Archive for October, 2012

“If there was ever a wake-up call, this is it” — Hurricane Sandy and Climate Change

by , posted on Monday, October 29th, 2012 at 1:12 pm

from Democracy Now!

Bill McKibben (350.org) and climate scientist Greg Jones on Hurricane Sandy and climate change.

See also: McKibben’s “Do the Math” Tour, beginning November 7th.

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Michael Pollan on California’s Prop. 37 and Other Local Efforts to Challenge Agrigiants’ Influence

by , posted on Wednesday, October 24th, 2012 at 6:30 pm

from Democracy Now!

As California voters prepare to vote on whether to label GMOs in food, we go to Berkeley to discuss Prop 37 and its implications for the broader food system with journalist and best-selling author Michael Pollan. Among the nation’s leading writers and thinkers on food and food policy, Pollan is the Knight Professor of Science and Environmental Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley School of Journalism. He’s written several books about food, including “The Botany of Desire,” “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” “In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto,” “Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual,” and the forthcoming, “Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation.”

From California’s Proposition 37 initiative to New York City’s soda ban, journalist and best-selling author Michael Pollan argues that local efforts hold the key to challenging the agricultural industry’s stranglehold over national food policy. With companies like Monsanto influencing Congress and state legislatures, Pollan warns the United States risks falling into a “two-class food system,” where only those who can afford to live outside the industrial food system can access healthy ways to eat. Among the nation’s leading writers and thinkers on food and food policy, Pollan is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley School of Journalism and author of several best-selling books, including “In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto.”

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Where Did the Debt Come From?

by , posted on Wednesday, October 24th, 2012 at 6:00 pm

from the Center for American Progress

We hear a lot about our debt. And it is a pressing issue. But where did it come from? Michael Linden, the Center for American Progress’s Director of Tax and Budget Policy, looks at what happened in the 10-years since the Congressional Budget Office projected a massive surplus.

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Big London Protests Against Austerity

by , posted on Wednesday, October 24th, 2012 at 3:39 pm

from The Real News Network

Protest brings tens of thousands into the streets, but are such mobilizations enough to stop the cuts?

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Greek Society Unravels Under Austerity Measures

by , posted on Wednesday, October 24th, 2012 at 3:22 pm

from The Real News Network

Costas Lapavitsas: Merkel’s visit to Greece shows Eurozone leadership don’t want to push Greece out, but situation is explosive as people are furious at austerity measures

Most Greeks Look to Left for Solutions, but Far Right Gaining Strength

Costas Lapavitsas Pt.2: Left party Syriza leads polls but conditions for fascism also developing as crisis deepens

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Britain’s Unions Bring London to a Standstill

by , posted on Monday, October 22nd, 2012 at 7:09 pm

from The Real News Network

One hundred thousand workers march on the capital as unions warn austerity isn’t working and threaten a general strike for the first time since 1926,

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The Tea Party’s—and Mitt Romney’s—Brand of Capitalism

by , posted on Saturday, October 20th, 2012 at 3:34 pm

This short video clip features a comment made by Ed Schultz on Friday while in Freeport, Illinois, broadcasting live from Bainport, the site of the protest by Sensata workers and their allies over the closing of the profitable plant by Bain Capital in order to move it to China.

Ed’s comment was a simple and straightforward one: “I’m a capitalist, but I think you can cross the line between being being a capitalist and being a greedy son of a gun that hurts middle class families across America.”

The video was shot, however, by a tea party activist by the name of Ulysses S. Arn, who describes himself as “the conservative movements warrior poet.” He labeled it: “Laugher of the Week: MSNBC’s Ed Schultz ‘I’m a Capitalist'”.

Apparently conservatives like Arn think it’s laughable for a capitalist to believe that any such lines can be crossed. And it’s becoming increasingly clear that Mitt Romney thinks the rules don’t apply to people like him, either.

Perhaps it’s time for us to start calling “free market” ideologues “laissez-faire capitalists” once again, and remind ourselves why we came to the conclusion that a regulated marketplace was needed in the first place.

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Bain-owned Sensata factory workers plead with Romney to stop plan that will send their jobs to China

by , posted on Saturday, October 20th, 2012 at 10:50 am

from The Young Turks (Current)

Michael Shure talks to Dave Johnson about Sensata Technologies, a Bain Capital-owned Illinois auto parts factory scheduled to have all its work exported to China.

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Six Arrested in Illinois Protesting Bain Capital’s Plan to Close Sensata Plant, Move Jobs To China

by , posted on Thursday, October 18th, 2012 at 4:30 pm

from Democracy Now!

We turn now to Freeport, Illinois, where more people have been arrested protesting plans by Mitt Romney’s former company, Bain Capital, to shut the Sensata Technologies plant and move operations to China — a loss of 170 American jobs. On Wednesday, six people were arrested in the lobby of the plant during a sit-in demanding full severance pay for those who will lose their jobs. Last month, Senata workers set up an encampment called “Bainport” across the street from the facility to protest the company’s plan to close the plant. Last week, three protesters were arrested for blocking the path of trucks leaving the plant in an effort to stop the removal of equipment from their workplace. To find out more about the “Bainport” protest, we speak to Tom Gaulrapp, who has worked at the Sensata Technologies plant for 33 years. His last day of work at Sensata is November 5, one day before the election. The protesters have invited Romney to visit “Bainport” to address their situation.

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We’re all going to die and no-one’s talking about it

by , posted on Thursday, October 18th, 2012 at 4:15 pm

from The Big Picture with Thom Hartmann (RT)

The Human Race may very well die out – and no one is talking about it. The fact that we’ve now gone through three Presidential and Vice-Presidential debates – and not once has global climate change been brought up – should be, to paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, an “Alarm bell in the night” for all of us. Especially because this last September was the hottest September ever recorded in the civilized history of the human race. Not only that – this last September produced the smallest amount of Arctic ice ever recorded in the civilized history of the human race.

Our planet is rapidly changing – scientists across the world are freaking out – farmers are getting hysterical and, in many countries, committing suicide in mass numbers – and yet our two Presidential candidates are fighting about who’s going to pump more carbon pollution into the atmosphere: That would have been the perfect time for Candy Crowley to chime in an say – “Hey, guys what about the climate change crisis that’s being worsened by all of this drilling?” But she didn’t – and then Romney bashed the President over not approving the Keystone XL pipeline…Actually the President DID approve the Keystone pipeline – at least a large portion of it – and he’ll likely approve the rest if he wins a second term.

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