No information, no problem. See no evil.

If you're worried about the effects of pesticides on honey bees, simply stop collecting information to solve the problem. That's the position of the Trump administration.

On the heels of the EPA's June approval of a bee-killing pesticide, the White House said it would stop collecting data on declining honey bee populations—potentially making it impossible to analyze the effects of the chemical and the administration's other anti-science policies on the pollinators.

The next step might be to stop collecting criminal justice statistics, statistics related to failing schools to "solve" those problems too. That strategy would be in line with our tendency to start wars based on faulty intel and lies. And we've already cut the budget for gathering climate data and analysis. No information, no problem.  See no evil.

Continue ReadingNo information, no problem. See no evil.

Bill Moyers: The EPA is about to be destroyed.

Donald Trump has nominated Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, who has made a career of attacking the EPA on behalf of his fossil fuel contributors, to be head of the EPA. Based on his past conduct, including his denial of climate change, Pruitt's mission will be to destroy the EPA, thereby putting the American public at great risk of living in a toxic cesspool, the conditions leading Richard Nixon to create the EPA in the '70's.

Continue ReadingBill Moyers: The EPA is about to be destroyed.

Election of Donald Trump will Expose our Empty Rhetoric

Donald Trump is surrounding himself with people who appear to be obsessed with short term profit taking, disregard for Constitutional principles, the trampling of the environment and military-minded xenophobia. As this plays out for the next few years, we’ll be better positioned to see how much of the DNC governance of the past 8 years was empty rhetoric on these same issues. I’m not saying that there aren’t differences. In fact, I’m terrified that we are about travel backwards on many serious issues. On the other hand, we’ve come from 8 years of an administration that was quite friendly to Wall Street, Health Insurers, Telecoms and other big industries that have essentially become consumer gouging monopolies or worse. Where was the DNC-led outcry as fracking became commonplace, as drones hit numerous innocents abroad, as we waged undeclared war on at least 6 Middle Eastern countries, and where government spying on U.S. citizens in the absence of probable cause continued to be business as usual? Did we cry out in protest as our state and federal governments approved budgets that crushed the abilities of schools to hire excellent teachers and provide them with necessary supplies. Did we speak out on the “war on drugs,” which destroys the lives of many non-violent users who crave street drugs that for the most part have legal equivalents peddled by Big Pharma?

Continue ReadingElection of Donald Trump will Expose our Empty Rhetoric

Questions about moral equivalence by Chris Hedges

I do wish I could disagree with Chris Hedges, because the world view he paints brings me way down. Here are some of his questions, from a recent article at Truthdig called "Fooled Again":

Is the Goldman Sachs commodity trader, who hoards futures of rice, wheat, corn, sugar and livestock to jack up prices on the global market, leaving poor people in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America to starve, any less morally repugnant than the drug trafficker? Are F-16 pilots who incinerate families in Raqqa morally distinct from jihadists who burn a captured Jordanian pilot in a cage? Is torture in one of our black sites or offshore penal colonies any less barbaric than torture at the hands of Islamic State? Are the decapitations of children by military drones any more defensible than decapitations of Egyptian laborers on a beach in Libya by self-described holy warriors? Is Heather Bresch, the CEO of Mylan, who raised the price of the lifesaving EpiPen by 400 percent or more and whose compensation since 2007 has risen by 600 percent to above $18 million a year, any less venal than a human trafficker who sends an overloaded boat and its occupants to their doom on the coast of Libya?
What is the endgame?
History has amply demonstrated where this will end up. The continued exploitation by an unchecked elite, and the rising levels of poverty and insecurity, will unleash a legitimate rage among the desperate. They will see through the lies and propaganda of the elites. They will demand retribution. They will turn to those who express the hatred they feel for the powerful and the institutions, now shams, that were designed to give them a voice. They will seek not reform but destruction of a system that has betrayed them.

Continue ReadingQuestions about moral equivalence by Chris Hedges