Confronting American Nightmares

A dozen tsunamis are rushing toward the American shoreline as the great American consumer fills its mind with Black Friday sales on Chinese plastic. As a citizen that has partially broken free from the brainwashing corporate consumerism propaganda, I have trouble sleeping at night because our collective future is so deeply endangered. Our current societal design is completely unsustainable, and drastic systematic changes will imminently be forced upon us for mere survival.

Among the crises that keep me awake at night, many of them will be easy to alleviate once reality becomes increasingly blinding in clarity.

One of the greatest nightmares for the conscious citizen is war and mass killing that the government conducts in our name. In addition to over 700 costly foreign military bases, we are engaged in multitrillion dollar wars for corporate profit and are spending over $1 trillion per year on military “security.” This fear-sustained spending exceeds that of the rest of the world combined, and the consequent retaliatory hatred and economic damage warrants renaming the Department of War to the Department of Insecurity. Ending these counterproductive policies will become easy.

Eliminating weapons of mass destruction, mines, depleted uranium, cluster bombs and other civilian-slaughtering weapons globally, and especially at home will also become straightforward.

Ending our massive $12 trillion national debt by reinstating Republican President Eisenhower’s tax rate on the superwealthy, and by slashing gratuitous military spending will also become easy.

Eliminating massive corruption and corporate profiteering from our healthcare system will also be simple when single-payer is finally realized.

Saving and improving democracy from corporate plutocratic rule will also become easy once we abolish commercial mind control and indoctrination into the Church of Mindless Consumerism.

Dealing with global warming will also be relatively simple once we begin seriously transitioning to a wise, conservation-minded, energy efficient, and solarized economy. Saving the rainforest from insatiable appetites for beef will also help.

Slowly reviving and conserving massively depleted global fishing stocks will also be accomplished, but with inferior gene pools.

Stabilizing the unsustainable global human population with a humane two child policy encouraged through education, contraception, and other incentives will be simple too.

However, the nightmare that keeps me awake all night is that of petrochemical-based agriculture. A whistleblower from the International Energy Agency recently said we have reached peak oil, and U.S. officials have been pressuring a distortion of the figures. Even with distortion, it is estimated we will reach peak oil in the next decade or two.

This means oil prices will skyrocket way past the $4 per gallon record. The cost of fossil fuel-based fertilizer and pesticides will also increase drastically, and unsustainable petrochemical agriculture will eventually die.

Considering that food is our most vital necessity after water, this is the most serious problem. How are we going to feed our massive and growing global population? There are ideas about how to do so, but compared to the other solutions, they will not be easy.

Agriculture Policy Discussion

This is a discussion about the oncoming food security crisis America and the planet will be facing as we reach peak oil, and petroleum based agriculture ends. This is arguably the gravest security risk and challenge we face because food is our most vital necessity. Please watch.

Economic Policy Discussion

This is a discussion on economic policy, national debt, Wall St. bailouts, military spending, peak oil, tax policy, U.S. reserve currency flight, etc.

Israeli Policy protest

http://nwahomepage.com/content/fulltext_news/?cid=130591#at
http://www.4029tv.com/video/21445582/index.html
http://www.kfsm.com/news/kfsm-news-nwa-ehud-olmert-israel-speech-protest,0,6728903.story

Policy discussion on drug war/clean energy

This is a discussion on the issues of clean energy and the drug war

Policy discussion on Healthcare

This is my Youtube political channel where I will be posting videos of my new cable access show OMNI Vision, as well as other political videos. This one is about healthcare and more.

Nothing Else Matters

Oil. It causes wars, dictatorships, pollution, sickness, cancer, and it will be the greatest national security threat America has ever faced. I am not even speaking of global warming, but something easier to understand and imminently dangerous.

Oil is a limited nonrenewable resource, and we will be running on empty in the near future. The American empire reached peak oil in the 1970s, and our domestic production declined ever since, causing a corresponding dependency on foreign oil from unstable dictatorships in the Middle East.

Not only has cheap, easily accessible oil been drying up for America, but a recent report by the British government indicates global peak oil may be reached in the next decade or two. Sure, a few large oil fields are discovered every couple years, but these finds are drops in the bucket compared to the immense and growing international consumption.

We will very likely see gas soaring toward $10 per gallon in the near future. Our central national priority must include finding ways to reduce consumption, increase efficiency, find alternatives and conserve the remaining fuel for imperative transitional energy to a sustainable, clean energy future with solar as the dominant source.

Not only would gas near $10 per gallon hurt individuals directly, drastically impacting our economy in obvious ways, but this cost would vastly increase the cost of oil-subsidized food production. In addition to consumption of millions of gallons of oil for our most essential necessity, we rely on millions of gallons of fertilizer and pesticides produced from nonrenewable fossil fuel that will soon become exorbitantly costly. Additionally, all the countless plastic products, chemical drugs, artificial food additives and household materials made from petrochemicals will eventually become incredibly more expensive.

What will we do? For our children to survive, we must immediately transform toward a sustainable food system. We waste billions subsidizing unsustainable, monopolized corporate factory farms and agrichemical industries that produce the unhealthiest foods, which also increases critical healthcare costs. Instead, we must subsidize smaller, localized, sustainable, healthier and environmentally wise farms. We also need to deeply invest in non-petrochemical alternatives, such as advanced plant breeding, organic fertilizers and advanced water conservation technologies.

Because our incompetent government is ignoring this extreme national security threat, and the potentially dark future increasingly promised for our children, I am strongly considering a second campaign for U.S. Congress. Unfortunately, I do not have the wealth or elite connections to run as a major party candidate. I am also morally opposed to taking campaign donations from lobbyists of dangerous and unethical corporations that are diametrically opposed to democracy and the public interest.

Unlike the cowardly, self-interested political shapeshifting from “professional” Blue Dog politicians, I will take only one principled position, and that is fearless representation of the Public Interest and the Public Good, not elite private interests on Wall Street.

Please google Crude Awakening and please God, help Homo sapiens survive the extreme global security threat of the oil crash.

Corporations Violated Clean Water Act Over 500,000 Times in Last Five Years

NYT Investigation Exposes Severity of Nationwide Water Contamination; Corporations Violated Clean Water Act Over 500,000 Times in Last Five Years
Duhiggarticle-web

A major investigation by the New York Times has found that chemical companies have violated the Clean Water Act more than 500,000 times in the last five years. Most of the violations have gone unpunished, with state regulators taking significant action in just three percent of all cases. An estimated one in ten Americans has been exposed to drinking water that has dangerous chemicals or falls short of federal standards. We speak with Charles Duhigg, the New York Times reporter who carried out the investigation. [includes rush transcript]

HACKING DEMOCRACY (Corruptible Electronic Voting Documentary)

Electronic voting machines count about 87% of the votes cast in America today. But are they reliable? Are they safe from tampering? From a current congressional hearing to persistent media reports that suggest misuse of data and even outright fraud, concerns over the integrity of electronic voting are growing by the day. And if the voting process is not secure, neither is America's democracy. The timely, cautionary documentary HACKING DEMOCRACY exposes gaping holes in the security of America's electronic voting system.

In the 2000 presidential election, an electronic voting machine recorded minus 16,022 votes for Al Gore in Volusia County, Fla. While fraud was never proven, the faulty tally alerted computer scientists, politicians and everyday citizens to the very real possibility of computer hacking during elections.

In 2002, Seattle grandmother and writer Bev Harris asked officials in her county why they had acquired electronic touch screen systems for their elections. Unsatisfied with their explanation, she set out to learn about electronic voting machines on her own. In the course of her research, which unearthed hundreds of reported incidents of mishandled voting information, Harris stumbled across an "online library" of the Diebold Corporation, discovering a treasure trove of information about the inner-workings of the company's voting system.

Harris brought this proprietary "secret" information to computer security expert Dr. Avi Rubin of Johns Hopkins University, who determined that the software lacked the necessary security features to prevent tampering. Her subsequent investigation took her from the trash cans of Texas to the secretary of state of California and finally to Florida, where a "mini-election" to test the vulnerability of the memory cards used in electronic voting produced alarming results.

As the scope of her mission grew, Harris drew on the expertise of other computer- science experts, politicians and activists, among them: Andy Stephenson, candidate for secretary of state in Washington state; Susan Bernecker, Republican candidate in New Orleans; Kathleen Wynne, an activist from Cleveland; Dr. Herbert Thompson, chief security strategist, Security Innovation, Inc.; Ion Sancho, supervisor of elections for Leon County, Fla.; and Harri Hursti, a computer-security analyst. Academics, public officials and others seen in interview footage include: Deanie Lowe, supervisor of elections, Volusia County, Fla.; Mark Radke, marketing director of Diebold; David Cobb, presidential candidate, Green Party; and Rep. Stephanie Tubbs-Jones of Ohio.

Diebold software, or other software like it, is installed in thousands of counties across 32 states. David Dill, professor of computer science at Stanford, says the problem is that there are "lots of people involved in writing the software, and lots of people who could have touched the software before it went into that machine. If one of those people put something malicious in the software and it's distributed to all the machines, then that one person could be responsible for changing tens of thousands of votes, maybe even hundreds of thousands, across the country."

In Florida, Leon County supervisor of elections Ion Sancho presided over a trial "mini-election" to see if the vote could be hacked without being detected. Before votes were actually cast, computer analyst Harri Hursti "stuffed the ballot box" by entering votes on the computer's memory card. Then, after votes were cast, the results displayed when the same memory card was entered in the central tabulating program indicated that fraud was indeed possible. In other words, by accessing a memory card before an election, someone could change the results - a claim Diebold had denied was possible.

Ultimately, Bev Harris' research proved that the top-secret computerized systems counting the votes in America's public elections are not only fallible, but also vulnerable to undetectable hacking, from local school board contests to the presidential race. With the electronic voting machines of three companies - Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia - collectively responsible for around 80 percent of America's votes today, the stakes for democracy are high.

One of the executive producers of HACKING DEMOCRACY is Sarah Teale, whose previous HBO credits include "Dealing Dogs" and "Bellevue: Inside Out."

HACKING DEMOCRACY was directed by Simon Ardizzone and Russell Michaels; produced by Simon Ardizzone, Robert Carrillo Cohen and Russell Michaels; executive producers, Earl Katz, Sarah Teale and Sian Edwards; edited by Sasha Zik. For HBO: supervising producer, John Hoffman; executive producer, Sheila Nevins.

Over 100 Million Americans Have Smoked Marijuana -- And It's Still Illegal?

Over 100 Million Americans Have Smoked Marijuana -- And It's Still Illegal?

By Paul Armentano, NORML. Posted September 10, 2009.

41 percent of the U.S. population say they've tried cannabis at least once in their lives, 10 percent say they've used it in the last year.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has once again released their annual survey on “drug use and health” — you know, the one where representatives of the federal government go door-to-door and ask Americans if they are presently breaking state and federal law by using illicit drugs. The same survey where respondents have historically under reported their usage of alcohol and tobacco — these two legal substances — by as much as 30 to 50 percent, and arguably under report their use of illicit substances by an even greater margin. The same survey that — despite these inherent limitations — “is the primary source of statistical information on the use of illegal drugs by the U.S. population.” Yeah, that one.

So what does the government’s latest round of ’statistical (though highly questionable) information’ tell us? Nothing we didn’t already know.

Despite 70+ years of criminal prohibition, marijuana still remains widely popular among Americans, with over 102 million Americans (41 percent of the U.S. population) having used it during their lifetimes, 26 million (10 percent) having used it in the past year, and over 15 million (6 percent) admitting that they use it regularly. (By contrast, fewer than 15 percent of adults have ever tried cocaine, the second most ‘popular’ illicit drug, and fewer than 2 percent have ever tried heroin — so much for that supposed ‘gateway effect.’) Predictably, all of the 2008 marijuana use figures are higher than those that were reported for the previous year — great work John Walters!

Equally predictably, the government’s long-standing prohibition and anti-pot ’scare’ campaigns have done little, if anything, to dissuade young people from trying it. According to the survey, 15 percent of those age 14 to 15 have tried pot (including 12 percent in the past year), as have 31 percent of those age 16 to 17 (a quarter of which have done so in the past year) — percentages that make marijuana virtually as popular as alcohol among these age groups. By age 20, 45 percent of adolescents have tried pot, and nearly a third of those age 18 to 20 have done so in the past year. And by age 25, 54 percent of the population has admittedly used marijuana.

Question: Does anyone still believe that marijuana prohibition is working — or that all of these people deserve to be behind bars?.....

This Isn’t Reform, It’s Robbery

Published on Monday, August 24, 2009 by TruthDig.com

This Isn’t Reform, It’s Robbery

by TruthDig.com

by Chris Hedges

Percentage change since 2002 in average premiums paid to large US health-insurance companies: +87%

Percentage change in the profits of the top ten insurance companies: +428%

Chances that an American bankrupted by medical bills has health insurance: 7 in 10

—Harper’s Index, September 2009

Capitalists, as my friend Father Michael Doyle says, should never be allowed near a health care system. They hold sick children hostage as they force parents to bankrupt themselves in the desperate scramble to pay for medical care. The sick do not have a choice. Medical care is not a consumable good. We can choose to buy a used car or a new car, shop at a boutique or a thrift store, but there is no choice between illness and health. And any debate about health care must acknowledge that the for-profit health care industry is the problem and must be destroyed. This is an industry that hires doctors and analysts to deny care to patients in order to increase profits. It is an industry that causes half of all bankruptcies. And the 20,000 Americans who died last year because they did not receive adequate care condemn these corporations as complicit in murder.

The current health care debate in Congress has nothing to do with death panels or public options or socialized medicine. The real debate, the only one that counts, is how much money our blood-sucking insurance, pharmaceutical and for-profit health services are going to be able to siphon off from new health care legislation. The proposed plans rattling around Congress all ensure that the profits for these corporations will increase and the misery for ordinary Americans will be compounded. The corporate state, enabled by both Democrats and Republicans, is yet again cannibalizing the Treasury. It is yet again pushing Americans, especially the poor and the working class, into levels of despair and rage that will continue to fuel the violent, proto-fascist movements leaping up around the edges of American society. And the traditional watchdogs—those in public office, the press and citizens groups—are as useless as the perfumed fops of another era who busied their days with court intrigue at Versailles. Canada never looked so good.

The Democrats are collaborating with lobbyists for the insurance industry, the pharmaceutical industry and for-profit health care providers to craft the current health care reform legislation. “Corporate and industry players are inside the tent this time,” says David Merritt, project director at Newt Gingrich’s Center for Health Transformation [1], “so there is a vacuum on the outside.” And these lobbyists have already killed a viable public option and made sure nothing in the bills will impede their growing profits and capacity for abuse.

“It will basically be a government law that says you have to buy their defective product,” says Dr. David Himmelstein, a professor at Harvard Medical School and a founder of Physicians for a National Health Plan [2]. “Next the government will tell us a Pinto in every garage, a lead-coated toy to every child and melamine-laced puppy chow for every dog.”

“Health insurance is not a race to the top; it is a race to the bottom,” he told me from Cambridge, Mass. “The way you make money is by abusing people. And if a public-option plan is not ready and willing to abuse patients it is stuck with the expensive patients. The premiums will go up until it is noncompetitive. The conditions that have now been set for the plans include a hobbled public option. Under the best-case scenario there will be tens of millions [who] will remain uninsured at the outset, and the number will climb as more and more people are priced out of the insurance market.”.....

Countdown-The Nation's Jeremy Scahill on Blackwater chief Eric Prince's deep troubles

Countdown-The Nation's Jeremy Scahill on Blackwater chief Eric Prince's deep troubles

Source: www.youtube.com

http://firedoglake.com

In Explosive Allegations, Ex-Employees Link Blackwater Founder to Murder, Threats

In Explosive Allegations, Ex-Employees Link Blackwater Founder to Murder, Threats

Source: www.democracynow.org

In sworn statements, two ex-employees claim Blackwater's owner, Erik Prince, murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals cooperating with federal authorities investigating the company.

By Year’s End, Benefit Lifeline to End for 1.5 Million Jobless - NYTimes.com

By Year’s End, Benefit Lifeline to End for 1.5 Million Jobless - NYTimes.com

Source: www.nytimes.com

Tens of thousands of workers have used up their benefits, and the numbers are expected to soar in the months to come.

FRONTLINE: sick around america: watch the full program | PBS

FRONTLINE: sick around america: watch the full program | PBS

Source: www.pbs.org

As the worsening economy leads to massive job losses—potentially forcing millions more Americans to go without health insurance—FRONTLINE travels the country examining the nation's broken health care system and explores the need for a fundamental overhaul. ...

Blue Dogs are Extremists

Blue Dogs are Extremists

It is apparent that the medical-insurance-drug complex owns our government. America spends twice as much per capita on healthcare as other developed nations, yet fails to cover one-sixth of our population. We currently spend $2.4 trillion annually, and around $800 billion derives from waste for private health insurance bureaucracies. Why does America sustain such a corrupt, inefficient system?

It is because superwealthy owners of medical corporations wish to maintain massive profits. Their racket functions by pocketing “conservative” politicians through funding their multi-million dollar campaigns. Most Republicans, like John Boozman, are privately owned and will never vote to end the medical complex scam, and “conservative” Democrats are equally problematic.

As economist Paul Krugman recently noted, “Blue Dogs are basically...nothing but corporate tools, defending special interests.” Blue Dogs, particularly our Arkansas delegation, have been leading the fight against public insurance reform. This is unsurprising if one follows the money. Mike Ross, considered a #1 obstacle to reform, has heavy financial ties to insurance and drug companies, as do most “conservatives.”

Recent news reports have been calling Blue Dogs like Mike Ross "moderates" or "centrists," but these labels are misleading the public to believe their positions are mainstream when they are not.

In fact, 72 percent of the nation supports public health insurance, so Republicans and Blue Dogs are radically right of the public. Progressive Democrats like Dennis Kucinich are actually the true moderates most accurately reflecting the public interest.

If Arkansas wants public healthcare reform, among other genuine solutions, voters must reject extremist Blue Dog Republicans in all elections. Please join me in calling for the Democratic Party to field progressive Democratic candidates, or vote Green.