April 2008 Archives

I read that Sam's Club and then Costco were starting to ration rice. I heard on NPR that the big discount grocers didn't want to raise prices, because they make their money mostly on memberships, and prefer to keep bulk prices low. Both insisted that they were merely trying to assure that all of their stores had enough rice for their customers and there was no real rice shortage in the United States, which produces 88% of its own rice. A friend in Oregon City, OR noticed last night that the shelf which usually holds rice in her local grocer was empty. Someone else asked how long Basmati white rice took to steam, after they bought it for the first time in ten years. Why were people panicking? Should I rush out and stockpile rice?

The rationing occurred at a time of rising energy prices, high fertilizer cost, financial speculation, drought in some rice producing regions and increasing demand. The price of certain types of rice rose 50% in just a few months' time, much harder to absorb in the poorest parts of the world than in the US. In our own hemisphere, in Haiti, more expensive rice sparked food riots that required government intervention to quell. There were food riots in Egypt, a general strike in Burkina Faso, and distribution by the military in the Philippines. Some countries banned exports, to keep more supply at home. Overall, prices rose 68% from baseline.

The World Bank warned recently that higher food prices could push 100 million people in poorer developing countries further into poverty. Robert Zoellick, head of the World Bank related the demand for ethanol and other biofuels to soaring food prices around the world. He held up a bag of rice during his press conference as he said, "In Bangladesh a two-kilogram bag of rice ... now consumes about half of the daily income of a poor family; the price of a loaf of bread ... has more than doubled. Poor people in Yemen are now spending more than a quarter of their incomes just on bread." He added that many people in the world were moving from one meal a day to two at a time when biofuels were expanding. (In the past two years, the price of corn more than doubled in the US, partly because of the demand for ethanol.) He projected that food prices would stay high or go higher over the next couple of years.

Salon asked my question: "Where has all the rice gone?," and suggested one possible alternative:

The suggested that corn price hikes could be attributed to biofuels and wheat increses to bad weather, but that world rice production was actually up so that the culprit may be primarily population growth and increased consumption. They further reported that the China-Africa Development Fund had pledged five billion dollars over the next fifty years for investment in African agriculture, specifically for rice production. That won't change rice prices much in the short term, but it shows that China is thinking ahead in promoting Africa as a next breadbasket for the world. We also need to plan carefully for biofuel expansion, and make sure that crops for eating aren't being pushed out too fast (and in the wrong places) in favor of ways to continue using far too much energy.

Doug Tarnapol from Free Expressions blog mused:

Upon Glancing at the Providence Journal Today...nowhere will you find word one about the international food crisis. Meanwhile, the "liberals" (not all, of course) are pushing biofuels: fill your tank with food from people's mouths, for the benefit of the Archer Daniels Midland Corp (not the "Jeffersonian farmer" Monsanto is currently suing out of existence for not paying for their naturally -- or intentionally -- dispersed, copyrighted GMOs). After the coming economic cataclysm (already here for most people), ya think people will finally rise up and overthrow the global neoliberal regime? Think Obama will lead that fight here in the US?

I think South America is the brightest spot, relatively speaking, in the world right now: they are pointing, messily, toward the only possible future for the species. (Example of "messy": Lula is pro-biofuels -- and not the non-edible kind, either. Even non-edible biofuels will displace all other crops due to rising demand, and not just in the US/EU but in India, China, everywhere.) Basically, if we, the species, do not rein in our consumption, we are in for a Malthusian "correction" that will literally rival the Black Plague. Yet, readers of the New York Times, a.k.a., "the people that matter," think they can buy their way out of any crisis.

Oh, but ProJo is all over the big story of the pie thrown at Tom "How Much Blood Is On My Hands?" Friedman. Should have been a brick, in my opinion: we should send that tub of propagandistic lard over to India to try farming in view of the wonderful laboratories and golf courses he loves so. With any luck, he'll join the thousands of farmers who have committed suicide under the "flat-earth" policies he's been touting. When will people finally realize that the Owners consider us the enemy, and act accordingly?

To which I replied with this quote:

'We are grateful to the Washington Post, the NY Times, Time Magazine, and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost 40 years. It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But now the world is more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supra national sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries.'

David Rockefeller, Private Banker, Council on Foreign Relations, June 1991...

So just how bad is it out there?

Airline companies are dropping like flies. According to one news report, Southwest Airlines is going to replace its jet fleet with shuttle buses:

"The future is now," announced Southwest CEO Gary Kelly, gesturing to a 30-foot bus painted in the company's signature red, yellow, and blue. "With these amazing new buses, traveling from New York to Los Angeles takes as little as three days. That's less than half the time it took passengers to get there on our old planes."

Ok, ok, that report did run in The Onion.

But I repeat: just how bad is it out there?

My friends, the global economy is getting so bad that the giant (78,000 employees) German Deutsche Bank has been forced to tighten up its operations: corporate executives will no longer be able to write off their visits to prostitutes on their expense accounts! And the execs are going to have to dip into their pockets to pay for TV porn in their hotel suites! The horror!

From the official memo from management at the bank:

“Deutsche Bank does not approve of any adult entertainments and such expenditures will not be reimbursed.”

Well damn.

If cutting off these frisky bank executives counts as belt-tightening in the face of the subprime meltdown, how much could this change help the bank's bottom line? (For the mathematically inclined, here's a little word problem: assuming Spitzer rates--$4,000/hour--how many one-hour "visits" would 1,000 Deutsche Bank execs have to make to cost the bank $1 billion?)

I assume the bank memo is not a joke. Der Speigel broke this story, and it’s been picked up by major papers.

Meanwhile, Pennsylvania has come, and gone, and the Democratic primary campaign grinds on, which some may argue is yet another sign of just how bad things are out there.

What do you see when you look around the world? What is your favorite marker (like Deutsche Bank) that people are beginning, in however ridiculous a manner, to deal with our planet’s many mounting problems?

The countdown clock to Earth Day is running as I write this. Earth Day has been around since 1970 but there are a convergence of events which make awareness and action more urgent.

For me personally, I notice all this:
- We have our first snow in April this late in the year ever and our cherry trees and tulips are covered this morning (see photo).
- One of the younger workers at the hospital where I work brought in a recycling bin and sent out an email that she would personally collect and turn in our recyclable items. Previously, they had gone unsorted straight to the landfill.
- Another volunteered last weekend at the Green Festival in Seattle, which I also attended.
- Two nights ago a nutritionist we know staged a one-woman show called the Food Folly Follies in which she used theatrical production to encourage consumption of Whole Foods.
- I recently agreed to work on the Health Care platform for the Northwest Progressive Institute, and ended up reading far more than I anticipated on the environment. I want to do more, starting with my own life and family.

Al Gore's new slideshow:

It seems that everything is interrelated, but people need to connect these dots to take action. Then they realize that their choices are related to outcomes they assumed were beyond their control or separate from themselves and their lives. It's election year and the issues are interconnected as well. Wars are not about terror, but over the inability to share shrinking resources that we should no longer be dependent on. Neither are the economy and the war separate issues, nor can "international" and "domestic" affairs be easily separated. It is no coincidence that we are in recession and simultaneously sunk in a quagmire.

Take an issue, such as healthcare costs, which can be related to poorly distributed food, poor quality nutrition, lack of good education about choices, and misprioritized budgeting. Then there is a tie in with cost of petroleum for trucking and availability of labor. These factors relate directly to globalization and foreign policy. It's hard to think of a problem that could not be traced back somehow to mismanagement of the resources on our planet.

Earth Day reminds us that we have to get our act together, for our own survival.

Earth Day grew out of a conference in 1969 in Seattle, where US Senator Gaylord Nelson announced that in the spring of 1970 there would be a nationwide grassroots demonstration on the environment. That marked the birth of the modern environmental movement and is celebrated on April 22 each year. 1970 brought the Kent State shootings, the advent of fiber optics, Apollo 13, the Beatles last album, the death of Jimi Hendrix and the meltdown of fuel rods in the Savannah River. We still used leaded gas.

For the original Earth Day, 20 million Americans took to the streets, parks and auditoriums to demonstrate for a healthy, sustainable environment. Denis Hayes, the national coordinator, worked with John Kerry on this project (I was thrilled to see them greet each other at a book reading last year.) 200 million people in 141 countries were mobilized that day.

Earth Day in 1990 gave a boost to recycling efforts worldwide. The 1992 United Nations Earth Summit was held in Rio de Janeiro. Earth Day in 2000 (with Denis Hayes coordinating again), focussed on global warming and clean energy. Internet activists linked up globally and got 5000 environmental groups on board, reaching out to hundreds of millions in 184 countries. Hundreds of thousands gathered at the National Mall in Washington DC.

Earth Day 2007 involved an estimated 1,000,000,000 people with activities in Kiev, Caracas, Tuvalu, Maila, Togo, Madrid, London, New York and more.

Earth Day Network’s international network reaches over 17,000 organizations in 174 countries now, and the US program includes over 5000 groups and 25,000 educators. Earth Day is on a Tuesday this year, but many of the events to commemorate and further it will have happened on Sunday April 20.

EarthDay.net has alot of information about Earth Day events, which across the globe will have involved 1,000,000,000 people, give or take a few.

In the US Green Apple has organized for festivals in eight cities, including Washington DC, New York, Miami, Chicago, Denver, Dallas, Los Angeles and San Francisco. The concerts are free with fantastic lineups in landmark parks, with music, art and educational programs. Approximately half a million people will have attended these events.

Artists:
The Roots & Friends (featuring Doug E. Fresh, Ne-Yo, Talib Kweli, will.i.am Chrisette Michele and more) • Los Lonely Boys • O.A.R. Acoustic • The Neville Brothers • Ziggy Marley (Solo Acoustic) • Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder • Thievery Corporation • Mickey Hart's Mass Drums (featuring Jon Fishman, Tommy Lee and More!) • Taj Mahal • Gov't Mule • Umphrey's McGee • Big Head Todd & The Monsters • Menudo • Arrested Development • Meshell Nedegeocello • Martin Sexton and more.

Twenty seven years have passed since the first Earth Day. We face Global climate change. There isn't a day that goes by that we don't hear news stories about lead in toys or lipstick, e coli or hormones or Mad Cow disease in meat, gas prices, giant chunks of ice breaking off and increasing water temperatures, or (in some countries) food riots. In the US, we have an obesity epidemic, forty five million with no health insurance, and a dramatic increase in conditions such as autism. We have had two environmentalists nearly become President, in the face of a dominant power structure that is in bed with the oil industry giants. We all remember hearing the term "environmental wacko" or that the environment was a "sexy" issue, not something worthy of being seriously focussed on. We now see where this has led.

One of the biggest Earth Day events this year is April 20 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I heard on the morning of April 19 that Buenos Aires, which means "Clean Air," is consumed in sickly smoke resembling carbon monoxide, because the winds have turned toward the city when croplands are being burnt to make room for grazing cattle. What a supreme irony, as Buenos Aires has 13 million inhabitants.

We are all probably using those funny little flourescant bulbs and recycling, and we know all about the oil wars. My personal resolution is to find more ways to eat locally, to cut down on the use of fossil fuels in trucking and shipping foods in. It is not necessary to be able to eat strawberries all year. It is too costly for the planet.

I am going to list more resources for places to start, for ideas for how to do more.

World Wildlife
Plant a Billion Trees
National Environmental Education
Earth Day
Earth Day.Gov (not very impressive)
Earth 911
Earth Site
EarthDay envirolink
International Earth site
EarthDay Wildernes
EarthShare
Keep American Beautiful
Network EarthDay
(I haven't even scratched the surface. Also, there are two Earth Days, as you can find out on Wikipedia. They are both held in the spring. The United Nations celebrates Earth Day, which was founded by John McConnell in 1969, each year on the March equinox,.)

We have been doing a lot of traveling lately, and I am about to go off to Brazil (OFF-Deep Woods in hand), where it has been raining for about 100 days straight it seems. The mosquitos are feasting on humans and sharing dengue fever microbes, especially in the poorest sections of the city of Rio. The situation could have been better handled by the powers-that-be, but we understand how that doesn't work well, don't we? A little forethought, some early interventions, and the situation might not be so dire.

Meanwhile, spending so much time on the New Jersey Turnpike offers many opportunities to listen in on the national conversations. I don't know what you are hearing, but it does feel to me like people do not really want to hear from either of the Dem. candidates right now. Pennsylvania aside, it feels like most have made up their minds and just want it to be over. The Democratic primary process feels like a party that has gone on way too long, everyone has moved on, and those whose party is yet to come would be happy to skip it and just friggin' vote already.

You may be wondering why Richard and I have not been around much lately. (You may wonder why others are not either, but we cannot speak for them!) We are selling our house. Richard has been spending a lot of time supervising painting, a new stove installation, and some repairs, and he has been packing up boxes, separating those items we are selling or giving away from those we are keeping. (NOTE: We are keeping too many items. This has been a point of much discussion and some contention, but it will all get sorted out in the end: we have a storage unit. That which does not fit, goes.). The house goes on the market in a few days, and we are counting on the location, not to mention the new paint, landscaping, and lack of clutter, to move this sale along.

We are selling our house because we have decided to do a certain amount of de-privileging. After spending ten years here, raising our kids and working for peace and justice, we have come to the end of a road. Our kids are off on their own and we are off to an uncertain, but less encumbered future.

De-privileging is a process of consciously shedding a number of items:

*extra-fancy clothing we know we won't need because we are not going to those parties anymore, ever again, please God

*furniture and gew-gaws that someone gave us only we can no longer remember who or why

*The books. Here is the contentious part, although to his credit, Richard has called in used books sellers and has put out a number of books on the sidewalk, where only my college geography textbook and the diaries of Harold MacMillan still sit, waiting for the right person to walk by and take them to their new home...

*expectations. We are shedding expectations, like we are shedding old sweaters.

To those of you who have felt privileged to share this house with us at times past, know that we are not shedding you or the memories we all share. We hope this blog will continue and we can all continue to be the truth-tellers of our neighborhoods and communities.

We don't know yet to where we will move. I have at least one more year at the university, and Richard's work can be done anywhere, as he works almost exclusively online these days (when he is not packing boxes, anyway). We are thinking about a passive solar house, built into a hill, with a southern exposure, perhaps straw bale walls, a small carbon footprint, and a garden.

Just enough, not too much.

(Tip of the hat to Christy)

Obama has gone on record saying that as President he would ask his Attorney General to "immediately review the information that's already there" and decide whether officials in the Bush administration should be prosecuted for crimes they committed in office.

Obama's statement came in a reply to Philly Daily News reporter Will Bunch, who posted it on his blog.

Obama's statement, which I have pasted in below, is typically cautious, but at least one of the candidates is now committed to at least a preliminary investigation of the rampant criminality of the Bush regime.

I remain frustrated by Obama's obtuseness at refusing to simply tell us the truth, that there are already several clear-cut examples on the record of criminal actions by Bush and his staff, such as illegal wiretapping and the ordering and supervision of torture. So when Obama says that he's not interested in impeaching Bush because:

Diane's piece about the buying of the President got me thinking about what I have seen over the last 23 years following this subject, starting in the fall of 1985, when then Senator David Boren (D-OK) introduced legislation to limit PAC contributions. I was working at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee at the time, so I was hardly a disinterested bystander.

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Last week I wrote about the "Buying" of the President, that is, financing the election in a capitalistic country with weak controls on campaign spending. "Branding" of the President is about the imagery and icons used to "sell" the President. The "framing" of the message itself is important (consider the work of cognitive psychologist George Lakoff), and we see this now as we have multimillionaire candidates talking about who is "elitist" or "looks down on people." "Branding" has less to do with the message itself (though slogans such as "Experience" or "Change" can be incorporated if they are "short enough to fit on a bumper sticker") and more to do with the "visual" and perceptual image that a candidate and his campaign exude and become associated with, even subconsciously.

This article from International Herald Tribune compares the "branding" of the candidates, using Obama as an example of a "new brand," as his campaign has paid careful attention to visual identity and graphic design. I read the article and then paid a visit to the "store" at each candidate's website, with attention to iconography and image.

Most politicians play it safe. Hillary Clinton uses the familiar conservative style with serif typefaces and red, white and blue. A trip to the "store" at her website does show that she is also selling "Hillary" signature shirts in brown, as well as "Got Experience" shirts playing on the "Got Milk" idea. She seems to be using her full name again, following staffing changes, perhaps to individuate herself.

McCain tweaks tradition slightly with his choice of black, white and yellow and adds a military star so we remember his service, resulting in a relatively "macho" image. He can draw on his past and try to draw attention away from his age. His "store" has nothing flashy or extra, though he did have a green St. Patrick's shirt. He does also associate himself with Nascar and Budweiser (his wife is an Annheiser-Busch heir), to reinforce the "regular guy" image.

Obama moves into the Web 2.0 era but uses predominantly the conservative color of blue, to suggest experience, since he is attacked as being a newcomer. He adds a sunrise with the red stripes of the US flag at the base, but a communication of hope as well - a new dawn. Cool Gotham type is used, which people recognize from contemporary items such as organic food packaging but also associate with 1940s nostalgia, since that's when it was developed.

Obama's "store" is easy to find on his website, and items are frequently on "back order," including a hip poster by skateboarder turned political artist Shepard Fairey, This piece makes a sly reference to Fairey's "Obey" series, with Big Brother pieces which appeared in public spaces all over the world. This reference is also obscure to many people over thirty five, but Obama's campaign excels in reaching the young, with an overwhelming presence on FaceBook, MySpace and other social networking sites, and use of text messaging and other new technologies.

Hillary and McCain opt for consistent identities that look much the same anywhere. Obama chooses a "dynamic" identity that is recognizable but has variations depending on who he is talking to. His team customizes identities for states and groups, tucking symbols inside the "O" letter. Environmentalists have a green and yellow sunrise, kids have hand-drawn lettering, and so on. Obama also has the most items at Cafe Press, which are not official campaign merchandise, but are sold by supporters and/or entrepreneurs. Here you can find Hillary items which mimic "Rosie the Riveter," real and ironic McCain items (such as the boxers with McDonalds arch and a cane), and a multitude of Obama items. (The last three items are from Cafe Press, fairly randomly selected.)

Most of us probably vote based on substance and the issues, but "branding" is something we are exposed to every day of our lives, so probably plays at least subtly into our decision.

Here is a video of Chicago artist Ray Noland, making Obama street art.

(Note: This website does not endorse candidates)
For a discussion of the candidates' use of the internet and the style of their persona which is fascinating but a little beyond the scope of this article, go to "Only Connect" by Michael Hirschorn, in the new issue of Atlantic Monthly, which is not yet available on-line.

Last election, the Center for Public Integrity ran a series called "The Buying of the President." We are now hearing about fortunes and tax returns and watching the candidates tweak their "branding" during the primaries. Unprecedented hundreds of millions, truly obscene amounts of money, are gathered not just for phone banking and the newer internet candidate sites but for ads and tours that resemble those of rock stars. Combined expenditures for 2008 are set to reach at least a billion dollars. Buying of the President is the 2008 version from Center for Public Integrity.

Read the series at the link above -

Listen to the podcast ("The Longest Campaign") here or download the MP3

Part One: Early efforts to limit the influence of big money in presidential politics
Part Two: Scandals trigger reforms on a grand scale—and grand ways to evade them
Part Three: Watergate ushers in the most sweeping campaign-finance reforms in history
Part Four: A tidal wave of “soft money” washes through the biggest loophole in campaign-finance law
Part Five: A new breed of fat cats “bundles” billions to candidates as the federal campaign-finance system crumbles

Just this week, stories came out in the media about McCain's wife's hundreds of inherited millions, his situation with respect to his own campaign finance law, the impressive amounts raised by the Obama campaign primarily from small donors over the internet, and the $119 million the Clintons have pulled in since leaving the White House. Center for Public Integrity can be depended on to dig deeper.

They have two categories, Democrats and Republicans.

Here is an excerpt from Part Five of the series:

When President Bush ran for reelection in 2004 he again rejected the federal subsidy for the primaries, which would have been less than $20 million, and raised an astounding $269 million. The leading Democratic candidates aspiring to oppose him in the general election, former Governor Howard Dean of Vermont and Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, followed suit, knowing that the nominee would have to keep pace with Bush during the long run-up to the Democratic National Convention, when primary money could still be spent. Dean’s campaign imploded despite the $51 million he raised, and Kerry raised $234 million in winning his party’s nomination. Both he and Bush accepted the federal subsidy for the general election campaign, Kerry losing in November.

Until this astounding money race, the basic public-financing scheme set in place in the post-Watergate reforms had essentially worked. In 1986, a bipartisan commission co-chaired by former Democratic National Chairman Robert S. Strauss and former Nixon Secretary of Defense Melvin R. Laird reported that “public financing of presidential elections has clearly proved its worth in opening up the process, reducing the influence of individuals and groups, and virtually ending corruption in presidential election finance.”

But the failure to increase the levels of allowable contributions to deal with the rising costs of campaigns and an accelerated election process finally persuaded leading candidates to break from the fundraising limits. And bundling made it possible for them to raise such vast amounts that the federal subsidies they turned away seemed like small potatoes. The sky’s-the-limit strategy seems to have become the only way to survive and compete, although raising a large number of small donations on the Internet has boosted the campaigns of Howard Dean in 2004 and both Democrat Barack Obama and Republican Ron Paul in 2008.

If there is any prospect of deliverance from the wretched excess of money in presidential politics, it’s not likely to come before the 2012 election cycle, as the leading candidates in both parties this time around take pages from the hugely successful fundraising techniques and apparatus of George W. Bush in 2000, and his copycats in the Democratic Party in 2004, to raise ever higher the price tag attached to the buying of the president.

Today, forty years ago. I can't even remember when I heard; I think my boyfriend called me up. He was disgusted, I was in shock, we all were horrified. Two months later, it would happen again. That time, I know I called him. There were no words.

This morning, as we got into the car to drive to New York City, we turned on the radio. And we heard the words of Bobby Kennedy, candidate for President, tell a crowd of African-American voters in Indianapolis that Martin Luther King, Jr. had been shot and killed, earlier that evening, in Memphis, Tennessee.

LISTEN... We MUST listen.

He did not read the speech, he never looked down from the faces in the crowd. You can hear their shock and their screams of pain on the audio clip, but he never looked away from that pain. Instead, he stayed with them and reminded them:

For those of you who are black and are tempted to be filled with hatred and distrust at the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I can only say that I feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man. But we have to make an effort in the United States, we have to make an effort to understand, to go beyond these rather difficult times.

My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He wrote: "In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God."

He reminded himself, and all of us:

Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice for his fellow human beings, and he died because of that effort.

Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand and to comprehend, and to replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand with compassion and love.

There are no words to describe the sense of loss I feel today, as I listen to those words. Did we even know what we had back then, to inspire us to be better? We have, as a country, turned so radically away from what those two strong brave, CLEAR men reminded us about, over and over.

What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be black.

Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people.

Today, forty years later, I say a prayer for our country and our people, because we have failed to heed those words. The savageness of man has reached a level of civilized and institutionalized meanness of spirit that is unmatched historically, not in its violence and bloodshed, but in a smiling face which hides such indifference.

In honor of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, let us, for today, look into the faces of everyone we meet, and make gentle the life of this world.

Amen.

Every so often, a picture comes along that shakes you to the core of your being, a picture that so completely captures some deep, suppressed reality that once you have seen it, the image will never leave your mind again as long as your can remember anything.

The picture above is one of those pictures for me.

I digress to one of my favorite bug-a-boos, capitalism, in its current globalized incarnation, the full-bore, Milton Friedman/Chicago Boys, markets are the answer to everything version which the powerful (and rich) of the U.S. have foisted off on us since the election of Ronald Reagan--during which time wages have largely stagnated, and the gap between the rich and poor has grown ever larger.

Defenders of capitalism and unfettered markets claim there is an inherent morality in the operation of this system, that the unregulated "invisible hand" of the market leads to greater good (defined entirely in terms of goods and services that can be assigned monetary value) than any other system.

But look at the picture above if you want to see what we have wrought since Reagan took office.

The process we are looking at is a step in the manufacture of one of the most important drugs in the world, heparin, a life-saving blood thinner used in surgery and dialysis. And where does heparin come from? Turns out, it's produced from the mucous membranes from the intestines of pigs.

And American drug companies, in their pursuit of lower production costs, now buy a great deal of the heparin from China.

Even in the United States, where there is, on paper, the pretense of regulatory oversight of some industrial practices, companies get away for years with horrendous, public-health threatening operations, like the meat-processing company that was recently caught using forklifts to shove cows who could no longer stand (a possible indication of Mad Cow syndrome) into the slaughter line to be fed to our kids in school lunch programs.

But in China, there's effectively no oversight at all--not by the United States, and not by the government of China.

The photo above shows what happens when you turn the market loose: standing at a filthy sink a worker cooks up several pots of pig intestines in a family-owned workshop. The product of this shop then flows through the hands of some number of intermediaries, until it ends up in a vat at a Chinese company from whom Baxter International, the American drug company, bought what was delivered to American hospitals as heparin. And somewhere along the way, someone as yet unidentified slipped another chemical into the mix, something that looked rather like heparin in unsophisticated tests. Something that finally got the FDA's attention after 19 deaths and hundreds of severe allergic reactions.

No one with even a scintilla of concern for the lives of fellow human beings can look at this picture of industrial depravity and not want to slaughter the American corporate criminals who have been allowing these contaminated products into our bodies at the very time when we were looking for healing.

What is even more infuriating is how many people and organizations are damned by this picture. At every step of the way, not a single person ever stopped to ask, how do we know that this product is safe? No doctor? No FDA official? No member of Congress? No member of any of the multitude of scientific bodies that advise the president? No medical journal?
Oh right, "the market" delivered the stuff, and surely no company would want to risk the liabilities involved in marketing a poisonous product to the America people?

No wonder corporations hate trial lawyers as much as they do. Without the occasional lawsuit, we would know virtually nothing about many corporate criminal activities. And even when we do, the villains rarely suffer. Life without parole would be far too sweet for everyone involved in the tobacco industry's decades-long campaign of lies, and yet their executives walk among us as free men, even after lying through their teeth under oath before Congress.

And as this heparin example shows, the amount of corporate criminality far exceeds all but the most "paranoid" of imaginations. And who's to say who's a paranoid, if we keep learning that our government and the corporations that own it are perfectly happy to make products that kill us, as long as not too many of us die in a given time period and blow their game.

Insanity. I look at this picture, and the full insanity of what passes for mainstream media/public school education reality hits me so hard I can barely breath. We are in the hands of madmen--from the criminals in the White House, with their aiding and abetting of corporate crime, illegal pre-emptive wars, and assaults on the Constitution, to the criminals in the boardrooms of corporations who, actively or passively, are willing to see ordinary citizens be sickened or even die until the bodies pile up high enough to threaten profits.