Solving Hunger one corner at a time Mood: energetic Now Playing: A City in In Brazil their Hunger Problem is not a problem Topic: HUMANITY
> The City That Ended Hunger
> by Frances Moore Lappé > http://tinyurl.com/cge38l > > A city in Brazil recruited local farmers to help do something U.S. cities have > yet to do: end hunger. > > In writing Diet for a Small Planet, I learned one simple truth: Hunger is not > caused by a scarcity of food but a scarcity of democracy. But that realization > was only the beginning, for then I had to ask: What does a democracy look like > that enables citizens to have a real voice in securing life’s essentials? > Does it exist anywhere? Is it possible or a pipe dream? With hunger on the rise > here in the United States—one in 10 of us is now turning to food > stamps—these questions take on new urgency. > > To begin to conceive of the possibility of a culture of empowered citizens > making democracy work for them, real-life stories help—not models to adopt > wholesale, but examples that capture key lessons. For me, the story of > Brazil’s fourth largest city, Belo Horizonte, is a rich trove of such > lessons. Belo, a city of 2.5 million people, once had 11 percent of its > population living in absolute poverty, and almost 20 percent of its children > going hungry. Then in 1993, a newly elected administration declared food a > right of citizenship. The officials said, in effect: If you are too poor to buy > food in the market—you are no less a citizen. I am still accountable to you. > > The new mayor, Patrus Ananias—now leader of the federal anti-hunger > effort—began by creating a city agency, which included assembling a 20-member > council of citizen, labor, business, and church representatives to advise in > the design and implementation of a new food system. The city already involved > regular citizens directly in allocating municipal resources—the > “participatory budgeting” that started in the 1970s and has since spread > across Brazil. During the first six years of Belo’s food-as-a-right policy, > perhaps in response to the new emphasis on food security, the number of > citizens engaging in the city’s participatory budgeting process doubled to > more than 31,000. > > The city agency developed dozens of innovations to assure everyone the right to > food, especially by weaving together the interests of farmers and consumers. It > offered local family farmers dozens of choice spots of public space on which to > sell to urban consumers, essentially redistributing retailer mark-ups on > produce—which often reached 100 percent—to consumers and the farmers. > Farmers’ profits grew, since there was no wholesaler taking a cut. And poor > people got access to fresh, healthy food. > > When my daughter Anna and I visited Belo Horizonte to write Hope’s Edge we > approached one of these stands. A farmer in a cheerful green smock, emblazoned > with “Direct from the Countryside,” grinned as she told us, “I am able to > support three children from my five acres now. Since I got this contract with > the city, I’ve even been able to buy a truck.” > > The improved prospects of these Belo farmers were remarkable considering that, > as these programs were getting underway, farmers in the country as a whole saw > their incomes drop by almost half. > > In addition to the farmer-run stands, the city makes good food available by > offering entrepreneurs the opportunity to bid on the right to use > well-trafficked plots of city land for “ABC” markets, from the Portuguese > acronym for “food at low prices.” Today there are 34 such markets where the > city determines a set price—about two-thirds of the market price—of about > twenty healthy items, mostly from in-state farmers and chosen by store-owners. > Everything else they can sell at the market price. > > “For ABC sellers with the best spots, there’s another obligation attached > to being able to use the city land,” a former manager within this city > agency, Adriana Aranha, explained. “Every weekend they have to drive > produce-laden trucks to the poor neighborhoods outside of the city center, so > everyone can get good produce.” > > Another product of food-as-a-right thinking is three large, airy “People’s > Restaurants” (Restaurante Popular), plus a few smaller venues, that daily > serve 12,000 or more people using mostly locally grown food for the equivalent > of less than 50 cents a meal. When Anna and I ate in one, we saw hundreds of > diners—grandparents and newborns, young couples, clusters of men, mothers > with toddlers. Some were in well-worn street clothes, others in uniform, still > others in business suits. > > “I’ve been coming here every day for five years and have gained six > kilos,” beamed one elderly, energetic man in faded khakis. > > “It’s silly to pay more somewhere else for lower quality food,” an > athletic-looking young man in a military police uniform told us. “I’ve been > eating here every day for two years. It’s a good way to save money to buy a > house so I can get married,” he said with a smile. > > No one has to prove they’re poor to eat in a People’s Restaurant, although > about 85 percent of the diners are. The mixed clientele erases stigma and > allows “food with dignity,” say those involved. > > Belo’s food security initiatives also include extensive community and school > gardens as well as nutrition classes. Plus, money the federal government > contributes toward school lunches, once spent on processed, corporate food, now > buys whole food mostly from local growers. > > “We’re fighting the concept that the state is a terrible, incompetent > administrator,” Adriana explained. “We’re showing that the state > doesn’t have to provide everything, it can facilitate. It can create channels > for people to find solutions themselves.” > > For instance, the city, in partnership with a local university, is working to > “keep the market honest in part simply by providing information,” Adriana > told us. They survey the price of 45 basic foods and household items at dozens > of supermarkets, then post the results at bus stops, online, on television and > radio, and in newspapers so people know where the cheapest prices are. > > The shift in frame to food as a right also led the Belo hunger-fighters to look > for novel solutions. In one successful experiment, egg shells, manioc leaves, > and other material normally thrown away were ground and mixed into flour for > school kids’ daily bread. This enriched food also goes to nursery school > children, who receive three meals a day courtesy of the city. > > The result of these and other related innovations? > > In just a decade Belo Horizonte cut its infant death rate—widely used as > evidence of hunger—by more than half, and today these initiatives benefit > almost 40 percent of the city’s 2.5 million population. One six-month period > in 1999 saw infant malnutrition in a sample group reduced by 50 percent. And > between 1993 and 2002 Belo Horizonte was the only locality in which consumption > of fruits and vegetables went up. > > The cost of these efforts? > > Around $10 million annually, or less than 2 percent of the city budget. > That’s about a penny a day per Belo resident. > > Behind this dramatic, life-saving change is what Adriana calls a “new social > mentality”—the realization that “everyone in our city benefits if all of > us have access to good food, so—like health care or education—quality food > for all is a public good.” > > The Belo experience shows that a right to food does not necessarily mean more > public handouts (although in emergencies, of course, it does.) It can mean > redefining the “free” in “free market” as the freedom of all to > participate. It can mean, as in Belo, building citizen-government partnerships > driven by values of inclusion and mutual respect. > > And when imagining food as a right of citizenship, please note: No change in > human nature is required! Through most of human evolution—except for the last > few thousand of roughly 200,000 years—Homo sapiens lived in societies where > pervasive sharing of food was the norm. As food sharers, “especially among > unrelated individuals,” humans are unique, writes Michael Gurven, an > authority on hunter-gatherer food transfers. Except in times of extreme > privation, when some eat, all eat. > > Before leaving Belo, Anna and I had time to reflect a bit with Adriana. We > wondered whether she realized that her city may be one of the few in the world > taking this approach—food as a right of membership in the human family. So I > asked, “When you began, did you realize how important what you are doing was? > How much difference it might make? How rare it is in the entire world?” > > Listening to her long response in Portuguese without understanding, I tried to > be patient. But when her eyes moistened, I nudged our interpreter. I wanted to > know what had touched her emotions. > > “I knew we had so much hunger in the world,” Adriana said. “But what is > so upsetting, what I didn’t know when I started this, is it’s so easy. > It’s so easy to end it.” > > Adriana’s words have stayed with me. They will forever. They hold perhaps > Belo’s greatest lesson: that it is easy to end hunger if we are willing to > break free of limiting frames and to see with new eyes—if we trust our > hard-wired fellow feeling and act, no longer as mere voters or protesters, for > or against government, but as problem-solving partners with government > accountable to us. > > ============ > Frances Moore Lappé wrote this article as part of Food for Everyone, the > Spring 2009 issue of YES! Magazine. Frances is the author of many books > including Diet for a Small Planet and Get a Grip, co-founder of Food First and > the Small Planet Institute, and a YES! contributing editor. > > The author thanks Dr. M. Jahi Chappell for his contribution to the article
Shakle & Chain The Filthy Pregnant Immigrant This is America God Damnit Mood: loud Now Playing: Fuck People - In America we follow the (sic) law first Topic: IMMIGRATION
(Z3 Readers - an editor note) The title is written in sarcasm, I am sickened by the treatment our country levies on innocent human beings. Fuck Our Shitty Policy!
Help Amnesty International correct this sick madness, read and donate info below.
Juana Villegas, who was nine months pregnant at the time, was arrested last July by the police for a minor driving offense in Nashville, Tennessee. After her arrest, authorities discovered that she was an immigrant from Mexico and transferred her to a county jail so that she could be picked up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Two nights later, Juana went into labor and was moved from jail to a hospital. She was shackled in the ambulance, while in her hospital bed, and again immediately after delivery. She even remained shackled to walk from her hospital bed to the bathroom, although there was never any reason to suspect that Juana was a flight risk or that she posed a danger to others.These detentions—which cost hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars each year—often violate both U.S. standards and international human rights laws.
In Amnesty's new report Jailed Without Justice, our researchers discovered that tens of thousands of people are languishing in immigration detention, including immigrants, asylum seekers, torture survivors and even some U.S. citizens. Detainees can remain in immigration detention for years without ever receiving a court hearing to determine whether their detention is warranted and they are often treated inhumanely while in custody.
I'd like to tell you that Juana's case isn't typical. But, our researchers identified numerous stories similar to hers—where detainees have been housed in criminal facilities, excessive shackling is the norm, and medical needs are often ignored.
Our own government is mistreating many immigrants and asylum-seekers fleeing torture, religious persecution, or civil war. Many are sent to prison with no access to lawyers or medical care, and detained far away from family and support systems. You and I cannot let this stand.
Please make a tax-deductible donation to Amnesty International's campaign to pressure the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Congress to mandate that detainees are treated humanely and receive due process while in custody, just click hereif youcan help support Amnesty International's new campaign to hold the U.S. government accountable for these serious human rights violations.
Thank you for your continued commitment to defending human rights.
On this day in 1965 - MLK marches on Alabama Capital - Gov shuts his door Mood: don't ask Now Playing: MLK marches for the Right to Vote Topic: CIVIL RIGHTS
25,000 Go to Alabama's Capitol; Wallace Rebuffs Petitioners; White Rights Worker is Slain
Dr. King Cheered He Says 'No Wave of Racism Can Stop Us Now'
By Roy Reed
Special to The New York Times
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Montgomery, Ala., March 25 -- The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. led 25,000 Negroes and whites to the shadow of the State Capitol here today and challenged Alabama to put an end to racial discrimination.
Gov. George C. Wallace sent word about 2 P.M. that he would receive a delegation from the marchers after the rally, but the delegation met twice with rebuffs when it tried to see him. State policemen stopped the group the first time at the edge of the Capitol grounds and said no one was to be let through.
The delegation was later admitted to the Capitol, but was told that the Governor had closed his office for the day. The group left without giving its petition to anyone.
At Steps of Capitol
The Alabama Freedom March from Selma to Montgomery ended shortly after noon at the foot of the Capitol steps, and as people from all over the nation stood facing the white-columned statehouse, Dr. King assured them:
"We are not about to turn around. We, are on the move now. Yes, we are on the move and no wave of racism can stop us."
The throng let out a mighty cheer, so loud that it was easily audible 75 yards away in the office of Governor Wallace, where the Governor was seen several times parting the venetian blinds of a window overlooking the rally.
Even though the 54-mile march from Selma was a dramatization of a grievance, its windup at the steps of the Capitol carried the trappings of triumph.
The march was hailed by several speakers as the greatest demonstration in the history of the civil rights movement. The caravan that followed Dr. King up Dexter Avenue up the broad slope that once accommodated the inaugural parade of the President of the Confederate States of American, comprised friends of the civil rights movement from all sections of America and some from abroad.
Virtually all of the notables of the movement were there, and the speakers' platform held two Negro winners of the Nobel Peace Prize, Dr. King and Dr. Ralph J. Bunche, United Nations Under Secretary for Special Political Affairs.
Other Negro leaders included Roy Wilkins, executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; Whitney M. Young, director of the National Urban League; A. Philip Randolph, president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters; Bayard A. Rustlin, who with Mr. Randolph was one of the organizers of the March on Washington in 1963, and John Lewis, president, of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.
Other notables included James Baldwin, the author; Harry Belafonte, the singer; Joan Baez, the folk singer, and others.
The march started Sunday at Selma. It reached the outskirts of Montgomery yesterday after four days and nights on the road under the protection of Army troops and federalized Alabama National Guardmen. The troops were sent be President Johnson after Governor Wallace said Alabama could not afford the expense of protecting the marchers.
The little band that made the entire march, much of it through desolate lowlands, was joined today and last night by thousands who flocked to Montgomery to walk the last three and one-half miles of the trip to the Capitol.
Troops Out in Force
The marchers carried with them a petition to Governor Wallace saying:
"We have come not only five days and 50 miles but we have come from three centuries of suffering and hardship. We have come to you, the Governor of Alabama, to declare that we must have our freedom NOW. We must have the right to vote; we must have equal protection of the law and an end to police brutality."
Federal troops who guarded the marchers and brought them safely to Montgomery were out in force at the Capitol today. Eight hundred troops lined Dexter Avenue, one soldier every 25 feet behind wooden barricades set between the street and the sidewalks.
Troops stood on the roofs of buildings along the march route through downtown Montgomery and on those of the office buildings looking out on the rally at the Capitol steps.
The rally never got on to state property. It was confined to the street in front of the steps.
The throng stretched down eight-laned Dexter Avenue a block and a half. Its cheers could be heard for blocks.
The line of marchers who walked from the City of St. Jude, a Catholic school and hospital, where they spent last night, stretched out so long that when Dr. King and leaders reached the makeshift speakers' platform at the head of Dexter Avenue, the end of the line did not arrive for nearly an hour and a half.
Tension High
Tension was high in the city, particularly after the rally, as the thousands of visitors scurried for taxis, buses, trains, cars and airplanes to get out of town before nightfall.
Dr. King, in an interview after the rally, said the civil rights campaign would continue in the Alabama Black Belt.
"We will continue to march people to the courthouses," he said. "If there is resistance, naturally we will have to expose the resistance and the injustice we still face. There could be violence in some areas, but we feel a moral compulsion to go forward, anyway."
He said the Negro movement would turn much of its attention in the weeks ahead to trying to pass President Johnson's voting-rights bill in Congress.
"We want immediate passage," he said. "We will lobby for this in many areas of the country."
In the address at the end of the three-and-a-half-hour rally, Dr. King urged his listeners onward in the civil rights struggle.
"Let us march on segregated schools until every vestige of segregation and inferior education becomes a thing of the past, and Negroes and whites study side by side in the socially healing context of the classroom," he said.
"Let us march on ballot boxes, march on ballot boxes until race baiters disappear from the political arena."
He referred to the tumultuous events at Selma in the last two months, during which time the voting-rights campaign that he began there turned into a general protest against racial injustice, with two men dead and scores injured.
"Yet Selma, Alabama, has become a shining moment in the conscience of man," he said. "If the worst in American life lurked in the dark streets, the best of American instincts arose passionately from across the nation to overcome it."
"The confrontation of good and evil compressed in the tiny community of Selma, generated the massive power that turned the whole nation to a new course," he said.
"Alabama has tried to nurture and defend evil, but the evil is choking to death in the dusty roads and streets of this state."
Dr. King spoke with passion, and the thousands sitting in the street beneath him responded with repeated outbursts of approval.
Several times he urged his followers to continue their support of nonviolent demonstrations, with the aim of achieving understanding with the white community.
"Our aim must never be to defeat or humiliate the white man," he said, "but to win his friendship and understanding. We must come to see that the end we seek is a society that can live with its conscience."
He ended his address with a peroration on the theme, "How long must justice by crucified and truth buried?" a spirited quotation of a verse of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" and finally a burst of "Glory, hallelujah," repeated four times.
The crowd rose to its feet in one great surge, and the applause and cheering reverberated through the Capitol grounds.
Two or three dozen state employes who had watched from the Capitol steps stood impassively.
The committee of 18 Negro and two white Alabamians designated to deliver the Negroes' petition to Governor Wallace walked the one, uphill block from the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church to Bainbridge Street at about 5:40 P.M. (C.S.T.).
State-police jurisdiction over the Capitol grounds begins at the curb closest to the Capitol steps, and 70 blue-helmeted state troopers had been deployed at the curb line of Bainbridge Street half an hour before the committee arrived. They were backed by 50 uniformed conservation patrolmen, standing two deep halfway up the Capitol steps.
When the Rev. Joseph E. Lowrey, a Negro from Birmingham, serving as chairman of the delegation, asked Maj. W. L. Allen of the Alabama Highway Patrol to let the committee pass, the officer replied.
"I don't know anything about that." He said his orders where to let no one through.
A delegation of Governor Wallace's top aides was already gathering inside the locked front door of the Capitol.
Instructions were then issued to Major Allen from inside the Capitol over an Army walkie-talkie. Maj. Gen. Alfred C. Harrison, the Alabama Adjutant General, who was dressed in civilian clothes, gave these instructions. The committee then walked up the Capitol steps.
About 10 feet inside the door, however, Mr. Lowrey came face to face with Cecil C. Jackson Jr., the Governor's executive secretary. Mr. Jackson was crippled by polio as a youth. He stood in Mr. Lowrey's path on aluminum crutches.
"The Capitol is closed today," Mr. Jackson began, in a calm, steady voice. "The Governor has designated me to receive your petition."
"We are very sorry that he cannot see us," Mr. Lowrey replied, almost immediately, clasping copies of the petition to his chest. "Please advise the Governor that as citizens of this state we have legitimate grievances to present to him. Please advise the Governor that as citizens of this state we have legitimate grievances to present to him. Please advise the Governor that we will return at another time."
"That would be appropriate," Mr. Jackson answered. The petitions never left Mr. Lowrey's hands.
Police Start Riot on False Information at Evergreen State College Mood: blue Now Playing: A article by Owen Taylor how the police ruined everything Topic: PROTEST!
Members of the Radical Freeschool Radio Show were at that Dead Prez Show and had a radio broadcast about the riot available online. To listen to that Radio Broadcast and to see photos and read an article written about it by a member of the Radical Freeschool radio Show Collective, please click here.
===============Start of Story-==================
On Valentine’s Day, Kaylen Williams, a 24-year-old chef, had a bad feeling in his gut all day. He had hoped it was just butterflies in the stomach. The handsome, single man was on his way to a much-anticipated V-Day concert, where plenty of eligible bachelorettes would be dancing to the revolutionary rhythms of Dead Prez, a popular and politically charged underground hip-hop duo that would be making a rare West Coast appearance.
Had Williams known what was to come, he might well have stayed home.
You see, later that night Williams found himself at the center of a riot at The Evergreen State College, staring out the windows of a police cruiser from the eye of a hurricane and watching it build momentum. Williams was arrested on the word of a volunteer security guard for something he says he had nothing to do with. His arrest triggered what would come to be known as the Evergreen Riot.
Unless you live under a rock or outside the blogosphere of Western Washington, you are no doubt aware that the Feb. 14 Dead Prez concert at The Evergreen State College ended with a Thurston County Sheriff’s patrol car flipped onto its roof with the windows smashed out and several witty slogans spray painted on it. Sheriff’s Lt. Christopher Mealy said four patrol cars were damaged at an estimated cost of $35,000 to $50,000. Since then, a storm of rhetoric has been issued by the Sheriff’s Department, the college, and every hippie and conservative with access to the Internet. Evergreen has banned concerts indefinitely, too. Most accounts, however, have suspiciously ignored the circumstance and events leading up to the riot.
Evergreen police have declined to comment about the case.
Luckily, Williams had the best seat in the house. This is the story from his perspective. As long as there have been concerts, there have been surly, tattooed guys in black shirts, clearly emblazoned with the word “Security,” who are charged with informing reefer-smoking concertgoers to “put it out.” Williams found himself in just such a crowd, confronted by security officers who lacked any markings denoting them as such.
One of the members of the anonymous security staff had noticed the distinct smell or a telltale cloud of smoke coming from where Williams was standing. Williams recalls that one of the security personnel, along with an unidentified and aggressive associate, moved forcefully toward the group of people he was with, demanding that they extinguish the contraband immediately. Williams replied that he wasn’t smoking. He implied that it was coming from the crowd in front of them and raised his empty hands in a “see, it’s not me” gesture. Someone in the crowd near Williams made a boisterously pro-marijuana statement. That was when, according to several eyewitnesses, the unidentified associate of the security volunteer responded with his fists. Williams emphasizes that the person throwing fists appeared to be an average concertgoer. As the fight ensued, Williams stepped in to separate what appeared to be an average thug and his victim. After the fight was broken up, Williams, on the guest list as a VIP, sought out the concert promoter to make sure everything was cool and calm.
Williams then proceeded back into the gym to enjoy the rest of the show. A few minutes later, Evergreen police officer April Meyers responded to the disturbance call and conferred with someone who fingered Williams as the instigator. She then went into the venue and took him into custody, telling him that he was under arrest for suspicion of assault. It was at this time that the men onstage informed the crowd of the situation and encouraged them to organize and gather information, including names and badge numbers, to ensure that nothing unjust was being done to the man being arrested.
Williams, an African-American and well-respected B-Boy in the greater Puget Sound area, was handcuffed and placed in the back of the car while the officer took statements from the “security volunteer,” his unidentified associate, and another unidentified female, all Caucasian. The female allegedly fingered Williams for a separate assault during the ruckus, a charge Williams sternly denies.
“I was raised in a house full of women,” says Williams. “My mother would kill me if I hit a woman.”
While Meyers was gathering statements from the accusers, several attendees started congregating around the police cruiser demanding information. Many were calling for the release of Williams. As the concert ended, several hundred people flooded the exits only to see a swelling disturbance around a cop car. The Evergreen State College is renowned as an aggressively Socratic institution with learning processes heavily weighted toward self-reliance, pushing boundaries, gathering facts and breaking form. It is also not the kind of place where passive onlookers slowly shuffle past a disturbance. These principles, mixed with the restless idealism of youth and the powerful message in Dead Prez’s music, presented an opportunity to employ those ideals in a real setting, apparently.
As the crowd of concerned onlookers grew, Meyers did what any smart cop would do — She called for backup. As the tension mounted and the fervor of the crowd increased, the officers on the scene decided it would be in the best interest of public safety to gather Williams’ information, release him, and contact him for a statement at a later date. Struggling to mount her car, the officer announced amid the deafening chant of “Let Him Go!” that she was indeed releasing Williams. Watching all of this through the glass partition in the back of the squad car, Williams was trying to grasp the gravity of his at least temporary vindication. “I just kept thinking, ‘wow, this is so much love right now, Evergreen,’“ he recalls. “They’ve come to get me out.” As Williams was let out of the backseat and released from the handcuffs, a cadre of riot police made their move to disperse the crowd.
One eyewitness, who asked to remain anonymous, had been acting as a go-between, trying to calm the crowd enough to talk to the officers and get information. He recalls the beginning of the melee with a grimace. “They came in swinging nightsticks and macing everybody. I was lucky to be where I was,” he says. “I would have been crushed if I wasn’t on the opposite side of the car.”
For Williams, the joy of freedom was short-lived as panic took over and the scene disintegrated into screaming and chaos.
“I was halfway up the hill when I realized that the cops still had my wallet,” says Williams.
Venturing back toward the car, he was confronted by an officer in full riot gear who told him to leave immediately, threatening him with a mace cannon mere inches from his face. Stunned and speechless, Williams decided to return the next day and retrieve the wallet.
Six days later on Feb. 20, much to his bewilderment, Williams was charged with fourth degree misdemeanor assault and told to come and give his statement about the alleged assault.
He steadfastly maintains his innocence.
“I just don’t get it. I tried to break up a fight, and they’re charging me with assault. It doesn’t make any sense.”
Williams is due to be arraigned March 10,2009 in Thurston County District Court.
F the corporate media (and their honeybees, crickets, and pig shit) Mood: spacey Now Playing: The Media spins the truth like a 12 year old child Topic: MEDIA
Z3 Readers, I would like to introduce this next blog post with the ever so poignant phrase, "Fuck The Corporate Media" ... now lets enjoy the article.
For weeks, the news media have been buzzing about earmarks in the recently signed omnibus spending bill. We've been told over and over that the bill is "loaded," "filled," and "stuffed" with earmarks. Since earmarks made up less than 2 percent of the bill's total spending, this is a little like saying Alaska is "filled" with people.
But John McCain doesn't like earmarks, so that's where the media have focused their attention. (OK, there's more to it than that, but not much.) Unfortunately, they've done so in the most juvenile way possible. Following McCain's lead, the media's assessment of the earmarks consists of nothing more than sarcastically listing them, as though they are self-evidently a waste of money. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman recently described the approach McCain and the Republicans have adopted:
The intellectual incoherence is stunning. Basically, the political philosophy of the GOP right now seems to consist of snickering at stuff that they think sounds funny. The party of ideas has become the party of Beavis and Butthead.
And the media have gone right along with it, producing news reports about the spending bill that are no more substantive than an adolescent chortle: Heh, heh, he said "pig waste." Heh.
Consider, for example, the honeybee. If you have watched television news or picked up a newspaper in the past several weeks, you've probably heard about federal funding for honeybees.
The assault on the honeybee began with the stimulus package, when CNN and other news organizations dutifully repeated GOP attacks on the inclusion of $150 million for "honeybee insurance." Columnist Charles Krauthammer went so far as to call the bill an "abomination" for including the honeybee insurance.
Now, there are a few things you need to know about the honeybee insurance. First, there was no such funding, according toLos Angeles Times business columnist Michael Hiltzik. Second, if the funding did exist, it would have amounted to somewhere around two one-hundredths of 1 percent of the stimulus package. Third, if the funding existed, it might well have been a wise use of money. We'll come back to that part.
Having had some success ridiculing bee-related spending in the stimulus, Republicans went back to the well during debate over the omnibus spending bill, attacking the inclusion of $1.7 million in funding for honeybee research. And the news media were quick to join in, eagerly repeating the attacks -- and, in many cases, adopting them as their own.
This time, the funding the media ridicules does exist. Progress! Still, there are a couple of important points that the national media left out.
First, the honeybee funding amounted to 0.00041 percent of the bill, or one-half of one penny per American. All earmarks combined represented less than 2 percent of the bill -- crucial facts that were almost never mentioned by the media. Los Angeles Times reporter (and former Laura Bush press secretary) Andrew Malcolm actually defended the media's disproportionate focus on a tiny fraction of spending: "Defenders defensively point out that's 'only' 1 or 2 percent of the total bill. So? To 99.89% of Americans, $7.7 billion is a manure-load of money."
But that's one of the key purposes of government: paying for things collectively that 99.89 percent of us couldn't afford to pay for individually. Not to mention the fact that in focusing on the 1 or 2 percent of the bill that constitutes a "manure-load of money," Malcolm and his ilk are ignoring the 98 or 99 percent of the bill that constitutes 49 or 99 manure-loads of money. See, when people point out that earmarks make up only 1 or 2 percent of the bill, they aren't saying earmarks don't matter, they're saying earmarks don't matter as much as things that make up a significantly larger part of the bill. Malcolm thinks he's serving as vigilant defender of the public purse; in fact, he's distracting attention from things that really cost money. He fails even on his own questionable terms.
Back to the honeybees, and to the other point that has been absent from media coverage of earmarks: Honeybees are pretty important. See, humans need food. Without it, we die. And bees not only produce honey, they pollinate all kinds of crops -- onions, cashews, celery, strawberries, beets, broccoli, cabbage, cucumbers, apples ... you get the picture. Honeybees play an important role in our food supply, and our economy. And honeybees have been disappearing at an alarming rate in recent years, for reasons that are not fully known.
Agriculture Secretary Dennis Wolff today said the commonwealth will increase funding to continue research on the potentially devastating "Honey Bee Colony Collapse Disorder."
"Honey bees are critical to Pennsylvania agriculture and to our state's economy," said Wolff. "Pollination from the honey bees determines fruit set and increases fruit quality at an estimated value of $80 million. We can't afford to be lax in dealing with this problem."
According to a study by two Cornell University professors, honeybee pollination accounted for $14.6 billion worth of crops annually between 1996 and 1998.
Honeybee research doesn't sound so funny now, does it?
Now, you can't expect most Americans to know this. Most Americans don't give much thought to bees beyond hoping they don't get stung by one. And that's fine: The life cycle and migratory patterns of bees, and their resultant effects on avocado and cucumber growth, are fairly obscure subjects. We can't, and shouldn't, expect the typical American to know about or act upon these things. After all, there are a lot of obscure but important things that, as a nation, we need to know about and act upon. We can't know about and act upon them all individually; it's literally impossible.
That's another of the reasons we have a government: to know about and act upon the things we cannot know about and act upon individually. It's one of the reasons we watch television and read newspapers, too: They have the resources that we lack to learn about important but obscure things, and the ability to educate us. (This is where some defenders -- and critics -- of the news media will remind me that the media's job isn't to educate the public, much as I might wish it was; their job is to make money. To that I say: How's that working out? Maybe it's time to try a more serious approach.)
Instead, they treat it all like one big joke. Why? Because John McCain told them to -- and the national news media have long served as Ed McMahon to McCain's Johnny Carson. McCain posted a few uninformed wisecracks about earmarks on his Twitter account, and the nation's political reporters unquestioningly repeated his cheap shots verbatim, as though their role in life is to simply bellow "HA! You are correct, sir!" whenever Johnny makes a joke.
The Washington Post's Dana Milbank, for example, claimed, "It was hard to fault McCain on the merits as he described contents of the $410 billion spending bill," pointing to the honeybee funding as an example. But how would Milbank know? Neither he nor McCain bothered to actually assess the merits. Simply listing "$1.7 million for a honeybee factory in Weslaco, Tex." is not considering the merits. It's pretty much the opposite of considering the merits. But it is as close as Milbank would come.
Milbank went on to quote McCain: " 'What does that mean?' McCain demanded. 'What does "sustainable Las Vegas" mean?' " That's where a serious journalist would have pointed out that it's John McCain's job to know what "sustainable Las Vegas" means, that he has an entire staff to help him find out, and that a few seconds of online research quickly yields an answer: the funding is for an initiative at UNLV that involves "research on water, energy, health care and transportation challenges facing the city and the region, including Arizona and California" and is modeled on a program based in McCain's own state.
A serious journalist might even have pointed out that John McCain pays his Senate staff more than the amount of the earmark in question. Might even have asked which is the bigger waste of taxpayer money -- a program designed to help a rapidly growing region meet its energy, health-care, and transportation needs, or a senator who spends more money paying his staff, but doesn't ask them to find out the purpose of the program he is criticizing?
Dana Milbank did none of those things.
Then there's CNN. The cable channel has cited the honeybee funding several times, never bothering to explain it. Last Saturday, for example, CNN's Josh Levs offered examples of earmarks in the bill -- John McCain's examples, of course: "Take a look. John McCain named some. We're going to show you some examples, $1.7 million for a honeybee factory in Texas, another $1.7 million for pig odor research in Iowa. There's a million dollars in there for cricket control in Utah."
Then four days later, Levs was back on the air -- and again talking about honeybees and crickets. Asked directly about the cricket control, Levs answered, "Maybe people there have problems with crickets."
Poor Levs, four days after his first report, he was still talking about those crickets -- and still didn't have a clue. I know the nation's newsrooms are facing cutbacks, but they still have Google at CNN, don't they? Type Utah cricket control into the online search engine and the second result is a U.S. Geological Survey report that begins, "Grasshopper and Mormon cricket (Orthoptera) populations periodically build to extremely high numbers and can cause significant economic damage in rangelands and agricultural fields of the Great Plains and Intermountain West."
If you doubt that the news media have been playing Butt-head to the GOP's Beavis, just watch this video of MSNBC's Norah O'Donnell interviewing Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle, a Democrat. Here's O'Donnell describing the stimulus bill:
O'DONNELL: It is filled with pork. ... Six-point-six million dollars for termite research. Two-point-two million dollars for the center for grape genetics. One-point-eight million dollars for pig-odor research in Iowa? I mean, come on, Governor. I know you're not in Congress, but this has got to make governors like you mad. You think the people in your state want to pay for $108 million [sic] in taxpayer money going to pig-odor research?
You really have to watch the video to hear how O'Donnell's voice is just dripping with scorn. She doesn't spend so much as a second assessing, or asking about, the merits of the programs. Instead, she just dramatically emphasizes the words "pig-odor research." Heh. Heh. Federal funding to study pig crap! Heh. Heh.
Then Doyle explained that pig odor is actually a pretty big problem for Midwestern agricultural states like his, at which point O'Donnell pretended that her objection all along had been the way the funding came to be -- via earmark -- rather than what it was for. Bull. If her objection had been with the funding mechanism, there would have been no reason to mention what the funding was for, certainly no reason to do so sarcastically. She wasn't commenting on the mechanism, she was behaving like a 12-year-old -- and not a particularly mature 12-year-old, either.
Now, I don't know if the honeybee funding or the cricket funding or the pig-odor research or any of the other earmarks are good ways to spend federal funds. Maybe they're well-run, effective programs that meet an important need, and maybe they aren't. What I do know is that simply cracking jokes about crickets and bees and pig waste rather than taking even 20 seconds to determine what the funding is intended to do is a spectacularly bad way to find out.
America faces great challenges. We are unlikely to meet those challenges through deliberate stupidity.
Jamison Foser is Executive Vice President at Media Matters for America.
Joe Anybody's Hero Ralp Nader is at the helm Mood: energetic Now Playing: Ralph Nader in Courts - working for change in a Corrupt System Topic: POLITICS
Z3 Readers, family and frinds, This just came in from my hero Ralph Nader. There is a YouTube video to watch, as well as the text that copied from the YouTube page:
Where is Ralph Nader these days? In court, taking his battle to reform ballot access laws in the United States to the judiciary. Nader is fighting an alleged conspiracy hatched against him in Boston at the time of the 2004 Democratic National Convention held in the city.
Ralph has successfully defended his federal appellate win in Arizona over the state's unconstitutional restrictions on petition circulators. Arizona banned out-of-state petitioners, a practice that the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals found to be unconstitutional. Not giving up easily on challenges to the 2-party system that dominates American politics, state officials had asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse the appellate decision striking down Arizona's restrictive ballot access law but the high court today decided to let the decision stand.
A leftover from Nader's 2008 presidential campaign? No, the case is a holdover from the 2004 electoral bid by America's most famous consumer protection advocate.
In 2004, Ralph Nader was the target of an unprecedented legal attack in almost two dozen states with 29 legal actions brought, financed or instigated by the Democratic Party. The lawsuits, many of them frivolous, were brought to keep Ralph in court and not on the campaign stump.
After the dust settled, it was clear to Nader that he had been the target of an abuse of the court system by a major political party to deprive him of ballot access. Ralph then filed suit against the Democratic National Committee for the legal conspiracy.
The lawsuit was dismissed at the District Court level of the federal court system and Nader appealed to the District of Columbia U.S. Court of Appeals where oral argument is scheduled for later in the month.
Nader's brief to the appellate court addresses some of the pending issues. Nader charged the Democrats were guilty of "overtly corrupt and even unlawful conduct."
Nader argued the appeal should go forward because, "Defendants denied and fraudulently concealed their tortuous conduct, and because they remain engaged in ongoing acts in furtherance of their unlawful conspiracy."
"Defendants wrongfully invoked state statutes and federal campaign finance laws as a pretext to bankrupt their competitors by forcing them to incur litigation costs in the defense of a pattern of baseless and repetitive claims."
Nader alleges that in Pennsylvania the political conspirators "planted approximately 7,000 fake signatures" in his petitions so they could later claim the petitions were fraudulent. The Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett has indicted a dozen Democrats for illegal work on petition challenges in 2004 in a scandal dubbed "Bonusgate" because the state legislative workers were paid a bonus for their dirty work.
Nader continued his assault on his Democrat opponents, "Conspirators engaged in sabotage and other unlawful acts intended to manufacture grounds for their otherwise baseless litigation."
Nader likened the Democratic lawsuits against him to "malicious prosecution" which were only filed to advance "baseless claims" designed to bankrupt his campaign. The lawsuits were "wrongful and abusive" of the judicial process.
Nader says the conspiracy against him came together in July 2004 in a meeting of thirty-six conspirators at the Four Seasons hotel in Boston. Oral argument is scheduled in the case for March 20th in Washington, D.C.
Audio: Ralph Nader speech at the Nader / Camejo 2004 campaign rally in San Francisco.
Brief intro by Matt Gonzalez, President of the SF Board of Supervisors.
Creating a i??uro;i??#8220;Safer Space Eventi??uro; Mood: bright Now Playing: Respect & Consideration at a "Safe Space Events" Topic: CIVIL RIGHTS Creating a “Safer Space Event”
Z3 Readers ... this page was gleaned from this link below, a few spelling corrections and a couple word-changes were added/changed by myself.
Safer spaces are welcoming, engaging and supportive.
We want this conference/event to be a space where people support each other and can feel free to be themselves.
We want this to be a place where abuse and discrimination is not tolerated.
We hope that everyone at this event is made aware of the idea of 'safer spaces' and that you are proactive in helping make this a safer space too.
People attending this conference are asked to be aware of their language and behavior, and to think about whether it might be offensive to others.
This is no space for violence, for touching people without their consent, for being intolerant of someone's religious beliefs or lack thereof, for being creepy, sleazy, racist, ageist, sexist, hetero-sexist, trans-phobic, able-bodiest, classist, sizist or any other behavior or language that may perpetuate oppression.
What we need to do to create a safer space:
·respect people's physical and emotional boundaries
·always get explicit verbal consent before touching someone or crossing boundaries
·respect people's opinions, beliefs, differing states of being and differing points of view
·be responsible for your own action. Be aware that your actions do have an effect on others despite what your intentions may be
·take responsibility for your own safety and get help if you need it
·look out for kids and animals at all times and try not to leave anything around that could endanger them or other adults
·the conference/event space and all workshops are alcohol, nicotine and drug-free until the evening Any group or individual engaging in violence (including sexual violence and harassment) within the conference/event will automatically be excluding themselves. The conference/event organizers will be asking them to leave immediately.
Need some assistance?
If you experience or witness any behavior that crosses your boundaries or makes you feel uncomfortable or if you are feeling like you would like to talk to someone anonymously about anything please feel free to talk to one of the event organizers.
Conflict resolution
There may be conflict in the time that we are at this conference/event and the organizers have designed a basic process for dealing with this, based around the principle that a resolution deemed positive to all parties involved should always be sought first.
Any conflict arising in the safe space that at least one party feels cannot be resolved without some help, should seek the assistance of one or more of the organizer crew.
If the conflict cannot be resolved with them it may be taken to the whole conference/event to make a final decision on what action needs to be taken.
Venezuela: Embassador NNUU - ... Ambassador to the United Nations Lieutenent Colonel Francisco Arias Cardenas presented his views on public television about Hugo Chavez President of Venezuela - 2 min
Caracas Venezuela - This is a simple video of Caracas, Venezuela shot out a taxi cab window. The idea was to give you an idea of what the city looks like. - 3 min
THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE TELEVISED - ... IN SPANISH WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLESHUGO CHAVEZ ELECTED PRESIDENT OF VENEZUELA IN 1998, IS A COLORFUL,UNPREDICTABLE FOLK HERO, beloved by his nation' ... - 1 hr 15 min
Ronaldo v Venezuela - This video is Brazil against Venezuela and ronaldo will score. - 1 min
Venezuela - Unravelling Venezuela's Revolution - ... left owing thousands of dollars they never received. All around Venezuela, there is a belief Chavez is surrounded by a corrupt clique. “People very high ... - 24 min
DECOUVERTE DU VENEZUELA - Decouverte du VenezuelaCircuit Nouvelles Frontieres VEN CI 002 Aout 2005 - 39 min
World's Best: Big Bites: Venezuela - The python's mouth contains up to 200 barblike teeth which point backwards gripping its prey - the snake has four jawbones that allow the mouth to expand ... - 5 min
Hands Off Venezuela Film (13mins).mp4 - ... internationally. Now active in over 40 countries, the Hands Off Venezuela campaign has been at the forefront of this movement. Just in Britain alone, ... - 13 min
News story on Hugo Chavez the president of Venezuela - ... on the recent policies and speeches given by the President of Venezuela Hugo Chavez. Venezuela is the world's 5th largest oil reserve.March 27th 2006. - 12 min
Sexy girls from Venezuela - check out thiese hot Venezuela sexy girls. thiese girls played strip poker with us, undressed, taked off their bra, their clothes, and later showed their ... - 3 min
Venezuela TV - ... is proud to introduce CMT, the national television channel from Venezuela. CMT offers the best programming suited for all audiences. With CMT you can ... - 12 min
Venezuela by Air! - The following video is aerial footage of Caracas, Venezuela, South America. It was recorded out the side of a helicopter. You can see city, terrain ... - 6 min
Antisemitism in Venezuela - The video talks about the state of current affaires in Venezuela, where Chavez is known to have restricted freedom, is seking to purchase arms worldwide, ... - 3 min
Venezuela - Uncle Sam's Coup - ... praising the coup leader as “the right man at the right time for Venezuela”. Remarkably, although the coup failed, Washington has stepped up its funding ... - 16 min
Coro, Venezuela - short impression of nature and beaches in Coro region, the former capital of Venezuela - 1 min
come to VENEZUELA - Come to Venezuela: Magic land, The Caribbean's Best Kept Secret. Salto Angel, Angel's fall, Gran Sabana, Amazonas, Roraima, Autana, etc... - 13 min
west caribbean md82 crash in venezuela - 3d simulation of the west caribbean md82 crash in venezuela. This stock animation footage is available for purchase from stockaninews.com. Click the link ... - 16 sec
CHAVEZ THANKS HANDS OFF VENEZUELA - Venezuela's President, Hugo Chavez thanks the international solidarity campaign "Hands Off Venezuela" and it's founder Alan Woods and thanks them for ... - 2 min
VENEZUELA DESPIERTA! JESUCRISTO HOMBRE LLEGO! - MIREN COMO LOS BENDECIDOS DE VENEZUELA LE ANUNCIAN AL MUNDO LA VERDAD DEL EVANGELIO! LA RELIGION LE HA MENTIDO AL MUNDO POR SIGLOS Y BASTA YA! DIOS ESTA ... - 7 min
Venezuela revolution - 3 french, 1 English, 1 Spanish "Proceso Revolucionario Venezolano". Chichiriviche de la costa. Venezuela. - 24 sec
venezuela UK teens relationship party lingerie - Those exotic women know how to make you sweat, then they get undressedSexy hot black Spanish girls into online dating websites - 32 sec
Venezuela está lista - Venezuelan Army disembark war games, preparing to reject de US invaders. - 1 min
Aerial over Angel Falls, Venezuela - To download and license this royalty free clip, please go to www.dvarchive.com and use the clip number or any of the words listed in the description ... - 5 sec
Warner will pull a vid with anybody singing "happy birthday to you" on it! Bankrupt Warner Music Group! Warner's stock is at $2 a share.. it won't take much to bankrupt them. encourage millions of viewers to set up accounts with Youtube devoted solely to uploading warner videos.
Every time they get taken down, upload more warner videos. That will also leave thousands of videos without audio with the message that they have been *silenced by WMG*..bad publicity for WMG. warner will go bankrupt with overtime trolling. Everybody should swamp WMG with their complaints!
use www.faxzero.com to send free faxes. Warners fax is 212-275-3985. Warner's phone: 212-275-2000. Google/youtube fax: 650-253-0001. Google/youtube: Phone: 650-253-0000
Investing in Military or Economy - swords or ploghshares? Mood: hug me Now Playing: Swords or Ploughshares: Peaceful thoughts for the future Topic: FAILURE by the GOVERNMENT
After World War Two there was a dramatic shift in our national economy. That war was, and continues to be, trumpeted as the way out of the Great Depression. Since then our country has maintained an ever increasing level of military spending as a means of ‘stimulating our economy.’ After a generation of considering illogical and unnecessary military spending essential to our economic growth, it is no wonder in 2009 the Pentagon budget dwarfs the budgets of many small industrialized countries.
Seymour Melman, an economist, writer, peace activist, and gadfly of the military-industrial complex was the first to question the legitimacy of this economic model. His book The Permanent War Economy and Pentagon Capitalism set the stage for the first of many Peace Action campaigns to reduce the military budget.
Under the leadership of then Peace Action board co-chair and International Association of Machinists leader William Winpisinger, Peace Action mounted a campaign to support Congressman Ted Weiss’ “economic conversion” legislation. The basic premise was: if we can ramp up our economy by spending money for war during war-time, then we can do the same during peace-time by investing in domestic and human needs.
After suffering under the neo-conservative yoke of the Reaganites many at Peace Action were hopeful when President William Clinton promised to reduce the military budget. We launched our Peace Economy Campaign to reinvest money wasted on Star Wars and Cold War weapons into rebuilding our economy from the bottom-up. We endorsed the Congressional Black Caucuses’ Alternative Budget and waited for Clinton to present his budget.
Clinton did cut the budget, but not in a way that promoted a peace economy. He cut military personnel and none of the Reagan administration weapons. He fully funded Star Wars and refused to reduce our nuclear arsenal. The types of cuts he made and did not make set our peace economy campaign back. Conservatives pointed to it as naiveté and progressives were compelled to condemn it for being ineffective. In reality, the cuts Clinton made to the personnel in the military were just reinvested into the Pentagon and its weapons systems.
President Obama has made many promises about the military budget. He has said he wants to “stop waste and cost overruns”; he wants to phase down our occupation in Iraq and call it a reduction in military spending. Are these smart cuts? They may reduce the balance of the Pentagon budget; but, they do nothing to promote a peace economy. Even eliminating all the costs associated with our occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan the U.S. military budget is still larger than that of all other nations combined.
Peace Action is ramping up a campaign to make sure that the Obama Administration does not go the way of its Republican and Democratic predecessors. Our second Peace Economy Campaign will officially kick off in April with protests in cities and towns all over the country. We’ll use the 6th anniversary of the Iraq occupation to draw attention to the wasteful spending and Tax Day actions to ask the people of this country, “where do you want your tax dollars spent.”
In the long term, our goal is to reduce the military budget by making smart cuts in our military spending and greatly decreasing our military presence around the world. To this end we co-sponsored the Security Without Empire Conference on Military Bases last week. In the coming months our political team will make lobby visits around the nuclear non-proliferation treaty talks and the ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
Peace Action will continue to oppose any U.S. military occupation both on moral and fiscal grounds. This summer we’ll take that message to millions of American homes; knocking on doors with our message. We believe that change comes from people, not presidents. Together, we can deliver change to the country one dollar at a time.
energetic
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hug me
Under the leadership of then Peace Action board co-chair and International Association of Machinists leader William Winpisinger, Peace Action mounted a campaign to support Congressman Ted Weiss’ “economic conversion” legislation. The basic premise was: if we can ramp up our economy by spending money for war during war-time, then we can do the same during peace-time by investing in domestic and human needs. 