Bring Back Boring Banks

The banking industry has too much power and not nearly enough transparency. Since the repeal of the Glass-Steagal Act in 1999, at the urging of Clinton's Treasury Sec'y Robert Rubin, markets have become so corrupted and unstable as to recall the circumstances of the Great depression that led to the law that separated commercial and investment banking back in 1933. 
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/04/opinion/bring-back-boring-banks.html?ref=opinion

Obama's recess appointment to head the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, in response to GOP stonewalling, is a step in the right direction.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/05/us/politics/richard-cordray-named-consumer-chief-in-recess-appointment.html?hp

Why the Food Movement Should Occupy Wall Street

The imbalance of power resulting from unfettered corporate influence in agriculture and disruptive speculation in the financial industry affects the world's population in myriad ways, including the quality and price of food. This Civil Eats feature neatly makes the connection between monopolistic corporate control of the food system and deregulation in the agricultural markets to reveal how the world's food supply has been co-opted by big business. It's essential reading for anyone who realizes that "you are what you eat," and believes that we vote with our forks and food choices every day.
http://civileats.com/2011/10/13/why-the-food-movement-should-occupy-wall-street/

Here is a roundup of the food issues Civil Eats covered in 2011, including a top-ten list of the eye-opening pieces that got the most traffic on their site during the year.
http://civileats.com/2011/12/30/see-ya-2011-hello-2012-a-civil-eats-story-round-up/

Springtime for Toxics

Paul Krugman brings us some very good news at a time when there is precious little good taking place at the leadership level in the US. The EPA's long overdue decision to regulate Mercury pollution from power plants will lead to tremendous health and productivity benefits for Americans but, of course, it is opposed vehemently by the anti-regulatory zeal of the Republican Party.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/26/opinion/krugman-springtime-for-toxics.html?ref=opinion

Dear Editor- LAPD Arrests the Truth at Occupy LA

This is a first-hand account from a writer of "Family Guy" about the scene in LA when the cops moved in, paramilitary style, to forcefully remove the peaceful, nonviolent protesters from public space. It's a heart-wrenching account and the writer brings it all together at the end when he re-examines the motives of the Occupy Wall Street movement - the massive, unpunished, criminal fraud perpetrated upon the American public by the financial industry. If this piece doesn't get your dander up then, perhaps, it's time to take a good hard look at your own personal moral character and beliefs. A Democracy enshrined with a Constitution and a Bill of Rights that answers non-violent civil disobedience with brutality and violence is not, in truth, a Democracy.
http://culvercitycrossroads.com/2011/12/05/dear-editor-lapd-arrests-the-truth-at-occupy-la/

Learning Too Late of Perils in Gas Well Leases

Unscrupulous Landmen and lawyers for oil and gas drilling companies have hoodwinked naive landowners throughout the country, ripping landowners off with deceptive legal language that enables the companies to indefinitely extend leases despite contaminating drinking water in huge swaths of rural land. It's among the most despicable industrial practices in America and, unless the people win a ban on fracking, it'll be coming soon to the Northeast. 
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/02/us/drilling-down-fighting-over-oil-and-gas-well-leases.html?hp

Campus Police Chief Put on Leave in Pepper Spray Incident

Amidst calls by the faculty and students for the UC Chancellor to resign, she has put the Police Chief on Administrative Leave in response to the despicable pepper spray attack by campus police. Check out the video below - it's sickening.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/22/us/police-officers-involved-in-pepper-spraying-placed-on-leave.html?hp

Police Pepper Spray UC Davis Protesters Nov 18,2011

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHQqvDsbxwA

Police pepper spraying and arresting students at UC Davis - Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLzUsy7ULTE

Police Attack Peaceful UC Davis Students With Pepper Spray 

http://thinkprogress.org/special/2011/11/19/372801/police-attack-peaceful-uc-davis-students-staging-sit-in-with-pepper-spray/

NYPD blasting Occupy protesters with powerful military megaphone - LRAD

I first read about the Long Range Acoustic Device - LRAD - being used against American civilians as a crowd control tool during an event at Western Illinois University. LRADs have been used in war zones as a device to disorient combatants and also as a communications device. The NYPD possesses two of these weapons and reportedly used at least one of them on 11/15 when they cleared Zucotti Park of peaceful Occupy Wall Street protestors. These devices are capable of causing hearing loss and other ailments and surely should not be used against American citizens peacefully exercising their rights of assembly and free speech.
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/314641

NY Police Using LRAD Sound Cannons Against Protesters

More detail on the use of LRAD by the NYPD. 
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/11/17-6

Occupy Wall Street Crackdowns: Was The Federal Government Involved?

The NYPD and FBI are currently denying that the Feds provided training and guidance  to police forces seeking to remove protestors from the public square across America. This report indicates the involvement of the FBI and Homeland Security in the recent NYC actions, and any student of American history would not be surprised by such federal involvement in seeking to quell social unrest. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/18/occupy-wall-street-crackdowns_n_1101685.html

Keith Olbermann's Special Report on Mayor Bloomberg's Decision to Evict OWS Protesters

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoG9PmdGaT8&feature=share

Occupy Wall Street Evicted by $174.5 Million Subsidized Firm

The Occupy Wall Street movement compels authorities to grapple with the legal protections of free speech and assembly embedded in our democratic constitution, and it's become quite an inconvenience for those who are perfectly content with the status quo. Recent crackdowns on OWS encampments throughout the country shine a glaring light on the contradictions between the ever-present rhetoric of American "freedom" and the grim reality of the violence instigated by the NYPD (and other police forces around the country) against peaceful, non-violent protesters. This post reveals that Mayor Bloomberg's decision to ruthlessly clear out Zucotti Park came at the behest of a corporate real estate power enjoying generous public subsidies.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-stoehr/occupy-wall-street-evicted_b_1098642.html

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