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The Geopolitics of Compassion

Beyond the spectacle of the presidential race, the Washington consensus pursues business as usual. This is the season in which I wonder, with an ever-intensifying sense of urgency, what it would take to turn our political system into a democracy.

"And yet the militarization of the United States and the strengthening of the national security complex continues to accelerate," Tom Engelhardt wrote earlier this month. "The Pentagon is, by now, a world unto itself. . . ."

And as the world’s major powers play a 21st-century version of the "Great Game" to control the resources of the world, the U.S., in contrast with China, writes David Vine, "has focused relentlessly on military might as its global trump card, dotting the planet with new bases and other forms of military power."

Election

“We’re fighting for our families” say striking Ohio refinery workers

“We’re fighting for our families,” shouted Steelworkers (USW) District One Director Dave McCall, speaking at the Saturday rally of hundreds of striking Husky Energy refinery workers in Lima, Ohio. “The right-wingers like to talk of ‘family values. Well, real family values, the right to be able to spend time with our families, is what this fight is all about, and we are united, strong & we’re be here one day longer than this company that wants to take that away from us!”

McCall was speaking to a spirited crowd of striking USW refinery workers and supporters at the Stand Up-Fight Back Solidarity Rally, July 14, in Lima, Ohio. 230 members of USW, local 624 have been on strike since May at the Husky Energy refinery there, mainly over “family issues,” including ending of forced overtime, hiring a full workforce, maintaining their right to flexible scheduling practices so that they can spend time with their families and numerous safety issues.

Thanks Woody - We're standing on your sholders

It is the 100th Birthday of Woody Guthrie, the true folk hero, the epitome of the Beatles’ “working Class Hero,” a really true American hero (a description that Woody would no doubt despise). Born in Okemah, Oklahoma on July 12, 1912, named after his father’s favorite politician, Woodrow Wilson, Woody was born into and was a product of that rough and tumble time and place.

Well known as the author of “This Land is Your Land,” “Dust Bowl Blues,” “Hard Traveling,” “Talking Columbia” and so many more songs of and for poor folks, beaten down and fighting back in the Great Depression of the 1930’s, Woody was that, and so much more! We today know Woody as the fighting troubadour that traveled with the Dust Bowl “Okies,” forced off their farms by greedy banksters, fighting and singing with striking workers, memorializing the Grand Coolie Dam , and traveling, singing for the Merchant Marines in the Atlantic. In all of that, we know and are inspired by Woody’s life, but only 200 of the over 3,000 songs that Woody wrote were ever published.

CALL TO ACTION: Please help Ohio farmers

Hello Fracktivists,
We are beginning a program to hold ODNR accountable for allowing permitting of Oil & Gas extraction/injection wells and the inspection of these sites. There are many operating sites that are not following code and are not being inspected.
Call to Action: Please review and call at least one of the listed sources to assist Crawford County residents in protecting their lands. This is an elderly farming community and folks are scared and need our help. The site is located down a long access lane through a cornfield but is only 100 yards from residential properties. The Owner of the property, Fishburn Oil Inc., did well improvements, using their own company, and have not followed safe environmental practices. (see pics) Oil has been spilled in a 35 foot radius, there is oil sludge and contaminants on everything in the area with corn growing 10 feet away. There is an open pit with 50-60 gallons of crude plus other oily debris and the plastic lining is pulled almost all the way into the pit, down to the level of the liquid. The stench was overwhelming. The odor of the site can be detected from a mile away.

War and Climate Change

The heat backs up across the country, causing drought, wildfires, a mega-storm on the East Coast. More than 4,000 "hottest day" records have been shattered in the U.S. in the past month.

"The ecological ego matures," Theodore Roszak wrote 20 years ago in The Voice of the Earth: An Exploration of Ecopsychology, “toward a sense of ethical responsibility to the planet that is as vividly experienced as our ethical responsibility to other people. It seeks to weave that responsibility into the fabric of social relations and political decisions.”

Social change of real value is slow-going indeed. How do we manifest responsibility to the planet? A serious consensus is building across the globe that doing so is crucial, that the weather extremes of recent years are no less than global warming in action, the result of centuries of unbridled, industrial-age irresponsibility toward the planet, and something fundamental has to change in how we live our lives and sustain ourselves, but our leadership, certainly in this country, seems incapable of addressing an issue of such complexity.

The Supreme Court ruling on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

The historic ruling by the Robert’s Court based on common law, precedent and moral judgment is a victory all Americans. Opponents of the PPACA claim that it will bankrupt our country. The Office of Management and Budget, OMB, the bipartisan congressional committee which scores the financial effects of bills and laws, estimates that it will cost $200 billion to implement the PPACA. But, that it will save $200 billion in health care cost during the first during decade and it will save $1.2 trillion during the second decade. Benefits to workers, from the PPACA and other safety nets are spent. With secondary spending, markets for goods and services increase. Everyone, including entrepreneurs, profit. Unemployment is reduced and the economy grows.

Flesh-eating fish are feeding on tourists' feet

BANGKOK, Thailand -- A pool of flesh-eating fish may conjure up painful visions of pointy-toothed piranhas, but that doesn't stop countless people offering themselves to gentler fish which hungrily suck dead skin, prompting new health warnings about infections from mixing blood and water.

"It is the same feeling like a mosquito biting you," said Lomporn Chintee, 27, after letting herself be nibbled in a "fish spa" on Phi Phi island.

"It tickles. I didn't know there was any health risk. But I'm not afraid. I would do it again," Lomporn said.

Clive Helman, visiting Bangkok from England, said he was intrigued by the idea.

"I would consider having it done if the place was pretty clean looking. There is a place on Phi Phi where you could give the fish your full body, with no clothes on. I would start with my feet, though, and perhaps then give the full body treatment a go, despite the alleged dangers."

The process is akin to sticking your limbs, torso or head into a big aquarium which is filled with lots of small fish, and allowing them to tenderly assault your skin in an uninhibited feeding frenzy.

Veterans For Peace supports U.N. committee in questioning U.S. recruitment, killing of children

Leah Bolger, President of Veterans For Peace, applauded a United Nations Committee this week for raising concerns about the recruitment of children into the U.S. military, the U.S. killing of children in Afghanistan, the U.S. detention and torture of children labeled "combatants," and the provision of weapons by the United States to other nations employing child soldiers.

While the United States is one of only three countries, along with Somalia and South Sudan, not to have ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, it has ratified and made part of its law the Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict, which requires special protections for any military recruits under the age of 18.

The U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child has asked for additional information related to the Second Periodic Report of the United States to the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict, (OPAC). The United States has until November 16, 2012, to respond.

Transport settlement will strengthen Columbus

This past week, braving blazing 100 plus degree temperatures and universal condemnation from the local, corporate owned media, Columbus bus drivers and maintenance workers, members of United Transportation Union, local 208, carried out a successful two day strike against COTA (Central Ohio Transportation Authority).

The largely African-American UTU workforce had been working since November without a contract, and no progress had been made in negotiations until a Federal Mediator was brought in a month ago. However, members of UTU, concerned with safety and economic issues had set a deadline of July 1 to settle or to walk. The union did not want to strike but felt they had to take a stand for economic justice and public safety or, as public workers, they’d continue to be made scapegoats for an economic crisis caused by corporate greed. “Our members live in this community and whatever they earn, they spend in this community,” said TWU, local 208 President Andrew Jordan. “We are active contributing members of the Columbus community and we’re working to make this area better, stronger and safer.”

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