 19 October 18
FOCUS | Michael Moore: 'We Have the Power to Crush Trump'
 Owen Jones, Guardian UK Jones writes: "It falls to Michael Moore's empty stomach to help explain to me the difference between hope and optimism." READ MORE |
Showing posts with label activism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label activism. Show all posts
Saturday, October 20, 2018
FOCUS | Michael Moore: 'We Have the Power to Crush Trump'
Saturday, October 13, 2018
Andy Borowitz | Sympathetic Voters Hope to End Melania's Suffering in 2020
12 October 18
Andy Borowitz | Sympathetic Voters Hope to End Melania's Suffering in 2020
Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker
Borowitz writes: "One day after Melania Trump pronounced herself 'the most bullied person in the world,' millions of American voters vowed to put an end to her suffering in 2020."
READ MORE
Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker
Borowitz writes: "One day after Melania Trump pronounced herself 'the most bullied person in the world,' millions of American voters vowed to put an end to her suffering in 2020."
READ MORE
Protesters near the White House following the Women's March on Washington on 20 January. (photo: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/Getty)
Trump Administration Plans Crackdown on Protests Outside White House
Luke O'Neil, Guardian UK
O'Neil writes: "Donald Trump has frequently and falsely crowed about the idea of so-called paid protesters, including most recently the sexual assault survivors who confronted senators in the lead-up to the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation. Now his administration may be trying to turn that concept on its head, by requiring citizens to pay to be able to protest, among other affronts to the first amendment."
READ MORE
Luke O'Neil, Guardian UK
O'Neil writes: "Donald Trump has frequently and falsely crowed about the idea of so-called paid protesters, including most recently the sexual assault survivors who confronted senators in the lead-up to the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation. Now his administration may be trying to turn that concept on its head, by requiring citizens to pay to be able to protest, among other affronts to the first amendment."
READ MORE
Immigrants stand in line for tickets at a bus station in McAllen, Texas. (photo: Eric Gay/AP)
The Government Is Using Racial Pseudoscience to Determine Immigrant Kids' Ages From Teeth
Libby Watson, Splinter News
Watson writes: "A troubling report yesterday documented the shaky method being used by the U.S. government to determine whether unaccompanied minors that arrive at the border are really children or whether they should be placed in immigration jails for adults. It's a horrifying new case study in how our government dehumanizes immigrants."
READ MORE
Libby Watson, Splinter News
Watson writes: "A troubling report yesterday documented the shaky method being used by the U.S. government to determine whether unaccompanied minors that arrive at the border are really children or whether they should be placed in immigration jails for adults. It's a horrifying new case study in how our government dehumanizes immigrants."
READ MORE
Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson. (photo: Getty)
Report: Sheldon Adelson Spending Tens of Millions More to Help GOP in Midterms
Michael Burke, The Hill
Burke writes: "Casino magnate and Republican mega donor Sheldon Adelson is giving tens of millions of dollars more to the Republican Party in a last-minute effort to help preserve the GOP's majorities in the House and Senate."
READ MORE
Michael Burke, The Hill
Burke writes: "Casino magnate and Republican mega donor Sheldon Adelson is giving tens of millions of dollars more to the Republican Party in a last-minute effort to help preserve the GOP's majorities in the House and Senate."
READ MORE
From left, Eric Garner's stepfather, Benjamin Carr, mother Gwen Carr and his widow Esaw Garner attend an interfaith prayer service at Mount Sinai United Christian Church to mark the one-year anniversary of the death of Eric Garner in New York on July 14, 2015. (photo: Spencer Platt/Getty)
My Son Eric Garner's Death Was My Political Awakening. Don't Wait for a Tragedy to Have Your Own.
Gwen Carr, NBC News
Carr writes: "We have to get out there - on the streets, in the voting booths, in our state capitals and in Washington - before some issue affects us."
READ MORE
Gwen Carr, NBC News
Carr writes: "We have to get out there - on the streets, in the voting booths, in our state capitals and in Washington - before some issue affects us."
READ MORE
Colombia's Indigenous organization under threat by paramilitary groups. (photo: teleSUR)
Colombia's Indigenous Organization Under Threat by Paramilitary
teleSUR
Excerpt: "A Colombian paramilitary group known as the 'Aguilas Negras' (Black Eagles) spread pamphlets in the northern Guajira department threatening human rights defenders and indigenous organizations working in the region."
READ MORE
teleSUR
Excerpt: "A Colombian paramilitary group known as the 'Aguilas Negras' (Black Eagles) spread pamphlets in the northern Guajira department threatening human rights defenders and indigenous organizations working in the region."
READ MORE
A bee on a flower. (photo: Pexels)
EPA Considers 300,000-Acre Expansion for Bee-Toxic Pesticide
Center for Biological Diversity
Excerpt: "Although flupyradifurone is known to harm pollinators like bees and freshwater invertebrates like mussels, a pesticide maker is asking the EPA to approve its use across more than 300,000 acres in areas that are home to more than three dozen protected species."
READ MORE
Center for Biological Diversity
Excerpt: "Although flupyradifurone is known to harm pollinators like bees and freshwater invertebrates like mussels, a pesticide maker is asking the EPA to approve its use across more than 300,000 acres in areas that are home to more than three dozen protected species."
READ MORE
Saturday, May 21, 2016
RSN: Why Bernie Is Helping, Not Hurting the Democrats
It always makes one wonder why people don't cancel their subscription to the Corporate Media PROPAGANDA Machines and support TRUTH and FACTS.
What you get for FREE is worth its price.
Reader Supported News | 21 May 16
We Need Another Miracle Today
The last 3 days have all started out with so few donations that failure seems assured. On all 3 days, RSN Readers rallied and turned the tide. We need another miracle today.
What would a "miracle" take? 50 Readers out 30,000 saying, "Sure I'll Make a Donation."
Small miracles accomplish big things.
Marc Ash
Curator, Reader Supported News
Curator, Reader Supported News
If you would prefer to send a check:
Reader Supported News
PO Box 2043
Citrus Hts
CA 95611
Reader Supported News
PO Box 2043
Citrus Hts
CA 95611
FOCUS: Scott Galindez | Why Bernie Is Helping, Not Hurting the Democrats
Scott Galindez, Reader Supported News
Galindez writes: "'Bernie Sanders is a positive force in the Democratic Party,' Nancy Pelosi said during a press briefing in the Capitol. 'He has awakened in some people an interest in the political process that wasn't there. He has encouraged young people to channel their interest in public service and community leadership into a political place, because this is where decisions are made that'll affect their future and their lives. And I think that's positive.'"
READ MORE
Scott Galindez, Reader Supported News
Galindez writes: "'Bernie Sanders is a positive force in the Democratic Party,' Nancy Pelosi said during a press briefing in the Capitol. 'He has awakened in some people an interest in the political process that wasn't there. He has encouraged young people to channel their interest in public service and community leadership into a political place, because this is where decisions are made that'll affect their future and their lives. And I think that's positive.'"
READ MORE
Wednesday, January 7, 2015
Thursday, January 1, 2015
RSN: Senate Panel Sets Hearing on Keystone XL, The NYPD's Insubordination, and Why the Right Should Oppose It, Toddler Kills Mother With Her Own Gun
Medea Benjamin
| 10 Good Things About the Year 2014
Medea Benjamin, Commmon Dreams
Benjamin writes: "It's been a year of fervent activism on police accountability, living wages, climate change, personal freedoms, immigrant rights, an open internet and diplomacy over war."
READ MORE
Medea Benjamin, Commmon Dreams
Benjamin writes: "It's been a year of fervent activism on police accountability, living wages, climate change, personal freedoms, immigrant rights, an open internet and diplomacy over war."
READ MORE
2014 Exposed
the US Myth of Equality Under the Law
Christian Christensen, Al Jazeera America
Christensen writes: "The description of the United States as the world's policeman has always been laced with a heavy dose of irony and sarcasm. In democratic societies, the police are meant to uphold the law, but the U.S. has shown time and again that international legal conventions are not things to which the U.S. considers itself bound."
READ MORE
Christian Christensen, Al Jazeera America
Christensen writes: "The description of the United States as the world's policeman has always been laced with a heavy dose of irony and sarcasm. In democratic societies, the police are meant to uphold the law, but the U.S. has shown time and again that international legal conventions are not things to which the U.S. considers itself bound."
READ MORE
The NYPD's
Insubordination, and Why the Right Should Oppose It
Conor Friedersdorf, The Atlantic
Friedersdorf writes: "In New York City, 'NYPD traffic tickets and summonses for minor offenses have dropped off by a staggering 94 percent following the execution of two cops,' the New York Post reports, attributing the 'virtual work stoppage' to rank-and-file police officers who 'feel betrayed by the mayor and fear for their safety.'"
READ MORE
Conor Friedersdorf, The Atlantic
Friedersdorf writes: "In New York City, 'NYPD traffic tickets and summonses for minor offenses have dropped off by a staggering 94 percent following the execution of two cops,' the New York Post reports, attributing the 'virtual work stoppage' to rank-and-file police officers who 'feel betrayed by the mayor and fear for their safety.'"
READ MORE
Palestinian
Statehood Bid Falls One Vote Short, With US and UK Voting 'No'
Al Jazeera America
Excerpt: "The UN Security Council has rejected a Palestinian resolution calling for peace with Israel within a year and an end to Israel's occupation by 2017."
READ MORE
Al Jazeera America
Excerpt: "The UN Security Council has rejected a Palestinian resolution calling for peace with Israel within a year and an end to Israel's occupation by 2017."
READ MORE
Toddler Kills
Mother With Her Own Gun
Jamie Tarabay, Al Jazeera America
Tarabay writes: "A Walmart store in northern Idaho was the scene of the latest tragedy in a spate of accidental killings on Tuesday, when a toddler shot and killed his mother with the gun she was carrying in her purse, authorities said."
READ MORE
Jamie Tarabay, Al Jazeera America
Tarabay writes: "A Walmart store in northern Idaho was the scene of the latest tragedy in a spate of accidental killings on Tuesday, when a toddler shot and killed his mother with the gun she was carrying in her purse, authorities said."
READ MORE
Child Brides:
Married Off in Mozambique
Katya Cengel, Al Jazeera America
Cengel writes: "Teenage pregnancy is a widespread problem in the developed and the developing world. But in this coastal country in southern Africa, it is often accompanied by early marriage, which, studies show, sets a girl up for a life of extreme poverty and deprivation."
READ MORE
Katya Cengel, Al Jazeera America
Cengel writes: "Teenage pregnancy is a widespread problem in the developed and the developing world. But in this coastal country in southern Africa, it is often accompanied by early marriage, which, studies show, sets a girl up for a life of extreme poverty and deprivation."
READ MORE
Senate Panel
Sets Hearing on Keystone XL
Laura Barron-Lopez, The Hill
Barron-Lopez writes: "The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing on the contentious Keystone XL oil pipeline next week. The hearing, announced Tuesday, will be the first one held by new Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska)."
READ MORE
Laura Barron-Lopez, The Hill
Barron-Lopez writes: "The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing on the contentious Keystone XL oil pipeline next week. The hearing, announced Tuesday, will be the first one held by new Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska)."
READ MORE
Monday, December 29, 2014
NO MORE NUCLEAR ACCIDENTS! VERMONT YANKEE SHUT DOWN!
THANK YOU TO ALL THE 'ACTIVISTS' WHO STOOD THEIR GROUND, SACRIFICED THEIR TIME AND BROUGHT THIS ABOUT!
Women from Vermont, Massachusetts and New Hampshire chained and locked the main gate of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant on Earth Day in 2011. (photo: The Nuclear Resister)
Activists Permanently Shut Down Vermont Yankee Nuke Plant Today
29 December 14
itizen activists have made it happen. The number of licensed U.S. commercial reactors is now under 100 where once it was to be 1,000.
Decades of hard grassroots campaigning by dedicated, non-violent nuclear opponents, working for a Solartopian green-powered economy, forced this reactor’s corporate owner to bring it down.
Vermont Yankee is the fifth American reactor forced shut in the last two years.
THIS TELLS YOU THAT RENEWABLES ARE CHEAPER THAN NUCLEAR!
Entergy says it shut Vermont Yankee because it was losing money. Though fully amortized, it could not compete with the onslaught of renewable energy and fracked-gas. Throughout the world, nukes once sold as generating juice “too cheap to meter” comprise a global financial disaster. Even with their capital costs long-ago stuck to the public, these radioactive junk heaps have no place in today’s economy—except as illegitimate magnets for massive handouts.
So in Illinois and elsewhere around the U.S., their owners demand that their bought and rented state legislators and regulators force the public to eat their losses. Arguing for “base load power” or other nonsensical corporate constructs, atomic corporations are gouging the public to keep these radioactive jalopies sputtering along.
Such might have been the fate of Vermont Yankee had it not been for citizen opposition. Opened in the early 1970s, Vermont Yankee was the northern tip of clean energy’s first “golden triangle.” Down the Connecticut River, grassroots opposition successfully prevented two reactors from being built at Montague, Massachusetts, where the term “No Nukes” was coined. A weather tower was toppled, films were made, books were written, demonstrations staged and an upwelling of well-organized grassroots activism helped nurture a rising global movement.
A bit to the southwest, in the early 1990s, it shut the infamous Yankee Rowe reactor, which had been hit by lightening and could not pass a verifiable test of its dangerously embrittled core.
But Vermont Yankee persisted. Entergy, a “McNuke” operator based in New Orleans, bought Yankee from its original owners about a dozen years ago. It signed a complex series of agreements with the state. Then it trashed them to keep Vermont Yankee spiraling ever-downward.
But hard-core organizers like Deb Katz’s Citizen Awareness Network never let up. Working through a network of natonal, state and local campaigns, the safe energy movement has finally forced Entergy to flip the off switch.
Protestors hold signs during a vigil to support the closing of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant at the Statehouse Monday, Jan. 23, 2012 in Montpelier, Vt. (AP Photo/Toby Talbot)
Protestors support the closing of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant at the Statehouse in January 2012 in Montpelier, Vermont.
Vermont Yankee is the fifth American reactor forced shut in the last two years. Two at San Onofre, California, were defeated by citizen activism. Wisconsin’s Kewaunee went down for economic reasons. Crystal River in Florida was driven to utter chaos by incompetent ownership.
Five reactors are officially under construction in the U.S. But their fate is also subject to citizen action. Two others targeted for Levy County, Florida, have recently been stopped by ratepayer resistance.
Throughout the U.S. and the world, the demise of atomic energy is accelerating. Some 435 reactors are listed worldwide as allegedly operable. But 48 in Japan remain shut in the wake of Fukushima despite the fierce efforts of a corrupt, dictatorial regime to force them back on line. Germany’s transition to a totally nuke-free green energy economy is exceeding expectations. The fate of dozens proposed and operating in China and India remains unclear.
But the clock on the inevitable next disaster is ticking. Cancer rates and thyroid problems around Fukushima continue to accelerate. Massive reactors like California’s Diablo Canyon and Indian Point, New York, are surrounded by volatile earthquake faults that could reduce them to seething piles of apocalyptic rubble, killing countless thousands downwind, gutting the global economy.
Every reactor shutdown represents an avoided catastrophe of the greatest magnitude. As the takeoff of cheap, clean, safe and reliable Solartopian technology accelerates, greedy reactor owners struggle to squeeze the last few dimes out of increasingly dangerous old nukes for which they ultimately will take no responsibility. Vermont Yankee alone could require 60 years for basic clean-up. Fierce debate rages over what to do with thousands of tons of intensely radioactive spent fuel rods.
It remains unclear where the money will ultimately come from to try to decontaminate these sites, but clearly they are all destined to be dead zones.
As will the planet as a whole were it not for victories like this one in Vermont. This weekend the No Nukes community will celebrate this accursed reactor’s final demise.
Many hundreds more such celebrations must follow—soon!
Harvey Wasserman's "Solartopia! Our Green-Powered Earth, AD 2030" is at www.solartopia.org. He is senior advisor to Greenpeace USA and the Nuclear Information & Resource Service, and writes regularly for www.freepress.org. He and Bob Fitrakis have co-authored four books on election protection, including "Did George W. Bush Steal America's 2004 Election?," "As Goes Ohio: Election Theft Since 2004," "How the GOP Stole America's 2004 Election & Is Rigging 2008," and "What Happened in Ohio."
Monday, March 31, 2014
This & that....
Matters for America's photo.
Since the news media is going to obscure the truth about access to contraceptives for American women, get the truth for yourself: http://mm4a.org/1hV7RGj
Robert Reich's photo.
Many of you express outrage about what’s happening to our democracy and our economy. That’s appropriate. But outrage spawns two contrary sentiments. The first leads to reform. The second guarantees defeat.
(1) Determination to change the situation. “I’m taking action.” “Count me in.” “Sign me up.” “I’m organizing and mobilizing.” “I’m not gonna take this any more.” “We’re making a ruckus.” “Join us.” “I’m committed to reversing this.”
(2) Cynicism. “Nothing can be done.” “The game is rigged, so why bother?” “Don’t even try.” “It’s hopeless.” “We’re screwed.” “I give up.” “It’s even worse than I thought, and I’m utterly powerless to do anything about it.”
Which camp do you find yourself in? If you’re in the latter or know others in it, how can you move yourself or them into the first camp?
(2) Cynicism. “Nothing can be done.” “The game is rigged, so why bother?” “Don’t even try.” “It’s hopeless.” “We’re screwed.” “I give up.” “It’s even worse than I thought, and I’m utterly powerless to do anything about it.”
Which camp do you find yourself in? If you’re in the latter or know others in it, how can you move yourself or them into the first camp?
How many times do we have to say it? SHARE if you agree: Your boss is not your doctor.
Saturday, March 29, 2014
Quakers have PNC AFRAID!
How curious that a Big Bank is afraid of Quakers!
Paul, Martin and the rest of us.
A group of Quaker peace activists have one of
Wall Street's dirtiest banks running scared.
The Quakers have been leading a campaign to force one
of America's Big Five banks, PNC, to pull its billions from one of the
most destructive forms of coal mining. The bank is funding big mining
corporations to literally blow apart whole mountains to get at the coal buried
inside.
And the campaign is working. With tens
of thousands of SumOfUs members also calling on the bank to stop its
environmental destruction, it's feeling the pressure. Last year, the bank's CEO
ended the company's annual shareholder meeting after just 15 minutes to prevent
the Quakers from speaking out.
So guess what the bank's CEO just did? He moved
this year's shareholder meeting to the other side of the United States, hoping
it will keep the Quakers away.
But he didn't count on us. The meeting is just
2 weeks away, but we're teaming up with the Quakers to organize local
SumOfUs members to speak out at the meeting. But we also need to make sure that
we can get the Quakers to the meeting to tell their story.
The mining that PNC is funding is truly horrific. In a
desperate rush to squeeze more profit out of dwindling coal seams, coal
companies are turning to an extreme form of mining known as mountaintop removal. It’s exactly
what it sounds like: Appalachian mountains are being blown to pieces
with heavy explosives.
It’s not just wild forests and mountains that are being
destroyed. As heavy metals and arsenic leach into water supplies,
communities are being poisoned. Children in Appalachian coal mining
communities are 42% more likely to be born with birth defects and have a life
expectancy that is almost 5 years lower than the national average.
PNC says it’s “a leader in eco-friendly development”
but it’s financing some of the worst perpetrators of mountaintop removal and
profiting from the destruction.
In 2010, PNC responded to pressure by introducing a
policy of not providing funding to individual mountaintop removal projects, or
providing credit to coal producers whose primary extraction method is
mountaintop removal. And yet, in 2011, PNC provided loans for 4 of the 5
largest coal companies. These 4 companies account for 47% of all
mountaintop removal coal mining. The policy amounted to nothing.
But we know that PNC care what the public thinks of it.
And we know that the will is there to change. Last April, a quarter of
PNC shareholders voted in favour of a proposal calling on PNC to evaluate its
financial risk of funding carbon intensive practices such as coal
mining. In terms of shareholder activism, that is huge. If we put
enough pressure on PNC to divest from mountaintop removal mining projects, we
could have a tremendous impact on the communities and landscapes of Appalachia.
But to do that, we need to make sure we can get the Quaker peace activists to
the shareholder meeting to speak directly to the shareholders who will vote.
Thanks for all you do,
Paul, Martin and the rest of us.
Thursday, March 13, 2014
Transforming Talk to Action
On Monday, a group of Senators spent all night talking about climate change on Capitol Hill as part of a widely publicized event called #Up4Climate. There were some great speeches (like Elizabeth Warren's)... and some less-than-great ones. But it's up to US to make sure all this talk turns into action. Add your voice here: http://act.350.org/sign/wake_up_congress/
And SHARE if you agree with Senator Warren.
And SHARE if you agree with Senator Warren.
Tell Tim Cook and Richard Branson THANK YOU for taking a stand against climate change deniers: http://wefb.it/30132A
Two of the most influential CEOs in the world are making waves with their investors, telling them that if they deny climate change and fight conservation efforts they should simply “get out.” Way to go Apple and Virgin! More info: http://bit.ly/1fW3XQt
SHARE this to spread the word!
Two of the most influential CEOs in the world are making waves with their investors, telling them that if they deny climate change and fight conservation efforts they should simply “get out.” Way to go Apple and Virgin! More info: http://bit.ly/1fW3XQt
SHARE this to spread the word!
Working Overtime:
President Barack Obama on Thursday called for new overtime rules so more workers will be eligible for time-and-a-half pay after putting in a 40-hour workweek. Obama’s directive to the Labor Department eventually will help millions of low-wage workers. Now, a worker on salary of more than $455 a week with minimal management duties may be denied overtime.
Sen. Bernie Sanders applauded the president’s action. “It is absurd that millions of workers making as ...little as $455 a week are considered ‘supervisors’ and get no overtime pay. I hope the Department of Labor raises that threshold to at least $1,000, which would reflect inflation since 1975. That step alone would mean a raise for millions of workers. More money in the hands of working people would mean that those workers could then go out and make purchases that would help create more jobs.”
It will take a while before workers see any more money in their paychecks. Leaving the details to be worked out by the Labor Department, Obama did not specify what the new salary thresholds should be. The department isn’t likely to propose specific language until this fall.
Workers won the right to overtime pay back in 1938, when Congress passed a law requiring extra pay for extra hours of work. Under the law, the Labor Department was given the authority to change the salary thresholds to account for inflation. The department also was given leeway to spell out which workers are eligible for overtime. The last time the rules were updated, however, was 1975. That’s when the Ford administration raised the salary threshold significantly to account for inflation.
President Barack Obama on Thursday called for new overtime rules so more workers will be eligible for time-and-a-half pay after putting in a 40-hour workweek. Obama’s directive to the Labor Department eventually will help millions of low-wage workers. Now, a worker on salary of more than $455 a week with minimal management duties may be denied overtime.
Sen. Bernie Sanders applauded the president’s action. “It is absurd that millions of workers making as ...little as $455 a week are considered ‘supervisors’ and get no overtime pay. I hope the Department of Labor raises that threshold to at least $1,000, which would reflect inflation since 1975. That step alone would mean a raise for millions of workers. More money in the hands of working people would mean that those workers could then go out and make purchases that would help create more jobs.”
It will take a while before workers see any more money in their paychecks. Leaving the details to be worked out by the Labor Department, Obama did not specify what the new salary thresholds should be. The department isn’t likely to propose specific language until this fall.
Workers won the right to overtime pay back in 1938, when Congress passed a law requiring extra pay for extra hours of work. Under the law, the Labor Department was given the authority to change the salary thresholds to account for inflation. The department also was given leeway to spell out which workers are eligible for overtime. The last time the rules were updated, however, was 1975. That’s when the Ford administration raised the salary threshold significantly to account for inflation.
Monday, March 10, 2014
“We were never activists.......
“We were never activists.
We were not environmentalists.
We were just people living our lives, and then the oil and gas industry moved in around us.” - Sharon Wilson, Earthworks Texas Organizer.
We were not environmentalists.
We were just people living our lives, and then the oil and gas industry moved in around us.” - Sharon Wilson, Earthworks Texas Organizer.
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Corporation court corruption
Occupy Seattle's photo.
Corporation court corruption
Agribusiness Giant Syngenta Suppressing Evidence Of Herbicide-Caused Endocrine Disruption in Frogs: Activist Scientists' Fears Upheld By Court Documents
Monsanto's perfidies are relatively well known. But another agribusiness giant, Syngenta, which is the world's 3rd largest source of herbicides, seeds, and assorted agri-business technologies, sought for years to destroy the careers of scientists who discovered the dark side of its products: its herbicide Atrazine causes widespread endocrine disruption in frogs. The story of how far Syngenta has been willing to go brings the world of corporate harassment of activist scientists to the spotlight:
"To protect profits threatened by a lawsuit over its controversial herbicide atrazine, Syngenta Crop Protection launched an aggressive multi-million dollar campaign that included hiring a detective agency to investigate scientists on a federal advisory panel, looking into the personal life of a judge and commissioning a psychological profile of a leading scientist critical of atrazine.
The Switzerland-based pesticide manufacturer also routinely paid “third-party allies” to appear to be independent supporters, and kept a list of 130 people and groups it could recruit as experts without disclosing ties to the company.
Recently unsealed court documents reveal a corporate strategy to discredit critics and to strip plaintiffs from the class-action case. The company specifically targeted one of atrazine’s fiercest and most outspoken critics, Tyrone Hayes of the University of California, Berkeley, whose research suggests that atrazine feminizes male frogs."
http://100r.org/2013/06/pest-control-syngentas-secret-campaign-to-discredit-atrazines-critics/
"And then, every once in a while, I come across a true scandal, and it tips me back toward cynicism.
That said, now I’m pissed off: Monday morning we learned that the ag-tech corporation Syngenta paid millions of dollars in a covert effort to protect its herbicide atrazine and discredit critics. (The story, put out by Environmental Health News and 100Reporters, is worth reading in full here.) It’s a solid case study illustrating the lengths a company will go to influence the scientific debate. And, usefully, the documents show who Syngenta was paying to shill for them."
http://grist.org/food/syngenta-plays-dirty-to-shape-public-opinion-on-herbicide/
"According to company e-mails, Syngenta was distressed by Hayes’s work. Its public-relations team compiled a database of more than a hundred “supportive third party stakeholders,” including twenty-five professors, who could defend atrazine or act as “spokespeople on Hayes.” The P.R. team suggested that the company “purchase ‘Tyrone Hayes’ as a search word on the internet, so that any time someone searches for Tyrone’s material, the first thing they see is our material.” The proposal was later expanded to include the phrases “amphibian hayes,” “atrazine frogs,” and “frog feminization.” (Searching online for “Tyrone Hayes” now brings up an advertisement that says, “Tyrone Hayes Not Credible.”) "
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/02/10/140210fa_fact_aviv
" "In 2009, a New York Times investigation found that 33 million Americans are exposed to atrazine through drinking water. EPA data from 2010 shows contamination exceeding the federal limit in 9 out of 10 states monitoring it—several Midwestern water districts reported between 9 and 18 times the limit. (Atrazine's tendency to contaminate water supplies is one reason the European Union voted to ban it in 2003.)
The EPA has claimed these spikes are not a health hazard. Yet epidemiological studies have found links between prenatal atrazine exposure and birth defects, premature birth, and low birth weight—even at extremely low concentrations. As Hayes explains, "0.1 ppb is not a low dose at all. Estrogen is active at levels that are 100 to 1,000 times lower than that. So in terms of an endocrine disruptor, that's a high dose." "
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2011/11/tyrone-hayes-atrazine-syngenta-feud-frog-endangered
Monsanto's perfidies are relatively well known. But another agribusiness giant, Syngenta, which is the world's 3rd largest source of herbicides, seeds, and assorted agri-business technologies, sought for years to destroy the careers of scientists who discovered the dark side of its products: its herbicide Atrazine causes widespread endocrine disruption in frogs. The story of how far Syngenta has been willing to go brings the world of corporate harassment of activist scientists to the spotlight:
"To protect profits threatened by a lawsuit over its controversial herbicide atrazine, Syngenta Crop Protection launched an aggressive multi-million dollar campaign that included hiring a detective agency to investigate scientists on a federal advisory panel, looking into the personal life of a judge and commissioning a psychological profile of a leading scientist critical of atrazine.
The Switzerland-based pesticide manufacturer also routinely paid “third-party allies” to appear to be independent supporters, and kept a list of 130 people and groups it could recruit as experts without disclosing ties to the company.
Recently unsealed court documents reveal a corporate strategy to discredit critics and to strip plaintiffs from the class-action case. The company specifically targeted one of atrazine’s fiercest and most outspoken critics, Tyrone Hayes of the University of California, Berkeley, whose research suggests that atrazine feminizes male frogs."
http://100r.org/2013/06/pest-control-syngentas-secret-campaign-to-discredit-atrazines-critics/
"And then, every once in a while, I come across a true scandal, and it tips me back toward cynicism.
That said, now I’m pissed off: Monday morning we learned that the ag-tech corporation Syngenta paid millions of dollars in a covert effort to protect its herbicide atrazine and discredit critics. (The story, put out by Environmental Health News and 100Reporters, is worth reading in full here.) It’s a solid case study illustrating the lengths a company will go to influence the scientific debate. And, usefully, the documents show who Syngenta was paying to shill for them."
http://grist.org/food/syngenta-plays-dirty-to-shape-public-opinion-on-herbicide/
"According to company e-mails, Syngenta was distressed by Hayes’s work. Its public-relations team compiled a database of more than a hundred “supportive third party stakeholders,” including twenty-five professors, who could defend atrazine or act as “spokespeople on Hayes.” The P.R. team suggested that the company “purchase ‘Tyrone Hayes’ as a search word on the internet, so that any time someone searches for Tyrone’s material, the first thing they see is our material.” The proposal was later expanded to include the phrases “amphibian hayes,” “atrazine frogs,” and “frog feminization.” (Searching online for “Tyrone Hayes” now brings up an advertisement that says, “Tyrone Hayes Not Credible.”) "
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/02/10/140210fa_fact_aviv
" "In 2009, a New York Times investigation found that 33 million Americans are exposed to atrazine through drinking water. EPA data from 2010 shows contamination exceeding the federal limit in 9 out of 10 states monitoring it—several Midwestern water districts reported between 9 and 18 times the limit. (Atrazine's tendency to contaminate water supplies is one reason the European Union voted to ban it in 2003.)
The EPA has claimed these spikes are not a health hazard. Yet epidemiological studies have found links between prenatal atrazine exposure and birth defects, premature birth, and low birth weight—even at extremely low concentrations. As Hayes explains, "0.1 ppb is not a low dose at all. Estrogen is active at levels that are 100 to 1,000 times lower than that. So in terms of an endocrine disruptor, that's a high dose." "
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2011/11/tyrone-hayes-atrazine-syngenta-feud-frog-endangered
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