In a “Last Word??? interview with The New York Times in 2006, videotaped to accompany this obituary online, Dr. Barry Commoner elaborated on his holistic views and lamented the inability of society to connect the dots among its multitude of challenges, “an unfortunate feature of political development in this country.???
— the New York Times
The Times obit provides a 12 minute interview, conducted by Pulitzer-winner Tim Weiner, with Commoner. It traces his career as a scientist and environmentalist.
As the former, Commoner discusses his major role in the cessation of atmospheric nuclear weapons testing during the Kennedy administration, achieved through assaying the levels of strontium 90, an element in radioactive fallout, in children’s teeth. He, along with others, had determined early that the generation of radio-isotopes during atmospheric testing posed a distinct and measurable threat to everyone. And then he went forward with a scientific plan to measure and prove it, by tracking strontium-90, which is taken up like calcium in bones and teeth.
Commoner discusses global warming as a dire threat as well as things that have been lasting environmental achievements in this country. Commoner cites the removal of lead from gasoline in 1970, and the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency the same year to enforce the Clean Air Act which had been made more effective through amendments, as something which has made life demonstrably better.
Ralph and Cheryl Broetje rely on roughly 1,000 seasonal workers every year to grow and pack over 6 million boxes of apples on their farm along the Snake River in eastern Washington. It’s a custom they’ve maintained for over two decades. Recently, though, their efforts to recruit skilled labor, mostly undocumented immigrants, have come woefully short, despite intensive recruitment efforts in an area with high rates of unemployment.
The Broetjes, and an increasing number of farmers across the country, say that a complex web of local and state anti-immigration laws account for acute labor shortages …
So, across the country, they have started to lobby Congress for an legal illegal immigrant slave labor exemption, to restore business. Only it’s called a national guest worker program so that America can once again compete with the agricultural nations employing slave labor, globally.
“The United States farmer is still the most efficient in the world, and if we want to be in charge of our food security and our economy and add favorably to our balance of payments, we need to support a [slave] labor force for agriculture,” said some douchebag to Time magazine.
Let out a roar for buying something shiny in the Culture of Lickspittle:
Long after Sayed managed to escape the clutches of reporters, cheers continued erupting each time someone exited the Apple Store, with a new iPhone 5 in hand. The applause could be heard for blocks.
Placard from an Occupy Wall Streeter outside the Apple store who dryly noted the police will arrest you for sleeping out overnight in protest of inequality but not if you’re going to be purchasing iJunk.
There was a technical name for things that collected germs from being in or near your mouth, or ass, down your crotch, etc… It adapts itself well to Apple:
The Congressional Research Service continues to produce reports laden with information on major issues, analysis unlikely to be popular with one entire side of the political spectrum. For this, it deserves a pat on the back. Sadly, it would seem facts do have a liberal bias, to repeat a common saying some now find annoying.
“In 2011, 46.2 million people were counted as poor in the United States, the same number as in 2010 and the largest number of persons counted as poor in the measure’s 53-year recorded history,” reads the opening sentence in the report’s summary.
“The increase in poverty over the last four years reflects the effects of the economic recession that began in December 2007,” it continues. “Some analysts expect poverty to remain above pre-recessionary levels for as long as a decade, and perhaps longer …”
Excerpts from graphs in the CRS report, Poverty in the United States: 2011, illustrate the assertions.
The graphs show that poverty reached a low at the end of the Clinton administration, but began a slow rise during the presidency of George W. Bush, reaching a plateau in the middle of its eight years before abruptly beginning to soar in 2007, the onset of the economic collapse brought on by Wall Street.
The Obama administration inherited the Bush economy, one that was failing catastrophically in 2008, when the number of people falling into poverty increased at a chilling rate.
The graph excerpted above shows the millions of people in poverty from 2000 to 2012, the red line showing totals, the blue — the elderly, and the green line, the national average in terms of the percentage of the national population.
This second graph shows poverty statistics by age group, one in which children are shown as the most affected.
The above map shows the states with the highest increases in poverty. In a fair interpretation, although poverty has increased virtually everywhere in the country (except perhaps in a geographic ring around the capital marking the governing population and its support) the modern radical GOP control the majority of the economies of the states where things are the worst.
Over the course of the Obama administration, GOP politics in the House and Senate have made it largely impossible to do anything about the economy except practice austerity and maintenance of the status quo. It is therefore remarkable, that at least for the elderly, poverty — the CRS notes — has reached an historic low.
However, not all of the nation has done very badly in the last few years. And, for this, the Obama administration must shoulder responsibility.
At a time when so many Americans at home see their lives blighted by an economy of no opportunity, there is one place immune from the problems of being poor.
It is in arms manufacturing and sales, and the following chart — published originally at the New York Times, shows a stark moral dilemma faced by the United States.
In a nation as powerful and with as many resources as ours, it is unconscionable that such a divergence in conditions between the many, and a chosen few — in this case, the makers of the instruments of war, exists. It is pure immorality — in graphs.
Again, Poverty in the United States: 2011, at the Secrecy blog, is here.
Alert readers will have noted the number of people in poverty aligns closely with the number receiving food stamps — 46-47 million.
[Romney] went on, “The numbers on food stamps are really revealing. When the president took office, 32 million people were on food stamps. And now that number is 15 million higher, almost 50% higher. Now, 47 million people on food stamps. You’ve got Americans falling into poverty under this president.”
That’s a rhetorical one-two punch, first emphasizing the need for jobs — a message that resonates at every rung of the economic ladder — then cite data showing how things are getting worse, not better, under Obama.
Granted, the food-stamp issue could be problematic for Romney too. Republicans have proposed to cut billions of dollars from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program by narrowing eligibility for benefits …
And part of this is certainly true. But as everything from the Romney secret video, it also shows a grotesque and twisted view of how things have transpired. The majority of those who qualified for food stamps during the Obama administration do so as a consequence of the economic collapse that came upon the nation in 2007, during the Bush administration. The data is quite clear.
It should also be noted, although it contains little solace, that the graphs from the CRS report show a stabilization of the percentage of those in poverty over the last two years.
Krugman graphs the state of unemployment in this country …
“A plunge and a stabilization at a depressed level, which has now gone on for almost three years,” he says.
The unemployment rate fell only because people have either stopped looking for work or are leaving the workforce for retirement.
The message is out: Getting a job is much like playing the daily lottery. The odds are bad and if you, by chance, win something, the payoff’s not very good because almost all the prizes are lousy.
The disappearance of midwage, midskill jobs is part of a longer-term trend that some refer to as a hollowing out of the work force, though it has probably been accelerated by government layoffs.
“The overarching message here is we don’t just have a jobs deficit; we have a ‘good jobs’ deficit,??? said Annette Bernhardt, the report’s author and a policy co-director at the National Employment Law Project, a liberal research and advocacy group …
The occupations with the fastest growth were retail sales (at a median wage of $10.97 an hour) and food preparation workers ($9.04 an hour). Each category has grown by more than 300,000 workers since June 2009.
Some of these new, lower-paying jobs are being taken by people just entering the labor force, like recent high school and college graduates. Many, though, are being filled by older workers who lost more lucrative jobs in the recession and were forced to take something to scrape by.
The mid level job losses documented were wiped out in the economic collapse. They have not and will not come back, one professor indicates.
Remember: Stop your drinking, moochers, and hope for a lowering of the minimum wage.
The balance of trade in non-military domestic manufacturing may have gone to hell upon sale to China but there’s one place were the US still rules supreme.
We’re the biggest sellers of arms, bar none, with special emphasis on sales to countries ruled by our toadies.
“A worldwide economic decline had suppressed arms sales over recent years,” writes the New York Times. “But increasing tensions with Iran drove a set of Persian Gulf nations — Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Oman — to purchase American weapons at record levels.”
One can think of US arms manufacturing as a protected Keynsian jobs program. No other sector of the American economy enjoys such status. It is a near perfect example of industrial socialism in which the taxpayers assume all the investment and initial risk but are returned little to none of the profit made on it.
At the time, I made the argument that every American was entitled to a royalty on arms sales since it is taxpayer money that pays for the innovation, development and primary manufacturing of the American weapons coveted by the various tin pot oil-producing countries on the southern side of the Persian Gulf.
Again, it’s not unreasonable to make the argument that the stressed in the middle class ought to receive something back for the country’s primary business product/export, one its taxes bankroll and grow. A 20 percent war dividend for 2011 might look like this:
20 percent of 247 billion in arms sales = $49 400 000 000
20 percent of 164.7 billion for direct war = $32 940 000 000
Total war dividend clawback = $82 340 000 000
Bonus check cut for 49.3 million people on food stamps, adjustable for increases = $1670.18.
From the Yahoo news blog, a man-in-the-street account of people solicited for their stories on becoming poor and not being able to afford food in the failed state:
Here’s a taste of Tom Servo’s bare-bones grocery list: A few bags of dried beans. Breakfast cereal of some kind — usually whatever’s on sale. A large canister of dried oats. Lots of bananas — typically a few pounds. A bag of apples. Other miscellaneous fresh fruits and veggies — whatever’s in season and on sale.
The 29-year-old college student in Tampa, Fla., says his grocery list is written for nutrition, not taste. He sticks to bare essentials and buys in bulk. But two weeks of groceries used to cost him $50; now it’s almost $100.
For example: “I used to pay 99 cents for one pound of dried black beans; now they cost $1.49 or more. Two years ago I paid $2.39 for a 16-ounce jar of generic peanut butter; now the same peanut butter costs $3.99.”
“For the first time in my life, I’ve recently had to make a choice between groceries or some other expense,” he writes.
College student illustrates the problem with asking for personal stories tossed in over e-mail transom. Maybe “Tom Servo’s” story is true. And maybe he just wanted to see the name in print, a laff riot at the dorm.
It does not impeach the story — one that’s dire — but it doesn’t help. And just because a lot of people might not know “Tom Servo” …
“Generics and store brands have replaced Tillamook cheese, Boar’s Head meats and Laura Scudder’s peanut butter,” writes the Yahoo journalist, on an upper middle class person’s shopping list, now that they’re on foodstamps.
It is, perhaps, not the way most would or could have phrased it.
The pictures of the disgruntled in their new jungle homes are worth thousands of words. The destination is Nicaragua, which not so long ago, geologically speaking, was a place of dangerous commies for these ex-voters. There, it is said by two, it will be possible to ride out a thermonuclear holocaust.
While the numbers of people are not particularly impressive, the mindset is now deadeningly familiar.
“Although Nicaragua hasn’t had good relationships with the US over the last three decades, it is a popular destination for US citizens,” it reads.
“I made it to Nicaragua … I don’t want to live in the US anymore … Obama ruins the country …Now I have my monkey, Cindy,” she says to NBC news.
“I earned good money in the US — $400,000 a year — I was a retail broker and I saw the crisis coming … We wanted to leave, we don’t like the politics of the US … Here is a safe place, safe for a nuclear war.”
“I don’t like the politics in the US and the cost of living is very high.”
As if the negative political ads aren’t enough, now a county judge in Lubbock, Texas, predicts possible “civil war” if President Obama is re-elected.
Judge Tom Head was on a local TV news show making his case for a tax increase, when he said hiring extra sheriff’s deputies would especially be needed if Obama wins in November …
“He’s going to try to hand over the sovereignty of the United States to the U.N., and what is going to happen when that happens?,” Head asked.
Readers again notice the mania of the John Bircher/Tea Party conspiracy belief that the UN will stage a takeover of the United States. Those who are not in the heevahava demographic know the UN is much like the old League of Nations, powerless except everyone can be in it.
“And we’re not just talking a few riots here and demonstrations, we’re talking Lexington, Concord, take up arms and get rid of the guy,” says the man from Texas.
Later, after the expected furor, he insisted it had been all taken out of context.
The presidency of Barack Obama has meant boom years for the Southern Poverty Law Center.
An influx started, the Reuters piece explains, during the Iraq war and before economic failure, when there was no great enthusiasm for getting maimed or blown up by IEDs and the Army had to relax its standards so they would be more forgiving to miscellaneous dirtbags. The story emphasizes, historically, that this is not particularly new.
“White supremacists, neo-Nazis and skinhead groups encourage followers to enlist in the Army and Marine Corps to acquire the skills to overthrow what some call the ZOG – the Zionist Occupation Government,” it reads. “Get in, get trained and get out to brace for the coming race war.”
The recent healing balm that is Ted Nugent:
Because our legislative, judicial and executive branches of government hold the 10th Amendment in contempt, I’m beginning to wonder if it would have been best had the South won the Civil War.
When they [the UN] talk about reducing unnecessary violence by eliminating small arms in the hands of citizens around the world, they’re talking about the same thing that Hitler talked about: Disarm the populace so you can control them at your every whim.
