Monday, March 26, 2012

Lobbyists, Guns and Money

Paul Krugman puts the spotlight on ALEC, the conservative corporate-backed legislative organization, and its role in a host of America's most destructive trends. These include the Stand Your Ground law in Florida (backed by the NRA, that resulted in the death of Trayvon Martin), union-busting, tax breaks for the one percent, environmental degradation, and the privatization war to capture public sector revenue and jobs for the crony capitalists who are destroying the country. We've got to call out Coca-Cola, ATT and others who play nice to the public while orchestrating systematic exploitation of the people's rights and interests.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/26/opinion/krugman-lobbyists-guns-and-money.html?ref=opinion

Saturday, March 10, 2012

Big Nuclear's cosy relationship with the Obama administration

Here's a recent article by Amy Goodman that details how the US government, on both sides of the aisle, is in bed with the nuclear industry and determined to push new reactors on the public despite the risks and astronomical financial cost - all with the help of public subsidies.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/mar/08/big-nuclear-cosy-relationship-obama-administration

Nuclear Disaster in Japan Was Avoidable, Critics Contend

The political and economic system in Japan was set up by the US following WW II and shares many similarities with our capitalist model. In the US today, as in Japan, government agencies consider their constituencies to be industry rather than the public interest. We see this time and again, particularly in the nuclear industry where guidelines are often written by industry insiders to accommodate their business priorities and facilitate profits. This often comes at the expense of public safety concerns. This article presents a compelling example of how such collusion between government officials and industry can pose great risk to populations. The NRC in America just approved construction for a nuclear plant in Georgia without requiring safety provisions to protect against natural disasters. TEPCO and nuclear regulators in Japan ignored repeated warnings from engineers that Fukushima was vulnerable to tsunamis up to fifty feet high, making the nuclear disaster that ensued, in fact, preventable.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/10/world/asia/critics-say-japan-ignored-warnings-of-nuclear-disaster.html?hp