecological catastrophe. And it makes us less safe, as it puts us at the mercy of countries like Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia who have the vast majority of the oil. Developing alternative sources of energy is ESSENTIAL to keeping American families afloat, reversing global warming, and protecting ourselves from being controlled by OPEC, yet the Republicans in Congress stonewall these investments in alternative energy because it would compete with their precious oil profits.

It isn't just despicable, it is criminal.

VOTE THESE GREEDY CORPORATE BASTARDS OUT!

Update: As if this wasn't enough, when Democrats tried to eliminate the $17 billion in tax breaks Congress has awarded to oil companies in recent years, the Republicans stood together and killed the measure. No no, don't you DARE take taxpayer money that could be going to fund things like health care for kids or education or fixing crumbling bridges, that belongs to rich oil companies!

Dan Rather Slams The Corporate Media

I'd like to believe something will change, but until we can get some big changes in media ownership rules (i.e. undoing the Reagan-Bush-Clinton-Bush media deregulation), I don't see how we are going to get a press that actually cares about anything but corporate profits. I guess Olbermann should give me some hope, if only there were more of him. Anyway, here is Dan Rather addressing the 2008 National Conference On Media Reform in Minneapolis on Saturday, where he warned of the dangers of corporate media ownership:



Here's an excerpt:

Now, I have spent my entire life in for-profit news, and I happen to think that it does not have to be this way. I have worked for news owners who, while they may have regarded their news divisions as an occasional irritant, chose to turn that irritant into a pearl of public trust. But today, sadly, it seems that the conglomerates that have control over some of the biggest pieces of this public trust would just as soon spit that irritant out.

So what does this mean for us tonight, and what is to be done?

It means that we need to be on the alert for where, when, and how our news media bows to undue government influence. And you need to let news organizations know, in no uncertain terms, that you won't stand for it...that you, as news consumers, are capable of exerting pressure of your own.

It means that we need to continue to let our government know that, when it comes to media consolidation, enough is enough. Too few voices are dominating, homogenizing, and marginalizing the news. We need to demand that the American people get something in exchange for the use of airwaves that belong, after all, to the people.

It means that we need to ensure that the Internet, where free speech reigns and where journalism does not have to pass through a corporate filter... remains free.

We need to say, loud and clear, that we don't want big corporations enjoying preferred access to - or government acting as the gatekeeper for - this unique platform for independent journalism.

This all was brought on by former Bush Press Secretary Scott McClellan's new book that blasted the media for being so complicit and eating up all of his lies during the administration's drumbeat for the war in Iraq. It created some waves throughout the media, with some, like Katie Couric agreeing that the media was lacking a spine, while others got all huffy puffy defensive and said they were doing their job, even though all the evidence seems to speak to the contrary. With the historic nomination of Barack Obama, it also gave us this epiphany from Tim Russert who, with a youthful gleam in his eye, seemed to recall what journalistic integrity used to mean, and asked, why don't we do a better job? It was a memorable moment:



What you talkin' 'bout Russert? That's craaaazy talk! The media, actually informing people? Actually doing its job? Shocking.

Check out McClellan's interview with Keith Olbermann here.

Update: Watch Bill Moyers at the 2008 National Conference On Media Reform:



Visit Free Press to learn more about media control and join the movement to put media back in the hands of the people!

Obama's Presidential To-Do List

Yesterday Obama was asked what he would (will) do in his first 100 days in office, and Obama's response was music to my ears:

"I would call my attorney general in and review every single executive order issued by George Bush and overturn those laws or executive decisions that I feel violate the constitution,” said Obama

Other goals for his first 100 days: work out a plan to withdraw troops from Iraq; make progress on alternative energy plans and launch legislation to reform the health care system.

While the latter part is very important and necessary, the first part is my favorite, because there has been barely any mention during the primary of Bush's executive overreach, and undoing the damage he has done. I'm glad that Obama will make it a priority to begin undoing Bush's damage as soon as he is sworn in.

I hope he doesn't stop there, because there is a lot more damage that Bush did that was constitutional, for example his gutting of government regulations, which has had very damaging impacts on everything from the food we eat and the toys our children play with to the environment and private contractors getting rich by defrauding the government at the expense of taxpayers. Undoing that damage also needs to be an immediate priority. If I were Obama I'd be having my staff make a list of every single decision Bush made while in office and then I'd go down that list and work to undo every single negative thing Bush did, and after I finished filling in Bush's holes, I'd go to work on making those regulations and protections stronger than ever.

If you have some suggestions on other things Obama should do in his first 100 days, in particular things that Bush did that he should undo immediately, post them in the comments.

General Election Pop Quiz

Q: What is the upside of having a nominee who refuses to take money from federal lobbyists or have them on his campaign?

A: He isn't a corporate whore. Oh, and he can do this:

Tell the Senate: Stop Big Media

From our friends at CREDO Action:

This is the moment of truth for the U.S. media. In December 2007, the Federal Communications Commission voted 3-2 to gut the longstanding "newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership" ban that prohibits a local newspaper from owning TV and radio stations in the same market. This decision will mean less local news, less diverse perspectives and less competition in our country's media system.

The new rules will let big media conglomerates get even bigger, gobbling up local news outlets in your town. This is bad for journalism, bad for media diversity, and bad for our democracy.

However, on March 6, members of the Senate stepped up to overturn the FCC's dangerous rule changes. A "resolution of disapproval" introduced by Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) would nullify the FCC decision and protect local news around the country. That's the good news. The bad news is that according to Senate rules, we only have 60 legislative days to get this bill passed. We need your help to build the momentum and overturn the FCC's rule changes.

As we move into a very important election year, will a handful of companies continue to control what we see, hear and read every day? Or will a more responsive media that serves the public interest win out? It's up to you.

So please make your voice heard. Sign the petition here to Majority Leader Harry Reid and your senators in support of Senator Dorgan's resolution of disapproval of the new media ownership rules.

(For more information on this issue, please visit the web sites of Free Press or StopBigMedia.com.)

As Starvation Skyrockets Around The Globe, So Do Profits For Agri-Multinationals

If I had to point to one problem in our country as the most menacing, I'd say it is big corporations, which ruin basically everything, through their insatiable greed. Maybe greed is the more menacing problem in our country, in our society. Yes, I change my answer to greed, but greed's main vehicle of destruction is corporate America, and the Republicans (and corporate Democrats) it owns. Read:

Giant Food & Biotech Corporations Make Billions in Profit from Growing Global Food Crisis
by Geoffrey Lean, The Independent

Giant agribusinesses are enjoying soaring earnings and profits out of the world food crisis which is driving millions of people towards starvation, The Independent on Sunday can reveal. And speculation is helping to drive the prices of basic foodstuffs out of the reach of the hungry.

Burmese Cyclone Leaves Thousands Dead

Not that anyone cares, since apparently only Americans are worthy of our attention, but on Saturday a cyclone smashed into Burma, killing more than 4,000 10,000 22,000 people, although you wouldn't know it listening to the American media. Read more here.

And for those of you who have read The Shock Doctrine, you can be sure that the free market crowd will jump all over the disaster and use it to force the government to privatize, deregulate, cut social assistance programs and allow the building of resorts by multinationals. Disaster capitalism in all its glory.

Update: The American media finally started to pay a little bit of attention after the death toll hit 5 digits, apparently anything less than 10,000 dead foreigners isn't all that significant...but that shouldn't be much of a surprise given the non-reporting of Iraqi deaths for the last 5 years, or during the 90s as our sanctions killed half a million children.

Update (5/7): Death toll estimates have now reached 60,000, and by some estimates this could rise to 100,000.

Hillary Responds To Bill Clinton's Role In Shipping Of Jobs Overseas With More Deception

Not so long ago I linked to an article about how Hillary has been running around Indiana decrying jobs being sent overseas, and then blaming Bush for this, even though in the example she uses it was her husband, Bill Clinton, as president who sold out the workers of Indiana by approving the sale to the Chinese.

As usual, when called on her deception, she responds with more deception. Read about it here:

ABC Digs Into Clinton Trade Hypocrisy - Clinton Campaign Responds With More Deception
by David Sirota

New Obama Ad Hits Hillary On Embrace Of Lobbyists

At the very least it is a great thing that this election has put the crosshairs on corporations, on issues ranging from lobbyists and undue political influence to harmful free trade agreements. We can thank Obama and Edwards for elevating the discourse on that, and leading by example. Now I only hope we can also focus on harmful deregulation, which is something that Obama has started to address, but I'd like to see much more of it.

Hillary Loves Her Some Wal-Mart

Vintage Hillary. The funny thing is that this is perhaps the only time I can recall watching her speak in front of a group of people and not come off as fake as hell. I really believe her for once.



I'm glad she is so proud of Wal-Mart and everything it represents, complete with union-busting, sweatshop labor, discrimination, denying employees health care, trashing the environment, wiping out locally owned businesses and communities and all the rest.

Definitely the kind of person we need in the White House. Oh wait, we already have that.

We Are Walking Bags Of Toxic Chemicals

Yesterday and today The Today Show discussed a new study* that showed a couple commonly used types of plastic (3, 6 and 7, check your bottles) leech chemicals which could lead to cancer and messed up hormones. Matt Lauer cited a CDC study** that showed 95% of adults in the US have enough of one of these harmful chemicals, bisphenol A or BPA, in their bodies to cause developmental problems in fetuses. The plastics industry of course disagrees (a shocker, that). And luckily the FDA, like all regulatory agencies, is filled with pro-corporate puppets, so it used plastic industry-sponsored "studies" to "prove" the bottles were safe. How convenient:

When the U.S. Food and Drug Administration determined that a particular chemical in plastic was not harmful, they used scientific studies to prove it. But they relied on just two studies that were funded by the Society of the Plastics Industry, a subsidiary of the American Chemistry Council. On the other hand, they ignored "hundreds of government and academic studies showing a chemical commonly found in plastic can be harmful to lab animals at low doses." Of those two industry-funded studies, one "has never been published, and therefore never subjected to peer review; the second has been heavily criticized by researchers who say the results are inconclusive because of flawed experimental methods." This only came to light when Michigan Democrats Rep. John Dingell, chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, and Rep. Bart Stupak, who leads a subcommittee, launched an investigation into the use of bisphenol A in containers used by infants and toddlers. "Anila Jacob, a senior scientist at the Environmental Working Group ... said she was surprised that the FDA so openly admitted to relying on those two studies, particularly when one of them has never been published or released to the scientific world for review. 'There's a lack of transparency here,' she said, adding that the agency's reliance on these studies 'doesn't serve the public.'"

Someone on The Today Show today also mentioned that long-term effects of these chemicals won't be known for sure until the study is over, in about 20 years. Does anyone else find it just a tad disconcerting that these industries can flood the market with any untested or undertested chemical-laden products they want, and we are time and time again left clueless for years or decades before it turns out they have been poisoning millions upon millions of people? We see it with pharmaceuticals, with household chemicals, building materials, pesticides, paints...all kinds of things, and yet we still serve as guinea pigs in a for-profit planetary chemical lab.

And yet people wonder why cancer rates are skyrocketing. We focus all of our attention on finding a cure for cancer, but barely a word is spoken about the cause of cancer. And that is a no-brainer, it is the chemical soup we are exposed to every moment of our lives. We have drugs showing up in our drinking water. We have rocket fuel found in cow milk. We have goddamn rocket fuel found in breast milk!! Americans have enough rocket fuel in their bodies that their breast milk contains f-ing rocket fuel!! What the hell is wrong with that picture?? All this is just the tip of the iceberg, our bodies are full of foreign chemicals and toxins building up, and yet we go about our merry ways hoping we don't get cancer and wondering why everyone seems to have it nowadays! Hell, even babies are being born with cancer now!

Anyway, something to think about. I think we need to make it a priority of our new Democratic government to drastically increase public safety regulations, and to make sure no one from any industry gets within 10 miles of a regulatory agency, let alone lead one. Since we pretty much have zero hope of escaping the toxins surrounding us, short of going native in the middle of the wilderness, we ought to fight the corporate powers that are profiting off cancer and pollution. And to fight that, we have to become more involved in politics. Politics is the key to everything.

And read this great article, "Life Will Kill You" that I read on Salon last October, it is very informative, and will likely be quite disturbing for most people.

*Note: If you watched The Today Show piece on this you may have saw an "expert" from the "American Council on Science and Health" say the plastic bottles are safe, but what they fail to mention is that they are bankrolled by the oil industry, the pharmaceutical industry, the chemical (plastics) industry, big agribusiness and pretty much every other corporation under the sun (including GE, which owns NBC, which is probably why they were allowed on the show without anyone mentioning they were paid for by the plastics industry), the very same industries they seek to protect with their "research". They also have a nice history of fighting efforts to curb global warming, which isn't surprising since they are funded by every major American oil company, including Bush's Ashland Oil.

**Note #2: The CDC's 2005 National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals looked at only 148 of over 80,000 chemicals estimated to be in use today and found that most adults and children have over a hundred chemical substances in their bodies, including dozens of toxic compounds and pesticides. The report also noted that the danger of the vast majority of these chemicals remains unknown, as they have been untested. Long story short, we have no idea how many chemicals are in us, at what levels, and what those chemicals are doing to our bodies. Meanwhile corporations keep coming up with more and more untested chemicals to flood the market, and our bodies with.