Saturday, February 2, 2013

Dead pests, dead weeds, altered ecosystems

From the Heartland, Margot McMillen writes: It is no exaggeration to say that genetically altered seeds have changed the ecosystems where they are used. Here in mid-Missouri, the genetically altered soybeans and corn planted in every field have created an ecosystem so accustomed to being sprayed with Roundup that the weeds are immune to it. One of the weeds, ragweed, is most immune and with the biggest impact on humans. Of all allergens, ragweed makes the most people suffer. And now it can’t be killed with a spray that’s relatively easy to use. Now people, town and country people, will have to use a more dangerous spray. 2,4D, the herbicide that Dow and Monsanto want to use now, has already proven itself deadly to humans. It is connected with cancers and Parkinson’s disease. Both of these, rare 50 years ago, are rampant in society now. The V.A. sees patients every day with Parkinson’s, victims of the U.S. use of 2,4 D during the Vietnam War. The genetically altered seeds (also called genetically engineered (GE), genetically modified organisms (GMO), or transgenic) are sometimes modified to put a pesticide in every cell. That way, bugs that attack the plant will be killed. For corn, rootworm is a problem, so the corporations have put pesticide in the cells from root to tassel. Including, as you might guess, the kernels that are harvested to be fed to cattle, ethanol plants, and us. So when we eat that corn, we’re eating a poison that kills other creatures. What does that do to us? No clue, because it hasn’t been tested. When California activists started working to pass a law to require labeling of GMO foods, they uncovered some tests that had been run in other countries, and that showed liver problems and blood problems in rats. But the U.S. doesn’t respect those tests and there’s no money for labs to run tests here. We need to talk more about this. Tomorrow . . .

Friday, February 1, 2013

Editorial: Gun-Shy Democrats


Some Democratic members of Congress aren’t ready to sign off just yet on the gun control package supported by President Obama and Democratic leaders. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) has drafted an ambitious bill that would re-enact much of the assault weapons ban that expired in 2004, outlawing more than 150 types of semi-automatic weapons with military-style features, as well as high-capacity magazines capable of carrying more than 10 rounds.

As sensible as Feinstein’s bill may appear to many of us, it has no Republican co-sponsors and it is highly unlikely to get the 60 votes it will need to clear the Senate, much less get a favorable hearing in the Republican-controlled House.

So the only reason for Democrats to bring up such a bill this year is to get members of Congress on the record on gun control so they can use that stance in the next election. The last time that happened, in 1994, President Bill Clinton convinced Democratic leaders in Congress to push through a ban on military-style semi-automatic assault rifles and high-capacity magazines holding more than 10 bullets. House Speaker Tom Foley, Majority Leader Dick Gephardt and Judiciary Chairman Jack Brooks (D-Texas) warned Clinton that the assault weapons ban would cost many Democrats their seats. “Jack [Brooks] was convinced that if we didn’t drop the ban, the NRA would beat a lot of Democrats by terrifying gun owners,” Clinton remembered in his memoir, My Life.

Clinton noted, “Foley, Gephardt, and Brooks were right and I was wrong.” In that year’s election, Democrats lost eight Senate seats and 54 House seats, including Foley’s and Brooks’s, as Republicans took control in both chambers.

That was the same election in which George W. Bush defeated Gov. Ann Richards, who had angered gun enthusiasts with her veto of a bill to let private individuals carry concealed weapons. The Democratic penchant for gun control has proven a potent wedge to drive the formerly Democratic rural vote into the Republican column ever since.

Democrats already have lost many of those marginal rural districts, in Texas and elsewhere, but the survivors shouldn’t be expected to embrace a bill that is anathema to their constituents, particularly when it has no chance of passing.

Democrats might be able to pass a bill requiring universal background checks for gun buyers, but probably not much else. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.), who sports an “A” rating from the NRA, surprised some gun control advocates when he came out in favor of universal background checks for gun buyers, including those at gun shows. That’s not so much of a stretch, as a nationwide poll by the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research showed 89% of respondents (and 74% of NRA members) support universal background checks. The survey also showed 70% of respondents supported bans on semi-automatic weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines.

But neither that poll, nor other recent polls showing wide margins in favor of assault weapons bans, break down respondents into urban, suburban and rural areas. The National Gun Policy Survey in 2001 found that 65.2% of rural residents had a gun in the household, compared with 35.3% in towns, 29.5% in suburbs and 21.7% in cities, and that same survey found that 57% of urban residents supported gun controls over the right to own guns while 63% of rural residents supported gun rights over controls. Our own anecdotal data suggests that residents of rural areas and small towns are still more protective of those gun rights than their urban cousins.

[Editor's Note: After this was written, we discovered a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. Poll conducted Dec. 17-18, 2012, that sampled 620 people nationwide and found the same level of 13% support for "no restrictions on guns" among urban, surburban and rural respondents, and 66% support for some restrictions in cities, 71% in suburbs and 79% in rural areas, but the sample was so small, the margin of error (from +/- 5% in the suburbs to +/- 8.5% among rural respondents) and the results at such a wide variance from past polls that we discount it.]

If you want to pass more restrictive gun controls, start working on Republicans in suburban districts, which appear to be the prime targets for disaffected youths who turn up in public places with semiautomatic weapons. And work for common sense in state laws.

Supreme Court decisions in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) and McDonald v. Chicago (2010) that affirmed the individual right to a gun for home defense sent mixed signals on whether the state may restrict the carrying of arms outside the homes. The wording of the Second Amendment may be ambiguous, but the phrase “well-regulated militia” has long been recognized to give the states and federal government authority to regulate the public use of firearms and the ownership of high-powered weapons.

We think the states have become too lax in the issuance of licenses to allow concealed handguns. Most states require little or no training to carry a concealed weapon. For example, Texas requires applicants to take a 10-hour class and pass a written exam as well as a shooting exam to show basic proficiency, and clear a background check. And the shooting exam only requires the applicant to hit the fixed target on 70% of shots, which hardly qualifies the licensee for a shootout with an armed “bad guy.” And gun rights activists are pushing hard for a federal reciprocity law, which passed the House in 2011, which would require states to recognize each others’ concealed handgun licenses.

The rise in concealed weapons licenses as well as “Stand Your Ground” laws, which provide tacit encouragement for gun carriers to brandish their weapon rather than retreat and call the police, have led to tragic results, most prominently in the case of Trayvon Martin, the teenager who was shot to death Feb. 26, 2012 in Sanford, Fla., by a vigilante who assumed Martin was a potential prowler and confronted him about it.

States should require gun owners seeking a concealed-weapon permit not only to get more weapons training, but they also should be required to show proof of liability insurance in case their stray shots hit innocent bystanders. Car owners are required to show proof of insurance to get their car registered and we should expect no less from people who insist on their right to carry guns. After all, good intentions won’t make up for poor marksmanship or reckless reaction when it comes to paying hospital bills of the wounded.

Missed Opportunity for Reform

President Obama gave a great second inaugural address, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s filibuster reform package fell far short of expectations. The new rule makes it marginally easier to get a bill to the Senate floor or a vote on presidential nominees. But it still allows the Republicans to stop all legislation and nominations that don’t have 60 supporters and it still doesn’t require opponents to explain their opposition, much less require them to keep on their feet talking about it.

Much of the blame is getting dumped on Reid, but we think he found himself working a Democratic caucus with many senators who liked the old system or opposed the stronger “talking filibuster” proposal that also would require filibuster supporters to keep 41 supporters on the Senate floor, rather than the current rule that requires filibuster opponents to keep 60 votes on the floor. In this case, he was more of a Majority Vote Counter than Majority Leader, but that is the nature of the beast that is the Democratic caucus.

Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Tom Udall (D-N.M.) put up a good fight for reform, but several Democratic senators were concerned that reforming the filibuster could backfire on them next time Republicans take over Congress. However, we believe that recent power grabs by Republicans at the state level show they are entirely willing to push aside all precedents and appeals to fairness and ride roughshod over the minority when it helps them enact their agenda. They’ll do away with the filibuster in a New York minute if they find an advantage in its demise.

With the House in Republican hands, Democrats cannot expect to pass any really progressive bills anyway, but the filibuster could become critical when it comes to filling judicial and bureaucratic positions that require Senate approval. If Republicans continue to obstruct Obama’s appointments, and a recent decision by the US Court of Appeals in D.C. stands that invalidates recess appointments by the president, the Democratic majority may be forced to revisit the rules in mid-session. — JMC

From The Progressive Populist, February 15, 2013

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Thursday, January 31, 2013

What farmers were thinking

From the Heartland, Margot McMillen writes:

        Back in 1996, when genetically altered soybeans were introduced to farmers, they found buyers immediately. In my county, the introduction came at the annual "Crop and Soils Conference" where we were used to hearing how much soil was being lost through erosion due to plowing every year to plant corn, wheat, milo, soybeans--Missouri's big four.
        The presentation, by a woman that sold Pioneer seeds, was sponsored by the University Extension, and farmers learned that through genetic engineering they could kill all the weeds in the field with herbicide, and plant seeds that resisted the herbicide. The seeds would put up plants that were vigorous and made a lot of beans. Since the weeds were killed by herbicide, plowing would be minimized and erosion would disappear.
        I was at the first meeting and I remember farmers asking, "What about weeds becoming resistant to the herbicide (which was Roundup)" and the extension agents sitting mutely when the Pioneer seed lady answered, "We're working on that."
        The seeds that first year were cheap and the only guy that really lost out was the guy that owned the big seed-cleaning business in the county. He told me, "Margot. That first year, my seed-cleaning business went to zero."
        So, in one year, farmers stopped saving seeds and began buying patented genetically altered seeds from industry. They expected to get dead weeds, less erosion, less work and better yields.
        Today, they've got weeds that resist Roundup and the potential of seeds engineered to resist more potent herbicides. The herbicides being touted today--2,4-D and dicamba--create cancer and Parkinson's in humans.
        What a bad trade.

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Biotech and D.C. Lobbyists

From the Heartland, Margot McMillen writes: After reading about the Biotech Riders proposed for the new farm bill, you might wonder why any of our public servants—namely the House and Senate Ag Committees—would vote to send it on to the full body for a vote. Especially with such horrible health implications, suggested at such a high public cost. If 2,4D corn and soybeans are approved, for example, we’ll have an epidemic of Parkinson’s Disease similar to the epidemic among soldiers that came home from Vietnam after handling the stuff. In that case, it was part of the war effort, sprayed to defoliate the jungles so Americans could see where the VietCong were hiding. But if farmers start using it on fields, it will be used to kill American weeds, get into American water, sicken American farmers. But I digress. The answer to the question, “why would anyone vote for the Biotech Riders?” is “Lobbying.” According to Sourcewatch, the biotech companies have paid big bundles to get these riders into the farm bill. And that lobbying started back in 2009, just after the last farm bill was passed. The lobbyist, says Sourcewatch, was Stanley H. Abramson. Monsanto then started its own lobbyist firm and ramped up efforts in 2011. Sourcewatch says, “On its in house lobbying reports for the second, third, and fourth quarters of 2011, Monsanto reports lobbying on "Biotech Regulations, Roundup Ready Alfalfa, Roundup Ready Sugarbeets, Plant Protection Act" to the U.S. House of Representatives, U.S. Senate, U.S. State Department, and the U.S. Trade Representative. The amounts spent on lobbying by Monsanto for those quarters were $1,710,000, $2,010,000, and $1,210,000, respectively. Monsanto also paid Russell and Baron, Inc./The Russell Group, Inc. $60,000 during each of the three quarters for lobbying on "Biotech Acceptance; Agriculture, Competition, and Related Issues; Advocacy for Plant Protection Act concerns" to the House, Senate, and USDA.” So, see, if you can spend that kind of dough, you can get most anything done. But, as 2011 waned, Monsanto got new help. Dow Chemical started to kick in, and there might have been a few bucks spent by the Farm Bureau, that urban insurance company, just trying to wave the flag. And, says Sourcewatch, the benign-sounding American Nursery and Landscape Association paid lobbyists “for lobbying on plant protection issues in the farm bill.” In 2012, the spending got more intense, of course, as public servants started to actually work on the bill, with millions going into somebody’s pockets. You might wonder why they ramped up the fight. Time’s Winged Chariot drawing near, as the poet says, and Farmers in Tractors catching on. Farmers are trying to get away from the corporate seed loop, see, and turning to other ways to farm. Some farmers are even trying to figure out how to win in court over corporate breach of promise. What was the promise? We’ll look at that tomorrow!

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Biotech replacing nature

From the Heartland, Margot McMillen writes: Part of the “Biotech Rider” in the new farm bill would prevent environmental analysis on the new genetically altered crops being planned by corporations, except the environmental analysis laid out in the Plant Protection Act. That act was written by corporations for USDA to follow. If the Rider is approved, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would be unable to comment on the introduction of genetically altered salmon to fish farms, even though EPA knows that it’s just a matter of time before GMO salmon escape into the wild and out-compete the normal salmon. To make it even more difficult for mother nature, the money spent by USDA for analysis of the new crop can only be used for analysis required by the Plant Protection Act. This section is only useful if there’s someone that wants to do further analysis, of course. Someone in the academic community, say. But, really, here’s what they’d have to go through, besides getting money from someplace to do analysis. They’d have to get ahold of the seeds, chemicals and land for the experiment, then plant the seeds, apply the chemicals, harvest and analyze the damage to the environment. Really, who could do this? Why bother to put this paragraph in at all? Then, to make it even faster to approve new biotech crops, the writers have penned Section 10014 in which Congress demands a report from USDA to demonstrate that they have reduced “regulatory burdens on research” to get new seeds in the pipeline, “with special emphasis on minor use crops, orphan crops, and sources of protein.” And, if a “category of product…” has already been approved, they should be able to fast track according to this section. Further, the USDA is responsible for “developing and implementing a cohesive national policy for the low-level presence of agronomic biotechnology material in crops, including grain and other commodity crops, for food, feed, and processing." Meaning, ya know, there won’t be any non-GMO crops left on the planet.

Monday, January 28, 2013


Another example of the mass media telling us that being smart is a bad thing.

A constant thread of anti-intellectualism runs through the mass media.  Mass media writers seem to embrace anti-intellectual assumptions: They pretend that simple math is hard.
They call good students “over-achievers” and “nerds” (a derogatory term now embraced by many who are academically inclined, just as many GLBT has embraced“queer”).  “Smart” characters such as the four fictional “Big Bang” scientists are depicted as inept with women, uncool and uncoordinated.  Sciencewriters demean their own profession. 
 
Today’s New York Times Book Review provides a stunning example of anti-intellectualism embedded into the premise of an article. It’s in a book review of a biography of the 19th century photographer Eadweard Muybridge.  Muybridge, whose eccentricities bordered on madness, is known for setting up a row of cameras to take a series of photographs that showed how a horse runs. His work helped to develop the conceptual framework for motion pictures, which are created by taking photographs so fast that when played back one after another at the speed they were taken will produce the illusion of movement.

Here is how the book reviewer, Candace Millard, opens her piece: 
Genius, it seems, is almost always accompanied by eccentricity, if not madness. Those rare instances of genuine brilliance that we find scattered throughout history — in the music of Ludwig van Beethoven, the paintings of Vincent van Gogh, the mathematical equations of John Nash — often appear to have come at great cost to the minds that produced them. The work of Eadweard Muybridge is no exception.

Setting aside the question of whether Muybridge is a case of genuine brilliance or just a good and innovative photographer, let’s examine this paragraph: Millard uses the common propaganda trick of selecting only the details that help her case. She lists a composer, painter and mathematician. But what about Bach, Picasso and Isaac Newton? These men were all quite happy and completely normal. Or Mozart, Titian and Bertrand Russell (who, BTW, was quite the ladies’ man)? Or Charles Ives, Turner and Gauss?  Interestingly enough, in the case of the painters and mathematicians, the names I have thrown out are usually considered to be much more important---greater geniuses—than the ones who Millard uses to try to make her case.

Yes some geniuses have lived unhappy lives or suffered from mental illness. Others like Albert Einstein have had their small eccentricities, but so do we all.

It is just not true, however, that “genius is almost always accompanied by eccentricity, if not madness,” as Millard states. In insisting on this point and then graduating Muybridge to the top rank of intellects to provide additional proof of it, Millard continues the long-time American myth of the mad or cursed genius.

As a piece of fiction, the mad genius works well in a classic Aristotelian way, because like the fictional Nash in the 2001 movie, “A Beautiful Mind,” the genius is undone by himself, a case of twisted hubris.  But it’s no more than a myth, as false and odious as the myth that Jews or Chinese are smart or that African-Americans are not.

The myth of the mad genius is part of the ideology of anti-intellectualism that the mass media, owned by the wealthy and corporations controlled by the wealthy, promulgate on an almost daily basis.  I’m going to speculate that the mass media keep the myth of the mad genius and other manifestations of anti-intellectualism alive  because denigration of intellectual activity is a form of social control. The media and its owners want people to focus on buying stuff. They want people’s minds to remain undeveloped, so that they become good little sheep-like consumers. They want the intellectual to be an outsider, someone off in his own little world that has nothing to do with the bigger more important world of mindless consumerism.

The media owners may also want to reserve the top jobs for their own kind, which is hard to do in a meritocracy unless you can discourage poor kids from seeking true knowledge in school (as opposed to credentials). They want a world in which money and not knowledge rules.

Strange apples

From the Heartland, Margot McMillen writes: As we’ve seen, the modern corporation doesn’t raise money and power from investors. Instead, the modern corporation has a staff dedicated to moving money and power from the government to themselves. That means moving money and power from we the people, dear citizen. As you remember, the 2012 Farm Bill was not passed in 2012. Instead, the 2008 Farm Bill was extended. It will cover agriculture and food until September, by which time a new farm bill must be passed. You’re probably seeing Op-Eds in the press saying “remove food from the farm bill,” by which they mean they want taxpayers to stop paying for food stamps and school lunches. Farming, to these corporate writers, is about ethanol and exports. One of the things they do want in the Farm Bill is a set of “Biotech Riders” in sections 10011, 10013, and 10014 in the House version. This so-called Federal Agriculture Reform and Risk Management Act of 2012 contains a bunch of provisions. In Section 10011, for example, the act puts pressure on U.S.D.A. to approve genetically engineered crops within a year of seeing them. If they need more time, they can ask for 180 more days. This evaluation includes such things as environmental impact of the new crop, pest risk assessment, effect of its self-contained pesticide and anything else that would make it dangerous to nature. Of course, those of us that live surrounded by these crops and their altered set of weeds know that it takes more than a year for a GMO crop to change the entire ecosystem. GMO soybeans engineered to resist Roundup, an herbicide, have now created 25 species of weeds that can’t be killed by Roundup. But it took a few years for farmers to see the result. By the way, if U.S.D.A. doesn’t meet the one-year rule, the crop is automatically ruled as “not a plant pest.” And, if this part of the bill passes, USDA has only 90 days “to complete its review of any biotech crop that has already applied for deregulation under the Plant Protection Act . . .” That means that a slew of new crops, including human food crops with new genes in them, will be approved despite consumer uproar. There’s a list of these strange new crops on the web at sourcewatch.org. The list includes new kinds of potatoes, soybeans, cotton, canola, corn and an apple with flesh that doesn’t turn brown with damage or age. And we’ll be looking at more of these “Biotech Riders” and their impact on us as eaters and farmers all week.

Those opposed to greater gun control don’t realize giving up rights is what civilization is all about.

By Marc Jampole
 
“We give up our rights one piece at a time,” a West Virginia banker named Charlie Houck stated to West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin recently during a meeting the Senator was holding in Beckley, WV on gun control.
 
Yes, we do, Mr. Houck.
 
Let’s go over some of the many rights we have already given up, one piece at a time:
 
We’ve given up the right to force ourselves sexually on other people.
 
We’ve given up the right to murder someone else.
 
We’ve given up the right to abuse children.
 
We’ve given up the right to take anything we want from anyone too weak to defend her or himself.
 
We’ve given up the right to drive an automobile without insurance or a license. We’ve given up the right to just keep driving—speed limits, red lights and stop signs deter us.
 
We’ve given up the right not to hire someone just because she or he is a racial or ethnic minority, a woman, disabled or gay.
 
We’ve given up the right to sell food that’s spoiled or adulterated or to sell products that don’t meet safety standards. Or to sell products that don’t do what the sellers say they will do.
 
We’ve given up the right to burn down our neighbor’s home.
 
We’ve given up the right to steal words and images that other people created and say that we did it.
 
I could go on and on for pages about the rights we no longer have, some of which we gave up millennia ago, some of which we gave up before recorded history.
 
And I for one am delighted that all these rights have gone, because without these restrictions on rights and hundreds of others, we—the people—could not have a civil society. Civilization is all about restricting rights.  When we are part of society, we agree to restrict our rights for the greater good and to protect ourselves from the harm that others would inflict on us if they exercised those “rights.” It’s called the social compact.
 
Rights change over time. In the past, many societies, including much of the United States, had the right to own slaves.  No more, thank goodness.   Through most of the history of the United States, employers had the right to hire children, work them long hours and pay them pennies.  No more, thank goodness.
 
Many of these restrictions evolved as society changed. For example, when automobiles first came out, there were no rules of the road, no stop signs, no red or yellow lights, no speed limits. But soon there were so many cars around, we had to develop rules and we had to require that those operated cars have insurance.
 
Often we give up one set of rights to gain another one, or some people gain rights at the expense of others. For example, when minorities and women gradually gained workplace rights, racist and misogynist employers lost the right to discriminate. And it’s a damn good thing they did!
 
At this point in time, only extremists (like me) want to outlaw private ownership of guns. What mainstream organizations and elected officials are asking for is to restrict the absolute right to own and carry a gun—for the safety of society. What’s so problematic about requiring that there is a background check before all gun sales? Why should anyone have a problem with restricting the right to carry a loaded weapon in public places such as college campuses, hospitals and schools? Why should gun owners object to paying insurance to cover the damage done to people in gun violence?  
 
And why can’t pro-gun extremists see the necessity of outlawing a type of weapon responsible for most of the mass murders in the United States, a weapon that, as Senator Manchin has noted in the past, is not used by hunters or target shooters?
 
As society evolves, we—the people—uncover more rights we have to give up and more rights to give to ourselves. That’s called progress. We already have given up the 18th century views of women’s rights, slavery and intellectual property. It’s about time that we progressed from our 18th century mindset when it comes to guns.

Sunday, January 27, 2013

God and nuclear power

From the Heartland, Margot McMillen writes: Missouri’s largest utility, Ameren UE, was counting on a federal grant to work with Westinghouse to create little reactors to provide electricity for smaller markets. So, say, a town could buy one instead of having to rely on a huge nuke plant. The end result would be lots of little nuke plants—infrastructure contaminated with nuclear waste—something we have no idea how to get rid of. So, we should be glad that they didn’t get the grant. If these little plants are such a great idea, Ameren UE should get investors to back them. But, no, says my state senator, God wants him to change the law so that regular customers can pay for Westinghouse’s invention. My state senator, Mike Kehoe, a former car salesman, e-mails letters to us during the session. This week, it began with a paragraph regarding Roe V. Wade (he’s against it) and the following: “As I listened to last Sunday’s sermon on Jesus’ first miracle at the wedding in Cana, I was struck by the deacon’s insights on how relevant Mary’s words remain today. In John 2:5 she simply and briefly articulated to the servants a profound truth: ‘Do whatever He tells you’. . . we first have to do what He tells us to do. “ One of the things God told Mike to do this week was to file SB 207 to change a law that requires Ameren UE to pay for development with money they raise from investors or the government. God would then raise rates on customers that might not even see the benefit.

Friday, January 25, 2013

Mexican Farmers, Missouri EEZ, Nature

From the Heartland, Margot McMillen writes: This morning, my heart is with Via Campesina and the Mexican farmers on a hunger strike to stop Monsanto, DuPont and Dow from planting six million acres with GM (genetically modified) corn. Remember, dear reader, that Mexico is the birthplace of corn, created by indigenous peoples through crossing vigorous, productive strains. It is an outrage that the native strains will be polluted by American GMO technology. They have chosen to camp at the Monuement of Independence from Spanish colonialism, and some are on hunger strike. The police have surrounded them. One of the peasant leaders, Alberto Gómez Flores, coordinator of Via Campesina North America, said, "It's very symbolic because they are preventing people of this country from being in front of the Monument of Independence from Spanish colonialism, and thus they are really serving their current masters, the new colonialists of Monsanto, DuPont and Pioneer." He continued, "We will stay here in camp, as close as we can be to the Monument, and if they come to evict us we will sit peacefully in resistance. They will not take us away from here." When I got to school yesterday, my friend Dr. John, the political scientist, said, “Congratulations! You won!” and I pretended to know what he was talking about. Knowing that he’d rattle on until he revealed the secret, I just said thanks, and “We always win, John.” And, true to form, he kept on effusing until I figured it out. We’d won the EEZ fight! It was in the papers, but we don’t get the Fulton Sun until late on the farm. At least for now, the Fulton Area Development Corporation has dropped its effort to declare my neighborhood blighted. They promise to return in March with a new map, based on the new census, but for now we’re un-blighted and, as far as FADC is concerned, un-develop-able. See, the EEZ scheme allows them to drop taxes for new developers. I mean, um, job creators. Even though I let John think I had something to do with the win, because he’d read my letter to the editor a week back, the real heroes were the Tea Party Patriots and Fair Tax advocates that kept calling meetings. All we had to do, from our neighborhood, is show up and ask questions. To be honest, I’m not generally with the Tea Party and Fair Tax folks. But we were united on EEZ. When I said, “We always win,” I was pretty much right. Problem is, it usually takes more than 3 months for the win to be recorded. In the Mexican farmers’ fight for social, environmental and health justice, which centers around GMO seeds, mid-Missouri will lose for another 2 generations because our present-day farmers are committed to the seeds. But nature will win in the end. Nature bats last, that’s for sure, but Nature is super slow. She’s like the kid from out-of-town that’s never played baseball, but knows all the rules for cricket. Once she figures out baseball, she’s gonna win.

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Does golfer Phil Mickelson plan to seek Russian citizenship to avoid paying U.S. taxes?

By Marc Jampole
 
What do KPMG, Exxon-Mobil, Rolex, Barclay’s Bank and Calloway Golf have in common?  All of these corporations are paying tons of money to Phil Mickelson to say nice things about them. 
 
Mickelson is a professional golfer who has won more money playing golf than all but one other person in the history of the game. But his big pay-off comes from lending his name to products and companies. Mickelson earned a total of $53 million in endorsements in 2011 in addition to the $9 million he made playing golf that year. Mickelson routinely has made more than $40 million per annum for years.
 
And yet he’s complaining that his federal and California state taxes have gone up. After a golf tournament this past weekend, Mickelson made a veiled threat to change his public life because his taxes are too high. His exact words: “There are going to be some drastic changes for me because I happen to be in that zone that has been targeted both federally and by the state and, you know, it doesn't work for me right now.”
 
Some pundits think he’s threatening to retire from golf, while others think he’s threatening to relocate to a state that has lower taxes than California.
 
What’s he really threatening to do is become the poster child for tantrum-throwing selfishness.
 
Mickelson complains that his tax rate is 62% or 63% of his income.  That percentage is completely bogus, of course, because it doesn’t include the many deductions he probably takes and it applies the highest tax rate for both California and federal income tax to all his income, not just the amount above the floor for the highest marginal (or incremental) rate.
 
But even if we assume that Mickelson is actually paying 63% of all his income in taxes, that means that he and his family would have to get by on a mere $14.8 million a year, assuming he continues to make his low end of $40 million income before taxes.  Does that mean more hamburger helper and Top Ramen for the Mickelson household?  Of course, he could always supplement the budget by dipping into his estimated $150 million net worth.
 
Mickelson’s problem could be that he lives in a hermetically sealed environment of golf courses, resorts, country clubs and gated communities in which he only interacts with other golfers and a lot of rich folk who love golf.  He may never see the maid who cleans his hotel room, the guy who mows the green, the crews that repair the roads on which he drives or the TV engineer who makes sure his swing is transmitted to the millions of fans watching the tournament on TV. He may have never thought about how much—or how little—money his children’s teachers make, or how much or little the cashier makes who works the cash register where the hired help buy his family’s groceries.
 
Mickelson may have not done the math, so let’s do it for him: The $14.8 million that he would pocket a year if he only earned $40 million gross and he was taxed 63% on it computes to about 285 times what the average employed Californian earns before taxes.  
 
In his sequestered and rich little world, Mickelson may not be aware of the fact that our roads and bridges need work, that our public schools have been starved of funds, that we need to develop new technologies to address the threat of global warming, that the cost of public colleges is skyrocketing primarily because of a cutback in state support or that millions of people are unemployed or underemployed.
 
Mickelson may not know that he would have paid more in taxes in 1980, before Ronald Reagan began the conservative retrenchment that has led to the growing inequality of wealth in America. Mickelson may not know that he would have paid more before the Bush II tax cuts for the wealthy. He may not know that he would pay more taxes in virtually any other industrialized country.
 
I’ve had my fill of selfish a__holes like Phil Mickelson.  As far as I’m concerned he can follow the tax avoidance strategy of that overrated French actor Gérard Depardieu, who, rather than pay French income tax, has given up French citizenship and now makes his home in Luxemburg.  Maybe like Depardieu, Mickelson will be granted Russian citizenship by Vladimir Putin. 
 
I say, let Mickelson play 18 holes somewhere in Siberia. 

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Walmart’s private sector economic stimulus package helps no one but Walmart

By Marc Jampole

Walmart is making a big deal about two moves it announced this week, for which it is demanding applause and gratitude.  You could call it the Walmart private sector economic stimulus plan. The trouble is, it’s nothing but smoke and mirrors.

Walmart’s first contribution to the American economy is a pledge to buy an additional $50 billion in goods and services from American companies over the next 10 years. It seems like a lot until you run the numbers, which I am not the first to do. It works out to $5 billion a year, a drop in the bucket of more than $250 billion in goods and services that this modern leviathan buys each year. Walmart is making a big deal about what for them is a minor adjustment that will make but a minor ripple in the U.S. economy.

More odiously self-serving is Walmart’s announcement that it will hire 100,000 veterans, or every veteran who left the service with an honorable discharge this past year. Sounds like a great combination of patriotism and economic growth until you start to think about it. Walmart literally has more than 2.2 million employees. Between growth and turnover, in any given year it is going to be hiring 100,000 people as greeters, cashiers, stockers and other in-store positions. Walmart has not created a single job, it has just said that it would give special consideration to one demographic group—recent veterans.
 
I’m also not the first to point out that the type of job that virtually all these vets will get at Walmart is low pay and with minimal or no benefits and little chance for advancement. Is this the best that we can do for those who have risked their lives on the frontlines of the wars prosecuted in our names?
 
The most interesting aspect of the Walmart hiring veterans announcement is what it will do to the demographics of its workforce: In the overall economy, more than 50% of all jobs today are held by women, and yet women are only 20% of the armed forces and therefore about 20% of the veterans in any given year. The disparate impact of hiring veterans is that the Walmart workforce will begin to skewer towards the male. Given the many past and ongoing lawsuits accusing Walmart of discrimination against women, the focus on veterans could make one begin to wonder if Walmart’s motives were less than patriotic.

Like the executives of many large companies, Walmart’s leaders could easily get lost in the internal rhetoric of the company, which lauds itself with the inexorable regularity with which parents laud four year olds for finishing their plates and zipping up their flies after potty.  These guys might actually get themselves to believe that it’s a big deal to bump up domestic purchases by a small amount or to focus hiring on one demographic group. And they probably thought the U.S. news media and public would believe it, too.
 
But it doesn’t matter how thickly Walmart’s public relations flaks paint the happy face on Walmart’s announcements. The news media and the public are more cynical after decades of seeing Walmart destroy small towns, bankrupt small business owners, squeeze suppliers and pay low wages.

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Coke’s heavy-handed try to position itself as committed to good health ignores heavy people

By Marc Jampole

Coke’s two-minute commercial telling us what it’s doing to fight the epidemic of obesity sweeping across America must contain two hundred people—all happy, many engaged with a Coke product, and none of them obese, or even overweight. Okay, okay, maybe two of the hundreds of people in the ad could stand to lose a few pounds, but even these still-happy few were in pretty good shape and shown being active.

Imagine. If instead of getting attractive models to shill their messages about a wider variety of smaller portions and lower calorie drinks, Coke had shown a cross section of the population—or better yet, a cross section of their drinkers—we would have seen a mesmerizing montage of saggy and billowing mid sections, big tushes, thunder thighs and quadruple chins. In short (and in large) one third or more of the happy Coke drinkers (shown or implied) in the commercial would have been obese and another third would have had more pot-gutted waddle than spring in their step.  That’s what all the statistics say: about a third of us are obese and another third are overweight.

Unfortunately for Coke, in the ideal world depicted in its commercial, a world of all healthy and happy people, there is no room for Coke or its products, other than the unscented water. The 100% juices that Coke mongers substitute a less healthy way to consume fruit—drinking it—for the healthier and lower calorie option of eating a real piece of fruit.  The sugared sodas are empty calories and the low-calorie ones have chemical substitutes that make people crave more food, so both lead directly to weight gain.

The ad and Coke’s overall campaign repeat the Big Lie that gets told whenever food companies get involved in an anti-obesity campaign. The big lie is to overstress the importance of exercise in losing weight. Don’t get me wrong: everyone should exercise a lot because it’s good for the brain, the heart and the psyche, and it does work off calories.

But exercise can only go so far. It takes about a half an hour on a treadmill to work off one chocolate chip cookie. So for the two thirds of Americans who already have a problem, exercise is no substitute for eating less…a lot less. If you want to lose weight, you have to eat less. And what better place to start reducing what you eat than to stop consuming the empty calories of Coke products?

Monday, January 14, 2013

Justice Dept should spend more time prosecuting gun liars and no time prosecuting med. pot dispensaries

By Marc Jampole

The absurdly ironic impact of politics on the justice system shines brightly on the front page of today’s New York Times. First we learn that, of the 80,000 Americans who the Justice Department (DOJ) knows committed the federal crime of lying or providing inaccurate information on gun purchase background checks in 2010, only 44 were charged with a crime. And surprise, surprise, those who lie on background checks are more likely to commit violent crimes than the average person.

The 80,000, of course, are only the ones who got caught lying.  Some unmeasured number succeeded and thereby own guns that should legally not be in their possession.

Certainly many of the 80,000 were telling little stretchers and don’t deserve prosecution, but I’m betting that a goodly number were involved in identity theft, had a record or a restraining order or were under the care of a therapist. Prosecuting a large number of people who lie on their gun background applications would certainly send a message. It would lead to fewer people prone to lie on background checks filling them out. If we required background checks for all sales, it would lead to fewer guns in the hands of people who shouldn’t have them.

Now that’s a message that the National Rifle Association (NRA) and the rest of the moneyed anti-gun control lobby doesn’t like.  Few lawmakers have the guts to openly support gun control and insist that we go after these lawbreakers. And as with the environment and global warming, Obama talks a good game but has actually done nothing about gun control except commiserate with victims and do a little tough-talking.

While I’m hopeful that the Biden Task Force will lead to some action (finally!) on controlling the proliferation of guns with inadequate regulation, I’m also wondering how in the world the DOJ is going to be able to summon up the resources to investigate those who lie on gun purchase background checks, given shrinking federal budgets.
 
To our good fortune, the Times provides the answer right there on the very same front page in a story about federal prosecution of a California businessman who has all his state licenses, follows all state laws and regulations to a tee, keeps pristine records, pays all taxes, files his forms on time  and yet faces years in jail because his business is growing and selling medical marijuana.  The prosecution of Matthew R. Davies for being a sharp but law-abiding entrepreneur is only the latest in DOJ efforts to squelch the use of medical marijuana in states in which it’s legal.  Barack Obama and his attorney general Douglas Holder seem to hold a special animus for those who facilitate the legal use of marijuana, as if they have a kind of juvenile envy of people allowed to puff the magic dragon. No study links pot smoking with violent crime or even any increase in crimes (except the crime of buying/selling/using it where it s not legal or under illegal conditions). The DOJ thus does nothing to help make our lives safer and more secure by going after California or Colorado pot entrepreneurs. 
 
Let’s review: Instead of prosecuting people who are willing to lie to get their hands on a loaded gun, the DOJ goes after a business person who has broken no state law and is supplying a medical service.  
 
Perhaps the folks at DOJ have been smoking a bit too much of the stuff they’re confiscating.

Saturday, January 12, 2013

Editorial: Collateral Damage


The War on Terror has gone on too long. Collateral damage from the war has hurt us at home and abroad. We must restore the rule of law and put terrorists on trial in US criminal courts for crimes against US citizens. Treating them as prisoners of war — even in isolation at Guantanamo — is an insult to soldiers.

This is the frame for our viewing of President Obama’s nomination of Chuck Hagel as secretary of defense and John Brennan as director of the CIA.

Shortly after he took office on Jan. 20, 2009, President Obama stopped the use of torture and other forms of “enhanced interrogation” by the CIA and other American forces. He also closed CIA “black sites” but continued “renditions,” the secret abductions and transfers of prisoners to countries that cooperate with the US. He initially ordered the closing of the Guantanamo military prison, though he backed off from that order under pressure from Congress and announced that the Pentagon would move ahead with military trials for detainees in Guantanamo.

Obama also signed a four-year renewal of several controversial provisions of the PATRIOT Act in May 2011, including the use of “roving wiretaps” and warrantless wiretaps, the government’s expanded access to business records, and the “lone wolf” provision, which allows surveillance of individuals not affiliated with any known terrorist organization. On Dec. 31, 2011, Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act for 2012, which included a controversial provision authorizing the military to indefinitely detain civilians who are believed to have supported the enemy. Obama has said he would not use that provision, but Congress kept the provision in the NDAA for 2013

The Obama administration has justified the use of targeted killings, including at least two US citizens involved in Al Qaeda in Yemen, and expanded the use of remotely piloted armed drone aircraft. The New York Times May 29, 2012, reported that Obama personally signs off on about one-third of drone strikes, including each one launched in Yemen or Somalia.

Brennan, as Obama’s counterterrorism adviser, acknowledged the widely reported drone activity in April 2012, and admitted that some civilians have died from strikes.

Government officials have asserted that civilian deaths from drone strikes in Pakistan under Obama are in the “single digits,” but independent counts are considerably higher. The New America Foundation analysis of news reports show 337 CIA drone strikes in Pakistan have killed an estimated 1,934 to 3,239 people since 2004, of which 1,489 to 2,605 were reported to be militants. “This means the average non-militant casualty rate over the life of the program is 18 to 23 percent. In 2012 it has been around 10%, down sharply from its peak in 2006 of over 60%.”

But human rights groups have challenged the administration to be more open about its drone program. “It is not enough that care is taken to avoid harm to innocent civilians,” said Raha Wala, an official with Human Rights First, in an interview with NBC News in April 2012. “Brennan’s assertion that any ‘member’ of al-Qaida or ‘associated forces’ is legally targetable is wrong. Under the laws of armed conflict, only members of the enemy’s armed forces, or those directly participating in hostilities or who perform a continuous combat function, may be targeted.”

Mary Ellen O’Connell, a professor of international dispute resolution at the University of Notre Dame and author of What is War?, wrote in an Aug. 15, 2012, column at CNN.com that the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which the US is a party, prohibits the “arbitrary” deprivation of life, though “the military may use lethal force against enemy fighters during an armed conflict if the use of force meets the requirements of military necessity, and if it will not have a disproportionate impact on civilian lives and property. ...

“President Bush declared a ‘global war on terror’ after 9/11 to, presumably, gain the advantage of more relaxed rules on killing and detention. Some of the same lawyers who tried to develop legal cover for the use of torture produced an even flimsier analysis of why the entire world was a war zone, so that the president could authorize killing and detention of individuals worldwide. ...

“Today, the United States is engaged in armed conflict only in Afghanistan. To lawfully resort to military force elsewhere requires that the country where the United States is attacking has first attacked the United States (such as Afghanistan in 2001), the UN Security Council has authorized the resort to force (Libya in 2011) or a government in effective control credibly requests assistance in a civil war (Afghanistan since 2002).”

Our view is that the use of extralegal rendition, torture and CIA secret prisons during the Bush administration and the continued use of rendition, targeted killings and the informal attitude toward due process under Obama has played into Al Qaeda’s game plan.

Osama bin Laden intended to provoke the United States to overreact to the terrorist attacks and do bad things that would tarnish our reputation around the world in the name of national security. It’s past time that we stop giving terrorists those propaganda victories. Remember that after the 9/11 attacks the world — including Muslim nations — lined up in support of the United States against Al Qaeda’s terrorism. Remember also that Iran offered to cooperate with the US against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. But the Bush/Cheney administration rejected Iran’s overture. Instead, George W. Bush charged in his Jan. 29, 2002, State of the Union speech that Iran was part of an “axis of evil” with Iraq and North Korea. Then Bush led an invasion of Iraq in March 2003, disregarding Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s warning that the move would create “one hundred new bin Ladens,” driving more Muslims to anti-Western militancy.

Bush’s war transformed Iraq from a secular dictatorship under Saddam Hussein, an enemy of Al Qaeda and rival of Iran, into an Islamic republic with strong ties to Iran. The blowback toppled Mubarak in Egypt last year, and Sharia law — real Sharia law, not the imagined threat to Oklahoma — is enshrined in Egypt’s new constitution as Muslim fundamentalists consolidate their hold on power.

In the past decade the world’s support for the US “War on Terror” has evaporated and every drone strike that kills a purported Taliban or Al Qaeda leader — even if they are well-worth killing — helps to recruit more Muslim youth to the terrorist ranks. We don’t have enough Seal teams to take out every militant extremist holed up in Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier, and the alternatives for reaching out to touch them are cruise missiles and B-52 bombers. If you don’t want collateral damage, don’t go to war.

We think Chuck Hagel is the right nominee for secretary of defense to get us out of Afghanistan and keep us out of other unnecessary wars. As Mideast observer Juan Cole noted at JuanCole.com, “Hagel is a decorated war hero, having won two Purple Hearts as an infantry squad leader in Vietnam. He knows what war is, unlike the usual gaggle of chickenhawks who have emerged to accuse him of not being warlike enough ... Hagel not only knows war but knows it from the point of view of the infantry and NCOs, not just the officer corps. Hagel is cautious about wars and what they can achieve, and has become more cautious over time, as his hands got burned by the Iraq resolution.” Hagel also is an advocate for veterans. He has supported the use of diplomacy instead of sanctions in the Middle East and he supports withdrawal from Afghanistan. And he takes the sensible view that US interests should guide US policy toward Israel and Palestine, and that Israel should not have a blank check on US support, which appears to reflect Obama’s view.

John Brennan as CIA chief is a more complicated case. If he can follow Obama’s lead in restoring accountability at the agency, he can do good work there. But at his confirmation hearings senators should probe his role in the use of torture, renditions and drones and other questionable elements of the “War On Terror.” And Congress should follow up with laws that restore real due process for our national security agencies. — JMC

From The Progressive Populist, February 1, 2013

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Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Do you want to get your opinions from someone who won’t even vote?

By Marc Jampole

One sure sign someone has remained on stage too long is when they begins to embarrass themselves. Exhibit One this week is Jeff Greenfield, long-time political pundit who has worked for both ABC and CNN news and for the New York Times, Time and Slate.com.  In a cranky article titled “Why I never voted for Barack Obama,” Greenfield admits that he has not voted in any election since 1996. His excuse: it enables him to distance himself from the candidates because he isn’t going to vote for either one.

It’s not the first time Greenfield has admitted he never votes. He did so in an article in late October 2012 in which he asked the undecideds to stay home. 

What is more embarrassing? That Greenfield admits to not voting? That he thinks he has a great excuse?  The smugness with which he declares his objectivity and implies his superiority? Or the very fact that he doesn’t get it?

He doesn’t get that a big part of the code ethics of any professional—journalist, attorney, accountant, physician, architect, advertising guy—is to set aside beliefs when practicing the profession.  Moreover, in Greenfield’s case, having an opinion and expressing it is part of the job title. We know Greenfield isn’t objective and, since he’s a pundit, we wouldn’t expect or want him to be. We know his work bubbles with opinions and assumptions, and like virtually all mainstream pundits, the opinions express a narrow right-centrist view.  

Greenfield must hold himself in pretty low self esteem: he’s afraid that voting for a candidate is temptation enough for him to lie, to build an argument which he doesn’t really believe or to withhold material evidence.  Only in the severe purity of non-voting will Greenfield not succumb to the temptation of  unethical reporting.

Greenfield wants us to admire the sheer Zen objectivity he achieves through the consecrated act of not voting. Instead, all we see is a cranky guy abdicating his freedom and his responsibility as an American citizen.  And bragging about it.

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Why do prosecutors and judges obstruct justice?

By Marc Jampole
 
In today’s New York Times, Adam Liptak details another case in which judges and prosecutors obstinately defend a wrong decision and thereby put a man’s life at stake.

The headline of the article, “Lawyers Stumble, and Clients Take Fall” says it all:  A man on Alabama’s death row may fry because his attorney—addicted to meth at the time—missed a filing deadline for appealing his sentence. At issue was the fact that the jury voted the man a life sentence and a judge overruled it and gave him the death penalty.

The Atlanta appeals court ruled 2-1 that the guy can not pursue a challenge to his conviction, even though our ultra-right U.S. Supreme Court has twice rebuked the same court for its rigid attitude regarding filing deadlines in capital cases.
 
Whenever I read about another case in which prosecutors and/or judges persist in upholding a wrong decision, I wonder where their sense of justice is. While the defense attorney is supposed to represent the defendant, the mission of the prosecutor and the judge should be to represent the state and the people. It must be in the best interest of the state and the people to get it right, even if that means admitting that an original decision to prosecute or seek the death penalty was wrong, or even if that means, as in this case, using a looser interpretation of the rules. In this case, the prosecutor did not have to object to the late filing and could have recommended waiving the rule, knowing that the attorney was at fault. The judges, chastised on this issue already, could have also given the guy a break. After all, a man’s life is at stake. But prosecutor and judges preferred an extremely strict interpretation of the law.

The inflexibility of prosecutors and judges is a leading argument against capital punishment. While many are in favor of capital punishment, few approve of executing anyone who is innocent or whose crimes do not meet the legal standard for the death penalty.  How can we ever be absolutely certain of a capital conviction given the sad reality that our judicial system seeks convictions and executions, and not justice?

Every month another example of an injustice hits the national media. A few weeks back it was the man with an I.Q. of 51 who has been in jail 30 years, unconvicted of any crime, waiting for a new trial after his first capital conviction for murder was overturned. The Texas state government is appealing a recent ruling that would either finally give the guy a new trial or free him. Texas would rather see a man convicted of no crime continue rotting in prison.

These two cases involve unfair treatment of defendants. Even worse is when the state suppresses evidence that shows the defendant or convict is innocent.

These cases of unfair treatment or suppression of exonerating evidence tend to occur to the poor, minorities or those with severe mental disabilities, and they tend to happen in the south. This lack of consistency—of fairness—represents another argument against the death penalty.

Many believe, and I count myself among them, that the best argument against capital punishment is the moral one—that society should not stoop to the level of the murderers and engage in state assassination, and that cost of housing a convicted killer is a small price to pay for remaining human and humane. But even if one rejects the moral argument, the practical ones remain: the cost of making certain the innocent are not executed is too high in a venal world in which justice gives way to the preference of prosecutors, judges and states for preserving their own record of infallibility or pursuing some blood thirsty political agenda.
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