LOLLY BECK-PANCER FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

The Farm Bill may be responsible for what’s on our plate, but it is not acting responsibly. The Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008, nicknamed the Farm Bill, is the primary agricultural policy tool of the U.S. government; it regulates international food trade, food stamps, and allocates funding to support farmers. It is responsible for the nutrition of 45 million low-income Americans- half of them children- enrolled in its food stamp program.

Americans on food stamps stretch their assistance dollars as far as possible. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the Farm Bill to subsidize healthful fruits and vegetables to make them the financially accessible as well as favorable choice. However, in the bill, nutrition is overshadowed by business interests. Since 2008 farmers have received annual subsidies of approximately $17.3 billion to support commodities such as wheat, corn, grain sorghum, barley, oats, upland cotton, long-grain rice, medium-grain rice, soybeans, peanuts, and other oilseeds, and cheddar cheese, butter, and nonfat dry milk. In 2008, $4.2 billion went to subsidizing corn alone - the one vegetable on that list, which, according to Michael Pollan, doesn’t even make it to our table on a cob. Among its primary uses are producing rapidly fattening cows and ethanol, both multi-billion dollar industries.

ANN DAVIDOW FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

It has become increasingly clear that what Washington and policy makers everywhere need are problem solvers - - not explainers and rhetoricians, but people who can frame solutions, without the poisonous partisan overlay that accompanies much of what passes for frank discussion most of the time.  

These days, whether it’s the fiscal cliff or presidential appointments, the Senate is mired in meaningless debate meant to show members at their intellectual best, but which actually show how incredibly foolish most of them are. And if one is inclined to watch a lot of the goings-on, one may become less - rather than more - receptive to their arguments. In the effort to end debate in the Senate regarding nominee Chuck Hagel, all the Republican complaints were reiterated - although, in an abundance of caution, the party made a point of commending his military service  In the end, the Senate voted to end debate by a healthy margin, clearing the way for a final confirmation vote. 

BILL BERKOWITZ FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Peter G. Peterson’s cringe-worthy Fix the Debt campaign can hoover the kind of attention that most ordinary Americans couldn’t even dream about. If Peterson succeeds, a new era of austerity will be unleashed, and programs that the middle class and poor depend on will be decimated.

Peterson, a longtime political operative and one of the wealthiest men in the country, made his personal fortune “at the Blackstone Group on Wall Street, [where he] … cashed out with $2 billion shortly before the 2008 financial meltdown,” the Madison, Wisconsin-based Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) recently pointed out.

Now Peterson has assembled a huge war chest, recruited a high-powered supporting cast, developed a nationwide infrastructure, and is preparing  to plop a chunk of his Blackstone money into “convince[ing] Americans -- who overwhelmingly want to keep and strengthen Social Security and Medicare -- that these programs threaten our very existence as a nation.”

HARVEY WASSERMAN FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

ROBERT C. KOEHLER FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Sometimes what I fear most is that the disintegration of public life — indeed, the very idea of the public good — is complete. The vultures and profiteers swarm around the carcass and make a profit and that’s all that matters.

Thirty years on, the Reagan Revolution has done its job, or nearly so. There’s no sustaining integrity left to how our society is organized, no principle that can’t be gamed for private benefit. And even awareness of all this has been successfully marginalized. We still proclaim ourselves, in the prevailing media, the world’s oldest, greatest democracy, and worship the old rituals.

But the common good has been auctioned off.

ANN DAVIDOW FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Although most Americans anxiously await insight into the nation’s most pressing issues, politicians in Washington haven’t been able to bridge the partisan divide to find workable solutions. Instead, lesser minds keep appearing at every turn of the dial to make mind-numbing proposals on TV shows purporting to provide ‘the latest news.’

Marsha Blackburn turns up constantly to offer down-home wisdom from Tennessee. Her latest observation was that Sequester was a good thing for reasons that were necessarily unclear. Apparently her constituents are a forgiving lot - - Freedom of speech engenders a lot of gibberistic clap trap, but what’s a free society to do except hope that education catches up with its idiot fringes. Blackburn is a gun-carrying supporter of the NRA who criticizes the president for not having photos of him ‘skeeting’ at Camp David. Shouldn’t we have known about this activity if it is really true, she asks? - - To which a Huffpost blogger responds, If Marsha Blackburn is a real person, why have we not heard of her?

BILL BERKOWITZ FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

The peace symbol is arguably the world’s most widely recognized protest symbol. In 2008, on the occasion of its fiftieth birthday, BBC News noted that the peace symbol has been “adapted, attacked and commercialized.” At fifty-five, the peace symbol remains a cultural icon, but as it ages, is it  more than that?

Originally created as a symbol for the British anti-nuclear movement, it is now ubiquitous: appearing at thousands of anti-nuclear and anti-war protests; adorning posters, buttons, badges, and peace flags; becoming a fixture on postal stamps; and, decorating clothing, beach towels, jewelry, and people’s skin.

GEORGE LAKOFF FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Paul Krugman, Joe Stiglitz, Robert Reich and other major economists have pointed out that the deficit is not an urgent economic problem and that, to the contrary, the economy would be helped by an increase in public investment and harmed by drastic cuts. The Sequester would hurt the economy, millions of people, and the country as a whole.

President Obama has detailed the vast range of harms that the sequester would bring. They are well-known. And they are not necessary. The president sees the sequester, if it happens, as an enormous self-inflicted wound, inflicted on America by a Republican-dominated House elected by Americans.

But pointing out Republican-caused harms to millions of people - many of them Republicans - does not sway the ultra-right. Why? Democratic pundits say that Republicans want to hurt the president, to show government doesn't work by making it not work, and to protect "special interests" from higher taxes. All true. But there is an additional and deeper reason. Ultra-conservatives believe that the sequester is moral, that it is the right thing to do.

WALTER BRASCH FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

José Lara just wanted a job.

A company working in the natural gas fields needed a man to power wash wastewater tanks.

Clean off the debris. Make them shining again.

And so José Lara became a power washer for the Rain for Rent Co.

“The chemicals, the smell was so bad. Once I got out, I couldn’t stop throwing up. I couldn’t even talk,” Lara said in his deposition, translated from Spanish.

The company that had hired him didn’t provide him a respirator or protective clothing. That’s not unusual in the natural gas fields.

José Lara did his job until he no longer could work.

At the age of 42, he died from pancreatic and liver cancer.

ROBERT C. KOEHLER FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

“War’s lingering phantoms haunt every society.”

As two hellish, costly and needless wars struggle toward collapse, this is the time — now, right this minute, before the next false alarm goes off — for us to look honestly at the cost and quality of national security based on militarism. It’s time to squeeze the romance out of war and get it through our heads that war is not inevitable.

War is just another form of mass murder. Its core principle is dehumanization — of all participants, the enemy and the good guys. This is because you can’t hate, dehumanize and train to kill “the other” without dehumanizing yourself and damaging your soul.