HorrorsNegative Current NewsUnhappy Meals McDonald's, a $36 billion-a-year corporation, targets much of its $2 billion annual advertising budget towards children. Most children have signs of artery blockage before finishing high school, and some before they even enter first grade. "A McDonald's training video tells slaughterhouse workers that as many as one in every 20 cows may be skinned and dismembered while conscious, a direct violation of U.S. Dept. of Agriculture regulation," according to Alison Green of PETA. - Miami Herald, 7/5/00 Cancer Burger The U.S. Dept. of Agriculture is attempting to impose new rules that animal carcasses with cancers, tumors, glandular swellings, lymphomas, diseases caused by intestinal worms, and open sores are fine for human consumption and can be sold to the public as a wholesome food product. "I don't want to eat pus from a chicken that has pneumonia; I think it's gross," said Wenonah Hunter, director of Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy Project. - Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 7/17/00 Serial Killer George W. Bush has signed off on 136 executions as Texas governor, more than any other governor since the death penalty was reinstated in 1978. "He has killed more people than the Oklahoma City bombing, yet (he) is considered a worthwhile candidate to be leader of the free world," says Jeffrey Garis, executive director of Pennsylvania Abolitionists United Against the Death Penalty. - Philadelphia Daily News, 7/20/00 (By the way, Gore supports the death penalty too.) Deadly Mistakes Since 1972, 21 people on death row in Florida have been released after evidence surfaced that they were innocent, or wrongly convicted because of judicial mistakes. - St. Petersburg Times, 7/27/00 Legal Lynching "Studies have repeatedly shown that the US capital justice system places a higher value on white life," according to a press release by Amnesty International dated 8/8/00. Over 80% of the more than 650 people executed since 1977 were convicted of crimes involving white victims. Prison Nation Though the U.S. population is only 5% of the world's total population, 25% of the world's prisoners are in the United States. As of February 2000, the prison population reached 2 million, a higher proportion of citizens in prison than in any other country in history. The prison industry, employing more than half a million people, is the second largest employer in the United States (after General Motors). - Alternative Press Review, Spring 2000, www.altpr.org. Corporate Radio: Boring There is a reason that radio seems increasingly boring and homogenized. Since the 1996 Telecommunications Reform Act, which loosened limits on the number of radio stations a single company can buy, about 90% of U.S. radio stations have been acquired by only a handful of broadcast groups. One pending merger, if approved, will place more than 800 stations in the hands of a single company. Attempting to provide more variety of programming for diverse groups of listeners, an estimated 1,000 pirate stations operate throughout the country. However if they are caught by the FCC, those who run them face up to $100,000 in fines, a year in prison and the loss of their equipment. - Miami Herald, 7/23/00 The Lesser Evil is Still Evil "(Vice President Al) Gore is getting the endorsement of some national environmental groups only because they are so afraid of George Bush, and so intimidated by the Gore campaign's where-else-can-you-go attitude. Vice President Gore has a long record of making campaign promises about protecting America's natural heritage and then breaking his promise every time one of his political supporters wants to do something that would damage or destroy our forests, rivers, and streams, oceans, even our National Parks." -Tim Hermach, Environmentalists Against Gore; call 541/688-2600. "Freedom of Speech," But Watch What You Say Information on protest movements is collected at six Regional Information Sharing System (RISS) centers funded by the Justice Department. RISS shares information with over 5,300 law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, DEA, IRS, Secret Service, Customs and the BATF. To collect information on demonstrators at the April 17 anti-World Bank protests in Washington, D.C., over 700 agents from the Intelligence and Security Command were sent by the Pentagon to assist local police, including specialists in human and signals intelligence. Ostensibly RISS is supposed to counter organized crime, drugs and terrorism, but they conveniently define civil disobedience as a terrorist threat and/or criminal conspiracy. During the past year, RISS has focused its energies on countering anti-globalization groups. - Covert Action Quarterly, #69, Spring/Summer 2000 Police Torture in the City of Brotherly Love "7:50pm - The bus leaves Holmsburg prison and we retrace our drive to the Roundhouse (prison). Still no water, no lawyer, still no answers. My clothing is soaked with sweat. A heavy-set brother, Slim, starts fading: his head falls, his eyes roll back, he is having trouble sitting up. We start yelling for a medic, and are ignored." - Flea of the Puppetistas, Prison Diary, 8/10/00 At Least You Won't See One Here $100 billion is spent on advertising annually in the U.S., and the average person is subjected to 1,500 ads per day. - The Woman Source Catalog and Review, ed. Ilene Rosoff, Ten Speed Press/Celestial Arts, 1996, www.womansource.com. Much of this information was gathered via the Florida Left News List. To subscribe, e-mail moderator@revolution.gq.nu.Two Eyes Magazine: Home | Issue 1 contents |