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Ohio government officials activating a radioactive fracking waste time bomb: Local grassroots leaders weigh in on disposing radioactive fracking waste in Ohio

Today, grassroots leaders in Ohio called out state leaders for failing to protect Ohioans from solid radioactive waste from hydraulic fracturing (fracking). According to local citizens groups, Governor Kasich’s budget bill will provide inadequate protection from low-level radioactive waste, and therefore constitutes a handout to the oil and gas industry. They are asking the state to require the oil and gas industry to properly dispose of Low-Level Radioactive Waste (LLRW).

“The regulations represent yet another concession to the oil and gas industry at the expense of Ohioans’ health and safety,” says Alison Auciello, an organizer for Food & Water Watch. “Governor Kasich and our regulators are billing the proposal as a way to monitor and keep radioactive waste from landfills. But the legislation will indeed do the opposite of the claims made by the administration. Even worse, it gives a false sense of security that we are being protected. Disposal of radioactive waste should be considered a grave matter, not an ill-informed side note to the budget bill.”

Boozing it up in the UK with the NSA

Continuing its string of highly damaging revelations about British and American surveillance operations, the Guardian has released leaked documents showing that the British government spied on finance ministers and diplomats at the G20 talks in 2009. The new evidence was leaked by Edward Snowden, the Booz Allen whistleblower currently in hiding in Hong Kong.

Further questions have arisen about the conduct of the British government's surveillance station GCHQ (Government Communication Head Quarters) after revelations that real-time intelligence gathering on foreign diplomats took place in 2009's G20 summit. This latest leak, particularly damaging since it immediately precedes a G8 summit in London about free trade, demonstrates with growing clarity the extent to which the NSA and its affiliates gain access to intelligence gathered in British surveillance operations.

Are we being trolled by the NSA?

The Guardian’s recent revelations concerning the intelligence community collecting cell phone call and location data from every single American, as well as the massive cataloging of social media interactions has jump-started a new national dialogue on privacy. This new social dialogue has not yet begun to include questions about the intelligence community speaking secretly rather than listening secretly. The public may be only just beginning to understand how the intelligence community can and does intervene anonymously in national politics.

Oh, hi.

A built-in cure for war

Erin Niemela's recent proposal that we amend the Constitution to ban war is provocative and persuasive. Count me in. But I have a related idea that I think should be tried first.

While banning war is just what the world ordered, it has about it something of the whole Bush-Cheney ordeal during which we spent years trying to persuade Congress to ban torture. By no means do I want to be counted among those opposed to banning torture. But it is relevant, I want to suggest, that torture had already been banned. Torture had been banned by treaty and been made a felony, under two different statutes, before George W. Bush was made president. In fact, the pre-existing ban on torture was stronger and more comprehensive than any of the loophole-ridden efforts to re-criminalize it. Had the debate over "banning torture" been entirely replaced with a stronger demand to prosecute torture, we might be better off today.

We are in that same situation with regard to war. War was banned 84 years ago, making talk of banning war problematic.

We’re overwhelmingly for it, unless we’re overwhelmingly against it!

On June 8, the Columbus Dispatch carried a poll that measured people’s opinions on issues concerning affirmative action, race, and LGBT questions. While the results were generally what readers here would consider positive, the affirmative action/race, questions & answers were far more revealing in how it was said and it what wasn’t said.

First of all, the LGBT results showed the basically positive movement in people’s opinions that all media outlets have been reporting recently. Marriage equality was supported by 52%, vs. 43% in opposition. Support for anti-discrimination legislation that includes gays, lesbians was higher, with 73% supporting it and only 22% stating opposition.

Where the poll got really interesting was the next, affirmative action section.

In answer to the question;

“In order to make up for past discrimination, do you favor or oppose programs that make special efforts to help blacks and other minorities get ahead?”

The results were a positive, and overwhelming, 68% in favor with only 24% in opposition.

However, in answer to the very next question, worded as follows:

Hearings held on ‘Right-to-work’ in Ohio

After hearings on June 4, packed by angry, vocal opponents, the Manufacturing & Workforce Development Committee of the Ohio legislature, unanimously voted to table three so-called ‘right-to-work’ bills. Those bills had been introduced by right wing GOP legislators Ron Maag & Kristina Roegner a month earlier. Backed by the Tea Party, the bills were touted as the “Workplace Freedom Act,” but are actually designed to break up Union workplaces, after workers had voted to be represented by unions. Hundreds of workers rallied on statehouse grounds, protesting the proposed legislation, while the hearings were held.

“Ohioans have spoken, and did so overwhelmingly, on these ongoing attacks on working families and the middle class,” stated Ohio AFL-CIO President Tim Burga. “When corporate politicians gave us Senate Bill 5, to wipe out public worker’s bargaining in the state, the people overwhelmingly said NO! We wish these guys would get the message. We need jobs, health care, a decent, safe workplace & a good economy, not more of these divisive attacks on working families and the middle class!”

Three things young people should know to save the world

Of course, old people should know these things too, and some small percentage does know them, but energy seems better invested in trying to teach them to young people who have less to unlearn in the process.
1. Obedience is extremely dangerous.

This seems like it must be either wrong or misleadingly incomplete. And that would be true if we were talking about children. If a two-year-old is about to run in front of a car, please do yell "stop!" and hope for as much obedience as possible.

But I'm talking to young people, not children.

When you grow up, your obedience should always be conditional. If a master chef appears to be instructing you to prepare a revoltingly bad dinner but wants you to obey his or her instructions on faith, you might very well choose to do so, considering the risk to be tolerable. If, however, the chef tells you to chop off your little finger, and you do it, that will be a sure sign that you've got an obedience problem.

For All Children Everywhere

We can end war.

Please, before you read on, let those four words float in silence for half a minute, until you actually hear them - until they come alive with meaning as insistent as a hatching egg. War is not inevitable, no matter how cluelessly enthusiastic the media may be to promote it, no matter how thoroughly it runs the global economy and dominates almost every government.

We can shut down this system of self-perpetuating violence and geopolitical chicken. We can dismantle the glory machine and redefine patriotism. We can curtail the most toxic enterprise on the planet. We can end war.

Oh, the audacity to say such a thing! Yet it amounts to no more than saying: We can evolve, individually and collectively. We can bring wisdom to conflict. We can reclaim the institutions that run our lives. We can look into the eyes of children, those we know and those we don’t know, and vow to protect them. We can start caring again about future generations and bring their well-being into our thoughts and plans.

"Worst in the Nation"

The new legislation introduced in the Ohio House is "one of the nation's all-time worst abortion bills," according to Think Progress. I agree.

Between the state budget and bills intended to shame and demean our patients, Ohio women have never been the subject of such severe political attacks. We're fighting back and we need you with us. Next week, join me and some Planned Parenthood patients for a telephone town hall.

Register here.

During this call, I’ll be answering questions from Ohio women just like you -- women who want to know what affect politicians' actions will have on their health care.

After registering, the night of the call, the only thing you need to do to participate is answer the phone. On the evening of June 19, we'll call you. Just stay on the line to hear us discuss the current political environment with Planned Parenthood patients and supporters. You'll have the chance to participate in the discussion if you choose.

Please join us to learn how to fight back.
Stephanie Kight

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