PressWatch: join the democracy movement

Fresh tarballs wash up on Gulf Coast shores after Tropical Storm Lee, Press-Register by Ben Raines, September 10, 2011:

CAPTION: Tarballs [...] could be seen bleeding liquid oil on Thursday. The presence of oil in a liquid state inside some indicates the oil has not weathered a great deal

[... I]n the surf along the barrier islands of Alabama and Mississippi on Thursday [... t]he new tarballs ranged from the size of a quarter to blobs 8 inches across [...] 

Moist and gooey, like a chocolate chip cookie just pulled from the oven, some of the fresh tarballs had layers of liquid oil inside them. Oil bled from the tarballs sitting in the sun on the beach, collecting in little pools on the sand. [...]

Ed Overton, an oil chemist and professor emeritus at Louisiana State University:

• Overton “described [the 'tarballs'] as ‘jellybeans’ — crusty on the outside with jelly in the center.”
• “These new deposits are probably fresher oil.”
• “These are probably more like globs of oil.”
• “It sounds like there was a fairly thick lens of oil out there that had not mixed with sediment.”
• “We’re going to be seeing this for years.”
• .........................................................................

 Perhaps you've heard that there are more US citizens in poverty than ever before in this new, Greater Depression.   According to the Chicago Tribune, "More than 46.2 million Americans live in poverty — the highest number in the 52 years for which such estimates have been published, according to census figures released Tuesday. From 2009 to 2010, the nation's poor increased by 2.6 million, and the number of those without health insurance grew by nearly 1 million people." 

Likely you're on of those persons, or you're directly affected by the fact that people you know, kids you know, are struggling just to keep housing and steady food going.  That's incredible, when you think how it happened: that money, the money that working people continuously generate, has been shifted into illegal offshore tax havens, literally by the trillions.  The Obama administration's feeble response has been to offer an amnesty to tax evaders.  I say sieze the trillions and damn the traitors, and what do you say? 

Do you think it's okay to maldistribute the wealth that workers generate, and then say that there's nothing there for our kids? 

Make a fist. 

Democracy may break out.  Occupy Wall Street starting Saturday.  Occupy Washington October 6th. 

Our kids have to go to school in a once proud nation with the hope that someone will provide the harried and underpaid teacher with packaged lunches to distribute to the overcrowded class.  Where once there were gleaming microscopes and lab glassware, are crumbling posters from a bygone era.  This is what we consign our progeny to, while we practice shining the boots of billionaires with out tongues.  And what could a decent science education tell them?  Would it tell the children to test for radioactivity in the schoolyard?

How many of them will be swept up for slave labor, by the Jim Crow drug war?

What else will you tolerate in the new Permanent Depression?

Here's what our safe, clean, too-cheap-to-meter, publicly subsidized and insured nuclear industry has done lately--this from Global Research, a Canadian site:

The Wall Street Journal points out:

The Japanese government initially underestimated radiation releases from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, in part because of untimely rain, and so exposed people unnecessarily, a report released this week by a government research institute says.

PhysOrg writes:

The amount of radiation released during the Fukushima nuclear disaster was so great that the level of atmospheric radioactive aerosols in Washington state was 10,000 to 100,000 times greater than normal levels in the week following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that triggered the disaster.

***

[A] study [by University of Texas engineering professor Steven Biegalski and researchers at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory] reports that more radioxenon was released from the Fukushima facilities than in the 1979 meltdown at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station in Pennsylvania and in the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster in the Ukraine.

Biegalski said the reason for the large release in Fukushima, when compared to the others, is that there were three nuclear reactors at the Japan facilities rather than just one.

Nuclear expert Arnie Gundersen notes:

New TEPCO data measured on August 19 & 20 shows severe damage to the spent fuel in Fukushima Daiichi Units 1, 2, and 3…. This TEPCO data clearly contradicts and refutes the July assertion by the NRC the Fukushima Daiichi spent fuel pools were not damaged in this tragic accident.

There are also several unconfirmed reports that the Japanese government is trying to keep people from buying geiger counters to measure radiation.

New, Large Radiation Releases Are Possible

Mainichi Dailly News notes:

As a radiation meteorology and nuclear safety expert at Kyoto University’s Research Reactor Institute, Hiroaki Koide [says]:

The nuclear disaster is ongoing.

***

At present, I believe that there is a possibility that massive amounts of radioactive materials will be released into the environment again.

At the No. 1 reactor, there’s a chance that melted fuel has burned through the bottom of the pressure vessel, the containment vessel and the floor of the reactor building, and has sunk into the ground. From there, radioactive materials may be seeping into the ocean and groundwater.

***

The government and plant operator TEPCO are trumpeting the operation of the circulation cooling system, as if it marks a successful resolution to the disaster. However, radiation continues to leak from the reactors. The longer the circulation cooling system keeps running, the more radioactive waste it will accumulate. It isn’t really leading us in the direction we need to go.

It’s doubtful that there’s even a need to keep pouring water into the No.1 reactor, where nuclear fuel is suspected to have burned through the pressure vessel. Meanwhile, it is necessary to keep cooling the No. 2 and 3 reactors, which are believed to still contain some fuel, but the cooling system itself is unstable. If the fuel were to become overheated again and melt, coming into contact with water and trigger a steam explosion, more radioactive materials will be released.

***

We are now head to head with a situation that mankind has never faced before.

Mainichi also reports:

The Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF) and residents of the zone between 20 and 30 kilometers from the stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant held an emergency evacuation drill on Sept. 12 … in preparation for any further large-scale emission of radioactive materials from the plant.

***

The scenario for the drill presupposed further meltdown of the Fukushima plant’s No. 3 reactor core, and a local accumulation of radioactive materials emitting 20 millisieverts of radiation within the next four days. …

And nuclear expert Paul Gunter says that we face a “China Syndrome”, where the fuel from the reactor cores at Fukushima have melted through the container vessels, into the ground, and are hitting groundwater and creating highly-radioactive steam:

........................................................................(more at link).................

Meanwhile it's a good thing the Canadian government is testing migratory fish like salmon and tuna for radioactivity, because the US government is not. 

What do you pay taxes for? 

Oh yes, we pay taxes and sacrifice our children's lives for the imperial wars of the billionaire class, what was I thinking?  Recently one of those billionaire wars attacked a town in Iraq called Fallujah, in a genocidal act of collective punishment, after a few of their men killed some of our thug mercenaries and hung their bodies from the local bridge, remember that?  Well, "we" showed them, didn't we--we attacked the little town with a vast army, killing everyone who dared to resist the brutal invasion, men, women, children, anything that moved, and we did it with depleted reactor uranium supplied by the US nuclear industry, so that the babies born thereafter were deformed so hideously that their parents went mad with pity and grief.  Use a search engine and pull up Fallujah babies if you don't believe me. 

Now Fallujah babies will be born here on the West Coast of the US, thanks to the reactor uranium blasted here by the super-Chernobyl at Fallujah, the US-built reactors that failed at the first minute of the earthquake there.  Karma?

Don't blame me, blame billionaire rule.  Make a fist. Do something. 

Decide who among you is going to Wall Street for the occupation Saturday.  We can't all go.  Decide if maybe you want to go to Wahington as well, or instead of Wall Street.  Decide to make a sacrifice for freedom and democracy, real bottom-up democracy. Make a fist.  Take a hundred dollar bill--I am--and dedicate it to one or two of your friends, for expenses to drive to the East Coast for these occupations.  Pick someone who has the time, who can get access to transportation, someone you trust to report back.  Give them the hundred, contact your friends, so that each traveler has a thousand or so to go with.  donate a tent, a sleeping bag, a camp toilet, or a flashlight.  That way we can all participate in the revolution.

............................................................

Why go to Wall Street and Washington to occupy the square? We are being permanently pauperized.  This is not just the greater Depression: it's meant to be forever.

11 Reasons Why the Unemployment Crisis Is Even Worse Than You Think

By Michael Thornton, AlterNet

.... According to the Economic Policy Institute, “In total, there are 6.9 million fewer jobs today than there were in December 2007.”

That is only a small part of the jobs-hole story, a story that is often ignored, overlooked and oversimplified by mass media.

....

The unemployment rate remained at 9.1 percent for August. Unemployment to the mass media generally centers on that single point within the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) monthly employment report. There is passing mention of discouraged workers and the underemployed, but the true scale of the jobs crisis is given scant attention considering the magnitude of the problem.

What follows are 11 unemployment details that mass media underreports or ignores completely. This list will not be recalled fondly as a top-10 list of best quarterbacks or favorite vacation retreats would, but it’s where the REAL unemployment crisis is exposed.

1. The jobs deficit: That is the total number of jobs lost PLUS jobs that should have been created since the recession began in December 2007; as mentioned above, there are 6.9 million fewer jobs today than at the start of the Great Recession, but that tells only half the tale of the jobs deficit. There is also the matter of creating jobs to keep up with the increase in workforce population. Those new workers include high school and college graduates, and immigrants. The number of jobs that need to be created each month to accommodate new entrants into the workforce ranges from 120,000 - 150,000. Adding together the jobs lost since the recession and the new jobs needed for population growth, the total jobs deficit is estimated to be 11.3 million. A few tax breaks, some targeted workforce retraining and some regulatory relief for businesses are not going to be the forces behind the creation of more than 11 million jobs. A massive effort is required to fill that gaping jobs hole.

2. Filling the jobs deficit: According to EPI: “To fill that gap in three years – by mid-2014—while still keeping up with the growth in the working-age population—would require adding around 400,000 jobs every single month. To fill the gap in five years—by mid-2016—would mean adding 280,000 jobs each month. By comparison, over the last three months, the economy added just 35,000 jobs, on average.”

It’s striking that the economy has created only 105,000 jobs during the past three months. When considering only the new entrants to the workforce, such as recent college graduates, that three-month span produced a shortage of 270,000 or more jobs.  

Meetings & Training:

• USDOR is hosting non violent civil disobedience training Friday @ 6:30. See the details and location on the calendar page or on USDOR calendar.
• There will be a Tactical Committee Meeting Wednesday, 7pm Fort Greene Park, Brooklyn
• There will be Art & Culture meetings Tuesday and Thursday to discuss activities. Learn more on the calendar page
• Time's Up will be hosting critical mass style ALL NIGHT rides though the Wall st. area. Meet at Tompkins sq park at 7pm Friday, Saturday, and Sunday (9/16-18) to join the ride. More info on their calendar page
• There is an event for NY Students Rising September 16, Friday 5:00pm Hunter College
• NYC General Assembly calendar
• There will be a Open General Assembly September 17th, Saturday 3:00pm at Chase Manhattan Plaza.
• ..............................................................

October 2011 will mark the start of the 11th year of the invasion of Afghanistan and the onset of the 2012 US federal budget, which provides unlimited funds for war and corporate welfare, yet withholds essential funds for services that meet human needs.

Starting on October 6, 2011, thousands of concerned Americans will assemble in Freedom Plaza, in Washington DC to take control of our country and our lives. We will occupy the plaza and hold a People's Assembly where we come up with just and sustainable solutions to the crises we face and demand that these solutions be presented and that the people's needs be addressed. We will plan and engage in creative acts of civil resistance and demand that our inherent rights and freedoms be protected, and that our children have a chance to live in peace,to breathe clean air, and to grow edible natural food.

Will you stand with us and denounce the systems and institutions that support endless war and unrestrained corporate greed ?

Together we can create the future we envision of peace, justice and equality.

Join us in whatever way you are able - in person or through the online community.

It starts here.

History is knocking. Will you answer the call?

Take the pledge here or sign up to receive more information and join us virtually. Let America know you intend to make history and create a new world!