Wyzga On Words

How Politics Became A Business.

Who wrote the following and when?

"1. The immediate objective is the defeat of the compulsory health insurance program pending in Congress. 2. The long-term objective is to put a permanent stop to the agitation for socialized medicine in this country by (a) awakening the people to the danger of a politically-controlled, government-regulated health system; (b) convincing the people, through a Nation wide campaign of education, of the superior advantages of private medicine, as practiced in America, over the State-dominated medical systems of other countries; (c) stimulating the growth of voluntary health insurance systems to take the economic shock out of illness and increase the availability of medical care to the American people."

Would it surprise you to know it was 1945 in retaliation to a proposal by then President Harry S. Truman? 

Earl Warren, former Governor of California and later Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court had proposed compulsory health insurance for Californians after he had fallen quite ill and wondered how others who were not so well off as he would cope with medical bills.  His proposal was severely trounced. 

Months later President Truman proposed a national program. It was severely trounced. How did this happen?

In her riveting 7 page article that reads like a political campaign whodunit, Jill Lepore writing for The New Yorker magazine, "The Lie Factory," takes us back to the early 1930s when the world of political consulting was born of Leone Baxter and Clem Whitaker.  They named their prodigy "Campaigns, Inc." and political life has never been the same.  

If you think, even vaguely, that you are getting the straight scoop on this election, The Lie Factory may disabuse you of that comfortable notion.  It's downright scary even for a realist.

What's Really In That Plastic Bottle Of Bottled Water You're Drinking?

There's nothing odd about 3 corporations taking control of our drinking water.  It's just business.

Nestle, Coke and Pepsi have their eye on the future.  The future is water: who has it, who controls it, who needs it.

Mahatma Ghandi said, "There is enough water for human need, but not for human greed."

This is where we have arrived: corporate greed.

Yet, it's not all their fault.  Corporations sell what we buy.  When we stop buying we change things.

Water covers 75% of planet Earth; only 1% of that is drinkable.  In the next 15 years almost two-thirds of the human race will be struggling for clean drinking water.

Water is the new oil.

Now does it make sense?

Nestle, Coke and Pepsi are sucking the earth dry, bottling the water and selling it back to you at 1900 times the original cost to them.

What do you think goes into a bottle of Arrowhead, Ozark, Dasani or Aquafina water?  Pure mountain stream refreshment?

Over 40% of the bottled water on the shelves is merely good old-fashioned municipal tap water.

Recall a few years back when Atlanta was suffering the drought?  Lakes were down to dirt?  But the local Coke plant kept on bottling?

The joke's on us.

Compounding the problem is the petrochemicals that make up the plastic bottles that hold the water.  These cancer-causing petrochemicals leach out into the water you drink, you give your kids to drink.

And it doesn't stop there.  Not everyone gets curbside recycling service.  And even if we did there are not enough recycling plants or uses for the bottles.  So they end up in landfills where the petrochemicals leach into the soils and ground water.

And it doesn't end there.  Our oceans are becoming a toxic plastic stew as more and more bottles are swept into the lakes, rivers, streams and sea.  Marine life eats the broken down plastic pellets.

Here's a few sources you can check out to begin your research and then decide for yourself if it's time to give up the bottle:

Tapped - the movie. This 2009 Indie Winner examines the role of the bottled water industry and its effects on our health, climate change, pollution, and our reliance on oil. The high cost -- to both the environment and our health -- of bottled water is the subject of this documentary that enlists activists, environmentalists, community leaders and others to expose the dark side of the bottled water industry. Americans may rethink their obsession with bottled H20 when they learn of the unregulated industry's willingness to ignore environmental and health concerns, and the problems that arise as a result.  Produced by Atlas Films.  Trailer.

We made it easy for you: click here to watch Tapped, all 75 minutes of it.

Just to balance the argument a bit, here are Top 10 Reasons why bottled water is a blessing.  And from a Quaker.

Grading your bottled water.    

Do You Have The Right ID To Vote?

According to a recent article in the July/August issue of Sierra magazine, "Can I See Your ID?" readers are informed about new state laws that disenfranchise Latinos, African Americans and young people.

Of course, Sierra is reporting from the point of view of three groups of people who have traditionally leaned toward environmental issues and might be disenfranchised as a result of the new laws.  Excerpt.

"Say you're a large U.S. corporation with an interest in defeating pro-environmental candidates for public office. Which voters would you most want to keep away from the voting booth? At the top of your list would be Latinos, African Americans, and young people.

According to polls, all three groups strongly and consistently support environmental issues. A Pew poll in March, for example, found that 82 percent of 18- to 30-year-olds support increased federal funding for alternative energy, compared with just 54 percent of those over age 66. And when asked whether climate change is a "very serious" problem, 59 percent of Caucasians agree, while 69 percent of African Americans and 74 percent of Latinos do."

What is of greater global concern are the ways in which the new laws rob populations of the right to vote on any issue under the guise of preventing "voter fraud" by requiring proof of citizenship  and specific forms of photo IDs.  Excerpt.

"Now, just in time for November's general election, comes a coordinated plan to disenfranchise those green voters. Acting from cookie-cutter legislative templates furnished by the corporate-financed American Legislative Exchange Council, 176 bills to restrict voting rights have been introduced in 41 states since the beginning of 2011, and bills have passed—or are on the verge of passing—in 14. The ostensible reason for the legislation is to eliminate the threat of voter fraud—in the words of Kansas governor Sam Brownback, to "ensure the sanctity of the vote.""

What kind of voter fraud do we have here?  We are all familiar with the "Tale of Hanging Chads." Is voter fraud so prevalent that the laws must have such a long-arm reach?  Maybe blue inked fingers?  Excerpt.

"Efforts to solve this phony problem vary from state to state. Alabama, Kansas, and Tennessee require would-be voters to present proof of citizenship prior to registration. Florida makes voter registration so onerous that the League of Women Voters has ceased its registration efforts there. The most common suppression laws, however, require voters to show a specific form of photo ID at the polls. In Texas, licenses to carry concealed firearms are considered valid, while student IDs are not.

Twenty-one million American citizens, in fact, lack the kind of photo ID that would pass muster under these laws. Among that number are 18 percent of young eligible voters, nearly 11 percent of Latinos, and 25 percent of African Americans. Because of the laws' discriminatory effect, the Justice Department has been able to block voter ID laws in states with prior histories of discrimination—such as South Carolina and Texas—under the Voting Rights Act. Elsewhere, however, even though U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has said that making it harder for people to vote "goes against the arc of history," the feds have declined to take action."

You know me well enough by now.  I say bring it home with a story.  Here's one:

"In Pennsylvania, for example, the ACLU and the NAACP are suing to overturn that state's voter ID law. Their lead plaintiff is Viviette Applewhite, a 93-year-old woman who marched with Martin Luther King Jr. in Macomb, Georgia, and has voted regularly since casting her ballot for John F. Kennedy in 1960. She never learned to drive and lost her photo ID when her purse was stolen years ago. She's tried to obtain a new ID, but the state can't find her birth certificate and so won't issue one.

"I think it stinks," Applewhite says in an ACLU video. "It's the most ridiculous thing I ever heard of. I got in line and marched with [King]. There was so many rights we did not have. The way they take them away, we'll be right back where we were before.""

Click here to listen to Applewhite in her own words.