"Kerry Trueman" - Why Danes Are So Much Happier Than Americans

By Kerry Trueman, AlterNet

Posted on October 9, 2011, Printed on October 11, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/152673/why_danes_are_so_much_happier_than_americans

Americans may be deeply divided about what ails our country, but there's no denying we're a nation of unhappy campers.

Danes, on the other hand, consistently rank as some of the happiest people in the world, a fact attributed at least in part to Denmark's legendary income equality and strong social safety net.

Forbes recently cited another possible factor; the Danes' "high levels of trust." They trust each other, they trust 'outsiders,' they even trust their government. 90% of Danes vote. Tea party types dismiss Denmark as a hotbed of socialism, but really, they're just practicing a more enlightened kind of capitalism.

In fact, as Richard Wilkinson, a British professor of social epidemiology, recently stated on PBS NewsHour, "if you want to live the American dream, you should move to Finland or Denmark, which have much higher social mobility."

While we debate whether climate change is real and a tax on unhealthy foods is nanny state social engineering, the Danish are actually trying to address these problems head on.

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"Robert Kuttner" - Bank of America, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley Could Be Headed Toward Collapse -- Will Obama Have the Guts to Do the Right Thing This Time?

By Robert Kuttner, AlterNet

Posted on October 10, 2011, Printed on October 11, 2011

http://www.alternet.org/story/152678/bank_of_america%2C_citigroup%2C_morgan_stanley_could_be_headed_toward_collapse_--_will_obama_have_the_guts_to_do_the_right_thing_this_time

Over the past few weeks, President Obama has at last "pivoted," in the widely used term, from emphasizing deficit reduction to focusing on jobs and taxation of millionaires. Spontaneous protest has done what the organized left failed to do; it has made Wall Street the appropriate target of diffuse economic frustrations. The labor movement has added its weight and institutional skills to these protests, and even President Obama has had some kind words for them.

Fox News and the Republicans have been usefully flummoxed, since it is awfully hard to rise to the defense of the Wall Street banks that caused the financial collapse and to retain credibility with anyone, even the Tea Party base.

But here comes the next phase of the financial crisis, and it will test President Obama's leadership like nothing else. It will also make or break the faltering credibility of Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner.

In recent days, it has become clear that several large banks, most notably Bank of America, are teetering. Though the backlash against the giant bank's proposed five-dollar-a-month charge for debit cards has gotten the headlines, this is the least of its problems. The profits from this new charge would be chump change measured against the bank's chasms of losses, the legacy of its ill-advised purchases of Countrywide Financial and Merrill Lynch in 2008.

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"Addicting Info.com" - Rasmussen Releases Occupy Wall Street Poll

Addicting Info.com   October 9, 2011

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2011/10/09/rasmussen-releases-occupy-wall-street-poll/

The right-leaning Rasmussen Reports returns from the field with what I think is the first poll about Occupy Wall Street.

The buried lead: At the moment, the protesters who’ve been mocked on CNN and Fox News, accused of class warfare by Mitt Romney, and handled delicately by the White House, have… decent favorable ratings.

Americans are divided on the protestors themselves.

Thirty-three percent (33%) have a favorable opinion, (and a plurality of)

Twenty-seven percent (27%) hold an unfavorable view,

Forty percent (40%) have no opinion one way or the other,

Fifty percent (50%) of Democrats have a favorable opinion. (while a plurality of )

Forty-three (43%)   Republicans say the opposite.

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"Mark Tran" - Food Crises Compromising Fight Against World Hunger, Warns UN Report

Published on Monday, October 10, 2011 by The Guardian/UK

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2011/oct/10/food-crises-fight-world-hunger

Experts identify food price volatility as a major obstacle to millennium development goal of halving global malnutrition

by Mark Tran

Food crises are jeopardising efforts to achieve the millennium development goal of halving the proportion of people who suffer from hunger by 2015, United Nations food experts warned today.

In an annual report on world hunger, UN food agencies said food price volatility is likely to continue and possibly increase, making poor farmers, consumers and countries more vulnerable to poverty and food insecurity.

"Demand from consumers in rapidly growing economies will increase, the population continues to grow, and further growth in biofuels will place additional demands on the food system," the report said, adding that food price volatility may increase over the next decade due to stronger links between agricultural and energy markets and more frequent extreme weather events.

Small, import-dependent countries, particularly in Africa, are especially at risk, with many of them still facing severe problems following the world food and economic crises of 2006-2008, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (Ifad) and the World Food Programme (WFP) said in their joint report.

At a time when drought in east Africa and famine in Somalia have left 12 million people in need of aid, the report argued that such crises are challenging efforts to reduce hunger by half.

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"William Rivers Pitt" - Bank on It -- They're Scared

Sunday 9 October 2011

by: William Rivers Pitt, Truthout | Op-Ed

http://www.truth-out.org/bank-it-theyre-scared/1318020817

Internal bank memo shows just how afraid of the occupiers the banks actually are.

Far be it from me to accuse Gandhi of missing a note, but in the case of the 'Occupy Wall Street' protests, the Mahatma's famous quote appears to be lacking a few essential words. "First they ignore you," he said, "then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win."

That's not quite correct.

Certainly, the OWS protests began with a great whistling silence from the "mainstream" news media. It is only because of the resources available to the average person in this marvelous technological age we live in that word of the protest ever reached beyond its original location.

Thanks to cell phones, video cameras, digital recorders, and of course, the internet - all wielded by patriot citizens - reports, images and video of the protest began to dribble out via Twitter, Facebook and a variety of blogs and alternative news media sites like Truthout. But from the "mainstream" news, there was nothing, and nothing, and nothing.

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"Doug Larkin" - ‘Before Today, I Was Afraid of Trees’ -- Rethinking Nature Deficit Disorder

Published on Monday, October 10, 2011 by Rethinking Schools

http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/26_01/26_01_larkin.shtml

by Doug Larkin

The last week of February turned out to be the peak of the maple-sugaring season that winter, and an inch of snow remained on the ground as the juniors in my chemistry class disembarked from the bus. Kevin Kopp, our guide, met us with empty buckets, and he talked about the trees as we took a short walk around. The students ran their hands over the bark of the oaks, beeches, and maples with an uncharacteristic quietness as our guide talked about the different types of trees in downtown Trenton’s Cadwalader Park.

For the moment, it was possible to imagine that we were somewhere other than urban central New Jersey. To many of my students it was a revelation that we were not actually standing in a natural forest, but in a place where each of the towering trees had been purposefully planted decades ago. Their questions led to a discussion about how trees in urban environments not only look nice, but also help clean the air and lower energy costs by reducing the amount of sunlight absorbed by city surfaces on hot days.

When Kevin pointed out holes in one tree drilled by yellow-bellied sapsuckers, a group of students began racing from tree to tree, seeing who could be the first to find and run their fingers over undiscovered sapsucker holes. Another group raised their eyes to the treetops, looking for the birds. Kevin held up the metal spout and asked if anyone would like to hammer in the first tap

“Ain’t it gonna hurt the tree?” asked one of my more solemn students. Kevin assured him that it wouldn’t. We tapped two trees that day, and everyone who wanted a turn hammering got one. When the first bucket was finally hung from the tap, the students were clearly less than impressed with the leisurely drip, drip, drip of the watery tree sap. After explaining that the buckets would fill over the next few days, Kevin promised to bring them to us at school.

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Knocking On The Devil's Door - Thursday October 13th @ 7pm at Cinema Arts Center in Huntington, Long Island (423 Park Avenue, 631-423-7611)

KNOCKING ON THE DEVIL'S DOOR

Our Deadly Nuclear Legacy

Thursday, October 13 at 7pm

In Person: GARY NULL
award-winning investigative journalist

and “health guru”

All Tickets: $15   Includes Reception & DVD

Tickets can also be purchased at the box office during theatre hours or

by calling Brown Paper Tickets toll free at 1-800-838-3006. No refunds.

Attendees will receive a free copy of Knocking on the Devil’s Door

The nuclear reactor catastrophes at Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and now at Fukushima, Japan, remind us that a heinous specter continues to hover over the health and security of millions of people around the world. Not only does the threat of nuclear weapons proliferation linger but every nuclear station sits as a ticking bomb awaiting meltdown and terrorist attack. Many Russian studies conclude that Chernobyl killed approximately a million people since the 1986 meltdown. And the cost of the Daiichi Fukushima crisis may be substantially higher. Nuclear energy is neither clean nor green. From the mining of radioactive materials to their transportation and the storage of radioactive waste, the nuclear cartel is contaminating natural habitats, rivers and aquifers while endangering millions of lives. Knocking on the Devil’s Door deconstructs the corporate and political rhetoric feeding the media misinformation campaigns to seduce us into believing that low level radiation emitted from nuclear plants is perfectly safe and that our future depends upon nuclear energy. The US is prepared to give tens of billions of dollars to build 200 new nuclear power reactors. The liability for nuclear accidents and meltdowns falls upon taxpayers. Old decaying and leaking reactors are being relicensed, increasing the stakes that another catastrophe will occur. Knocking on the Devil’s Door features the world’s most vital voices demanding the cessation of nuclear power including Helen Caldicott, Harvey Wasserman, Vandana Shiva, Michio Kaku, Greg Palast, Karl Grossman, Ernest Sternglass and others. 

USA, 2011, 90 min.

Click HERE for trailer and the official website.

"Evan Osnos" - JAPAN: THE NUCLEAR VILLAGE

Dispatches by Evan Osnos.

OCTOBER 10, 2011

Posted by Evan Osnos

How close was the Fukushima meltdown to becoming a far larger disaster? Closer than most people know. And, yet, the details of the aftermath may surprise you. In the magazine this week, I reconstruct what happened and why—and examine just how close Japan came to the worst-case scenario. (“The Fallout” is available to subscribers. Here are the options, print and digital.)

Travelling back and forth to Fukushima this year, I encountered humbling examples of perseverance and sacrifice. I also came to understand how a nuclear accident creeps up on a place that never imagined it was vulnerable. Before this, I had never thought much about nuclear power. I will have a hard time forgetting about it now. The lessons of Fukushima are not what I thought when I started, and I’ll be writing more about that here this week.

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"Progressive Radio Network Danny Schechter, Fridays @ 1pm(EDT") - As the COP Blames Obama For Wall Street “Mobs’ The Occupy Movement Spreads Nationwide And Is No Friend of The President

By Danny Schechter

Author of The Crime Of Our Time

Who is behind the Wall Street protests?

The Republican minority leader, Eric Cantor, has searched up and down in his usual rigorous manner and found the culprit.

In his knee-jerk view, it’s President Obama. His latest crime: encouraging these “mobs:”

In one sentence, he blamed the President who in GOP conspiracy think, is to blame for everything, including bad weather. He also not so subtly conjures up the memory of the Mafia, New York’s perennial bad guys.

In one phrase, Obama stood accused of encouraging these…. pause for righteous indignation—MOBS!

Never mind that if you spend any time at Occupy Wall Street, you will encounter as many criticisms of the President’s policies---save the questions about his birth and “real Americaness” -- as you would at a conclave of the Tea Party.

Only the criticism is different. In the latter world of make-believe, he is a hard line Socialist. In the former, he is, in effect, a Republican, a backer of the Wall Street capitalists the occupiers are battling.

And if my memory of history has not faded, wasn’t it the British who called the original Tea Party a “mob?”

Let’s not let the facts get in the way of a partisan shmear.

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"Mercedes Diane" - Veterans protesting at Smithsonian met with pepper-spray

• By Mercedes Diane ..., DC Civil Rights The Examiner
• http://www.examiner.com/civil-rights-in-washington-dc/veterans-protesting-at-smithsonian-met-with-pepper-spray

Washington, DC -- All too often, when there is criticism of U.S. military actions it is the service members who receive the force of the backlash.  They are called criminals, they are accused of being brainwashed, and it is they that are punished when something goes wrong.  However, many sometimes feel that when they do speak out against U.S. military action, they do so without support and with the threat of being accused of being traitors hanging over their heads.  Veterans, on the other hand, are better positioned to be the voice of military personnel.

By giving first hand accounts of atrocities they’ve witness and the perceived senselessness of those atrocities, they leverage the fact that they have followed orders and have fought to defend freedom of speech and the right to protest.  Nevertheless, yesterday, activist where shocked and outraged to learn that not even veterans are safe from police aggression when employing their Constitutional rights, the very rights they had once laid their lives on the line to protect.

Approximately 50 members of Veterans For Peace (VFP) participated in a march this afternoon from Freedom Plaza to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum on the National Mall.  The museum was featuring an exhibit on unmanned drone bombers that a group of about 250 people from the October2011.org encampment at Freedom Plaza intended to protest.

'We had marched from the Freedom Plaza and McPherson Square occupations, taking over the streets of DC.  The museum knew we were coming.  Some of our group got in and dropped a banner.  Hundreds of us did not.  Instead, we were greeted at the door with cans of pepper spray.'  We intended to hold signs and sing inside the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, protesting its promotion of unmanned drones, missiles, and bombs, including its sponsorship by and promotion of weapons corporations.  We don't have any museums promoting health coverage or education or retirement security.' This was the statement given by David Swanson is the author of 'War Is A Lie.'

VFP Acting Director Mike Ferner said, 'I was at the first entranceway, holding the door open for people to enter. I saw a police or security officer in a white shirt hold his hands up, telling people to stop. The marchers continued and the officer began pepper-spraying everyone. From everything I saw until that moment, there was no reason for the pepper-spraying. The door of the museum clearly said 'free admission.' It did not say 'Free admission if you are quiet' or 'Free admission unless you have opinions contrary to government policy.’

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