Wake Up, America! Deregulation is Bad for You

By Blueberry Tart

What will it take to wake up America to the many threats that currently endanger our health, safety, well-being and even our democracy?

• We see what is happening in the upper midwest and elsewhere to weaken workers' rights.
• We saw what happened in the last election after the Supreme Court, in effect, allowed corporations to buy elections.
• We saw what happened to the media when long-standing rules against monopolies were eliminated.
• We saw what happened in the Gulf of Mexico when weak regulation of the oil industry led to unsafe drilling practices.
• We saw what happened when the financial industry was deregulated, leading to a global financial crisis and the Great Recession.
• We are seeing the consequences of weak oversight of the nuclear industry; safety problems were known in Japan for years and represent a risk to present and future generations; (prior reports documented weak regulatory oversight of the US nuclear weapons program as well) yet the federal government is expanding taxpayer subsidies for the industry.
• We saw what happened in Tucson and Columbine and too many other places because of weak gun control laws and regulations.
• We see how cutting taxes for the wealthiest Americans, another form of the same anti-regulatory fervor, weakens our government and shifts the burden to the middle class.
• And we are seeing the Republicans mounting a major offensive against important agencies that we need to protect our interests, like the Environmental Protection Agency.

What is the common thread? Weakening regulations that protect people.

What is truly amazing and ironic is that the Republican/right-wing's call for further deregulation has gained traction. It should be laughable. It should be a national joke (or a crime) to be able to call for deregulation right now, in the aftermath of the economic crisis, the BP crisis, the nuclear reactor crisis, the mining tragedies, the explosions at chemical plants, the massacres by people who got guns all too easily. Those espousing deregulation should be in full retreat, running with their tails between their legs, in hiding, publicly shamed, wearing a scarlet letter after the multiple disasters have shown how damaging deregulation has been to the people of America and other countries.

Instead, they are playing offense. I guess we should not be surprised at the hubris. Even while the Deepwater Horizon well was spewing millions of gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico, we heard the Republicans calling to open our offshore waters to more drilling. Today, while we are still in the midst of a major, unprecedented crisis at nuclear power plants in Japan, we are already hearing Republican calls for more nuclear power. This is their MO – they repeatedly deflect attention from the inconvenient truth (“pay no attention to that disaster behind the curtain”), so they can turn the tide of public discourse away from the obviously anti-people outcomes of their deregulatory policies. [I can’t help but observe that on a smaller, personal scale, this is Sarah Palin’s MO too – to double down when caught in a personal failings or disasters, like her "blood libel" reaction to criticism about her violent imagery and rhetoric, or even the idiocy of writing on her hand. Doubling down is obviously part of the Republican playbook.]

It seems that they are in the ascendancy and we progressives are on the defensive. Two years after Americans so hopefully reclaimed Congress and the Presidency, we seem to be in a tailspin, in retreat, defeatest. We need to get out of it. We need to regroup. We need to fight back against the disinformation that leads so many Americans to vote against their own interests. We need to boldly proclaim the truth about how deregulation puts us, and our children and grandchildren, at risk. We need to help our politicians have the courage to do the right thing. We need to organize and strategize.

Enough is enough. It is beyond time to call out the right-wing's outrageous deflection of the truth for what it is – an elaborate scam to deny the truth and weaken protections that we all need. We have regulations to protect the people’s interests. Most regulations did not arise in a vacuum – they were a response to real problems that endangered our collective well-being, whether financial or health or safety or educational or environmental. Think child labor, Love Canal, mine disasters, factory fires, typhoid and cholera epidemics, oil spills, dangerous cars, unsafe toys. These were and are real problems that led to laws and regulations. I'm old enough to remember the first Earth Day, and the time before the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act. We need these laws and many others that protect us, and strong, competent, adequately funded regulatory agencies to enforce these protections.

We need a better strategy to build a stronger progressive voice in America. We need to ditch the infighting that always seems to happen. It is obviously not productive to split the vote. We certainly need a way to shift the terms of the debate toward how to protect the interests of the American people. I hear this need in what President Obama is saying. He needs our help to push the envelope. How can we help him, push him, pull him, prod him, strengthen his resolve and his effectiveness, without undermining him?

We also need to welcome disaffected Republicans, independents, moderates with open arms. This means not being dogmatic or absolute. To succeed, we do not have to appeal to the 20% that is farthest right, but we do need to appeal to the center.

And, as many of you know and are doing, we need to support the nascent efforts that are out there, like what is happening in WI and elsewhere. I love that it’s not a one-time protest; they keep coming back! Thank you, Wisconsin! You are so inspiring! Thank all of you who are protesting -- I really hope that you are indeed "waking the sleeping giant." Maybe we need another period of marching, protesting, petitioning, fighting back, not giving up. Hopefully Wisconsin and their friends ARE the wakeup call for all of us, and particularly for college kids to get more engaged.

The people, united, can never be defeated. But the people, divided, can and will be.

****************************************

A note on the assault on environmental protection

I want to call your attention to the efforts to weaken environmental protection. The Environmental Protection Agency is making some progress in reversing eight years of the Bush Administration’s systematic effort to ignore science and weaken environmental regulations. Now EPA is again under attack by the Republican Party. Other agencies that play a role in protecting us and the environment, like the U.S. Geological Survey and NOAA, are also on the cutting block. The House Budget, proposed by the Republican leadership, proposes major cuts to EPA and USGS. This is at a time when the need for EPA’s and USGS' services to protect our air and water and us could not be greater.

In my experience, EPA is a highly professional agency whose management and staff include many smart and dedicated scientists, analysts, educators and managers. In most cases, they are really trying to do the right thing. We need to give them our full support so that they can do more, not less, to ensure that we have clean air and clean water and address global warming. EPA is under assault by conservatives trying to weaken them even further. I urge you to let your Senators know that clean air and clean water are a high priority, and we need EPA to have more resources, not less, to do their work to protect us. Here and here are links on this subject.

Here is some up-to-the-minute information that shows where the Koch Brothers interests lie; this is another reason why we need a strong EPA, and why EPA is under siege.

P.S. I originally titled this post, “Wake Up, America!” and when I was looking for an image to illustrate the post, I found that many ultra-right-wing sites have co-opted that message. Of course; silly me; should have realized. Some of the words on those sites are very similar to mine, yet their understanding of the root of the problem and the solutions we need is diametrically opposite to mine. In the end, I decided to keep the title, as yet another reflection of the Twilight Zone in which we live. And to reclaim the message. And to welcome those who are frustrated and may be open to a different point of view.

Sarah Palin on Facebook Ignoring Reality Says President Obama is Responsible for the Increase in Oil and Gas Prices

Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), Alaska

By Kathleen

Sarah Palin has a new facebook entry. It has been a while since anything has been posted there. Her previous post was published on February 23rd. Coincidentally it was about Libya and freedom. I have to say that I have recently entertained myself with the hope that Facebook as a "get the message out there" medium had been abandoned by her. Perhaps she really had got the message that the majority of people in the USA do not want her meddling in politics. That even Republicans do not consider her an authority on pretty much anything.

Of course I don't seriously believe that she will sneek away quietly. It is unfortunately clear from her latest Facebook post that Palin still thinks that her ill conceived ideas and fragmentary views are viable and that she must share. It appears that we will have to continue to put up with her via twitter, facebook and Fox News.

In the Facebook post, ignoring reality, basic economics and world political affairs, Palin takes a pot shot at President Obama and blames him for the present rise in oil and gas prices. Implying that somehow he alone is responsible for the upward rise in the price of oil and gas because he will not lift the embargo on drilling in places such as ANWR.

The reality that every country faces regarding oil/gas prices is simple. Supply and demand. The demand for oil and gas from hungry markets grows every year and suppliers simply cannot keep up with the demand because oil and gas are finite reserves. This is not rocket science -- when a commodity becomes scarce it attracts a higher value. Palin should get used to volatile oil and gas prices because in a world of decreasing supply the only way for prices to continue are on an overall upward trend.

Furthermore, Palin should also understand that an important additional factor causing prices to increase is the continued and expanding popular uprisings in the Middle East. Bahrain in particular is a continuing cause of concern for market traders as it is thought that the unrest there could trickle over to Saudi Arabia. Political instability in Saudi Arabia is a nightmare scenario for traders who predict that unrest there could see prices hitting the $200 mark very quickly.


Live Oil Prices reports today the escalation of problems in Bahrain.

Helicopters flew overhead and Bahraini police fired teargas on Wednesday as they cleared protesters from a central roundabout that had become the symbol of an uprising by the island’s Shi’ite Muslim majority.

Advancing less than 24 hours after Bahrain declared martial law, police moved in thick lines from Bahrain Financial Harbour, the country’s main financial district, to the Pearl roundabout.

Bahrain has been gripped by its worst unrest since the 1990s after protesters took to the streets last month, inspired by uprisings that toppled the leaders of Egypt and Tunisia.

The problems facing Bahrain could at some point, spread into Saudi Arabia in some form, which is the worst case scenario for oil prices, as many forecasters believe that if there is unrest in Saudi Arabia (OPEC’s flagship oil exporter in the Middle East) then oil prices could hit $200 in a short period of time.

The Middle East supplies 40 percent of the world’s oil.

Instabilty in the Middle East is unlikely to be peaceful in countries such as Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. We only have to look towards Libya to understand that many regimes in the Middle East will use their military forces against protesters thus ensuring an increase in violence and bloodshed. The ruling class in Libya, Bahrain and other Middle East countries will not let go of the power and riches that they have amassed so easily. Despite this the struggle in the Middle East continues to escalate and in Libya oil refineries have been an ongoing target for rebels and it is likely that this tactic will be repeated by protest forces in other Middle East countries. Such activities further increase the jitters felt by oil market observers which lead to more changeable prices.

Sarah Palin, if she wants to be considered as an economic guru (with a 'D' in macroeconomics), needs to understand that there are many factors to be considered when offering a prognosis to a highly changeable and volatile issue such as oil and gas prices. Simply offering the myth that "drill baby drill" solutions will lower the market price of oil and gas is deceitful. The USA does not and never will be able to produce enough oil to maintain the USA's increasing demand for it and will need to continue to import it from overseas. Even if the moratorium on drilling is lifted from areas such as ANWR the supply will merely be a drop in the ocean of the USA's increasing oil demand. Is it really worth destroying the beautiful pristine ANWR environment when drilling there is not a solution but tantamount to placing a bandaid over a gaping wound?

Palin's Facebook blame on President Obama for the present rise in oil and gas prices is merely empty populist ranting which can easily be refuted. I'll say it again, the USA has no need for Sarah Palin and her divisive rhetoric. She is not fit to be the President of the USA. She does not belong in the political arena.

Can America Survive Without a Strong Uniform National Gun Control Law?

Guest Post by SunnyJane

The two words that cause the most fervent reaction in this country are gun control. The Left runs from them faster than Sarah Palin confronted by a non-Fox News reporter, and the Right goes out and buys more guns.

Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act

This first uniform national gun control law was signed by President Bill Clinton in 1993 in response to the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan in 1981. James Brady, for whom the bill is named, was critically wounded in that shooting and has never fully recovered. Two others, a District of Columbia police office and a Secret Service agent, were also wounded.

The sad truth is that the Brady Act, while a landmark bill for its time, has proven woefully inadequate in preventing gun violence in this country. Based on data collected in 2000 from sixty countries, the United States ranked eighth in gun-related deaths, bested in this dubious honor only by South Africa, Columbia, Thailand, Guatemala, Brazil, Estonia and Mexico.

A Few Instances of U.S. Gun Violence from Brady Bill Signing to 2008

April 1999: Two students at Columbine high school in Littleton, Colorado, killed 12 students and a teacher before killing themselves.

October 2002: Ten people were killed and three others were critically injured during the three-week sniper attacks in the Washington Metropolitcal Area (DC, Maryland, and Virginia).

March 2005: A student at Red Lake high school in Minnesota killed five students, a teacher, a security guard, and then himself. Before school, he had shot dead his grandfather and his grandfather's companion.

October 2006: A gunman took hostages and eventually shot ten girls, aged 6 to 13, at an Amish schoolhouse in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. He killed five of the girls before committing suicide inside the schoolhouse.

April 2007: In two separate attacks at Virginia Tech, Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people and wounded many others before committing suicide. The massacre is one of the deadliest shooting incidents by a single gunman in United States history, on or off a school campus.

December 2007: A gunman killed eight people and wounds five at a shopping mall in Omaha, Nebraska, before killing himself.

Statistically Speaking…

American soldiers killed (yearly average) in the Viet Nam war: 5,820
American soldiers killed in the Iraq war to date: 4,700
American soldiers killed in the Afghanistan war to date: 1,398
People killed in the three terrorist attacks on America, 9/11/01: 3,497
Americans killed by guns in 2007 (latest statistic from the CDC): 31,224*

The Children’s Defense Fund has some heartbreaking statistics on gun injuries and deaths suffered by children. http://tinyurl.com/ydaw7t4

The National Rifle Association: Nurturing the Lock & Load Mentality.

It comes as no great revelation that the NRA is one of the most powerful lobbying organizations in the country: during the 2008 presidential campaign, the NRA spent $10 million on lobbying efforts.

Wayne LaPierre has served as NRA Executive Vice President and Chief Executive Officer since 1991. In that position, he has been the leading “guns-don’t-kill-people, -people-kill- people” standard bearer in the U.S.

In his January 27, 2000 State of the Union Address, President Clinton proposed a law requiring the licensing of all American handgun owners.

Now, specifically, I propose a plan to ensure that all new handgun buyers must first have a photo license from their state showing they passed the Brady background check and a gun safety course, before they get the gun.

The proposal was immediately opposed by the NRA, American firearms owners, dealers, and manufacturers, as well as many members of the U.S. Congress.

A few unsavory actions regarding Mr. LaPierre:

In 1995, former President George H. W. Bush resigned his lifelong membership in the NRA after LaPierre called federal firearms agents involved in the Ruby Ridge, Idaho, and Waco, Texas assaults, "jackbooted thugs."

In 2000, LaPierre said President Bill Clinton tolerated a certain amount of violence and killing to strengthen the case for gun control and to score points for his party. Charlton Heston, the then-president of the National Rifle Association, called LaPierre's language "extreme rhetoric." Clinton White House spokesman Joe Lockhart called it "really sick rhetoric, and it should be repudiated by anyone who hears it."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayne_LaPierre and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brady_Handgun_Violence_Prevention_Act for the NRA’s reaction to the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act.

“Obama is the best gun salesman we’ve had in the last 50 years.”

June 3, 2008: The Washington Post reported that,

With a split decision in the final two primaries and a flurry of super delegate endorsements, Sen. Barack Obama sealed the Democratic presidential nomination last night after a grueling and history-making campaign against Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton that will make him the first African American to head a major-party ticket.

June 26, 2008: The U.S. Supreme Court embraced the National Rifle Association's contention that the Second Amendment provides individuals with the right to take violent action against our government should it become "tyrannical.” The case of District of Columbia v. Heller was decided by the Court in a 5-4 ruling. The opinion not only endorsed the National Rifle Association’s “individual right” interpretation of the Second Amendment; it also affirmed that one of the purposes of the right is to “assure the existence of a “citizens’ militia” as a safeguard against tyranny.” The NRA’s amicus brief in the case argued that “the Second Amendment refers to the utility of an armed population in preventing government tyranny.”

And as sure as high tide follows low tide, the gun nutters decided to use their new Supreme Court-sanctioned “individual right” to resolve their political and social grievances. The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence has a very good timeline that catalogues many incidents of insurrectionist violence (or the promotion of such violence) that have occurred since that decision was issued.

July 27, 2008 (one month later): Jim Adkisson shot and killed two people at a progressive church in Knoxville, Tennessee, and wounded two others. Adkisson called it “a symbolic killing” because he really “wanted to kill…every Democrat in the Senate & House, the 100 people in Bernard Goldberg's book,” but was unable to gain access to them.

November 2008: Just after the 2008 election, the Alaska Daily News reported from an interview, "Obama is the best gun salesman we've had in the last 50 years," said Jack Murray, Alaska Shooters Supply owner. "We sold more guns (the day after the election) than I have on any one particular day in 21 years. I was crying all the way to the bank."

November 19, 2008: In reference to the disputed Norm Coleman/Al Franken election on November 4, Home Depot’s founder Bernie Marcus said in a conference call, "If a retailer has not gotten involved with this, if he has not spent money on this election, if he has not sent money to Norm Coleman and these other guys…then those retailers "should be shot…”

December 2008: A gunman dressed as Santa Claus killed nine guests at a Christmas Eve party before taking his own life in Covina, a suburb of Los Angeles in California.
Not long after Barack Obama’s inauguration in January 2009, the GOP far-right-wingers and the fledgling Tea Party decided that President Obama was – among many other things – a “tyrant,” and further reved up their Second Amendment gun rights.

February 20, 2009: Fox News commentator Glenn Beck hosted a program that games a 2014 civil war scenario called “The Bubba Effect.” It involves citizen militias in the South and West taking up arms against the U.S. government.

March 11, 2009: NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre speaks at the 2009 Conservative Political Action Conference and announced that “Our Founding Fathers understood that the guys with the guns make the rules.”

March 21-22, 2009: Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-MN) stated that she wanted residents of her state “armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back.”

March 22, 2009: A gunman killed ten people, strangers and family members, before dying in the subsequent shootout with officers.

April 4, 2009: Neo-Nazi Richard Poplawski shot and killed three police officers responding to a 911 call to his home in Pittsburgh. His friend Edward Perkovic told reporters that Poplawski feared “the Obama gun ban that’s on its way” and “didn’t like our rights being infringed upon.” Perkovic also commented that Poplawski carried out the shooting because “if anyone tried to take his firearms, he was gonna’ stand by what his forefathers told him to do.”

May 31, 2009: Dr. George Tiller, one of only a few doctors in the nation who performed abortions late in pregnancy, was shot to death in Wichita, Kansas, in the foyer of his longtime church as he handed out the church bulletin. [Sunnyjane: Bill O’Reilly on Fox News called for Dr. Tiller’s death many times. See the Crooks and Liars post on 6/1/09: Bill O'Reilly has Dr. George Tiller's blood on his well-stained hands.

June 10, 2009: James W. von Brunn, a convicted felon and a “hardcore Neo-Nazi,” walked into the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. and shot and killed a security guard. Von Brunn believed that Western civilization was going to be replaced with a “ONE WORLD ILLUMINATI GOVERNMENT” that would “confiscate private weapons” in order to accomplish its goals.

August 2009: New Alaska quitter-governor Sarah Palin declared on Facebook that President Obama’s new health care proposal had “death panels.” Many of her followers used this mythical assertion (PolitiFact’s Lie of the Year for 2009) as another sign of the government’s tyrannical inclination.

And this was just the beginning. You can read more of these instances at the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence

The Right Ratchets Up Its Gun Rhetoric for the 2010 Mid-Term Elections

On March 4, 2010, Sarah Palin (using GUN SIGHTS) targeted those House Democrats facing tough reelection fights who voted for health care reform. Her Facebook page carried a map featuring 20 gun sights, one for each of the Democrats targeted by her political action committee. As well, Palin's rhetoric was decidedly militant: "We'll aim for these races and many others," she wrote on her Facebook page. "This is just the first salvo in a fight to elect people across the nation who will bring common sense to Washington. Please go to sarahpac.com and join me in the fight."

--And on March 23, 2010, this Twitter from Palin: Commonsense Conservatives & lovers of America: "Don't Retreat, Instead - RELOAD!" Pls see my Facebook page.


-- Robert Lowry, a Republican challenger to Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schulz (D-FL) stopped by a local Republican event at a gun range in October. Lowry shot at a human-shaped target that had Wasserman Schulz's initials written next to it.

-- Pamela Gorman, a conservative in a crowded Republican primary field in Arizona's third district, got some much-needed publicity with a web ad that showed a montage of her shooting different kinds of guns. She also blasted out press releases with titles like: "Armed and Fiscally Responsible."

-- Gabby Giffords' opponent in Arizona, Republican Jesse Kelly, had a gun-themed fund-raiser in June in which supporters could come and shoot an M-16 rifle with him. It was promoted as: “Get on Target for Victory in November. Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office. Shoot a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly.”

-- Dale Peterson, Republican candidate for agricultural commissioner of Alabama, ran an ad in May which he posed with a rifle and declared, "I'll name names and take no prisoners."

-- Senate candidate Sharron Angle (R-NV) said, "People are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies and saying, my goodness, what can we do to turn this country around? I'll tell you, the first thing we need to do is take Harry Reid out."

-- Rep. Gregg Harper (R-MS) told Politico that he hunts Democrats. Asked about the Congressional Sportsmen's Caucus, he said, "We hunt liberal, tree-hugging Democrats, although it does seem like a waste of good ammunition."

Florida talk-radio host Joyce Kaufman, said, “I am convinced that the most important thing the Founding Fathers did to ensure me my First Amendment rights was they gave a Second Amendment. And if ballots don’t work, bullets will.”

-- Supporters of Tea Party candidate Joe Miller openly carried assault rifles and handguns during a community parade in Eagle River and Chugiak, Alaska, while young children marched alongside them. Miller, who is ran against Senator Lisa Murkowski in the Republican primary, was endorsed by former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, who described him as a “true Commonsense Constitutional Conservative.”

-- And on November 4, 2010, Sarah Palin tweeted: Remember months ago “bulls eye” icon used to target the 20 Obama-lovin’ incumbent seats? We won 18 out of 20 (90% success rate; T’aint bad)

The Right’s Response to the Tucson Shootings on January 8, 2011

-- January 9, the day after the Tucson shootings, SarahPAC mouthpiece RAM denied that “crosshairs” ever existed over Giffords’ district, calling them instead “surveyor’s symbols.” Remember that Sarah herself called them “bulls eyes” in her self-congratulatory tweet on November 4, 2010.

-- Just four days after the shootings, before a single victim had been buried, this: “I wish there had been one more gun there that day, in the hands of a responsible person and that’s all I have to say,” Representative Trent Franks, Republican of Arizona, said, brushing away a question about potentially revisiting the gun control issue.

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) came to much the same conclusion, claiming that "if there had been guns there for people to defend themselves with, perhaps the carnage could have been less." http://tinyurl.com/4bd5m7m

-- Obviously, Franks and King didn’t care that one man almost shot the innocent person who was holding the weapon used to gun down nineteen people that day:

Armed Giffords hero nearly shot wrong man

Joe Zamudio rushed to the scene and saw a man with a gun — but he wasn't the shooter.

-- In what was obviously a preemptive move (lest Congress get any bleeding-heart liberal ideas about new gun controls laws), sixteen days after the Tucson shootings the National Rifle Association posted an editorial from the Washington Examiner on its website entitled "Second Amendment is Insurance Against Government Tyranny."The piece states,

"Gun control legislation is back after the Tucson tragedy. Congress must confront the reality that the courts have declared two reasons for the Second Amendment right to bear arms. One is self defense, and the other—whether you like it or not—is enabling the American people to resist tyranny."

-- On February 1, 2011, five South Dakota lawmakers introduced legislation that would require any adult 21 or older to buy a firearm “sufficient to provide for their ordinary self-defense.”

-- On February 11, 2011, Texas state senator Jeff Wentworth introduced a bill to give college students and professors the right to carry guns on campus, saying, "It's strictly a matter of self-defense…”

-- In mid-February, Mother Jones online reporter Adam Weinstein tweeted that riot police in Wisconsin had been ordered to clear union protesters and supporters from the Capitol. A twitter follower who was subsequently identified as Wisconsin Attorney General Jeff Cox, replied “Use live ammunition.” When confronted by Weinstein, Cox tweeted back that the demonstrators were “political enemies” and “thugs” who were “physically threatening legally elected officials” and further said, “You're damned right I advocate deadly force.”

-- On February 25, 2011, an attendee at a Town Hall meeting with Republican Rep. Paul Broun of Georgia asked, “Who is going to shoot Obama?” drawing laughs from the rest of the attendees. Was Broun outraged? Shocked? Embarrassed? Or even slightly uncomfortable? Actually, it has been reported that he was highly amused himself. This was his passive response:

"The thing is, I know there's a lot of frustration with this president. We're going to have an election next year. Hopefully, we'll elect somebody that's going to be a conservative, limited-government president that will take a smaller, who will sign a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare."

-- March 7, 2011, Sarah Palin said that the fourteen Democratic senators who left Wisconsin should be fired. In an interview with Fox News’ Justice with Judge Jeanine, Palin again used her favorite violent slogan to utter, “They’ve retreated, not reloaded.”

Militias

I have purposely excluded militias in this write-up, as I think they deserve a post unto themselves. However, I have included this for information on the increase in the number of militias in this country:

-- In an article on March 4, 2010, The Guardian wrote:

“The Southern Poverty Law Centre, the US's most prominent civil rights group focused on hate organizations, said in a report that extremist "patriot" groups "came roaring back to life" last year as their number jumped nearly 250% to more than 500 with deepening ties to conservative mainstream politics.”

And in Conclusion...

I firmly believe that the NRA and the U.S. Supreme Court should be held responsible for the continued, and ever growing, gun violence and gun-violent rhetoric in this country. This unholy partnership has given license to the far-right extremists to act out their aggressions with guns, and we find ourselves living in an increasingly dangerous environment because of it. (This does not, however, excuse the elected progressives who have not done nearly enough to stem their power.)
We can look forward, I’m afraid, to more gun violence leading up to, and beyond, the 2012 elections. The far right has wrapped itself in the cloak of the Second Amendment and arrogantly proclaims their status as patriots, heroes, and Real Americans.

And if you disagree with them, they’ll shoot you.

Weekly Roundup, March 7-13, 2011 - Will Palin Run, Japan Earthquake, Tsunami and Nuclear Disasters, Battle for Wisconsin + More

By Blueberry Tart

This was an incredibly dramatic week. The right-wing assault on workers’ rights took an ugly turn in Wisconsin, and the coordinated legislative strategy to undo women’s and workers’ right became more apparent. But all other news paled in the aftermath of the devastation in Japan, which is in the midst of a major crisis after a massive earthquake, tsunami and nuclear reactors disaster.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Will She or Won’t She?

It seems so long ago that the week began with Kathleen’s post, looking at Sarah Palin’s recent interview with the BBC for indications of whether she will run for President. Bottom line: “Sarah Palin enjoys playing games with the media. She will continue to bait, taunt and hint at her intentions for as long as she possibly can. Why should Palin make an early announcement one way or other when she can continue to make money and be given a free platform for her extreme views on Fox News? She has the best of both worlds and she knows it and I believe that she will wait until the last minute to announce her intentions.”

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

The Economic Bill of Rights

After my recent posts on neo-con-econ, I wanted to find a clear, inspiring message to counteract the constant right-wing talking points. Turns out that the best message I found was from FDR’s 1944 State of the Union Address. How ironic that it would be at such a time in our history – emerging from the Great Depression and fully engaged in World War II – that Roosevelt would set forth a progressive vision of economic fairness that endures to this day. I’m sure he would have explicitly added the right to unionize and to collective bargaining, except he undoubtedly assumed that those rights were already well established. And they were, until now.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

The Battle for Wisconsin

The charade in Wisconsin was fully revealed, as the Republicans illegally voted 18-1 to “take America back” to the early 1900s, when workers had no right to unionize or to bargain collectively. So, there is no longer any pretense that this bill had anything to do with ANYTHING except union-busting. Rachel Maddow describes the Republican’s end run around the law, and her interview with Michael Moore is must-see; his words are so passionate and moving: “This is a class war leveled against the working people of this country…”

Friday-Saturday, March 11-12, 2011

Earthquake, Tsunami, Nuclear Disaster

Kathleen kept us up-to-date with posts on the Japanese earthquake, tsunami and nuclear reactor crisis with three posts covering the earthquake, then the first reports on the nuclear reactor crisis and another report after the explosion. The level of this tragedy seems to increase exponentially as we watch in horror from afar. Entire communities seem to have been wiped off the face of the earth, as a series of tsunamis have devastated the northeast coast of Japan’s main island. As I write this, the truth about the reactors is still somewhat unclear, but it appears that several reactors are in major crisis mode, including partial core meltdown. That this crisis is occurring at multiple reactors at multiple sites, in the midst of massive devastation from the earthquake and tsunami, makes this completely uncharted territory in disaster response.

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Nuclear Power is Not the Answer

This post reflects on my own personal experience opposing nuclear power in the 1970s-80s. The anti-nuke movement was remarkably successful in bringing public attention to the risks of nuclear power, and our warnings were proven reasonable when the Three Mile Island accident occurred in 1979, followed a few years later by Chernobyl. This led to the end of nuclear reactor construction for several decades, but recently the industry is trying to revive itself through new taxpayer-funded subsidies, as well as a PR campaign. Their claim is that, because nuclear power has lower carbon emissions than fossil-fuel plants, we should ramp up the nuclear portion of our energy production. This assumes that the only issue of concern is carbon emissions, and the only solution is large-scale, centralized power generation. I dispute both assumptions. Putting similar levels of funding into improving energy efficiency and promoting alternative, sustainable energy would help make us more energy independent and help build a more peaceful world.

Comments and Links:

Older_Wiser reminded us: The people united will never be defeated.

BinCo found this: "Sarah Palin. You couldn't have invented a plausible character in fiction more outrageous, unqualified and unintentionally comical." -Carl Hiaasen (Miami Herald and fiction writer)

WesinOregon: I always laugh when she says "common sense solutions". She has no common sense so there are no solutions that she can come up with. And she never does. Just a robotic line she spews because in her little pea brain she thinks it's clever and intelligent to say it.

Sunnyjane: I think she's obsessed by [the Trig hoax]... It's like Poe's Telltale Heart. She KNOWS the truth is going to come out, and she can't let it go. Innocent people don't act like that.

Dusty17: "unconventional candidate" must be one who openly lies, is afraid of debate & cannot speak with any semblance of intelligence or empathy

Ltl1: …it's getting harder and harder for the GOPers to claim…that they are out to help the average middle class American…They are not about job creation and balancing budgets. They are about stripping workers of the right to a living wage and the hope of a meaningful retirement. They are about handing the Koch brothers and their corporate cousins giant givaways in the form of tax cuts and freshly privatized utility companies at bargain prices. They are for junkets for themselves.

Actcrabby: Those good people in Wisconsin deserve better than this. I wish I could be in Madison to march with them. Instead I'm stuck here, can't even send money because I'm broke. All I can do is re-tweet, and that's not working for me half the time. The Wisconsinites have been so peaceful, so reasonable, so controlled, they have been an inspiration to the whole world, just as the Egyptians were. I want to see Walker and all his friends behind bars. They have taken off their masks, and they are monsters. From now on, they should not be granted any benefit of the doubt. No more compromise. Stop them, dump them, jail them. There must be a way.

NJFan: Petty, vindictive and polarizing traits do not make a good leader. She's nothing but a cult figure to her "bots" and once they learn she hoodwinked them, boy of boy, will they turn on her with a vengeance. She's a national joke and loves feuding with comedians because she thinks it makes her look strong. She's a dimwitted bulb as a politician and as a human being she fails miserably, no soul, no compassion, no empathy, no brains, no sense of humor, no honor, no honesty and the lists goes on.

Zane1: Who ever thought our comedians would have to lead the way. What a strange world we live in.

Dis Gusted (in response to Palin’s comment about union boss thugs): she should know - Todd was the union rep, and he IS a THUG.

Cheeriogirl had an excellent find about right-wing radio using actors to read scripts while pretending to be callers to talk radio shows; she also pointed us to this on popeater.

ProChoiceGrandma linked to an excellent video comment by John Fugelsang on Grit-tv (a new one on me, and worth the watch).

juicyfruityy posted this encouraging link to politicususa on a new Bloomberg poll showing how far Sarah Palin has fallen.

honestyingov linked to Alternet on the Koch Brothers exposed.

aview999 found many excellent links, including this one on truth-out and this one on TPM.

Maria Maria made my day with this link; don't miss the snark at the end!

There were so many excellent comments and links on both Wisconsin and Japan that I could not keep up with them!

_____________________________________________________________________

BONUS!

It is now 3 years to the day since this photo was taken, showing the supposedly 7½ months pregnant Sarah Palin 5 weeks before the reported birth of Trig. Discuss.

Nuclear Power Is Not The Answer

By Blueberry Tart

The world is gripped by the multiple disasters that hit Japan this week. Japan is the most prepared country in the world to cope with earthquakes, thankfully, but the 8.9 magnitude quake generated a massive tsunami that literally flattened and flooded much of the northeast coast. Making things dramatically worse, five reactors at two nuclear power plants have malfunctioned, including a crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in which a building exploded, radiation leaked, and there have been fears of a meltdown and the most recent reports say a meltdown has occurred (H/T cheeriogirl). The world is collectively holding its breath as the crisis continues. Against this background, I want to tell a personal story.

As I mentioned in a comment Friday, a little-known fact about me is that I was one of the 1414 members of the Clamshell Alliance arrested for criminal trespass in 1977 when we occupied the Seabrook, New Hampshire nuclear power plant site. NH Governor Meldrim Thomson jailed us for 14 days at five New Hampshire National Guard armories. His heavy-handed action resulted in worldwide news coverage for the protest and, more importantly, extensive publicity for the anti-nuclear movement and the problems with nuclear power.

photo by Eric Roth

Jailing us was also a huge mistake because it gave us the opportunity to do intensive organizing, building the Alliance’s successful “affinity groups” and strengthening ties with organizations with experience in non-violent resistance. In a way, it was nirvana for the organizers. The two weeks of enforced togetherness allowed us to develop a strategy to strengthen our movement. Eventually, I, along with some other protesters, went on a hunger strike, which helped leverage the release of all the protesters after two weeks, with all charges dropped. For the next several years, the Clamshell Alliance met at least weekly in marathon Wednesday night sessions at the American Friends Service Committee office in Cambridge, developing effective committees and planning further events. I worked on educational programs. I also took part in several other protests at Seabrook in the next few years, as well as massive anti-nuclear protests in Washington in 1979 and New York City in 1982, and an action where we blocked the New York Stock Exchange to publicize the investment side of the nuclear power industry. At the same time, other alliances, like the Abalone Alliance in California and the Shad Alliance in New York, sprang up. The major accidents at Three Mile Island in 1979 and at Chernobyl in 1986 galvanized public opinion in the U.S. against nuclear power, and the 100 new reactors that were in various stages of planning in the U.S. were cancelled. The second Seabrook reactor was never built; its partially completed structure remains an iconic symbol of the anti-nuclear movement’s impact.

I admit that life moved on and I had kind of forgotten about this era of my own personal history. Although I continue to support several organizations that work on this issue, my own professional work is in a different field, and “life happened.” But this experience suddenly seems so relevant to the events of recent weeks. Of course, the horrific situation in Japan brings worldwide focus, once again, to the inherent risks of nuclear power. But I also find many parallels between the Clamshell Alliance’s work and the protests in Wisconsin and elsewhere, and will perhaps write a post on that on another day (as well as my own opinion of the tactics and other factors that eventually weakened the anti-nuke movement).

But today, I want to focus on WHY I was willing to spend weeks in jail and go on a hunger strike due to my opposition to nuclear power. (I don’t usually do this kind of thing!)

Unfortunately, the biggest reason is all too apparent in Japan today, and my heart goes out to the Japanese people, who have already endured the world’s greatest nuclear tragedy, and now must endure the threat of another.

I am also very aware that the nuclear industry is trying to get back on track in the United States, and this is too important for me to remain quietly on the sidelines. After the success of the anti-nuke movement in shutting down nuclear power expansion in the United States for the past three decades, it has re-emerged. A series of articles (a PR campaign?) over the past several years have set forth the argument that nuclear power should be a big part of our energy future, because, they claim, it is safe and does not produce carbon emissions and is thus preferable to fossil fuels. Even some former opponents now speak glowingly of nuclear power as the solution to our energy needs. President Obama and leading Democrats have expressed some support for the notion of expanding nuclear power. Most importantly, the federal government has provided limits on liability and loan guarantees to stimulate new construction of nuclear reactors. This is necessary because neither the industry nor Wall Street is willing to accept the financial risks of nuclear power; the risks are so high that the industry is not viable without taxpayer subsidies. So, to spur investment, several laws “socialize the risk” of nuclear power and externalize its costs, while maintaining profits in private hands. (There are good articles on this issue here and here.)

What’s not to like about nuclear power? In a nutshell, here are the main reasons why I was then, and am now, opposed to nuclear power. Each one of these subjects would warrant its own post, but for now, I will include some relevant links. This Wikipedia piece gives an overview of the safety issues.

1) The health and environmental risks of exposure to radioactivity are severe and endanger both current and future generations. Radioactive substances are carcinogenic (cancer-causing), mutagenic (cause genetic mutations) and teratogenic (affect fetal development). The risks are not only to humans, but also to the environment, where some radioactivity can persist far beyond any timeframe that is subject to human management. Uranium-235 (enriched, weapons grade) has a half-life of 700 million years. Plutonium (Pu-239, half-life 24,800 years) is not only radioactive but also highly toxic and fissile, making its handling fraught with both health, security and environmental perils.

2) Uranium mining and enrichment have serious human, environmental and economic costs that are not adequately accounted for in evaluating the benefits of nuclear power. Worker exposure has been a serious issue, notably for Native Americans and miners in other countries, such as Niger. Due to the energy used in mining, enrichment, transport, etc., industry claims that nuclear power does not emit carbon are overstated. (However, it is true that CO2 emissions are a fraction of what they are for coal plants). The water use and water pollution range from significant to staggering. Many mining sites have been left unremediated after they stopped operations.

3) The security and transport of radioactive materials is susceptible to failures and unacceptable risks. Access to weapons grade uranium, for example, is one of the key points of tension with Iran, and the false claim about Saddam Hussein’s efforts to buy yellowcake uranium were at the heart of the rationale for war against Iraq. In recent years, the spectre of the “dirty bomb” has heightened concern about the security of (or lack thereof) radioactive materials. CNN reported on lax security for enough material to make two dirty bombs. Wikileaks highlighted the lack of security for radioactive materials in Yemen.

4) Even with improved designs and capable engineering, construction and management, reactor safety cannot be 100% assured, and the risks of failure can be catastrophic. This article from the BBC looks at the current situation in Japan, and has some interesting observations about reactor safety, including concerns about the detection of Cesium outside the reactor vessel. (I dispute his claim that no nuclear accident has claimed more than the 1000 lives currently known lost from the earthquake and tsunami; Chernobyl is estimated to have caused at least 4000 deaths.) On this subject, also, I want to comment on the long history of false information and safety problems at many nuclear plants. While engineers may think they are infallible, in truth they are not, nor are operators. They are all fallible, but unfortunately, the implications of their fallibility in the case of a nuclear disaster are too great. Here is an article from The Guardian on Japan nuclear ministers ignoring safety issues. Unfortunately, to err is human.

Here is an article on reactor technology that explains some of the different technologies and improvements that have occurred. And, for balance, here is an article on the Generation IV reactor designs being developed to minimize the risks of nuclear reactors. There are still in the theoretical stage and are not expected to be operational until at least 2030 (if ever).

5) The storage (often on-site) and disposal of nuclear waste continue to be a major problem due to the high level of radioactivity of some waste materials from reactor cores and the long half-life of some of the wastes. Rules that limited the amount of nuclear waste that could be stored on-site were changed because a long-term solution to the problem of nuclear waste disposal has proven elusive. According to the reports I have read, there is a risk of even more severe catastrophe at the Japan reactor due to the inability to keep the spent fuel that is stored on-site properly cooled.

6) There are safer alternatives to meet our energy needs. The first is to save energy through conservation and efficiency. I personally feel that this, along with using solar, wind and other safe sources on a decentralized basis, is the pathway to not only solve our emissions problem, but would be lead to far more security and a more peaceful and prosperous world. I had the privilege of working with Amory Lovins in the mid-1970s (before he was well-known) as he was proposing a “soft path” for our energy future; his vision has withstood the tests of time. Here is a recent article proposing a different energy path; more here.

The nuclear industry would not be viable economically without taxpayer subsidies, such as the Price-Anderson Act, which has shifted liability to the taxpayer instead of the industry. Imagine if those subsidies were spent instead on conservation, solar, wind and other benign sources of energy. In my view, we would have a healthier population, environment and economy, and it would lay the foundation of a lasting peace.

Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant Explosion Radiation Leak Has Been Confirmed by Chief Cabinet secretary Edano.One Worker Has Been Irradiated.

By Kathleen

Following the serious explosion at the Fukushima nuclear power plant earlier Japan's Chief Cabinet secretary has confirmed that there has been a radiation leak there.

Reuters reports that at least 4 people were injured in the explosion which destroyed the walls and roof of a building at the site. It is thought that the explosion may have occurred in an ancillary building and not of the actual reactor itself.

TEPCO have issued a press release in which it has been confirmed that one worker has been irradiated and has received medical treatment by a "special physician."

According to NHK TV the exclusion zone surrounding the nuclear plant has been extended to 20 kms.

UPDATE:

The following photo shows police wearing protective clothing and breathing apparatus as they head towards the Fukushima Power Plant.

Reuters

Greenpeace publishes a response to the present nuclear crisis in Japan.

Press release - March 12, 2011

Tokyo, 12 March, 2011 – Reacting to reports that radioactive materials including the isotope Cesium-137 have been released from the Fukushima power plant, and that increased levels of radiation have been detected in the immediate vicinity, Jan Beranek, Head of Greenpeace International Nuclear Campaign said:

“Our thoughts continue to be with the Japanese people as they face the threat of a nuclear disaster, following already devastating earthquake and tsunami. The authorities must focus on keeping people safe, and avoiding any further releases of radioactivity”.

“The evolving situation at Fukushima remains far from clear, but what we do know is that contamination from the release of Cesium-137 poses a significant health risk to anyone exposed. Cesium-137 has been one if the isotopes causing the greatest health impacts following the Chernobyl disaster, because it can remain in the environment and food chain for 300 years.”

“Fukushima remains under threat of a serious reactor meltdown; this would potentially create an iodine cloud, which could spread high radiation levels to both the environment and population over many tens of kilometres. By simply communicating to local populations the importance of staying indoors, the government could limit potential radiation doses from this cloud by a factor 2 to 5.”

“How many more warnings do we before we finally grasp that nuclear reactors are inherently hazardous? The nuclear industry always tells us that situation like this cannot happen with modern reactors, yet Japan is currently in the middle of a potentially devastating nuclear crisis. Once again, we are reminded of the inherent risks of nuclear power, which will always be vulnerable to the potentially deadly combination of human error, design failure and natural disaster.”

“Greenpeace is calling for the phase out of existing reactors, and no construction of new commercial nuclear reactors. Governments should invest in renewable energy resources that are not only environmentally sound but also affordable and reliable”.
CONTACTS:

Greenpeace International Press Desk Hotline +31 (0) 20 7182470

Jan Beranek, Greenpeace International Head of Nuclear Campaign: + 31 (0) 651 109 558

Notes:

Japan has 54 rectors in total in 18 power plants, with 47,000MW installed capacity which generated 29 percent of electricity supply in 2010. Four nuclear power plants located on the eastern coast close to the epicenter were affected: Onagawa (3 reactors), Fukushima-Daiichi (6 reactors), Fukushima-Daini (4 reactors) and Tokai (1 reactor). The next nearest nuclear power plant is Kashiwazaki-Kariwa (7 reactors) that sits on the opposite site of the island, on its western coast.

For more information on how Japan can phase out nuclear energy please read Japan Energy [R]evolution scenario