rebelpleb

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/06/03/toxic-curve-ball-why-outdated-assumptions-to-determine-safe-levels-of-toxicants-forfeit-the-game/ By now, a large number of consumers are aware of the hazards of the synthetic compound bisphenol-A (BPA). Effective May 11, 2016, under California state law Proposition 65, products containing BPA must possess a warning label indicating that exposure could result in female reproductive impairment. Independent research on the endocrine disrupting effects of the chemical, commonly used in plastic bottles, the lining of metal cans, and customer receipts, among other applications, has consistently demonstrated toxic effects at low dose exposures. Two recent robust studies from Denmark concur, finding deleterious effects in rats exposed to BPA at doses lower than those considered safe for human ingestion, yet not at several higher doses . Nevertheless, regulatory agencies such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Europea...

 http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/04/04/the-cult-of-the-professional-class/   We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them. Albert Einstein In a recent interview on BillMoyers.com about his book Listen Liberal , author Thomas Frank spoke of the professional class that rules the Democratic Party and the orthodoxy instilled in them by their Ivy League institutions . Indeed, every president since 1988 attended an Ivy League university. Not only does this perspective from the professional class cross party lines, their orthodox worldview extends far beyond politics. It is based on an ideology that has served elites well – (semi) free-market capitalism and continuous economic growth. It is an orthodoxy that values corporate interests and personal gain over public good. It permeates all fields of society and American culture. In their book Manufacturing Consent , Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky laid out the media propaganda mode...

What if the best way to win an argument was to pull a miniature Noam Chomsky out of your pocket and let him do the talking? Bar banter and speculative fiction meet in Carl S. Mumm’s story, our new web exclusive. Read this whimsical, fantastical tale of human foibles and (lack of) integrity at: v.i. prose: Noam in My Pocket

from Truthdig:   The pathology of the rich white family is the most dangerous pathology in America. The rich white family is cursed with too much money and privilege. It is devoid of empathy, the result of lifetimes of entitlement. It has little sense of loyalty and lacks the capacity for self-sacrifice. Its definition of friendship is reduced to “What can you do for me?” It is possessed by an insatiable lust to increase its fortunes and power. It believes that wealth and privilege confer to it a superior intelligence and virtue. It is infused with an unchecked hedonism and narcissism. And because of all this, it interprets reality through a lens of self-adulation and greed that renders it delusional. The rich hite family is a menace. The pathologies of the poor, when set against the pathologies of rich white people, are like a candle set beside the sun. There are no shortages of acolytes and propagandists for rich white families. They dominate our airw...

What did you expect? I don’t know why we’re so surprised. When you put your foot on a man’s neck and hold him down for three hundred years, and then you let him up, what’s he going to do? He’s going to knock your block off. -- President Lyndon Johnson The mainstream/elite/white media tend to frame the parameters of discourse within their perspective, which differs from the perspective of the majority of people in the Unites States and around the world. Through doing so, they influence public opinion and solidify personal biases. They suppress the voices of victims, of the marginalized, and of the vast populace who does not enjoy the privileges of money and power, as do those in the elite, prestige media. Here are some of the voices of the oppressed:

If you don't get this, you just might be a  ....

Low-wage workers cannot make a living - not even close - on their paltry wages. Taxpayers subsidize the economic profits of wealthy multinational corporations by helping these workers to survive via public assistance (which is increasingly being cut in order to send tax dollars instead to the coffers of the already rich). Even $15 an hour will still keep most workers in poverty, but it is a start toward the $22 or more per hour that every working American deserves to live a comfortable and dignified life. Low-wage workers include those in service professions, at fast-food establishments, big-box stores, and department stores (i.e., most if not all, corporate establishments). They include restaurant workers, teachers at for-profit educational organizations, elderly care workers, disabled care workers, and adjunct professors. Basically, low-wage workers are among some of the most important and ubiquitous laborers in our midst. They - we - deserve so much better. It is criminal and immo...

“Over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action'; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a ‘more convenient season.'” --- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter From Birmingham Jail And about "Selma" ... It is not surprising that such a beautiful, historically accurate, well-executed, poignant, and consequential ...

"A call for justice shouldn't warrant an apology."

RIP Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and the thousands upon thousands of black men and women executed with impunity every day in this all too racist nation. Photo of banners outside of Spike Lee's Forty Acres Studios in Brooklyn, NY, Courtesy NPR

White male newscaster interviews white male cop who killed a black male. White male newscaster does not pose any difficult questions, though claims he does, and simply lets white male killer cop speak his publicist-prepared nonsense. White male killer cop dresses up in proper white-collar white male uniform of blue dress shirt and slacks to appeal to the fearful white audience. This is called media propaganda and it runs rampant in American news. The George Stephanopoulos interview of Darren Wilson only revealed one of two things: either Wilson is a moronic racist with huge ego issues or, if his words are to be believed at face value, he is a moronic incompetent cop who should be relieved of his duties immediately because he has no clue how to handle any simple situation without murdering someone. Either way, this man shows no shame, no guilt, and no remorse for having killed another person in what should have amounted to a non-incident, so he fails as a human being. The likely expla...

Image courtesy cnet.com The same day news spread that 29 year-old right-to-die advocate Brittany Maynard had ingested the barbiturates prescribed to her by her doctor and had made her choice to die with dignity a couple of days prior, another story hit the news. Nineteen year-old Lauren Hill, also a terminally-ill young woman, scored her first, and possibly only, basket of her life in her college basketball game. Apparently, Lauren has only weeks to live. Lauren was also diagnosed with an untreatable glioma, much like the one that lead to Brittany’s death. Lost amid the tragically sad human-interest angle of these two stories is the question paramount in my mind: why did these two healthy, vibrant young women at the beginning of their adult lives contract these deadly brain tumors and why is no one discussing this question? Rather than suffer the excruciating pain of therapies (radiation and chemotherapy) that would do little to prolong her life but cost much in terms of...