California Prop 37 election fraud?

For our readers' interest from  From Food Democracy Now Please feel free to "share" on Facebook or Twitter and visit the website to sign a letter.

Right now the votes for Prop 37 to label genetically engineered foods are still being counted. On Tuesday morning, Dec 4th, Prop 37 hit 6,004,628 votes on the California Secretary of State’s website, but this tally was quickly reversed within an hour of being publicized by Food Democracy Now!

Since November 6th, the vote count in California has been updated daily until December 4th, when the vote count hit 6 million for the first time. When contacted, the Secretary of State's office stated there would be no further updates to the vote totals until Dec 14th when state law requires the election results to be certified. County elected officials only have until COB Dec 7th to submit final results so we need your help now!

At the same time, Food Democracy Now! has learned that a team of independent statisticians have detected “statistical anomalies” in the largest precincts of 9 counties, including Orange, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Alameda and San Diego counties.

We find this news troubling and think it’s important that the Secretary of State’s office know that we are watching these developments closely and expect honest and fair election results.

Join us in standing up for open and transparent elections, it’s important that all votes be counted and any possible malfeasance is properly investigated by California election officials. Count all the ballots, be open and transparent, because we have the Right to Know!

Click here to download proof that Prop 37 has earned 6 million votes, share on Facebook and with your friends to demand openness and transparency in elections.


For those who want the background, here are the links:
1. "Proposition 37: Genetically Engineered Foods Labeling", California Secretary of State, December 3, 2012, 4:58 p.m.

http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/725?t=16&akid=685.163659.SGEb-s

2. “Election fraud in California Prop 37? vote count hits 6 million, then CA Secretary of States site loses 18,000 votes? pic.twitter.com/hlk4VM7i” @food_democracy,  December 4, 2012
http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/727?t=19&akid=685.163659.SGEb-s

3. “Documented Deceptions of No on 37 Campaign”, California Right to Know Campaign, November 2, 2012

http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/728?t=21&akid=685.163659.SGEb-s

4. "Rigged Elections", Op-Ed News, Michael Collins, October 22, 2012
http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/731?t=23&akid=685.163659.SGEb-s

5. “How to Rig an Election”, Victoria Collier, Harper’s Magazine, November 5, 2012

http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/729?t=25&akid=685.163659.SGEb-s

6. “None Dare Call it Stolen”, Mark Crispin Miller, Harper’s Magazine, August 2005

http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/730?t=27&akid=685.163659.SGEb-s

The war against Fracking: The Sky is Pink

Fracking, injecting chemicals in to rock causing it to fracture and release the oil contained in it is coming up against increased opposition. The important lesson here is that we cannot simply oppose it and leave it there. It raises the need for alternative energy sources and this will not happen in any serious way without taking energy production out of private hands. More about fracking in a previous blog.
 

Burmese workers protest copper mine

I was talking with a friend today about the very important developments in the fast food industry.  We both agreed that the leaders of the US trade Union movement who are involved in this have their own agenda when it comes to organizing workers.  On the one hand they are supporting the decimation of the living standards of the higher paid along with the weakening of Union rights on the job while supporting the Unionization of the low waged which would bring increased income in to what they see as the trade Union business.

Below we see the protests that have been taking place against a copper mine in Burma the last few days, protests that would have meant certain death a few months ago.  It is a similar situation in the sense that once they lift the boot off the neck of the working  class, once they make some minor reforms, which some condemn as not enough, it can be quite difficult to put that genie back in the bottle.  Every gain the working class makes should be supported.

BP pays $4.5 billion. It won't save us from ecological disasters.

We can stop this

AP reports today that BP will pay the US government $4.5 billion as a settlement for the explosion on its Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico that released 280 million gallons of oil, spilling an estimated (a very broad estimate) 172 million gallons directly in to the Gulf. Oh, yes, the accident that was not an accident as it was preventable, killed eleven workers as well.

 

 The Associated Press report also other details on the effect of the spill:

"WILDLIFE
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials documented 6,104 dead birds, 609 dead sea turtles and 100 dead mammals, including dolphins, from the impacted area. Experts also collected 456 living sea turtles and 2,079 birds that were visibly oiled."

"ECOSYSTEM
The oil soiled sensitive tidal estuaries and beaches, severely affecting the edges of saltwater and brackish marshes. Sand beaches, barrier islands, tidal mud flats and mangrove stands in five coastal states were damaged."

ECONOMY
Sullied waters and health concerns shut down commercial fishing in the region for months, putting thousands of shrimpers and fishermen out of work. Charter captains, property owners, environmental groups, restaurants, hotels and other tourism businesses all claimed they suffered economic losses after the spill.
RESPONSE AND CLEANUP
At the peak of the crisis, the response effort involved 48,200 people, 9,700 vessels and 1.8 million gallons of chemical dispersants. The Coast Guard helped burn 265,450 barrels of oil using controlled fires."

For the deaths of the workers, two BP well-site leaders have been charged with manslaughter and a BP executive has been indicted on charges he lied to authorities. Naughty boys, all three of you.
 

What is not know is what we can't see.  One doesn't have to be an environmental scientist, a marine biologist of sorts, to know that the effects of this major catastrophe are horrific and many will not be know until they are manifested over time.  The effects on Bluefin Tuna and other oceanic life that spawns there cannot be immediately determined.  Perhaps, Proctor and Gamble or Johnson and Jonson will come up with a dissoluble pill that they will convince us will make the area pristine again. 

The fact is, that the oil that was picked up is just the tip of the iceberg.  The ocean floor is full of it you can bet your bottom dollar on that.  The cancers and diseases that are a by product of these activities will emerge more prominently over time.   Perhaps the oil residue will mix with the nuclear waste from Fukushima and the ill effects will cancel each other out.  And the dispersants?  What affect do these have on the environment.

Society's Energy needs, like all social production under capitalism, is in private hands and set in to motion on the basis of profit, for the welfare of those private individuals that own the machinery, technology and human labor power that make it happen. This is the cause of these crises and the only solution is collective ownership of energy production and a plan of production developed by workers, consumers, scientists and all those whose knowledge can benefit society as a whole
.
For hundreds of years the damage from this market catastrophe will continue to haunt future generations assuming the planet is still habitable for humans by then.  Fines won't stop these environmental catastrophes like the BP spill and Fukishima. They are market driven disasters, a by-product of the capitalist system.

A democratic socialist society, a world federation of democratic socialist states and a planned and rational system of production based on human need and not private gain is the only solution to ecological Armageddon.

Frankenstorm shakes up some big guns: A glimpse of what's to come

by Richard Mellor

In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy the issue of climate change or the ecological effects of human society on the natural world has taken center stage in the US.  The subject of climate change was absent in the presidential debates and on the issue, Romney mocked Obama for promising to "slow the rise of the ocean and heal the planet" while he promises "to help you and your family."

But it's hard to deny that something is afoot in the wake of repeated natural disasters that once took place every century or so; in the real sense, they are not natural disasters but social ones, crises of capitalism. According to the German insurance company, Munich Re, the rate of severe or extreme weather events is rising and much more so in North America. As Business Week points out, their motive is not so much science or care for people but profits. Munich Re claims that in the last 30 years $1.06 trillion has been lost in weather related disasters and in North America, the number of such events rose five times over the same period.

Despite what we see on the US East Coast and in countries like Cuba and other areas damaged by such events, there are still those who deny that human activity has anything to do with these changes. 

Martin Hoerling, a meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), said Sandy wasn’t boosted by global warming -- the storm merely revealed natural forces at work. “Great events can have little causes,” he told the New York Times. “In this case, the immediate cause is most likely little more that the coincidental alignment of a tropical storm with an extratropical storm.”*

Even if this is so, in this individual case, it doesn't explain the magnitude and rate of these events.  And he is denying that human activity can effect natural forces. Those sections of the capitalist class in energy and oil production that deny it deny it as a matter of self preservation, they are not willing to commit class suicide but I don't accept that they really believe their own claims.

NYC Subway

Hurricane Sandy has forced powerful representatives of the capitalist class to open up a debate on this issue of climate and the effects of human activity on the planet. Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York City and owner of Business Week endorsed Obama yesterday and has addressed the need to deal with climate change.  Bloomberg is worth some $20 billion dollars and has to react after 40 deaths, 8 million homes without power, hundreds of thousands evacuated and some $50 billion in damage.  This isn't the ninth ward in New Orleans, a city of 400,000 people, it is one of the financial hubs of global and US capitalism. Bloomberg has been joined by Andrew Cuomo, the governor of New York who fears more storms like this one and is talking of new infrastructure projects including surge protectors and weatherproofing New York City's subway system. Governor Christie of New Jersey, a Republican and Romney supporter has been full of praise for Obama and his response to the disaster.

We will hear increased talk of "Green Jobs", wind, or solar power, taxing carbon emissions and other market oriented measures: "Conservatives champion market forces--- as do smart liberals---and financial incentives should be part of the climate agenda" Business Week writes.  Yet they know too well that they cannot rely on the private sector and challenge  the "big government" and Tea Bagger crowd with their calls for repairing infrastructure and expanding transportation, that the US "has allowed to grow obsolete" which , "..poses a threat not just to public safety but also to the nation's economic health." 

This influential journal of the big capitalists calls for a greater need to spend money for "disaster preparation and response"   mocking Romney for suggesting during the primary debates last year that FEMA's responsibilities should be handed over to the states, a suggestion designed to please the Tea Baggers.  Let the states fend for themselves? leave it to the private sector?  Not so says BW. "Pay as you go rooftop rescue service may appeal to plutocrats; when the flood waters are rising, ordinary folks welcome the national guard."  Here's Business week sounding like a bunch of commies. The events of the last week have had a powerful effect on whole sections of the capitalist class and the US population as a whole, much of it not yet fully absorbed.

All sorts of measures will be undertaken in order to lessen the effects of human activity on the environment but there is no solution to this problem on a capitalist basis. It is the system of production, the way we produce the necessities of life that is at the root of this crisis, not simply "human activity" in general. To blame human activity in the abstract rather than the way we produce (and consume) the necessities of life is somewhat like blaming overpopulation for the global ecological  crisis.  It is an excuse, a smoke screen to avoid dealing with the larger issue of production and the system itself.

Some alternative steps along the road to a healthy environment:

End Capitalism’s poverty and earth-destroying policies

Everybody in the world could have access to clean water, food, housing, health care and education for $80 billion per year, according to the UN. The world’s seven richest people have $1.54 trillion between them. (2007 figures) We believe in ending the private ownership of the world’s biggest corporations and developing systems of energy and goods production, housing, and transportation to end worldwide poverty and global warming. This can be done on a basis of a global community comprised of a federation of democratic socialist states.

Housing

Base new housing development on society’s needs and not on market speculation.

Immediately end unemployment

Reshape existing communities for more collective living by adding shared public space including community kitchens and laundries.

Agriculture and Food Production

Promote local, organic food production to decrease wasteful cross-continent and cross-hemisphere shipping. End the environmentally damaging practices of factory farms, mass cattle production, genetically modified foods and use of pesticides and hormones in food production. Increase focus on organic community gardens to provide fresh, healthy and local produce. Increase wages and the workforce on farms to offset the increased labor needed to produce healthy, organically grown food.

Energy
Take complete public control and management of the energy industry to develop cleaner power resources and distribute energy to the public without profits. End the environmentally damaging practices of factory

Transport
Create an efficient mass transit infrastructure of buses, trains, subways, and boats that provides
people with a feasible alternative to the inefficient auto. Give the public free access to this system
making private cars less desirable.

Water

Emphasis on clean and renewable water sources.

Develop infrastructure to provide a safe water supply where needed.

Prohibit new development in areas without the water to support it. 

Eliminate unnecessary water uses and focus on recycling water as much as possible

Turn residential lawns into vegetable gardens and use household  runoff water for watering

Provide housing with the ability to catch and use rainwater  ( learn from the Mayan societies)

Pollution
Many of the discussed changes would significantly decrease overall ongoing pollution.
Put resources in to environmental cleanup

Focus on the need for eliminating landfills by using recyclable materials and implementing mass scale composting and recycling programs

Establish community based libraries and circulation centers for things such as furniture, household items, tools, clothes and toys

  

These are just a few ideas that Facts For Working People laid out a few years ago. The ongoing damage our system of production is causing to our environment calls for much more intensive discussion and new ideas to deal with the immediate effects.   What is absolutely clear is that all the tinkering of the market that will be offered as solutions to what is a looming environmental catastrophe will not prevent us reaching the point of no return.  Capitalism is poisoning the rivers and oceans, the air we breathe and the bodies we inhabit. Transforming the way we produce our needs as well as  the methods of distributing and consuming them can begin to reverse the damage already done by a market system that produces for profit. But time is of the essence. This has to be done on a global basis, no nation can solve this crisis independently.

If we want to preserve life on this planet we can do that, but we can't continue to live the way we do, the planet can't support it forever.

*Thanks to Tom Savoca for that bit of information

New evidence reveals US downplayed affect of BP spill on wildlife

Dead Sperm Whale after the Gulf disaster

We have written numerous blogs about the tragic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the consequences of it that will not be fully known for years, including the effect on BlueFin tuna and other marine life that spawn there.

Like Katrina and the destruction of New Orleans as well as the failure of the Bush Administration to respond to it, the BP spill has quietly disappeared from the big business media.  The events of 911 although far less destructive than Katrina or the BP spill are kept in our collective memory as it is the result of foreigners we are told and is always useful in energizing domestic support for US foreign policy and its predatory wars.  The destruction that Katrina and the BP spill caused were results of domestic failure, no need to let the public in on the details of this.

But Greenpeace has information that the US government kept details of the BP spill and its damage to wildlife from the public's eye.  This shouldn't surprise us. 

The Guardian UK reported today:

"The images from the summer of 2010 were undoubtedly gruesome: the carcass of a young sperm whale, decayed and partially eaten by sharks, sighted at sea south of the Deepwater Horizon oil well.
It was the first confirmed sighting of a dead whale since the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in April that year – a time of huge public interest in the fate of whales, dolphins, sea turtles and other threatened animals – and yet US government officials supressed the first reports of the discovery and blocked all images until now.

The photographs, along with a cache of emails obtained by the campaign group Greenpeace under freedom of information provisions and made available to the Guardian, offer a rare glimpse into how many whales came into close contact with the gushing BP well during the oil spill.

They also show Obama administration officials tightly controlling information about whales and other wildlife caught up in the disaster."

Where the Mississippi meets the Gulf of Mexico for a distance of 150 miles out was referred to as The Dead Zone prior to the BP spill as life was absent there due to the runnoff from farmland with all the poisons and fertilizers used in industrial farming.  Who knows what the BP spill has done, it is likely we will never know the full impact of this catastrophe, or the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan.  We can be certain that the government will not inform us as this information provided by Greenpeace shows.

Read the rest of the article at the Guardian UK.

Local politics: Bay Area residents vote no on Measure A

I am voting no on Measure A.  It is being dressed up as animal care but it is about expanding the zoo and actually encroaching on natural habitat and the animals and people that use it.  It is my own personal opinion that zoos are not really a healthy environment for animals. If you have time you can here the pros and cons Monday on KQED if you have time to tune in.  Here's the info thanks to Tyler who is an opponent of the measure:

Here's where it gets real: KQED Forum with Michael Krasny will air a live 30-minute segment on Measure A1 featuring Ruth Malone of Friends of Knowland Park for the No on A1 side and Nik Dehejia of the Zoo for the Yes side. It will air this coming Monday, October 22, 930-10 am.
Check the website http://www.kqed.org/radio/programs/forum/ for updates."

Here is another link from Fran, another opponent of the measure: http://www.knowlandthemovie.com/

This is what she says about this movie, I haven't watched it.

Has anyone seen this movie about the Oakland Zoo / Knowland Park?  Looks good. Will we ever learn indeed. I really hope this prop goes down in flames. I was just thinking how the county recently tore down the Fairmont Animal Shelter. Just up and closed it, no political will nor ballot measure designed to keep that open, yet they have the nerve to put this on the ballot. It's plain insulting.
 
The east bay express came out against A1 http://www.eastbayexpress.com/ebx/questions-swirl-around-zoo-tax-measure/Content?oid=3353192

You can also go to the no on A website here: http://www.saveknowland.org/

The birds, the trees and the whole damn planet

by Richard Mellor

I am thinking about how lucky I am.  I am sitting in my backyard which has some trees around it, two pines and a few other trees in my neighbors' back yards around me. The squirrels are driving my Jack Russell nuts.  They sit on one of the lower limbs of the pine or the poplar tree, or atop the fence separating my yard from my neighbors and throw things at him.  I imagine them laughing with one another about how dumb that dog is. He chases bees too and had the misfortune of catching one.  I looked over at him and I thought he was dead.  But he'd caught the bee and it stung the roof of his mouth; he was in shock.

He was on his back, dead as a doornail.  I could see he was breathing and picked him up. I took him over to what was once a lawn and set him down on his fours.  He just collapsed.  I ended up having to take him to the vet and and she gave him a shot of adrenalin.  But he's still chasing them.

But I can hear this bird singing, it's so beautiful.  What is that bird singing about? The weather? It is, after all a beautiful day today.  It must feel as good as I do.  The birdsong makes me appreciate why people become bird enthusiasts;  want to know what sort of bird it is.  I know you can buy tapes of bird songs and I already have a good bird book that shows the various species and I think I will try to learn more about this.

I grew up in this sort of macho English working class culture and would have "taken the piss", or as the English say it, "taken the mickey" out of some guy, especially a guy, being interested in birdwatching.  Now I know, they were a lot more advanced than I was in some ways. But they were backward in others, that's the dialectic I suppose.

I stepped toward the back of the yard to see if I could see the source of this wondrous sound.  It's no good, I can't.  But as I look skyward in to the pine, I am transfixed by the majesty of this tree.  "Man, I love trees"  I know this sounds a bit silly, but I felt such a connection to that tree, I have feelings for it. I don't want the natural world, this beautiful Earth, to be covered in creosote and nuclear waste.

I took a picture of it for you and have included it.

I am lucky that I am still alive to appreciate the world in which we live.  I don't believe in gods.  I had a heart attack some time ago and it made me think more deeply about death but I never was concerned about heaven or hell or Jesus or anything other than I didn't want to leave this place yet. I want to hear those birds and watch squirrels and meet all the people I can.

There's one other reason I'm lucky.  I had a good public sector unionized job. I have had decent health care for 30 years which is very important in the US where there is no national health system and caring for people's health is a business.  I am not boasting about this, I am happy with it. I want to expand on it and include all workers.  Everyone should be able to retire after years of work and live a comfortable life. 

Society can afford to provide everyone with a decent life in their senior years, just like it has the resources to provide health care for all,  education, housing and other necessities. The problem is it is not a profitable enterprise, it is "money out".  For the rich, it's money out, for us it is simply returning to society in the form of services, the wealth created by our collective labor. The owners of capital will only provide something if it is profitable.

We cannot have democracy, we cannot have freedom, and won't have the guarantee of a liveable planet until we collectively own and allocate the wealth we create; it's ours after all. 

And we won't be able to hear the birds. That thought sort of keeps me going.