End Prey for Profit - Education "Reform" as an Example

Prey for Profit:
The exploitation, bullying, marginalization, and/or abuse of people, animals, the environment, economies, and/or countries for profit and/or power.

Example:
Education "reform" for the purpose of the privatization of public education and increase of corporate profits and power. Who is exploited and/or abused? Students and teachers.

The Story:

Some corporations, CEO's and millionaires/billionaires are using their power and money to abuse children, marginalize teachers, destroy unions, take away people's rights, and exploit democracy (Citizens United, etc.) for power and profit. First, they purposefully compare test results between the entire and extremely heterogeneous and higher rate of poverty, huge COUNTRY of the US with the more lower rate of poverty and homogeneous CITY of Shanghai and small country of Finland and in order to be able to say Education in America has Failed. Then, they use EVERY opportunity to scapegoat and demonize teachers and say they, especially the more experienced teachers, are the problem. I especially love their central propaganda piece, "Waiting for Superman," in which they come in to "rescue" our country from our horrendously incompetent teachers and school systems. Next, they lobby and create laws, policies and regulations, while they put their corporate reform minions in place as School District Superintendents, School Board Trustees and Federal and State Legislators to help usher in their reforms, budget cuts, vouchers, co-locations, merit pay, common core standards, increased testing, union and collective bargaining busting, as they erode public education and teacher's rights. Finally, they get their desired results: increased corporate profits for charter and private schools...testing and remediation companies...textbook publishers, etc.; dis-empowered or broken unions; low-salaried, at-will employed teachers who have no due-process rights and for whom they no longer have to pay much in benefits. Notice that there is not one mention of students in this scenario? Of course there isn't. Children were never really their concern. They threw teachers under the school bus while they used public-school children and education reform as the cover for their battle for power, control and profits. Shame on the corporate "reform" people for using our nation's children as human shields. End the Use of Children as Prey For Profit. 

In Honor of Labor Day: Freedom and Prosperity! For Whom?

Free, freedom, and prosperity are wonderful words and concepts with life-altering implications. Of course, these words also deeply and favorably resonate with most Americans. The key question is are they applied equally to all, or to just a few with crumbs thrown to the rest as placation? Freedom, prosperity, benefits, and jobs have been the buzz words for the past 20 years; they've even been used to describe recent wars.

In reality, the free market economy, free (vs. right to work) states, free trade agreements, prosperity to work and innovate, as well as anti-unionism, deregulation, outsourcing, corporate subsidies, corporate personhood, too-big-to-fail corporations, monopolies, and media/propaganda megaliths have been created and used by the top 10-20% of the world's elite to maintain and consolidate their financial and net worth, as well as their power. They misuse "socialism" as a rallying cry against public health care, unions, and worker benefits.

Worker's jobs, salaries and benefits have been reduced or eliminated to increase the wealth, benefits and golden parachutes of the top 20%. Then, those same 20% point to unions and union workers who still have decent wages and benefits and make them the bad guys. 'See! They have what you don't. Go after them!' 'They're socialists!' These are emotional appeals, not facts.

What should be happening is that we bottom 80% should all be working together to demand a major reduction in the CEO-to-worker wage and benefit ratio. CEO's now earn over 300% more than the average worker, compared to 25% in 1965. Our wages, benefits, pensions, and jobs, have been reduced or elimated to increase their wealth and power. It is a simple, and perverse, inverse relationship.

Freedom? Nevada is a Right to Work state where businesses are free to work and innovate, and it has both the highest unemployment and foreclosure rate in the country. We're now reaping the benefits of "free," unregulated businesses.

Of course, corporations have been subsidized by us for decades and they've recently been bailed out by all of us (a "socialist" collective supporting the ones who failed?). For whom has all of this been free? Certainly not most of the bottom 80% of us who only hold 7% of our country's financial wealth! The elite who have benefited from all of this "freedom" and "prosperity" of the past twenty or so years should also be held responsible and accountable for the current economic situation.

If people appreciate and want to continue to enjoy 5 day work weeks, weekends off, benefits, pensions, eight hour work days, holidays, vacations, living wages, safe jobsites, and continued restrictions on child labor; thank and support the unions. Union members and organizers literally gave their lives for you to benefit from these labor laws, practices and policies that weren't in existence before unions.

Those in power have outsourced our jobs, shut down our worksites, stripped us of our wages, benefits, and pensions. They have caused the massive under- and unemployment in this country. They created the tax structures that further increased their wealth and reduced ours. They gave themselves and their buddies free money through cost-plus, no-bid contracts. They have cut corners on worker safety, while cutting costs to increase profits. In doing so, they have also created the largest environmental disaster in our country's history. They have bought public offices and votes, and influenced policies and laws to their benefit at the cost of our own current and future wealth and health, as well as a clean environment. They have exponentially increased their power and influence by getting our Supreme Court to create corporate persons. They use their wealth to run for and change term limits on public office in order to maintain their status quo. Again I ask, who benefits from all of this freedom and prosperity while our Constitutionally guaranteed freedoms, our wealth, our prosperity and our jobs have been sacked?

The elite want to keep the other 80% of us down. They want unions broken so we can go back to pre-union corporate practices. They want to keep us focused on blaming unions for the loss of jobs, wages, pensions, and benefits, rather than look at them as the true culprits with their outlandish wages, pensions, benefits, personal holdings, and corporate profits! The top 20% own 93% of our nation's wealth and use it to attack and create propaganda against some of the most powerful in the bottom 80% of the population. They want to get rid of collective bargaining and privatize public jobs to increase their wealth, power, influence, and control. They've already done a wonderful job with our economy! Read history, read other economic research, and read between the lines. Don't buy into their propaganda.

Instead, let's work together to vote, lobby, write, educate each other, influence public policy, demonstrate, and do everything legally in our power to stop this imbalance of freedom and prosperity and improve the lives of ALL Americans! We are in the fight of our lives, for ourselves and our children. The elite don't want us to work together, because unity creates power, even among the poor and disenfranchised. They are afraid of us becoming united, which is why they're trying to break the unions. Feedom and prosperity do not belong just to the elite few. Freedom and prosperity should not be won by climbing on the backs of 80% of the population. Freedom and prosperity should be shared. Freedom and prosperity rightfully belong to us all!

"Fashionista?" Nay, the Real Question is, "Fascista?"

Is it fashionable to continue the unequal balance of power in the United States? It seems as though the Supreme Court justices may be fashionista. The continued collusion between corporations and the United States government has birthed a Supreme Court decision that now gives even more power to corporations, financial institutions, and the people who run them. Until recently, corporations and financial institutions enjoyed exponentially escalating profits over the past decade, unencumbered by regulations and enhanced by tax breaks. Those who ran them received extraordinarily high salaries, bonuses, benefits, and golden parachutes that exponentially increased the disparity of wages between CEO's and the average worker. Due to the recent Supreme Court decision that allows corporations and unions to spend unlimited dollars on campaign contributions, they now have unlimited power to influence the course of elections in favor of candidates who will continue to benefit them. Free speech belongs to individual people: one person, one voice, one vote. The Supreme Court justices have elevated corporations and unions to the same status as a person by also granting them the right to free speech. Next, maybe they'll let the CEO's and Union Leaders place votes for these new "people." I guess the old saying is true, money can buy anything. Too bad the new voices who have been newly granted the freedom of speech will drown out the voices of the majority of Americans who are unable to compete with such tremendously affluent budgets and increased power to steer the course of "democratic" elections. Perhaps a more appropriate word for the Supreme Court justices' decision may be fascista.

In 1785, Thomas Jefferson spoke about elective despotism: "Mankind soon learn to make interested uses of every right and power which they possess, or may assume. The public money and public liberty, intended to have been deposited with three branches of magistracy, but found inadvertently to be in the hands of one only, will soon be discovered to be sources of wealth and dominion to those who hold them... They [the assembly] should look forward to a time, and that not a distant one, when a corruption in this, as in the country from which we derive our origin, will have seized the heads of government, and be spread by them through the body of the people; when they will purchase the voices of the people, and make them pay the price. Human nature is the same on every side of the Atlantic, and will be alike influenced by the same causes. The time to guard against corruption and tyranny, is before they shall have gotten hold of us. It is better to keep the wolf out of the fold, than to trust to drawing his teeth and talons after he shall have entered."

What is Fascism? This link defines the Fourteen Defining Characteristics of Fascism: http://www.rense.com/general37/char.htm

Governor Blagojevich, AKA "Crash" Corruption

Talk about hitting a wall without any awareness you're there! Maybe the driver's still stumbling around drunk with power. This car must have an Illinois license plate. Governor Blagojevich, whether or not he's charged and found guilty, is either a narcissist or sociopath...or both. This kind of euphoric corruption reminds me of the words from a song in Mamma Mia. "Money, money, money, must be funny, in a rich man's world. Money, money, money, always sunny, in a rich man's world." He's most certainly not alone in the crime spree of corruption and influence peddling occurring in this country, nor is he the only person in office who could be the recipient of a similar diagnosis, right on up to our current Commander-in-Chief. We simply continue to see more and more riders, individuals or corporations, on the roller coaster of widespread greed and corruption.

It seems like the United States of America is for sale. It’s not just Senate seats that are pandered, it’s also the undue influence of one individual or group over another. This influence and corruption also benefit corporations and entire industries. Politicians and government employees have consistently given "particular" corporations and businesses breaks on regulations and policies, instead of protecting the American citizen and our environment.

Blagojevich is only the tip of the iceburg. We need wide-ranging reform of elections, political appointments, contracts (including outlawing cost-plus, no-bid contracts), etc. to prevent the type of corruption of which Blagojevich is, allegedly, one prime example. Honestly, I think Lincoln would not be the only one turning over in his grave; so would our Founding Fathers.

The Disappearance of the Bee and Humanity?

I heard a quote some believe has been erroneously attributed to Einstein that predicted the demise of humanity within 4 years of the disappearance of the bee. ”If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man.” Honeybees are dying at alarming rates in North America and Europe. There is also documentation that they are disappearing in Taiwan. A large percentage of plants depend upon honeybees for pollination to remain a viable species. Therefore, I can see how the disappearance of all bees could produce a concomitant collapse of some species, and possibly, ecosystems. Although we don't know the cause of Colony Collapse Disorder, I am concerned that we humans are at the root of the collapse. Some scientists believe it is caused by insecticides, herbicides. other toxins, and/or pollutants; others believe the collapse may be caused by genetically modified crops.

I believe our agricultural system is in disarray. Agribusiness has decreased the diversity of plant species through their farming practices. Also due to their farming practices, large tracts of once arable soils are no longer fertile and are so polluted by pesticides, I question if large-scale remediation is possible. We have disregarded the "simplistic and unscientific" wisdom of our ancestors, who through thousands of years of trial and error, determined that crop rotation and letting fields lie fallow to rest, maintains soil viability and fertility. I hope that we can return to a larger percentage of small farms growing diverse, natural, non-gmo crops and using healthier, organic or permaculture-type methods of farming. We are also destroying our marine food supply by overfishing, pollution through oil spills, the dumping of waste, trash and chemicals, and the purposeful killing of whales and sharks, the top marine predators.

Our food supply has been contaminated with the introduction of genetically modified organisms (gmo's), which have also been allowed to cross-contaminate natural plants. Gmo's were not subjected to long-term independent scientific testing to determine their long-term health effects on human health (or that of other species) before they were introduced into our food supply. The use of Monsanto's genetically modified, patented seeds and plants require the use of Monsanto's poisonous pesticide Round-Up. Small-acreage farmers, into whose fields the gmo seeds blow and grow without any intent of those farmers, are being sued by Monsanto for patent infringement. Another problem is that one chemical company owns the patents to a large percentage of natural seeds in the western hemisphere. This company can withhold selling these seeds in favor of its own. He who controls the food supply... Who allowed them to patent life? I hope that I, as an American citizen, didn't fall asleep at the wheel and that I don't share the blame. Can we have these patents found unlawful, unconstitutional and be rescinded?

The diversity of all plant and animal species have been dramatically reduced partly because of the encroachment of humans into their natural habitats. If you look at a population map of the human species, our population growth over thousands of years used to be predominantly linear and sustainable. However, our population growth increased substantially with the Industrial Revolution and the introduction of antibiotics and modern medicine. It has been exponential, in fact, almost vertical since around the 1970's. Potable water is less than 1% of all water on earth. Habitable land is approximately 4% of the earth's surface. There is no longer enough potable water or arable land to sustain our still-growing global population. When we compete with all the other species for what's left of habitable land and potable water, they lose. Yet, so do we, although on the surface, we appear to win.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature, based in Switzerland, recently released the results of a five-year study that concluded almost 1 in 4 mammals on our planet are at risk of extinction. When the top predators are gone, the trophic cascade spills down to the smallest of species, adversely affecting entire ecosystems. In the 1920's we eradicated wolves from the Yellowstone ecosystem, unwittingly setting off the trophic cascade. The recent reintroduction of wolves, the top predator, into Yellowstone has led to a natural balance in that ecosystem and a significant increase in the diversity of plant and animal species found there. We humans often arrogantly disrupt the balance and rhythms of nature, thinking that a)we have the right to do this, b)we "know better," and c) it is in "our", but actually one group's, best interest. Our huge population increase, in and of itself, has put the balance of nature into a downward spiral. Will nature create a way to bring our population into a more natural balance with the rest of the species?

These are dangerous times for all who inhabit Planet Earth, mostly by our own hand. We consistently see reports of how something we've done adversely effects other species and our environment. We also see reports of human illnesses that have been attributed to the increased concentration of pollutants, toxins and heavy metals in our environment. Many different allergies, cancers, asthma, COPD and other pulmonary disorders are being reported at increasingly alarming rates. How can we continue to commit specicide?

I haven't even introduced CO2 emissions, global warming, or climate change into this discussion and we're already in trouble. When these issues are included, our problems escalate exponentially. When global temperature increases and sea levels rise, the percentage of habitable land decreases. Considering the fact that more than 50% of humans live along or close to coastlines, there will be mass migrations. Where do we put all those people? Do we believe these migrations will all occur peacefully? What role in all of this will storms have; storms that are predicted to increase in both strength and frequency? Will there be water wars over what's left of unpolluted potable water? What happens to all the other species affected?

Can we humans, somehow, come together in peace to discuss and formulate global initiatives to control our population growth, as well as the pollution and destruction of our common home? Will corporate executives stop their seemingly unquenchable greed and quest for power? Will they also end their unhealthy and unsustainable policies and actions and, instead, start caring for the beings of this planet? Will governments finally start penalizing these people and their behaviors, as well as their own? Why can't a free economy benefit all sentient beings of this planet? The current huge and still-expanding gap between rich and poor is immoral. Why do we reward uncontrolled greed and power that so clearly benefits the few and harms our planet and all life? Has our quest for more "stuff" been worth it? Are we already too late to even attempt to repair the damage we've caused? Is this last-minute bid for our own survival yet another form of human arrogance? What do you think?

Check out the following:
Human Population Maps
http://desip.igc.org/mapanim.html
http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange/current/lectures/human_pop/human_pop.html
The Future of Food
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNezTsrCY0Q
The IUCN Red List
http://www.iucnredlist.org/Population Along Coastlines
http://www.livescience.com/environment/060718_map_settle.html
The Story of Stuff
http://www.storyofstuff.com/

Clean, Renewable Energy or Drill, Baby, Drill?

Drill, baby, drill? Yes, lots of people have been drilled by Big Oil; literally, employees at the US Department of the Interior and, figuratively, the American people these past eight years under the Bush administration! Big Oil receives billions of dollars in royalties for drilling, this is in addition to their subsidies and record profits, all taken from millions of hard-working American citizens struggling to keep a roof over their heads, food on their tables and clothes on their backs! Drill, baby, drill! Boy, have they ever drilled and found lots of oil money to grease their pockets, while keeping hard-earned money out of ours!

Angry? Do I sound angry? At this point, I'm a hunka burnin' love for clean, renewable energy! I attended the first National Clean Energy Summit and know that oil is not our energy saviour. It's going to take a combination of energy efficiency improvements, an increase in use of natural gas, extensive use of renewable solar, wind, and geothermal energy, as well as a huge investment to improve the speed, capacity and size of our nation's energy transmission power grid to help make the United States a clean energy-based and secure nation. Oil is NOT, and has never been, the solution to this problem!

The Merriam Webster Online Dictionary defines clean as a transitive verb "1 a: to make clean: as (1): to rid of dirt, impurities, or extraneous matter (2): to rid of corruption." Their definition of dirty, an adjective, is "1 a: not clean or pure b: likely to befoul or defile with dirt c: contaminated with infecting organisms d: containing impurities <dirty coal> 2 a: morally unclean or corrupt ... 7: having considerable fallout <dirty bombs>."

When I think of clean energy, I think of energy sources that do not have "dirty" byproducts, extraneous matter or corruption. Oil, as a form of clean energy, loses on all fronts of this definition, especially since members of the Bush Administration's Department of the Interior have been caught in corruption involving bribes, sex and drugs. The alleged oil companies involved are Shell, Chevron Corp., Hess Corp., and Gary-Williams Energy Corp. I'm sure this is only the tip of the iceberg involving this administration's eight years of being in bed with Big Oil. No wonder why our gasoline prices have risen steadily as they continue to cry "Drill, baby, drill!" and when experts across the board have proven American citizens won't see this new oil in their gas tank for seven to ten years, even if we drill today. Why don't we put this time, energy and money into clean, renewable energy, instead?

Why are we still talking about drilling for oil when we know the United States sits on only 3% of the world's oil? How we think drilling here and drilling now will change world oil prices is amazingly stupid - OPEC sets the prices and they have most of the oil! Drilling all three percent of the world's oil supply is also not enough oil to make us energy independent. Whatever happened to common sense? Drilling in ANWAR will only produce an extremely small amount of oil, relative to our demands, help the income of Palin's State of Alaska (of course she's for this - although she has reduced earmarks by 35% over the previous administration, her state still receives more earmarks per capita than does any other) in the near future and forever pollute a pristine, protected, untouched wilderness. Drilling our limited offshore resources will only risk polluting our beaches and the security of part of our national food supply: fish, mollusks, crustaceans, and kelp.

This "Drill, baby, drill!" mantra is yet another example of this administration's and McCain/Palin's fear-mongering, sabre-rattling use of artificially increased prices by a corrupt industry and allowed by a Big Oil president and his cronies, in order to create a false emergency need to expand their operations and further increase their record corporate profits, subsidies and royalties. The call to "Drill, baby, drill!" is simply a pathetic last-minute attempt for Big Oil and its cronies to get in their last licks before Bush is out (and in case McCain/Palin never get in) and their free ride on top of the American people is over. If you'd like to see which politicians take contributions from Big Oil, go to http://oilchangeusa.org/ While there, you'll see which politicians have been paid the highest oil dollars to promote Big Oil's "Drill, Baby, Drill!" campaign, which is running concurrently with the US Presidential campaign.

This is also a "more of the same" attitude about oil that got us into this mess in the first place! No more oil! No offshore drilling! No drilling in ANWR! Say NO! We should be saying "No More Oil! No Way! Only Clean Energy!" If you don't believe me, do your research. Don't buy into all the false ads spouting disinformation that you see on television, which were paid for by the record oil profits, subsidies and royalties of the past eight years of corruption, money taken out of the pockets of American citizens (another way in which we're still being drilled).

As for nuclear or coal being clean forms of energy...no way! Nuclear is so clean that we have byproducts that must be guarded by our military so they don't fall into the hands of terrorists, who wish to use these byproducts to make dirty bombs. The water used to cool the towers becomes heavy, too. These byproducts don't have a normal decomposition time, their decomposition is measured in nuclear half-lives. Then when people think about where to store these byproducts, they absolutely don't want them in their own backyards. If nuclear energy is so clean, why doesn't anybody want the waste in their own backyard? Why are people worried that the nuclear and hazardous wastes in holding tanks are leaking at Hanford Nuclear Power Plant on 585 square miles along the Columbia River in southeastern Washington? Hanford is also near the Pacific Ocean and upstream of the cities of Kennewick, Pasco and Richland. Then, think about the safety of transporting this nuclear waste across the United States of America via truck, rail and barge. Have you ever heard of accidents on the road, rail or water? I'm writing this a couple of days after the nation's worst rail accident in 15 years took place in Chatsworth, CA, with 25 dead, 135 injured, 34 of them still critical. What if the freight train involved had been carrying nuclear waste?

Coal is not clean, either. Miners' deaths, gaping holes in the earth, waste pools, polluted water from cooling the processing machinery that will kill freshwater ecosystems, mountain topping (this is cutting off the tops of beautiful mountains, with the resultant erosion, landslides, pollution of streams and rivers, and possible deaths of wildlife and human residents, and possible alteration of micro- and macro-climates), and byproducts that invade our lungs (causing allergies, asthma, and lung cancer), increase carbon dioxide emissions, thereby increasing global warming.

Notice I've mentioned water a few times, already. Fresh, potable water is less than 1% of all water found on earth. The United States has already been in a drought for years, now. We take for granted what many second- and third-world citizens have to walk for miles to get: life-giving, potable water with which they can cook and hydrate themselves. Many of these people, mostly women and children, actually risk their lives to get water, facing rape, torture and murder along their path to survival. Yet, here we are, wasting inordinate amounts of this precious resource to continue producing unclean, dirty energy.

Instead, we can say "YES!" to clean energy! We can continue to use and expand development of natural gas as an alternative source of power. We can use and continue development of solar and wind technology that already exists, yet has repeatedly been ignored in favor of oil. Instead of drilling for oil that would take 10 years to reach the pump, let's invest in solar and wind power, improve and extend our high-speed power transmission infrastructure, and use the Saudi Arabia of solar power - the Southwest USA - and the Saudi Arabia of wind energy - the Midwest USA - to power our own country. We can also expand our use of geothermal energy.

If we concentrate on truly clean energy, stop listening to corrupt, dirty energy companies who have had their day, and work together for a cleaner, brighter future with clean energy, we can make these changes! We can retool factories, retrofit our homes and cars to clean energy sources, grow green industries and jobs, improve our economy by going green, and recapture our national security by reducing our usage and dependence on foreign oil. If we get out of Iraq and stop subsidizing Big Oil, we can use this money, instead, to energize solar, geothermal and wind power and increase the energy transmission infrastructure in the United States. We can change our world into a more secure, cleaner place in which our children can grow and live healthier lives. We can do this!!!