The richest 300 people on earth have the same wealth as the poorest 3 billion. This is no accident - those in power write the rules. Together, we have the power to change those rules.
- On Oct. 4 the No on 37 campaign was forced to pull its first ad off the air and re-shoot it after they were caught misrepresenting Miller as a doctor at Stanford University when he is actually a researcher at the Hoover Institute on Stanford's campus, as the Los Angeles Times reported.
In addition to allowing his university affiliation to be repeatedly overblown, Miller has a sordid history of parroting the talking points of some of the world's most notorious corporate bad actors: he's a founding member of a now defunct tobacco front group that tried to discredit the links between cigarettes and cancer, he's repeatedly called for the reintroduction of DDT - known to cause premature birth, fronted for an oil industry funded climate change denial group for Exxon, claimed that people exposed to radiation from the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster "may have benefited from it", and attacked the US Food and Drug Administration's efforts to ensure proper vetting and testing of new drugs safety while urging it to outsource more of its functions to private industries.
- Last week, the campaign was reprimanded by Stanford again for misrepresenting the university in a mailer that went out to millions of voters. And this week, the campaign was caught sending out yet another deceptive mailer involving the University.
This is the man the No on 37 campaign has portrayed to voters as an arbiter of good science and promoted as an expert worthy of our trust. In reality, Miller is nothing more than a corporate shill that will say whatever his paymasters ask him to, be it Exxon, Phillip Morris, Monsanto, or DuPont.
Does the No on 37 campaign stand behind Miller's fringe views on tobacco, climate change, nuclear radiation and DDT?
So who should we trust?And another article debunking the lies against the Yes on Prop 37 campaign, shared from Teresa Barth's Facebook page.
Who should we trust when it comes to our right to know what's in the food we eat: Monsanto, DuPont, and Henry Miller or the millions of California consumers and leading consumer, health, women's, faith-based, labor and other groups; 61 countries that already require GMO labeling; and a growing stack of peer-reviewed research linking genetically engineered foods to health and environmental problems?
Who has our best interests at heart, the pesticide and junk food industry, or Prop 37 supporters like Consumers Union, California Nurses Association, California Democratic Party, California Labor Federation, United Farm Workers, American Public Health Association, Consumers Union, Sierra Club, Whole Foods Market, California Council of Churches, Organic Consumers Association, Center for Food Safety, Consumer Federation of America, Public Citizen, and Food Democracy Now!?
"We are very disappointed that PBS became a political target in the Presidential debate last night. Governor Romney does not understand the value the American people place on public broadcasting and the outstanding return on investment the system delivers to our nation. We think it is important to set the record straight and let the facts speak for themselves.
The federal investment in public broadcasting equals about one one-hundredth of one percent of the federal budget. Elimination of funding would have virtually no impact on the nation’s debt. Yet the loss to the American public would be devastating.
A national survey by the bipartisan research firms of Hart Research and American Viewpoint in 2011 found that over two-thirds of American voters (69%) oppose proposals to eliminate government funding of public broadcasting, with Americans across the political spectrum against such a cut.
As a stated supporter of education, Governor Romney should be a champion of public broadcasting, yet he is willing to wipe out services that reach the vast majority of Americans, including underserved audiences, such as children who cannot attend preschool and citizens living in rural areas..." [read the rest here]
Getting rid of PBS may not seem like a big deal to many in the grand scheme of things, but the GOP's desire to cut its funding points to a tactic they frequently use: cut financially trivial programs to give the false impression that they are making the tough choices to reduce the debt and boost the economy at the same time they are protecting the largest drags on the economy -- tax breaks for the rich, wars, big oil etc.Via Dependale Renegade
"When about 650 members of community, labor and faith organizations rallied today in Elwood, Illinois in support of workers at a key Walmart warehouse striking to protest “poverty wages,” sexual harassment, racial discrimination and extreme work conditions, they were met with riot-gear-clad police and the private security Illinois Law Enforcement Alarm System Mobile Field Force who surrounded them, arrested all 47 who committed civil disobedience by sitting in the road, and told the other peaceful protesters to disperse or risk “chemical or less lethal munitions being deployed.”
“They call us bodies and that’s what we feel like.” - Mike Compton, one of the striking warehouse workers."
I used to think the truth would set us free. Like many who care about the environment, I spent years thinking that information would lead to change. So I wrote reports, gave speeches, even testified before Congress.
Some things changed. Sadly, the big picture didn’t.
For a long time I couldn’t understand why. Now I’ve realized that it isn’t because we don’t have enough data, white papers or experts to tell us we’re in trouble. The problem is we’ve forgotten what it takes to make change.
My new movie, The Story of Change, argues that’s partly because we’ve gotten stuck in consumer mode.
She continues:
I’ve come to see that we have two parts to ourselves; it’s almost like two muscles – a consumer muscle and a citizen muscle. Our consumer muscle, which is fed and exercised constantly, has grown strong. So strong that “consumer” has become our primary identity, our reason for being. We’re told so often that we’re a nation of consumers that we don’t blink when the media use “consumer” and “person” interchangeably.
Meanwhile, our citizen muscle has gotten flabby. There’s no marketing campaign reminding us to engage as citizens. On the contrary, we’re bombarded with lists of simple things we can buy or do to save the planet, without going out of our way or breaking a sweat.
No wonder that faced with daunting problems and discouraged by the intransigence of the status quo, we instinctively flex our power in the only way we know how – as consumers. Plastic garbage choking the oceans? Carry your own shopping bag. Formaldehyde in baby shampoo? Buy the brand with the green seal. Global warming threatening life as we know it? Change your lightbulb. (As Michael Maniates, a professor of political and environmental science at Allegheny College, says: “Never has so little been asked of so many.”)
Now, all of those are good things to do. When we shop, it’s good to choose products without toxic chemicals and unnecessary packaging, made by locally-based companies that treat their workers well. But our real power is not in choosing from items on a limited menu; it is in determining what gets on that menu. The way to ensure that toxic, climate-disrupting choices are replaced with safe and healthy alternatives – for everyone, not just those who can afford them – is by engaging as citizens: working together for bigger, bolder change than we could ever accomplish as individual consumers.
Look back at successful movements – civil rights, anti-apartheid, the early environmental victories – and you’ll see that three things are needed to make change at the scale we need today.
First, we need a Big Idea of how things could be better – a morally compelling, ecologically sustainable and socially just idea that will not just make things a little better for a few, but a lot better for everyone. Millions around the world already have that idea: an economy based on the needs of people and the planet, not corporate profit.
Second, we need a commitment to work together. In history’s most transformative social movements, people didn’t say “I will perfect my individual daily choices,” but “We will work together until the problem is solved.” Today, it’s easier than ever to work together, online and off.
Finally, we need all of us who share that Big Idea to get active. We need to move from a place of shared concern, frustration and fear to a place of engaged citizen action. That’s how we build the power to make real change.
We have to aim high, work together and act boldly. It’s not simple, and it won’t be easy. But history is on our side. Let’s get to work to make the kind of change we know is possible.
posted by Annie Leonard
July 17, 2012
