Talking Turkey

This little ditty from the Pew Environmental Group details what has become of the American Turkey farming tradition with the advent of industrial farming. Like other animals, such as chicken, beef cattle and pigs, turkeys today are raised in confined feedlots (CAFOs) under horrible conditions. The birds produce ungodly amounts of manure in these concentrated production operations and use enormous amounts of water, with adverse environmental effects and pollution resulting. Furthermore, the turkeys are fed GMO corn and soy grain as opposed to their natural grass and vegetable-based diet. Antibiotics are also used liberally in CAFO's to prevent the spread of disease in the unsanitary dwellings that the birds inhabit. All of this is not intended to create despair but rather to underscore that we all have the opportunity to influence these issues by voting with our pocket books. If you are troubled by the state of industrial agriculture and livestock production then you can act by supporting local farmers when possible. Every dollar spent on local or organic products makes a difference and will ultimately help to change the practices of industrial producers. Money and markets are all that matter to these operations and they will respond to the preferences of consumers. One need only to look as far as Europe where familiar name brand products are produced without GMOs for sale on that continent because the people there have demanded labeling of all products containing GMOs there.
http://www.pewenvironment.org/news-room/other-resources/talking-turkeys-85899366620

It's too late to order a heritage breed turkey for this season but you may want to check out this site and order a Bourbon Red or other traditional bird that is sustainably raised in the future. I recently read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, and learned about many remarkable heritage livestock breeds as well as the inspiring growth of sustainable farming, centered around non-hybrid and non-GMO heirloom seeds, taking place around the country.
http://www.efowl.com/Bourbon_Red_Turkeys_p/1303.htm

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle website.
http://www.animalvegetablemiracle.com/

EPA Finds Compound Used in Fracking in Wyoming Aquifer

Read this EPA report on contamination from fracking in Wyoming over the past ten years and imagine such devastation to drinking water in the Delaware River Water Basin or New York State's reservoir system. The lightly regulated exemption-fueled natural gas industry cannot be trusted to protect public health in the northeast when it has so completely failed to do so out west and other parts of the country. 
http://www.propublica.org/article/epa-finds-fracking-compound-in-wyoming-aquifer

Glenn Greenwald, How the Rich Subverted the Legal System

Greenwald illustrates how the OWS movement has been ignited by the widely held belief that powerful interests are not held to the same standard as ordinary citizens, in an unjust legal system.
http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175458/tomgram%3A_glenn_greenwald%2C_how_the_rich_subverted_the_legal_system/?utm

Consciousness: What You Don't Know Might Kill You

This piece examines the issue of GMO food labeling through the Ayurveda lens; pointing out the dangers of genetically hacked, nutritionally deficient foods that animals will not consume if given a choice, and tracking the rapid growth of allergies, autism, ADHD, diabetes, obesity and cancers since the introduction of GMOs to the food stream.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/vaishali/gmo-seeds-food_b_1031515.html

CDC Deliberately Manipulated, Covered Up Scientific Data Showing Link Between Vaccines Containing Mercury and Autism

The blatant disregard of many regulatory agencies in the US regarding risks to public health is appalling. A Danish study showing a direct link between Mercury and autism was rewritten by CDC administrators to alter results and then published in a leading medical journal under pressure from the agency. Autism now strikes something like one in seventy American boys and the rates have been dramatically increasing in tandem with our government's public push for vaccines.
http://www.naturalnews.com/034038_vaccines_autism.html

Losing Their Immunity

I keep thinking of that Police Officer who got caught on video pepper spraying the girls during the first week or so of the Occupy Wall Street protests. His actions are what made it a mainstream and international story. We should all send the poor bastard Thank You cards. Here's a good piece from Paul Krugman shining light on the deregulation era and how it made a bunch of cats fat down on Wall Street.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/17/opinion/krugman-wall-street-loses-its-immunity.html?hp

Occupy Wall Street update and video...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/16/occupy-wall-street-raises-300000_n_1014708.html

Why We Should Label Genetically Engineered Food

This is an excellent overview of why American consumers should insist that genetically engineered food by labeled. Biotech's insist that these foods are safe but use all of their corporate and political muscle to fight against labeling. The threat of GM foods and their inevitable contamination of the seed and natural food supply, if not checked, is something that should concern all mentally competent citizens.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-bronner/why-we-should-label-genet_1_b_988922.html

Occupy Wall Street Protesters Settle In, Despite Weather And Police Clashes

The mass protest instigated by the Occupy Wall Street protest group is gaining traction after video of a police officer pepper spraying women in the face brought the previously lagging national media onto the story. The New York Times played a large role in making the story national by posting video of the incident on its website. Previously, it had been the independent media that was reporting on the protests and the excessive force and demeaning tactics employed by the NYPD. It seems these people are dedicated and organized and in for the long run. I, for one, am surprised and inspired by the course of events and want to go downtown to check it out, and see if I get harassed for exercising the freedoms of the democracy.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/29/occupy-wall-street_n_987439.html

Police Brutality and Mainstream Media Blackout of "Occupy Wall Street" Protests

I only really know about the Occupy Wall Street protests because a friend aggressively brought it to my attention. I had read a piece on the 80 arrests the other day inThe Times, and apparently they've posted video of protesters being pepper sprayed by the NYPD, but somehow the significance of the ongoing action didn't dawn on me. I was, and am, consumed by work and the day-to-day challenges of life in the city at the moment. Amazing. I am working to survive, in a corrupt system, and therefore I don't always have the energy or time to try and make it honest by challenging it.
http://www.eurasiareview.com/28092011-occupy-wall-street-us-awakening-oped/

Video of protests and the NYPD actions against the Occupy Wall Street protesters
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJlCuc68kGw&feature=email

A site with live-streaming of the protests
http://www.livestream.com/globalrevolution

A chilling interview with an active trader on BBC News, in which he warns of an impending crash and declares that Goldman Sachs, not governments, rule the world. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqN3amj6AcE&feature=share

Five Health Enhancing Foods That Don't Even Seem Like Health Foods

Over the past several months, since launching Ransacked Nation, I have found NaturalNews.com to be an unerring source of important and reliable information on matters related to nutrition, including the hazards of processed foods and GMOs, as well as rock solid documentation of over-reach by our government in its efforts to support industrial agriculture and the pharmaceutical industry. I recommend this site without reservation and challenge any of our readers to demonstrate that the site is in any way unreliable. I view this site, and the activism of Mike Adams, to be a truth-telling resource amidst the cacophony of our twisted universe. With that in mind, I offer a rather innocuous but important story from the site about common foods that offer tremendous health benefits if consumed in unprocessed form. This is good information...
http://www.naturalnews.com/033695_health_foods_mustard.html

Monsanto’s GM sweet corn coming to America’s dinner plates

In an alarming development, Monsanto has announced plans to market its BT Sweet Corn to American consumers. It turns out that some of us have been eating this corn already as a small amount of genetically modified sweet corn has been grown in this country, and sold without labeling, over the past ten years. This corn is engineered to kill insects and also to be resistant to Monsanto's Roundup Ready herbicide which is responsible for the growth of super weeds and various infections in animals among other issues worldwide. We all need to wake up and demand that companies label GMOs in America as is required in most other developed countries.
http://www.non-gmoreport.com/articles/september2011/monsantogmsweetcorn.php

Monsanto Targets Consumers
Here is another report on Monsanto's BT Sweet Corn coming to American supermarkets. With this development it will become increasingly difficult to procure genetically pure sweet corn seed, and harder to find heirloom seeds in general as industry has been consolidating its control of the seed market. 
http://farmwars.info/?p=6716&utm

GMO Labeling Project
Please get involved with the Organic Consumer's Association and the national movement to require labeling of GMOs in America; World Food Day on October 16, 2011.
http://www.organicconsumers.org/monsanto/
http://www.organicconsumers.org/

Seeds hold the key to a GMO-free food future

This piece from Food Freedom focuses on the problems organic farmers are having with procuring certified organic seed. In the wake of consolidation of the seed market by biotech companies over the last several years, some trusted seed sources have now been found to contain genetically-modified material. The threat to organic farming is duo fold; contamination via pollen from widely cultivated GMO crops such as corn, soy, cotton and now alfalfa, and now the uncertainty of the seed supply. This is spurring a movement to reclaim the integrity of our non-conventional genetically pure organic seed sources.
http://foodfreedom.wordpress.com/2011/09/14/seeds-hold-the-key-to-a-gmo-free-food-future/

Health Problems Reportedly Emerge Near Gas Fields, Science Lags Behind

This disturbing report was produced by Propublica and reposted on the Huffington Post. It provides more evidence of the environmental and health horrors resulting from Hydraulic Fracturing around the country. Despite claims by industry that fracking is safe, the process was exempted under Bush and Cheney from federal regulations under the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Clean Air Act. Over 600 chemicals are used in the process and industry, in most cases, refuses to say what chemicals they use so it is difficult to test for them. Nonetheless, there is growing evidence that fracking poses a threat to human health and drinking water. If you are unfamiliar with the issue check out the documentary Gasland, and several other stories posted on this site. 
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/18/health-problems-gas-fields-science_n_969058.html

Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult

This is a brilliant analysis of the current political mess in America, painstakingly breaking down the motives behind GOP obstructionism and the Party's cow-towing to wealthy and corporate interests. It's an important document that should be widely distributed if there is any hope that the misinformed public may someday wake up and stand up for their interests and future well-being.
http://www.truth-out.org/goodbye-all-reflections-gop-operative-who-left-cult/1314907779

GOP Backs Insurance Industry-Friendly, Anti-Consumer Bills

This piece from PR Watch should come as no surprise to anyone following the increasingly blatant handiwork of Congressional Republican efforts to increase profits for their corporate benefactors at the expense of working Americans. What amazes me is that millions of working class people support a party that explicitly works against their own interests, in this case consumer protections related to healthcare spending. Democrats often cave to corporate influence as well but they are far less brazen in their capitulations.
http://www.prwatch.org/news/2011/09/11029/gop-backs-insurance-industry-friendly-anti-consumer-bills

Medical Societies Maintain Secret Financial Ties to Drug Companies

A short primer on the revolving doors and conflicts of interest that renders the integrity of various medical societies suspect. Emanating from ill-conceived clinical trials and the manipulation of dubious data to promote drug sales, Big Pharma willfully sacrifices public health in the pursuit of massive profits. One need only to look into the case of Vioxx to get a taste of Big Pharma's medicine and what it can do to unsuspecting and trusting patients.
http://www.naturalnews.com/033583_financial_ties_medical_societies.html

How Bad is the Drought in Texas, Really?

Mike adams, who lives in Austin, reports on the Texas drought for Natural News, and puts forth several initiatives that would mitigate future droughts and help build more sustainable soil for farming in that critically arid state.
http://www.naturalnews.com/033500_Texas_drought.html

Good Jobs

On Labor Day we should all reflect on the current anti-labor agendas being pushed in a number of states designed to strip collective bargaining right from workers and strengthen the position of corporations and industry at the expense of working Americans. While the USA is still considered a wealthy country its population is becoming poorer and increasingly unemployed. The dialogue is off the mark in Washington and it's clear that massive jobs programs, in the form of infrastructure investment, is the key to ending the recession and reigniting economic growth. Unions are not the problem in America but rather its the reckless profit-driven corporations and their political enablers who are ripping out the heart and soul of our democracy and co-opting the American Dream.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-p-hoffa/good-jobs_b_948850.html

Science Stunner: Editor of Journal that Published Flawed Denier Bunk Apologizes, Resigns, Slams Spencer for Exaggerations

This is a very interesting piece about the manipulated science and false claims behind climate denier attempts to debunk established science on global warming. In this case a journal published and, after public criticisms through discussion groups, lifted a position paper that broke all the rules for credible research and analysis.

http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/09/02/310889/editor-denier-bunk-resigns-spencer/

Stung by the President on Air Quality, Environmentalists Weigh Their Options

This follow-up to the Obama Administration's recent actions offers a glimmer of hope for the strong-willed and passionate citizens committed to sustained activism on environmental issues. The undeniable evidence that the President is weak on pollution and climate change has led to a determination on the part of environmental groups to fight through sustained public action and lawsuits to force the government to comply with existing statutes and to institute more stringent regulations to protect public health and counter climate change. No progressive legislation has ever been accomplished without a fight and it's clear that the Administration cannot be trusted to do what they have promised to do.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/04/science/earth/04air.html?hp

Nuclear Expert Says Fukushima Radiation Coming to USA, Massive Cover-up Under Way

The US government has not been vigilantly testing for radiation fallout from Fukushima, and estimates have been systematically scaled back in an effort to calm public fears from the dangers of the disaster. There are significant long-term risks from elevated radiation levels that are currently hard to quantify because the Japanese and American governments are politically committed to downplaying the event. Isn't it odd that these reactors continue to leak radiation, and that massive amounts of radioactive water continue to be dumped into the Pacific Ocean, but there is next to zero coverage of the issue in the mainstream media? If politics nuclear energy were not influencing government's handling of this catastrophe, wouldn't we be hearing more about the continuing radiation releases and coverage about methods to mitigate danger from increased radiation levels in our food, water and air?
http://www.naturalnews.com/033481_Fukushima_radiation.html

Farm Wars posted this 60-minute video featuring nuclear expert Dr. Michio Kaku on the long-term fallout and health risks posed by radiation leaking from the three reactors that melted down in Japan.
http://farmwars.info/?p=6870&utm