“Tom Laskawy” - Congress about to let agribiz get liberal—with pesticides

Tom Laskawy

June 23, 2011

http://www.grist.org/industrial-agriculture/2011-06-23-congress-about-to-let-agribiz-get-liberal-with-pesticides

I recently wrote about a quiet but vicious fight going on in Congress to restrict the EPA's ability to regulate pesticides. It's in many ways an obscure bureaucratic turf battle, only this one is about how easy it should be to douse that turf in toxic chemicals.

It all comes down to two competing visions of how we should use pesticides -- either as much or as little as possible. For the most part, the EPA approves a pesticide when a company "lists" the chemical with the agency under the terms of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA). To get a pesticide listed with the EPA, a company has to submit its own data showing that the pesticide won't cause undue environmental harm. Once a pesticide is listed, in most cases, farmers can use it as they see fit -- with one notable exception.

Click to read more ...

“Tom Philpott” - House Republicans aim pitchfork at food-system reform

Tom Philpott

June 23, 2011

http://www.grist.org/politics/2011-06-23-house-republicans-aim-pitchfork-at-food-system-reform

I've complained once or twice in the past that U.S. farm policy, even under Obama, favors corporate-led, highly dysfunctional agriculture. That's true on balance, but it doesn't tell the whole story. If you dig into the topic, you'll find that sustainable-food activists have been working for decades to place progressive, community-oriented programs into the ag-policy mix. These hard-fought victories, won during once-every-five-years Farm Bill wars, are vastly outweighed by things like the government's corn-ethanol fetish, or its hyperaggressive trade policies. 

But the food movement's political gains are real, they're fragile, and they need defending. And they're under withering attack from the GOP-controlled U.S. House, which passed a fiscal 2012 agriculture appropriations bill that if signed into law would snuff out U.S. farm policy's green shoots like an herbicide-spewing crop duster snuffs out weeds. The D.C.-based National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC), the best watchdog/lobbying group we have on ag-policy issues, delivers the grim news on what the House bill would do. Here's a few highlights, summarized by me:

• Prevent the USDA from fulfilling its mandate to rein in the meat industry: Meat is one of the most tightly consolidated industries in our economy. Just four transnationals -- Tyson, JBS, Cargill, and Smithfield -- dominate production of beef, pork, chicken, and turkey. They use their market heft to squeeze farmers on price, leading to a host of environmental and social dysfunctions. (Monica Potts' recent American Prospect article "The Serfs of Arkansas" beautifully illustrates the state of poultry farming under the shadow of a few megaprocessors.) By some small miracle -- generated by fierce lobbying from grassroots farmer groups -- the 2008 Farm Bill contained a mandate directing the USDA to write rules to end price discrimination against small and mid-sized farmers by corporate processors and to ensure fair contracts for poultry and hog producers. Enter the GOP House -- whose funding bill would bar the USDA from ever issuing these rules. In response, a coalition of progressive farm groups are urging people to call the White House between June 20 and June 24 to urge the USDA to issue the new rules now, before Congress can pull the plug on them. 

Click to read more ...

“Julie Pace and Ben Feller” - Mullen sees risk in quicker Afghanistan withdrawal

"Only the president, in the end, can really determine the acceptable level of risk we must take"

Julie Pace and Ben Feller

June 23, 2011

http://www.salon.com/news/afghanistan/index.html

The U.S. military's top officer told Congress on Thursday that President Barack Obama's decision to withdraw up to 33,000 troops from Afghanistan by next summer is risky but keeps the U.S. and its allies on a path toward stabilizing the country.

In testimony to separate congressional panels, Navy Adm. Mike Mullen and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton left no doubt that Obama chose a quicker path to winding down U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan than his generals preferred.

Click to read more ...

“Andrew Leonard” - Obama's smart oil move

Sometimes, small differences in oil supply can have a big effect. Now might be one of those times

Andrew Leonard

June 23, 2011

http://www.salon.com/news/env/energy/index.html?story=/tech/htww/2011/06/23/the_right_time_to_play_games_with_oil_supply

The International Energy Agency announced Thursday that a coalition of 28 IEA member countries would "release" 60 million barrels of oil from stockpiles over the next month. The United States will do the bulk of work, contributing 30 billion barrels from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

At first glance, the decision seems odd. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is supposed to be deployed only when the United States faces a major oil disruption. One can make a decent argument that the war in Libya qualifies under that definition, but oil prices have actually been falling for the last two months. And on Wednesday Goldman Sachs reported that oil production from rebel-controlled regions in Libya is on the rise, suggesting that the worst may be already over.

Click to read more ...

"MARC CAPUTO" - GOP poll: Tea party movement could cost Republicans in 2012

BY MARC CAPUTO
mcaputo@MiamiHerald.com

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/06/22/2279580/gop-poll-tea-party-movement-could.html

Beware, Florida Republicans: The tea party movement that swept you into office in 2010 could cost you the next election.

That’s the takeaway message from Republican pollster and consultant Alex Patton, who conducted a recent survey showing that, by a 2:1 ratio, registered Florida voters said the tea party movement did not represent their views.

The sentiment against the tea party is significantly higher among self-described independent voters, who swing elections in Florida and who looked unfavorably on the tea party by 3-to-1, the poll showed. Only Republican voters favored the tea party movement, with 68 percent in support and less than 20 percent opposed.

“There’s a real danger to Republican candidates,” said Patton, a founder of the Gainesville-based War Room Logistics polling firm.

“If, in a primary race statewide, a candidate hugs the tea party too tightly in order to win the primary,” he said, “it significantly causes you issues in a general election.”

But there’s a catch for Republicans: The tea party movement is dear to the base of the GOP. Last year it helped fuel the Republican takeover in the Florida Cabinet as well as the U.S. House. So Republican candidates for president and U.S. Senate are courting the movement to ensure a primary win before they face off against President Obama or Sen. Bill Nelson in the 2012 general election.

Click to read more ...

"Tom Engelhardt" - Nine War Words That Define Our World: 'Victory' Is the Verbal Equivalent of a Yeti

Published on Thursday, June 23, 2011 by TomDispatch.com

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175408/tomgram%3A_engelhardt%2C_defining_an_american_state_of_war/

by Tom Engelhardt

Now that Washington has at least six wars cooking (in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Yemen, and more generally, the global war on terror), Americans find themselves in a new world of war.  If, however, you haven't joined the all-volunteer military, any of our 17 intelligence outfits, the Pentagon, the weapons companies and hire-a-gun corporations associated with it, or some other part of the National Security Complex, America’s distant wars go on largely without you (at least until the bills come due).

War has a way of turning almost anything upside down, including language.  But with lost jobs, foreclosed homes, crumbling infrastructure, and weird weather, who even notices?  This undoubtedly means that you’re using a set of antediluvian war words or definitions from your father’s day.  It’s time to catch up.

So here’s the latest word in war words: what’s in, what’s out, what’s inside out.  What follows are nine common terms associated with our present wars that probably don’t mean what you think they mean.  Since you live in a twenty-first-century war state, you might consider making them your own.

Victory:  Like defeat, it’s a “loaded” word and rather than define it, Americans should simply avoid it.

Click to read more ...

"Linh Dinh" - Sentimental Mass Murderer

Published on Thursday, June 23, 2011 by CommonDreams.org

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/06/23-3

by Linh Dinh

When Obama came into power, there were roughly 35,000 American troops in Afghanistan. Within two years, he tripled that number. Now, Obama announces that 10,000 soldiers will come home by the end of 2011, and 33,000 by the end of next summer. He surges twice, pulls back once, and declares it a successful withdrawal, as promised. I’m sure glad Obama’s not my accountant, or both of us would be arrested for fraud, but wait a sec, Obama is my accountant, and my banker, and my president. 

And why are we in Afghanistan? Officially, we are there to fight the Taliban, whom we propped up in the first place. Democratic Jimmy Carter and Republican Ronald Reagan armed, financed and trained these freedom fighters or Islamofascists. In the 1980’s, America poured gasoline onto the flames of Islamic fanaticism to burn down the Soviets. Now, we are the Soviets.

America goes into Iraq and Afghanistan, turns these countries upside down, then explains that it would be irresponsible to leave them topsy-turvy, but as long as America stays there, these countries will remain messed up. America causes bombs to explode, then insists that it has to stay put until these bombs stop exploding, but America is the bomb! Time and time again, America has set the fire, then shows up as a volunteer firefighter. Such is the burden of being a world leader in freedom, democracy and weapon sales.

Click to read more ...

"Joshua Holland" - Are We Giant Suckers? While the US Blows Money on the Military, Europe Spends Dough on Social Programs

By Joshua Holland, AlterNet
Posted on June 17, 2011, Printed on June 23, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/151337/are_we_giant_suckers_while_the_us_blows_money_on_the_military%2C_europe_spends_dough_on_social_programs

Last week, during his final European visit before retiring, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates blasted our NATO allies for spending too little on their militaries.

“The blunt reality,” he told an audience in Brussels, “is that there will be dwindling appetite” in the U.S. “to expend increasingly precious funds on behalf of nations that are apparently unwilling to devote the necessary resources … to be serious and capable partners in their own defense.’’

It's not uncommon for American hawks to whine about those soft Europeans not shelling out enough dough on weapons systems. But let's take a look at what "defense" actually means in this context.

On average, wealthy countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development spend 2.5 percent of their economic output on their militaries. That's not peanuts with very large economies. Europe is shielded by nuclear arms in the hands of the UK and France (not counting the nukes we “lend” to Germany, Italy, Turkey, Belgium and the Netherlands under a NATO agreement). There are no nation-states likely to attack the continent anytime soon.

So Gates isn't talking about being “capable partners in their own defense” at all – not as long as the word “defense” maintains its meaning. Whatever one thinks about the intervention in Libya, for example, one can't argue that we're actually defending ourselves. What he's saying is that they're not ponying up enough to engage in far-flung conflicts in service of Western hegemony. In this, he is accurate – they enjoy the fruits of an international system dominated by the West without paying through the nose for it.

Click to read more ...

"Robbie Hanna Anderman" - Obama’s Deregulation of GMO Crops

by Robbie Hanna Anderman
Tikkun Magazine, May 27, 2011

http://www.tikkun.org/nextgen/obamas-deregulation-of-gmo-crops

Early this spring, while the world was distracted by Egypt’s uprising, President Barack Obama pushed the Secretary of Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to deregulate genetically engineered alfalfa and sugar beets in the United States. The USDA came through as he directed, totally deregulating these Monsanto-patented genes in early February.

In so doing, Obama and the USDA have chosen to override and ignore decisions and injunctions made by the U.S. Supreme Court that banned planting of genetically engineered alfalfa and sugar beets without consideration of the Environmental Impact Assessments, which showed high risks to organic and conventional (chemical) farmers.

So how does this affect you and me? Neither of us remembers seeing alfalfa or sugar beets on our breakfast table or even on our Seder table. Or do we?

Sugar beets provide over 50 percent of the sugar Americans use in their coffee, cereals, and desserts. For the moment, let’s not focus on the fact that sugar beets can cross-pollinate with red beets and make our borscht genetically modified.

Click to read more ...

"Ian Fletcher" - The Crumbling of Free Trade — And Why It’s a Good Thing

by Ian Fletcher
May 12, 2011

http://www.tikkun.org/nextgen/the-crumbling-of-free-trade-and-why-its-a-good-thing

One thing is for certain already: the present international trading order will not be here in ten years, and quite likely not in five. The unsustainable American trade deficit alone makes this a certainty.

Since the end of the Cold War, and accelerating after NAFTA in 1994, that order has consisted in ever-expanding “free” trade worldwide — which in reality is a curious mixture of genuinely free trade practiced by the United States and a few others with the technocratic mercantilism of surging East Asia and Germanic-Scandinavian Europe.

From America’s point of view, this order is free trade, at least on the import side of the equation, so it is as free trade that we must criticize it, prepare to celebrate its passing, and investigate what should replace it.

Our free trade policy is the answer to a question that currently has most mainstream economists scratching their heads: what killed the great American job machine? This policy has been partly responsible for increasing inequality in the United States and the gradual repudiation of our 200-year tradition of broadly shared middle-class prosperity. It is a major player in our rising indebtedness, community abandonment, and a weakening of the industrial sinews of our national security.

Click to read more ...