Does Anybody Care About Our Health?

Two stories on today's Common Dreams website raised alarm bells for me about governments caring at all about their people. First there is more and more evidence of the health risks following the oil gusher in the Gulf: Many residents along the Gulf Coast are exhibiting symptoms that clearly look like reactions to chemical exposure. Read the article and come to your own conclusions. http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/04/20-10 Unfortunately the article also points out that there is no concerted effort (and no funds) to collect the data needed to prove what is happening.

Then there is the little story of the well water near natural gas 'fracking' activity in rural Pennsylvania that can be set on fire because it contains methane gas. One of the wells recently blew out and spilled toxic chemicals over fields, pastures and into waterways. http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/04/20-8

Last but not least we have the situation in Japan where nobody seems to know "officially" how bad the radioactive contamination actually is and will be as the leaks keep leaking radio active water and who knows what else into the sea, air and into the soil.

What we keep hearing about these catastrophies is mostly that the Gulf is on its way to return to normal, deepwater drilling is safe and will continue, natural gas extraction is going fine with the fracking process, and atomic power plants are really safe ... very little is being said about the poor people who live, work, fish and farm in these areas. Their livelihood and their health and the health of their offspring (maybe for generations) is at risk, and the public efforts to disseminate accurate information and to organize the tracking and alleviating of the health risks are in sad shape. Any kind of public acknowledgement of the situation (other than empty words and promises)is sorely missing. Do our governments care about human beings? Not only do they kill them off by the hundreds of thousands in unjustified wars they also keep endangering them by the millions through unregulated and unsavory practices to maintain our "standard of living" - I guess that standard only goes to the (so far un-radiated)survivors. Common Sense? Where?

The Libyan Charade

George Orwell could not have put it better ... read what Glenn Greenwald posted today on Common Dreams News. I do not want to paraphrase one word. The whole story speaks for itself. What are we to do with a government like that, a world like that? http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/04/16-2

Please comment - even if just very briefly!

Eight Million per Day for War in Libya

The US is spending about $8 Million per day on its war on Libya. This of course in addition to the exorbitant amounts we are paying for our other ongoing wars. "Remarking last week on the deal he struck that slashes $38.5 billion in federal spending, President Obama said the agreement “between Democrats and Republicans, on behalf of all Americans, is on a budget that invests in our future while making the largest annual spending cut in our history.” With an untouched defense budget and no end in sight for our wars - where - what is our future? Definitely not better education, not better healthcare, still no jobs other than those making weaponry and flipping burgers. Future? Think about it. Thank you.

The Profitability of Wars - even little ones like Libya

Just found a great article by Robert C. Koehler, A Vortex of Death and Wealth, published today at CommonDreams.org He makes a case of how we -and other weapons manufacturing countries - make money off killing and destruction. He writes "And Libya is small potatoes compared to — no surprise — Saudi Arabia. Last year, according to Spiegel Online, the U.S. announced the largest arms export deal in history with the Saudis. The oil-rich kingdom will buy $60 billion worth of U.S. aircraft over the next five to ten years. “Money is no object,” the article informs us, “and the Saudi air force is to receive F-15 fighter-bombers, Apache attack helicopters, missiles, radar equipment and bombs. All together, according to the Wall Street Journal, the order is large enough to guarantee 77,000 jobs at Boeing.” So maybe this is the much taunted "Job Creation Program" of our current administration - let's go to war and sell weaponry - not only use it but also destroy it so we can eventually replace it. Since the US is not producing much else, there is our future. Unending war, unending arms sales. “This” — the Libyan no fly zone — “is turning into the best shop window for competing aircraft for years. More even than in Iraq in 2003,” said Francis Tusa, editor of the UK-based newsletter Defense Analysis, quoted in a recent Reuters article by Tim Hepher. For instance, enforcement of the no fly zone pitted two European-made jet fighters, the Typhoon and the Rafale, against one another for world leaders to view, and France, Tusa pointed out, “is particularly desperate to sell the Rafale.” This is the generally unstated truth about Western intervention in the Middle East and anywhere else in the world. The headline-generating acts of murderous repression by dictators, whether we love or abhor them, are made possible by weaponry and equipment they purchased from us. And then, when the time comes, we may have to attack our former business partners with the same weaponry we sold them." Common Sense apparently has no place in this game unless you apply it to the job creation program. Good luck to all of us.

The Goldstone Report Still Stands!

We are being deceived again. Judge Goldstone's OpEd in the NYT is reported as recanting the report. None such thing if you read the fine print. The Report (on the Cast Lead War by Israel in the Gaza Strip) stands as is, minus a few semantic 'corrections'. Time and again we are fed headlines based on a tiny part of the news story, hiding the true message and/or truth. Who are these people who publish this kind of misleading copy, who are they answering to? An honest journalist - objective as s/he should be - could never stoop as low as to distort a straightforward story. Why is it left to us to dig and find out what is really behind a misleading headline? And the majority of readers will of course not do that to begin with. They will go out and believe the headline, retell it, distribute it and thereby make it much more believable. Do I want to be part of this system? NO. I will hang on to my Common Sense!