Economic Priorities Moving U.S. in Wrong Direction
MinutemanMedia
by Chuck Collins and Felice Yeskel
Every autumn, as the leaves change color, we get a vivid new picture of the trends that pull us apart as a country. After almost three decades of incrementally widening disparities of wealth and income, we’ve entered a new version of economic apartheid, American-style. Let’s call it Inequality 2.0.
The
The U.S. Census reports that since 2001, the ranks of our nation’s poor have grown by 4 million, and the number of people without health insurance has swelled by 10 percent to over 45 million.
Over 50 percent of 2004 total income went to the top fifth of households, and the biggest gains to the top 5 percent and 1 percent. The average CEO now takes home a paycheck 431 times that of their average worker.
2004 saw a dramatic increase in the number of billionaires. According to “Forbes” magazine, there are now 374 of them. In the early 1980s, the average net worth of the individuals on the Forbes 400 list was $400 million. Today, the average net worth is $2.8 billion. Wal-Mart’s Walton family now has 771,287 times more than the median
Does inequality matter? Concentrations of wealth and power pose a danger to our democratic system. The corruption of politics by big money might explain why for the last five years the president and Congress have been more interested in repealing the federal estate tax, paid only by multi-millionaires, than in reinforcing levees along the
Now, to pay for hurricane reconstruction and the war in
Public policies in trade, taxes, wages and social spending can make a difference in mitigating national and global trends toward prolonged inequality. But our priorities are moving us in the wrong direction.
(click here to read the entire article)
Chuck Collins and Felice Yeskel are co-authors of the new book, “Economic Apartheid in
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Friday, October 28
COOL has been Killed
by
Caroline Vernon
on Fri 28 Oct 2005 04:00 PM CDT
Politics and Money to Blame for Killing Consumer-Friendly Food Labeling Program.This is completely unacceptable!
Note: The only silver lining is that the Larry Craig provision to exempt factory farms from Superfund and Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act (EPCRA) failed once again.
Statement of Wenonah Hauter, Director of Public Citizen’s Food Program.
The long battle over country-of-origin labeling (COOL) has reached a disappointing finish, with a decision last night by the House-Senate Conference Committee on the agriculture appropriations bill (H.R. 2744) to wave a white flag of surrender to the food and grocery industries. The committee effectively killed a mandatory program that would require labels on foods sold in grocery stores to state where and how the food was raised or produced.
As is typical of this Congress, this final move was made behind closed doors. Even though Public Citizen tried to attend this so-called public meeting, no one who was standing in line to attend the meeting was allowed to enter the room. Despite polls showing that consumers overwhelmingly support mandatory labeling, lawmakers have killed the idea through budgetary gimmicks because they favor a weaker, voluntary labeling program. A mandatory program would not have cost the government any money; that cost would have been borne by the food industry.
As outlined in the recent Public Citizen report Tabled Labels, available at http://www.citizen.org/documents/COOL.pdf, big agribusiness used millions of dollars in lobbying expenditures and campaign contributions, and a network of Washington insiders with close connections to the Bush administration and Congress, to thwart COOL. This latest effort to kill COOL was led by U.S. Rep. Henry Bonilla (R-Texas), who has received more than $167,000 from COOL opponents in the past three election cycles, making him their top beneficiary. The Food Marketing Institute, which represents the grocery industry, and the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, which represents the meat industry, have been the biggest opponents of mandatory COOL. It is apparent that our elected lawmakers’ main concern is to protect industry, not consumers.
While the appropriations bill delays mandatory COOL for meat to September 2008, this move effectively kills the program because this new implementation date is beyond the expiration date - 2007 - of the 2002 Farm Bill that originally mandated it.
Rules for voluntary COOL are already in effect, yet most consumers are not getting information about where their food was produced. For nearly four years, Congress has stalled on this issue. Most people can earn a college degree in four years, but apparently it’s not enough time for Congress to institute a simple program that would have been useful to every consumer in the United States. Congress has failed us again.
Public Citizen is a national, nonprofit consumer advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit www.citizen.org.
Tuesday, October 25
Resisting Hillary: Never Again Will Cindy Sheehan Support a Pro-war Democrat
by
Linda Thieman
on Tue 25 Oct 2005 08:00 AM CDT
Resisting Hillary: Never Again Will Cindy Sheehan Support a Pro-war Democratby Cindy Sheehan (pictured above), AlterNet.org
How can those who want the occupation of Iraq to end support Hillary Clinton's higher political aspirations? They can't.
I would love to support Hillary for President if she would come out against the travesty in Iraq. But I don't think she can speak out against the occupation, because she supports it.
I will not make the mistake of supporting another pro-war Democrat for president again, as I won't support a pro-war Republican.
This country wants this occupation to end. The world wants the occupation to end. People in Iraq want this occupation to end.
Senator Clinton: taking the peace road would not prove you are weak. Instead, it would prove that you are the strongest and wisest candidate. As a mom, as an American, as a patriot: I implore you to have the strength and courage to lead the fight for peace....
Senator Clinton: come out against this occupation of Iraq. Not because it is the politically expedient thing to do but because it is the humane thing to do. If you want to make Casey's sacrifice count, bring the rest of his buddies home alive.
(Read the complete article here.)
Monday, October 24
Judith Miller Played Leading Role in Bush Echo Chamber
by
Trish Nelson
on Mon 24 Oct 2005 04:00 AM CDT
Judith Miller Played Leading Role in Bush-Cheney Echo ChamberTruthout
This must-read Maureen Dowd column was all the rage on the Sunday morning talk shows…
by Maureen Dowd/The New York Times
She never knew when to quit. That was her talent and her flaw. Sorely in need of a tight editorial leash, she was kept on no leash at all, and that has hurt this paper and its trust with readers. She more than earned her sobriquet "Miss Run Amok."
[Judith Miller’s] stories about WMD fit too perfectly with the White House's case for war. She was close to Ahmad Chalabi, the con man who was conning the neocons to knock out Saddam so he could get his hands on Iraq, and I worried that she was playing a leading role in the dangerous echo chamber that former Senator Bob Graham dubbed "incestuous amplification." Using Iraqi defectors and exiles, Mr. Chalabi planted bogus stories with Judy and other credulous journalists.
She casually revealed that she had agreed to identify her source, Scooter Libby, Dick Cheney's chief of staff, as a "former Hill staffer" because he had once worked on Capitol Hill. The implication was that this bit of deception was a common practice for reporters. It isn't.
Judy coughed up the details of an earlier meeting with Mr. Libby only after prosecutors confronted her with a visitor log showing that she had met with him on June 23, 2003. This cagey confusion is what makes people wonder whether her stint in the Alexandria jail was in part a career rehabilitation project.
I admire Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and Bill Keller for aggressively backing reporters in the cross hairs of a prosecutor. But before turning Judy's case into a First Amendment battle, they should have [tied] her to a chair and extracted the entire story of her escapade.
(click here to read the entire story)
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Sunday, October 23
Join the Fight Against Fake News
by
Trish Nelson
on Sun 23 Oct 2005 04:00 AM CDT
Join the Fight Against Fake News
Center for Media and Democracy: PR Watch
Monday on Blog for Iowa, Arron reported that the Senate Commerce Committee was considering a bill, the Truth in Broadcasting Act (S 967) addressing the issue of disclosure on VNR’s (government-produced, prepackaged video news releases). Here is the watered down version of the original bill passed this week, but the fight is not over….
The Truth in Broadcasting Act (S 967) was considered [this week] by the Senate Commerce Committee. The original bill would have required a "conspicuous" disclosure to accompany any government-produced or -funded prepackaged VNR or the radio equivalent, an audio news release (ANR).
What the committee passed, however, was significantly different. Even the name had changed, to the "Prepackaged News Story Announcement Act."
First, the revised Act drops the continuous on-screen notification requirement for VNRs. Second, it calls for "clear notification within the text or audio of the prepackaged news story," without specifying the minimum requirements for audience disclosure. Most troubling, it allows that disclosure to be removed altogether, following rules that the Act requires the Federal Communications Commission to develop.
According to to TV Week… "The bill clears the way for TV news operations to continue using snippets of government-produced VNRs for [video footage] in their own stories, as they do currently, leaving the issue of how to identify the material up to station news personnel." The problem is that nondisclosure - that's covert propaganda - is currently the norm.
But the fact that the revised Act did make it out of the Senate Commerce Committee is a step, however small, in the right direction. The legislative process is far from over, and the Act's language can be strengthened as easily as it was weakened - if concerned citizens get involved.
The Act's
main sponsors, Senators Lautenberg and Kerry, "tried to make it much
stronger," but did not have the support of their colleagues. That can change
if enough
The Center for Media and Democracy has been exposing "fake news," such as the ready-to-air faux TV reports known as video news releases (VNRs), since 1993. Now, we have joined forces with the media reform group Free Press, in an ongoing investigative and activist campaign to say "No Fake News!"
The fight is far from over - in fact, it just got more
important. Get active and stay tuned.
Click here to
join
Iowans for Better Local TV (IBLTV)
Iowa's Media Reform Group
Iowa's Media Reform Group
Saturday, October 22
GAO Report Finds Flaws In Electronic Voting
by
Caroline Vernon
on Sat 22 Oct 2005 04:00 AM CDT
GAO Report Finds Flaws in Electronic Voting t r u t h o u t | Report
Thank God! The truth comes out! I knew they cheated in the last election... was there ever really any doubt? GWB was never legitimately elected... not the first time, and not the second time. My question is, how could any of our own Representatives have voted against verifiable paper trails? And when will the rest of us hold them accountable?
Friday 21 October 2005
Rep. Waxman led twelve members of Congress today in releasing a new GAO report that found security and reliability flaws in the electronic voting process.
In a joint press release, Rep. Waxman said, "The GAO report indicates that we need to get serious and act quickly to improve the security of electronic voting machines. The report makes clear that there is a lack of transparency and accountability in electronic voting systems - from the day that contracts are signed with manufacturers to the counting of electronic votes on Election Day. State and local officials are spending a great deal of money on machines without concrete proof that they are secure and reliable."
The GAO report found flaws in security, access, and hardware controls, as well as weak security management practices by voting machine vendors. The report identified multiple examples of actual operational failures in real elections and found that while national initiatives to improve the security and reliability of electronic voting systems are underway, "it is unclear when these initiatives will be available to assist state and local election authorities."
Rep. Waxman also released a fact sheet summarizing the report's key findings.
Fact Sheet
Overall Findings
In October 2005, the Government Accountability Office released a comprehensive analysis of the concerns raised by the increasing use of electronic voting machines.
Overall, GAO found that "significant concerns about the security and reliability of electronic voting systems" have been raised (p. 22).
GAO indicated that "some of these concerns have been realized and have caused problems with recent elections, resulting in the loss and miscount of votes" (p. 23).
According to GAO, "election officials, computer security experts, citizen advocacy groups, and others have raised significant concerns about the security and reliability of electronic voting systems, citing instances of weak security controls, system design flaws, inadequate system version control, inadequate security testing, incorrect system configuration, poor security management, and vague or incomplete standards, among other issues. ... The security and reliability concerns raised in recent reports merit the focused attention of federal, state, and local authorities responsible for election administration" (p. 22-23).
Specific Problems Identified by GAO
Based on reports from election experts, GAO compiled numerous examples of problems with electronic voting systems. These included:
Flaws in System Security Controls
Examples of problems reported by GAO include (1) computer systems that fail to encrypt data files containing cast votes, allowing them to be viewed or modified without detection by internal auditing systems; (2) systems that could allow individuals to alter ballot definition files so that votes cast for one candidate are counted for another; and (3) weak controls that allowed the alteration of memory cards used in optical scan machines, potentially impacting election results. GAO concluded that "these weaknesses could damage the integrity of ballots, votes, and voting system software by allowing unauthorized modifications (p. 25).
Flaws in Access Controls
Examples of problems reported by GAO include (1) the failure to password-protect files and functions; (2) the use of easily guessed passwords or identical passwords for numerous systems built by the same manufacturer; and (3) the failure to secure memory cards used to secure voting systems, potentially allowing individuals to vote multiple times, change vote totals, or produce false election reports.
According to GAO, "in the event of lax supervision, the ... flaws could allow unauthorized personnel to disrupt operations or modify data and programs that are crucial to the accuracy and integrity of the voting process" (p. 26).
Flaws in Physical Hardware Controls
In addition to identifying flaws in software and access controls, GAO identified basic problems with the physical hardware of electronic voting machines. Example of problems reported by GAO included locks that could be easily picked or were all controlled by the same keys, and unprotected switches used to turn machines on and off that could easily be used to disrupt the voting process (p. 27).
Weak Security Management Practices by Voting Machine Vendors
Experts contacted by GAO reported a number of concerns about the practices of voting machine vendors, including the failure to conduct background checks on programmers and system developers, the lack of internal security protocols during software development, and the failure to establish clear chain of custody procedures for handling and transporting software (p. 29).
Actual Examples of Voting System Failure
GAO found multiple examples of actual operational failures in real elections. These examples include the following incidents:
In California, a county presented voters with an incorrect electronic ballot, meaning they could not vote in certain races (p. 29).
In Pennsylvania, a county made a ballot error on an electronic voting system that resulted in the county's undervote percentage reaching 80% in some precincts (p. 29-30).
In North Carolina, electronic voting machines continued to accept votes after their memories were full, causing over 4,000 votes to be lost (p. 31).
In Florida, a county reported that touch screens took up to an hour to activate and had to be activated sequentially, resulting in long delays (p. 31).
Current Federal Standards and Initiatives Are Ineffective and Are Unlikely to Provide Solutions in a Timely Fashion
GAO reported that voluntary standards for electronic voting, adopted in 2002 by the Federal Election Commission, have been criticized for containing vague and incomplete security provisions, inadequate provisions for commercial products and networks, and inadequate documentation requirements (pp. 32-33).
GAO further reported that "security experts and some election officials have expressed concern that tests currently performed by independent testing authorities and state and local election officials do not adequately assess electronic voting system security and reliability," and that "these concerns are amplified by what some perceive as a lack of transparency in the testing process" (p. 34). The GAO report indicated that national initiatives to improve voting system security and reliability of electronic voting systems (such as updated standards from the Election Assistance Commission; federal accreditation of independent testing laboratories; and certification of voting systems to national standards) are underway, but " a majority of these efforts either lack specific plans for implementation in time to affect the 2006 general election or are not expected to be completed until after the 2006 election" (p. 43). As a result, GAO found that "it is unclear when these initiatives will be available to assist state and local election officials" (p. 43). According to GAO, "Until these efforts are completed, there is a risk that many state and local jurisdictions will rely on voting systems that were not developed, acquired, tested, operated, or managed in accordance with rigorous security and reliability standards - potentially affecting the reliability of future elections and voter confidence in the accuracy of the vote count" (p. 53).
(Source)
View the full report here.
Friday, October 21
Word-Up! DNA Can Be Reprogrammed By Words
by
Caroline Vernon
on Fri 21 Oct 2005 04:00 PM CDT
Word-Up!DNA Can Be Influenced And Reprogrammed By Words And Frequencies
From www.quantumbalancing.com
This gives a whole new meaning to the power of "the word". And to think of all the times I spoke to how lame I am! OK... henceforth, if I refer to myself as the super tranformative woman, you'll understand why, right? ;0)
The human DNA is a biological Internet and superior in many aspects to the artificial one. The latest Russian scientific research directly or indirectly explains phenomena such as clairvoyance, intuition, spontaneous and remote acts of healing, self healing, affirmation techniques, unusual light/auras around people (namely spiritual masters), the mind’s influence on weather patterns and much more.
In addition, there is evidence for a whole new type of medicine in which DNA can be influenced and reprogrammed by words and frequencies WITHOUT cutting out and replacing single genes.
Only 10% of our DNA is being used for building proteins. It is this subset of DNA that is of interest to western researchers and is being examined and categorized. The other 90% are considered "junk DNA. The Russian researchers, however, convinced that nature was not dumb, joined linguists and geneticists in a venture to explore those 90% of "junk DNA". Their results, findings and conclusions are simply revolutionary!
According to them, our DNA is not only responsible for the construction of our body but also serves as data storage and communication. The Russian linguists found that the genetic code, especially in the apparently useless 90%, follows the same rules as all our human languages. To this end they compared the rules of syntax (the way in which words are put together to form phrases and sentences), semantics (the study of meaning in language forms) and the basic rules of grammar.
They found that the alkalines of our DNA follow regular grammar and do have set rules just like our languages. So human languages did not appear coincidentally but are a reflection of our inherent DNA.
The Russian biophysicist and molecular biologist Pjotr Garjajev and his colleagues also explored the vibrational behavior of the DNA. [For the sake of brevity I will give only a summary here. For further exploration please refer to the appendix at the end of this article.]
The bottom line was: "Living chromosomes function just like solitonic/holographic computers using the endogenous DNA laser radiation."
This means that they managed, for example, to modulate certain frequency patterns onto a laser ray and with it influenced the DNA frequency and thus the genetic information itself. Since the basic structure of DNA-alkaline pairs and of language (as explained earlier) are of the same structure, no DNA decoding is necessary. One can simply use words and sentences of the human language!
This, too, was experimentally proven! Living DNA substance (in living tissue, not in vitro) will always react to language-modulated laser rays and even to radio waves, if the proper frequencies are being used. This finally and scientifically explains why affirmations, autogenous training, hypnosis and the like can have such strong effects on humans and their bodies. It is entirely normal and natural for our DNA to react to language. While western researcher cut single genes from the DNA strands and insert them elsewhere, the Russians enthusiastically worked on devices that can influence the cellular metabolism through suitable modulated radio and light frequencies and thus repair genetic defects.
Garjajevâ's research group succeeded in proving that with this method chromosomes damaged by x-rays for example can be repaired. They even captured information patterns of a particular DNA and transmitted it onto another, thus reprogramming cells to another genome. So they successfully transformed, for example, frog embryos to salamander embryos simply by transmitting the DNA information patterns!
This way the entire information was transmitted without any of the side effects or disharmonies encountered when cutting out and re-introducing single genes from the DNA. This represents an unbelievable, world-transforming revolution and sensation! All this by simply applying vibration and language instead of the archaic cutting-out procedure! This experiment points to the immense power of wave genetics, which obviously has a greater influence on the formation of organisms than the biochemical processes of alkaline sequences.
To read the rest of the article, click here:
Monday, October 17
Last Week in Media by Iowa's Arron Wings
by
Trish Nelson
on Mon 17 Oct 2005 11:00 AM CDT
Last Week in Media by Arron Wings
There are major issues surfacing in the regulation and future of media this fall.
The FCC is reviewing and rewriting the “ownership rules” they got wrong in 2003 and are now before them again.
Broadcast licenses for all TV and radio stations in Iowa are up for renewal this winter. The deadline for stations to request renewal is October 1, 2005, and the deadline for public comment and participation is January 1, 2006.
But there are also other issues that will have long-term consequences for us the public.
The Truth in Broadcasting Act of 2005 (S. 967) currently before the Senate Commerce Committee will mandate the identification of all pre-packaged “news releases” (VNRs) created by the government and broadcast on our airwaves. The need for this action arose when both the Justice Department and the FCC failed to protect consumers from products that the Government Accounting Office has said violate a prohibition on “covert propaganda.” The Justice Department has said an unattributed VNR is not covert propaganda as long as it is fact-based, and the FCC does not require disclosure unless the VNR is on a political or controversial topic.
The Act attempts to eliminate the ambiguity created by those two departments and mandates that all VNRs produced by or for a branch of government is identified as such. It requires that “Produced by the U.S. Government” or similar language is displayed on all VNRs regardless of topic or content.
Click here for more information or to join the fight against government propaganda.
Arron Wings lives in Iowa City and is a member of Iowans for Better Local TV.
