HorrorsNews to Make Us AngryForecast: Warm. Very Warm. At the current rate of global warming, the Himalayan glaciers, which feed major Asian rivers, will be so reduced by 2040 that nearly half the world's population will be without the water necessary for irrigation and drinking. The world's tropical forests are likely to be wiped out within 30 years if present rates of climate change and logging continue. - Corporate Watch, Autumn 2000 Trapped Up until November 4, men in Egypt had the right to bar their wives from obtaining a passport simply because the men didn't want their wives to travel. Husbands can still prevent women from leaving Egypt if they petition the courts, which decide on a case-by-case basis. - Seattle Times, 11/5/00 Selective Asylum "I couldn't believe it. All the deserving people in the world begging to live in the United States, and they let murderers in. That's what eats at me," remarked Mike Donovan, brother of 27-year-old lay missionary Jean Donovan, who was murdered by soldiers in El Salvador in 1980. The generals responsible received political asylum in the U.S. - Palm Beach Post, 10/1/00 Vultures "The drug companies? We gave them our bodies, an army of bodies, to be their guinea pigs, so they could develop decent treatments that could then be exported to the rest of a desperately needy, dying world. We got them on the fast track so they could make billions instead of finishing their work, refining their product. They used our bodies to create poisons that kill HIV and kill us too, and then they decamped without improving their wares, and without any consideration for all the dying people everywhere. This is immoral. Can't you feel hate in your heart for every greedy slimy bastard who works at a drug company? ...I guarantee that 95 percent of you go to a doctor who pimps for a drug company." - Larry Kramer, Poz magazine, 10/00 Just Give Them Ritalin In 1998, 2.3 billion pounds of toxic chemicals were released into the air and water of the United States. More than half of these chemicals -- 1.2 billion pounds -- are known or suspected developmental or neurological toxins. 1.6 million women in the U.S. of childbearing age eat enough mercury-contaminated fish to risk the brain development of their children. One million children in the U.S. have enough lead in their blood to affect behavior and learning. During household spraying of pesticides containing Dursban (in some Raid and Black Flag sprays), children can receive 100 times what is considered a safe dose. The National Academy of Sciences estimates that 25 percent of developmental and neurological problems in children can be partly attributed to environmental pollution. - E. Galen, World Socialist Web Site, 10/6/00 The War Continues "What are we doing that you attack us here? We mean America no harm. Why do you kill our children?" asked Abdul-Rezak Jasim of Abu Flous, Iraq, whose two-year-old daughter Nasima was killed by an allied missile in 1999. Strikes by the British and U.S. military continue to claim civilian lives. "No Security Council resolution permits two foreign air forces to fly in Iraq," UN Humanitarian Coordinator Hans von Sponeck said. "First we had a silent violation of international law. Since December of 1998, it has become a much more vociferous violation. It is not convincing to me that this is collateral damage, that the civilian victims were simply the result of an unavoidable self-defense. When they argue that the Iraqi gunners had fired on them, or the radar locked in on them, sometimes the target they chose had nothing to do with the source of the complaint. In other words, it's punitive." Von Sponeck resigned in early 2000 in protest of the sanctions. - Hartford Courant, 10/24/00 Iraqi doctors believe that the health problems of the population, which include increased cancer, renal disease and birth defects, are caused by the US military's use of depleted uranium munitions during Desert Storm. The World Health Organization asserts that full-scale investigation is warranted; the US has blocked such an initiative. - Toronto Globe and Mail, 9/12/00 "Those who saw nothing wrong in producing (this plan), those who ordered its production and those who knew about it and have remained silent for ten years would seem to be in violation of Federal Statute and perhaps have even conspired to commit genocide," stated Professor Thomas J. Nagy, George Washington University. It is estimated that 200,000 Iraqis died in the Gulf War. Many thousands likely died from polluted water. - Sunday Herald (Scotland), 9/17/00 Dr. Ali Faisal Jawad, president of the Basra Maternity and Pediatrics Hospital, remarks, "I do not think Americans would accept this for their children. What is the difference between a sick American child and a sick Iraqi child?" - Hartford Courant, 10/23/00 Probably Already Ate Some Millions of bushels of StarLink, a genetically modified corn not approved for human consumption, have been used in a wide array of human foods. "A lot of this corn was grown on a small section of larger farm, and sometimes farmers just harvested it all together," said John Wichtrich, VP and general manager of Aventis FoodSciences, the developer of the corn. "Sometimes they didn't advise the grain elevators of the restrictions, and sometimes they were too busy to remember. It just didn't work out." - Washington Post, 10/19/00 Workers Have Rights: To Be Fired and Deported US workers who try to form trade unions are spied on, harassed, pressured, threatened, suspended, fired and deported, according to a new study by Human Rights Watch. 10,000 to 20,000 U.S. workers lose their jobs each year as punishment for exercising the right to organize a union. In 1980, chief executives made 40 times more than the average worker. Today they make 475 times more. In Europe the typical low-wage worker earns 44 percent more than in the US, and receives government-provided health care and many other benefits. - San Francisco Chronicle, 9/20/00 Working for Nothing is Slavery Women and girls do 2/3 of the world's work for 5% of the income. 2/3 of their work is unwaged. - Flyer for Global Women's Strike, which is planned for 3/8/01. See http://womenstrike8m.server101.com; or write International Wages for Housework Campaign, P.O. Box 287, London NW6 5QU, England. Hired Guns "Every pirate, bandit -- everyone who wants to make money on the war -- they're in Colombia. ... This is what we call outsourcing a war." These are the comments of a congressional aide in Washington who said he would speak candidly only if not identified. A growing civilian army is being hired by the US government to battle guerrillas and drug traffickers in Colombia, paid for largely by the recently approved $1.3 billion in US aid. - Sun-Sentinel, 9/18/00 A Prison, A City There are two million prisoners in the US, over 4,000 more than there are in China. The number of imprisoned women of color has increased by more than 500 percent in the last 20 years. Between 1985 and 1997, the number of children under 18 incarcerated in adult prisons for drug crimes increased 1400 percent. Children locked up with adults are much more likely to be raped, assaulted and commit suicide than minors sentenced to juvenile facilities. 450,000 prisoners are behind bars for non-violent drug offenses. Some drug offenses carry mandatory sentences of 25 years for first time offenders. The prison industry makes an average of $58,000 to construct a medium-security cell, and incarceration costs for each inmate add $30,000 annually. - WEnews, 9/27/00; and Mumia Abu-Jamal 8/26/00 speech, Alternet, 10/9/00 A City, a Prison "There was shooting, and then I heard the helicopter gunships coming in and my heart just stopped." Malake Kafishe of Hebron, seven months pregnant, ran for shelter and stumbled on some steps, collapsing in a heap on the door sill. She began to bleed. Because of a curfew imposed on 40,000 Palestinians in Hebron's old city, an ambulance took over an hour to arrive. On the way to the hospital, two soldiers insisted on examining Kafishe and the vehicle was stopped at four checkpoints. The journey, which should have taken five minutes, took over an hour and a half. "The doctor told me, 'If you had got here 20 minutes earlier you could have saved the baby'." - The Guardian, 10/23/00 I looked up the hill to see a gleaming settlement, Bet-El, illegally built on Palestinian land outside of Israel, the grass on its lawns green and lush, watered with sprinklers." - Guardian, London, 10/14/00 Right-Wing Controls Police "Funds allegedly originate with Communist and leftist parties and from sympathetic trade unions. Other funds reportedly come from the former Soviet-allied World Federation of Trade Unions," stated a Pennsylvania state police affidavit justifying a raid on a puppet warehouse used by protesters of the August Republican National Convention. The allegations were later found to have been passed to the police by the Maldon Institute, a little-known, Baltimore-based private group funded by conservative multimillionaire Richard Mellon Scaife. Board members have included Florida televangelist/Moral Majority co-founder D. James Kennedy, former FBI assistant director Raymond Wannall, and writer Robert Moss, who in the 1980s asserted that the KGB used Western media to manipulate public opinion. - Philadelphia Inquirer, 9/10/00 No Fur, No Service A recent document from the World Health Organization suggested that the amount of money spent on pet care products in the United States would be enough to eradicate TB and other preventable diseases all over the world. Harvard Medical School student David Walton writes, "I struggle to understand the apparent indifference of those, like me, who live in comfort. Sometimes I wonder if we see the poor as another species. How can we invest so much passion in fighting for, say, the rights of animals when countless people die of curable infections?" - Partners In Health Bulletin, Summer 2000 Conflict of Interest Fact sheets on nutrition issued by the American Dietetic Association have corporate sponsors (Monsanto for biotechnology, Proctor & Gamble for Olestra). Coca Cola spent $115 million to advertise Classic Coke in 1999. The National Cancer Institute spent only $1 million last year on the educational component of its campaign to increase fruit and vegetable consumption. - Sun-Sentinel, 6/29/00 Doom for Small Farmers Cargill Inc., after merging with Continental Grain, Inc., controls 94% of the soybean and 53% of the corn market. ConAgra, Superior Packing, High Country and Denver Lamb slaughter three of every four sheep. Four of five beef cattle are slaughtered by IBP, ConAgra, Cargill and Farmland Beef. Three of every five hogs by Murphy Family Farms, Carroll's Foods, Continental Grain and Smithland Foods. Six companies process half the nation's chickens. Three food chains dominate the entire global food production system: Cargill/Monsanto, ConAgra, and Novartis/Archer Daniels Midlands. Cargill operates in 70 countries. Family farms may fall from 300,000 to less than 25,000 by the year 2025. - CounterPunch, 11/20/99 Poisonous Lies Beginning with the development of the first atomic bombs during WWII, the government secretly hired about 300 private companies to produce and process material used to make nuclear weapons. Highly classified government reports detailed radiation exposure rates hundreds of times above safety standards. Workers in the riskiest jobs had 40% risk of dying from cancer and higher chances of getting respiratory and kidney illnesses. Some operations pumped hundreds of pounds of uranium dust into the sky each month. Others dumped thousands of pounds of solid and liquid wastes into the ground, rivers and sewers. In many cases contamination persists today. The government and the companies it hired all willfully concealed the health and environmental problems and misled workers by insisting the jobs were safe. Surviving employees have still not been told of their risks, though screening and early treatment could help survive some illnesses. "There was a lot of dust. We thought there might be problems. ... Sometimes they sent us to the doctor. They always assured us there was no danger," said Lewis Malcolm, a worker in the government's nuclear weapons program from the late 1940s to the mid-1950s, a few weeks before he died of kidney failure. - USA Today, 9/6/00 Frankenfoods Ubiquitous Approximately 60% of the foods on grocery store shelves contain gene-spliced corn and other modified vegetables. A coalition of U.S. consumer and environmental groups is launching a campaign to deluge companies with complaints about safety and labeling of gene-altered crops. The first company to be targetted is Campbell Soup, the world's biggest maker of soups and the licenser of the first genetically modified food, the Flavr Savr tomato. See www.centerforfoodsafety.org. Biggest According to the Center for Defense Information, the US military budget at $305 billion is 22 times as large as the combined spending of the seven countries Pentagon officials label as potential attackers (Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria). This amount translates into $700 million a day, or $8,000 per second. The military received 49 percent of the federal discretionary budget, or roughly $4 per day per person. - Baltimore Sun, 11/5/00 Corporate Welfare Because of generous tax breaks available to hugely profitable big corporations, Goodyear, Texaco, Ryder, El Paso Energy, MedPartners, Tenneco, Colgate-Palmolive, MCI Worldcom, Corporate Express, WestPoint Stevens and K-Mart all enjoyed negative tax rates from 1996-1998 (meaning they not only didn't pay taxes, but got money from the government). General Electric received nearly $7 billion in tax breaks over the three years. In 1998 big oil companies paid only 5.7% of their profits, which is 1/6 the amount legally required. At the same time, Exxon Mobil made $4.49 billion in three months, Texaco's profits doubled and Chevron's tripled from the previous year, and Hess and Unolcal recorded sharply higher earnings. At the same time, personal income tax payments grew 28%. - World Socialist Web Site, 10/27/00 Remember This When You Eat Your Next Salad "Sometimes my fingers start to bleed, and then they start to sting from the poison in the plants," said Herman Perez, 14-year-old tomato picker in the US who arrived recently from Guatemala. Child farm workers are often paid only $2.50 per hour. Growers often don't provide them with toilets or drinking water, and sometimes order them to resume picking before the legally required 24 hours have passed after pesticides have been sprayed. - New York Times, 8/6/00 Sugar Low "The average American eats over two hundred pounds of sugar and artificial sweeteners per year (over twenty teaspoons per day). The average teenager guzzles twice as much soft drink as milk. . The typical teenage male who drinks soda drinks over forty-two ounces every day, and the habits of girls are only slightly better. "Many of the people managing (schools) are in on it, too, earning millions of dollars each year by inviting fast-food chains and soft drink dispensers into schools. They perform a vital function in the marketing scheme of these mega-companies. The schools end up being complicit in 'teaching' that it's okay to drink pop instead of water, to eat candy bars instead of fresh fruit, to load the body up on artificial this-and-that - as long as money can be made." 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 2 contents |