Advertisement

NATIONAL GRASSROOTS CALL-IN DAY TO STOP NUKE/COAL SUBSIDIES

LET'S KEEP CONGRESSIONAL PHONES RINGING ALL DAY LONG!
Both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives are beginning to consider separate legislation that could have an enormous impact on our nation's energy future. It is essential that we all weigh in now, in the strongest possible manner, to help shape that energy future. Let's tell Congress loud and clear to support renewable energy and energy efficiency programs and to stop any more taxpayer support for dirty and dangerous nuclear power and coal technologies. Washington-based groups like NIRS, PSR, FoE, NRDC, NukeFree.org, and others are working hard to stop this legislation from becoming a gift to the nuclear power and coal industries. But the nuclear and coal industries have far more lobbyists and far more money than we do. What those industries don't have is YOU. And YOU can make the difference.

On Thursday, April 30, let's keep the phones in the Senate and House ringing all day long with a simple message: YES to renewable energy and energy efficiency programs, NO to any more taxpayer subsidies for nuclear power and coal.

Capitol Switchboard: 202-224-3121.

President Reagan, appeasing MoveOn.org

http://mattbors.com

Democracy under attack in Florida

There's been a frenzy of activity in the Florida legislature of late. In week seven of this nine-week session, sweeping legislation was introduced in both houses with little fanfare, and Republican lawmakers discouraging debate or public input. A Gainesville Sun editorial summed it up: "Florida's lawmakers should be making voting easier and the elections process more transparent. Instead, they have produced a so-called reform that fails on all counts."

The international criminal court and a rogue empire

One of the best books published in Canada last year is one of the best books published in the United States thus far this year: "The Sun Climbs Slow: The International Criminal Court and the Struggle for Justice," by Erna Paris.

It's appropriate for this story to come to us from our northern neighbor. This is largely a history of the development of international law, culminating in the surprising success of the creation of an international criminal court (ICC). The ICC now has 108 countries as state parties, and the theoretical power to prosecute war crimes by anyone anywhere on earth. The ICC is currently prosecuting a sitting head of state, the president of Sudan. The ICC's decisions cannot be vetoed by UN Security Council members. It is theoretically independent and loyal only to international law.

The prosecution of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney

The Columbus Free Press strongly supports prosecution of former President George W. Bush and former Vice President Dick Cheney for their active approval of torture http://www.infoniac.com/news/torture-approved-bush-administration.html. Torture was discussed in White House meetings of the National Security Council's Principals Committee, a selected team of senior officials that were advising president on the matters regarding national security policy. Efforts to prosecute Bush/Cheney and others responsible for attempting to create legal justification for torture are gaining momentum: http://www.impeachbushnow.org/. Bush and Cheney should face prosecution for other high crimes and misdemeanors, detailed here: http://www.groundsforimpeachment.com/.

Who will pay for America's Chernobyl roulette?

As the US attempts to dig out from economic collapse, a little-known nuclear industry liability could seriously derail Obama's attempt to revive our finances.

It is the federal disaster insurance on 104 rickety atomic reactors. Because the industry cannot get its own insurance, we taxpayers are on the hook.

There is no "rainy day" fund to finance the clean-up after a reactor disaster. No one in government or industry can reasonably explain how we would pay for such a catastrophe.

Chernobyl's lethal cloud began pouring into the atmosphere 23 years ago this week. Dr. Alexey Yablokov, former environmental advisor to the late President Boris Yeltsin, and president of the Center for Russian Environmental Policy, estimates the death toll at 300,000.

It also gutted the regional economy, and accelerated the Soviet collapse. By conservative accounts Chernobyl's explosion has so far cost a half-trillion dollars, with its financial toll continuing to accrue.

A disaster at a US reactor could dwarf that number.

Finally ... equality

http://mattbors.com

The big strike

It's the 75th anniversary of what's known in labor lore as "The Big Strike" -- the remarkable event that brought open warfare to San Francisco's waterfront, led to one of the very few general strikes in U.S. history and played a key role in spreading unionization nationwide.

It began in May of the dark Depression year of 1934 when longshoremen walked off the job to protest the truly wretched working conditions on West Coast docks.

Longshoremen were not even guaranteed jobs, no matter how skilled or experienced they might be. They had to report to the docks every morning and hope a hiring boss would pick them from among the thousands of desperate job-seekers who jammed the waterfront for the daily "shapeup."

Bosses rarely chose those who raised serious complaints about pay and working conditions or otherwise challenged them, but were quite partial to those who slipped them bribes or bought them drinks at nearby bars.

Even those who were hired often weren't sure how long they'd work. They might be needed for only a few hours or for as many as l8, sometimes even more, usually worked at top speed without breaks. .

Wall of fear

“Frankly, this does look a lot like Jimmy Carter. Carter tried weakness, and the world got tougher and tougher, because the predators, the aggressors, the anti-Americans, the dictators — when they sense weakness, they all start pushing ahead.”

The chicken hawks still have a mega-forum. This was Newt Gingrich the other day, discussing “the handshake” on “Fox and Friends,” and having his words — no matter how simplistic they were, no matter the moral cowardice they masked — widely and uncritically quoted throughout the media afterward.

Obama: beyond savior or trickster

As President Obama enters his fourth month in office, two tendencies among progressive-minded Americans seem most hazardous to the political health of the country. The gist of one approach is that Obama can’t do anything seriously wrong; the other is that he can’t do anything seriously right.

Among the tendencies, the first is more widespread and more dangerous. All kinds of atrocious policies -- from Lyndon Johnson’s war on Vietnam to Jimmy Carter’s midterm swerve rightward to Bill Clinton’s neoliberal measures such as NAFTA, “welfare reform” and Wall Street deregulation -- were calamities facilitated by acquiescence or mild dissent from many left-leaning Democrats.

Pages

Subscribe to ColumbusFreePress.com RSS