"Frank Schaeffer" - Michele Bachmann Was Inspired By My Dad and His Christian Reconstructionist Friends -- Here's Why That's Terrifying

By Frank Schaeffer, AlterNet
Posted on August 9, 2011, Printed on August 10, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/151960/michele_bachmann_was_inspired_by_my_dad_and_his_christian_reconstructionist_friends_--_here%27s_why_that%27s_terrifying

As presidential candidate Michele Bachmann chews up scenery in the GOP primaries, the mainstream media is finally digging into her extremist beliefs in a serious way. In a profile published earlier this week, the New Yorker's Ryan Lizza talked about Bachmann's radical right-wing influences, which include the most extremist figures in the history of the religious right movement.

One of these was my evangelical leader father, Francis Schaeffer. Bachmann says in the New Yorker article that she got into politics because she watched a film series I directed called “How Should We Then Live,” written by and featuring my dad. 

What the New Yorker article doesn’t do is explain why people like Bachmann, Sarah Palin, et al. turned to the hard reactionary anti-government right. I explain this in my book Sex, Mom and God. I think it’s important to understand this. So let me add what the New Yorker left out.

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Council for Responsible Genetics: Monsanto enters into market for fresh sweet corn

Council for Responsible Genetics, 8 August 2011

http://www.councilforresponsiblegenetics.org/blog/post/Monsanto-enters-into-market-for-fresh-sweet-corn.aspx

Monsanto Co. is expanding its reach -– into the grocery store's produce aisle.

The company said it plans to launch this fall a genetically modified sweet corn seed for farmers to grow. The corn, once ripe, would be harvested and then be carried in grocery stores in the U.S. and Canada.

Though biotech sweet corn is already sold in many grocery stores in California and across the country, the news marks the first time the St. Louis-based biotech giant has rolled out a product for a consumer-oriented food that has been genetically altered to let farmers spray their fields with Monsanto's Roundup herbicide.

Like farmers who grow corn for animal feed or fuel, the farmers who raise sweet corn are interested in        using Monsanto’s glyphosate to battle weeds and insects, said Consuelo Madere, the company’s vice president of its global vegetable business.

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Paul Craig Roberts: The Standard and Poor's (S&P) Debt Downgrade -- What It Means From AAA to AA+

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts

Global Research, August 8, 2011

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25941

On Friday, August 5, the credit rating agency, Standard & Poor's, downgraded US debt from AAA to AA+.

Gerald Celente’s view that S&P’s downgrade of the US Treasury’s credit rating reflects a loss of confidence in the political system was confirmed by the rating agency itself. S&P explained the downgrade as the result of heightened political risks, not economic ones. The game of chicken over the debt ceiling increase and the GOP’s ability to block tax increases indicate that “America’s governance and policymaking is becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable”

The reduction in the government’s credit rating to AA+ from AAA is a cosmetic change. It remains a very high investment grade rating and is unlikely to have any effect on interest rates. It is revealing that despite the downgrade, US bond prices rose. It was stocks that fell. The financial press is blaming the stock market decline on the bond downgrade. However, stocks are falling because the economy is falling. Too many jobs have been moved offshore.

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James Galbraith: The Bad Deal

Published on Monday, August 8, 2011 by Deutsche Welle (Germany)

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,15295143,00.html

The debt agreement should finally make clear to Europeans that Barack Obama is not the progressive President they had hoped for. Instead, writes James K. Galbraith, he is a willful player in the Washington politics game.

by James K. Galbraith

Political news travels slowly, and in my casual observation progressive Europeans have held on to the myth of Barack Obama as a good man much longer than most progressive Americans did. How could a young black American from Chicago and Harvard be otherwise?

Over here reality has been evident for a while, thanks to the President's pattern of giving way to banks, lobbies, Republicans and right-wing extremists. Whether your prime interest is housing, health care, peace, justice, jobs or climate change, if you are an activist in America you have known for a long time that this President is not your friend.

Still, even on these shores disillusion often took a mildly forgiving form. The President was a “disappointment.” He was weak. He had “bad negotiating skills.” He had a tendency to “deal with hostage-takers,” to “surrender.” All of this fed the image of a man with a noble spirit, a good heart, the best intentions, but trapped by limited ability and the relentless and reckless determination of his foes.

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A Proposed Amendment to Constitution

The 26th amendment (granting the right to vote for 18 year-olds) took only 3 months & 8 days to be ratified! Why? Simple! The people demanded it. That was in 1971...before computers, before e-mail, before cell phones, etc. 

Of the 27 amendments to the Constitution, seven (7) took 1 year or less to become the law of the land...all because of public pressure. 

I'm asking each addressee to forward this email to a minimum of twenty people on their address list; in turn ask each of those to do likewise. 

In three days, most people in The United States of America will have the message. This is one idea that really should be passed around. 

Congressional Reform Act of 2011 

1. No Tenure / No Pension. 
A Congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office. 

2. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security. 
All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people. It may not be used for any other purpose.

3. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do. 

4. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%. 

5. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people. 

6. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people. 

7. All contracts with past and present Congressmen are void effective 1/1/12. The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen. Congressmen made all these contracts for themselves. Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their term(s), then go home and back to work. 

If each person contacts a minimum of twenty people then it will only take three days for most people (in the U.S. ) to receive the message. Maybe it is time. 

THIS IS HOW YOU FIX CONGRESS.

Robert Borosage: Shock Doctrine Fight Back

By Robert L. Borosage, Blog for Our Future
Posted on August 8, 2011, Printed on August 9, 2011
http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2011083208/shock-doctrine-fight-back

Global economic turmoil is getting worse. Europe’s financial crisis now imperils Spain and Italy. The folly of premature austerity savages economies in Great Britain, Europe and, increasingly, the United States. China and the emerging economies are slowing down. This economy seems stalled at best. People are sensibly scared, worried about their jobs, their homes, their lost savings, their prospects.

Conservative and corporate elites are stoking the turmoil, and using fear to panic a public into accepting harsh measures that would be otherwise unacceptable. The stock market tanks after the debt ceiling debacle (editor's note: Monday the Dow plunged more than 600 points). Standard & Poor's, the discredited and corrupted rating agency, rushes to downgrade U.S. debt, with such haste it doesn’t even get its math right. China’s news service announces the U.S. must roll back its bloated “welfare state” and its bloated military. The talk shows are inundated with pundits expounding the urgent need for the U.S. to get its deficits under control to regain its credit status.

One theme emerges; the Gang of 12 – the Super Committee created in the debt ceiling deal – is portrayed as our last hope. It is charged with identifying $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction over 10 years by some combination of cuts from Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security and increased tax revenues. Only if it acts responsibly, we’re told, and the Congress passes its measures under expedited procedures with no amendments, limited debate, and no filibuster, do we have a chance.

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"Rania Khalek" - 8 Years In Prison for a Harmless Prank? Handcuffed for Doodling? The Increasing Criminalization of Students

By Rania Khalek, AlterNet
Posted on August 8, 2011, Printed on August 9, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/151948/8_years_in_prison_for_a_harmless_prank_handcuffed_for_doodling_the_increasing_criminalization_of_students

A few months back, 18-year-old Tyell Morton was enjoying his senior year at Rushville High in Indiana. Today, he faces the prospect of being labeled a felon for the rest of his life for a harmless senior prank.

Morton was arrested for putting a blowup doll in a bathroom stall on the last day of school. He was caught when video footage showed a man entering the high school in a hooded sweatshirt and leaving a package in the bathroom. Fearing the package might be a bomb, school officials evacuated the premises and called the Indiana State bomb squad. Although no one was injured, no property damaged and no dangerous materials found, Morton, who had not been in any trouble prior to this incident, is being charged with disorderly conduct (a misdemeanor) and institutional criminal mischief (a class C felony), carrying the potential of two to eight years in prison.

Tyell Morton's case has received nationwide media attention and there is even a website called Free Tyrell Morton. Unfortunately, his case is hardly the only one of its kind. The overzealous response to Morton's harmless, albeit immature senior prank, is just the most recent in a long string of over-the-top punishments visited upon American students. 

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Noam Chomsky: Public Education Under Massive Corporate Assault — What's Next?

By Noam Chomsky, AlterNet
Posted on August 5, 2011, Printed on August 8, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/151921/chomsky%3A_public_education_under_massive_corporate_assault_%E2%80%94_what%27s_next

The following is a partial transcript of a recent speech delivered by Noam Chomsky at the University of Toronto at Scarborough on the rapid privatization process of public higher education in the United States.

A couple of months ago, I went to Mexico to give talks at the National University in Mexico, UNAM. It's quite an impressive university — hundreds of thousands of students, high-quality and engaged students, excellent faculty. It's free. And the city — Mexico City — actually, the government ten years ago did try to add a little tuition, but there was a national student strike, and the government backed off. And, in fact, there's still an administrative building on campus that is still occupied by students and used as a center for activism throughout the city. There's also, in the city itself, another university, which is not only free but has open admissions. It has compensatory options for those who need them. I was there, too; it's also quite an impressive level, students, faculty, and so on. That's Mexico, a poor country.

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Ronnie Cummins: Your Whole Paycheck for Organic Foods?

By RONNIE CUMMINS

http://counterpunch.org/cummins08052011.html

After decades of grassroots public education, battles to safeguard standards, and hard work, organic food and farming has become the fastest growing sector of U.S. agriculture. Organics have surged in popularity to become a $30 billion dollar industry in the United States, representing approximately four percent of total grocery store sales and 12% of fresh fruit and vegetable sales, growing at the rate of 10-20% a year, in comparison to a growth rate of 2-3% a year for so-called "conventional" (i.e. chemical and genetically engineered) food. According to a recent poll by National Public Radio the majority (58%) of Americans now prefer organic food.

Millions of health-minded consumers, especially parents of young children, understand that cheap, non-organic, industrial food is hazardous. Not only does chemical and energy-intensive factory farming destroy the environment, destabilize the climate, impoverish rural communities, exploit farm workers, inflict unnecessary cruelty on farm animals, and contaminate the water supply; but the end product itself is inevitably contaminated. Routinely contained in nearly every bite or swallow of non-organic industrial food are pesticides, antibiotics and other animal drug residues, pathogens, hormone disrupting chemicals, toxic sludge, slaughterhouse waste, genetically modified organisms (GMOs), chemical additives and preservatives, and a host of other hazardous allergens and toxins.

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"Viji Sundaram and Zeina Awad" - Big Pharma Testing Drugs on India’s Poor

By Viji Sundaram and Zeina Awad, New America Media
Posted on August 7, 2011, Printed on August 8, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/151934/big_pharma_testing_drugs_on_india%E2%80%99s_poor

U.S. pharmaceutical companies have moved their operations overseas in the past decade, testing their drugs on poor people in such lands as Russia, China, Brazil and Romania. It is a $30 billion business, and today around 105 countries are allowing such large corporations as Merck and AstraZeneca to conduct clinical trials on their soil.

One country that has experienced a boom like no other in this industry is India, with its widely spoken English, an established medical infrastructure and welcoming attitudes towards foreign industry. Most importantly, these pharmaceutical companies are exploiting the country’s vast number of illiterate and poor people who are willing to become guinea pigs.

Zeina Awad, a reporter for Al Jazeera’s “Fault Lines” program, traveled to India to investigate clinical research being conducted there. She explored what role the United States regulatory agencies are playing in overseeing the clinical trials, and whether the testing complies with international ethical standards. 

Her report, “Outsourced: Clinical Trials Overseas,” aired on Al Jazeera English recently. 

New America Media Health Editor Viji Sundaram interviewed Awad about what she found.

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