Citizens greeted that with mixed reviews and determined that a change in administration was needed to preserve ‘entitlement’ programs. We chose to add medical care to the list of essentials which should not be referred to as ‘commodities’ to be purchased by consumers. In a society able to generate the needed revenue, Americans want to consider food, clothing, shelter and medical care to be basic necessities of life and something to grant one another wherever possible. This philosophy doesn’t require the word ‘socialism’ to be slapped onto our label, describing how we operate as a nation. Capitalism is about how we treat commodities, those goods and services we opt to acquire.

Since the constitution grants us the right to ‘life’, goods and services necessary to existence would seem to lose their classification as commodities. The Clean Air Act states that breathing is also a ‘right’ and we continue to struggle with enforcing its provisions. Does anyone really wish to state that legislative accomplishment is ‘socialist’ in nature? Is ‘air’ a commodity to be bought and sold or an aspect of the environment which is essential to our survival? Somehow the marketplace seems to be a rather bizarre arena in which to discuss such an urgent issue which is really dictated by our biological characteristics. The clean-up of serious pollution from various sources requires residents to trace the sources and mandate change through the available venues.

Once upon a time, jobs came with some degree of security and upward mobility for those with sufficient privilege to obtain them. We needn’t pretend that just anyone can succeed as our history continues to struggle with the failure of women and minorities to attain equality and justice. However, the employed had some expectations of longevity in their employment and the chance to put away some of their salaries when housing costs did not take up such a huge chunk of our incomes. With constant changes in the workforce keeping people from pensions, health care benefits and living wages, we have no option but to fund such programs through the public sector to make up for it.

Debate over ‘entitlement’ programs and the addition of medical care to that list of essential services, does not automatically change society into a ‘socialist’ construct. It does alter society from the perspective of our ‘social contract’ with one another, regardless of individual political and economic viewpoints.

A global community is about more than just the exchange of job opportunities.

In Libya, we are seeing the hopeful end of a despotic regime. We should hope that if the unthinkable ever happened and placed the US under such a form of governance, that other nations would come to our defense to restore our constitutional protections preventing elections from turning into military exercises. Our lesson in the revolutions currently in process is to examine our own weaknesses.

My comment on Kristof’s Libya Op-Ed was posted here:

50.
Barbara Rubin
Ca.
April 3rd, 2011
7:52 am
Dear Mr. Kristoff,

Thank you for putting President Obama’s actions into a perspective that many Americans may finally grasp amidst unconscionable arguments that saving lives from despots isn’t worth the price tag. Our own country is currently engaged in a war against trans-national corporations interfering in our governance through elections financed by these ‘paper citizens’. They ensure the election of naïve ideologues who chant slogans and consider deficit spending to be equivalent to having overdrawn, personal checking accounts.

Corporate sponsored governance has led to the suppression of many freedoms here at home, including that of free speech through bullying tactics. The rhetoric of despots is not always limited to governmental leaders.

This isn’t even about costs since the conservative community had no objections to spending millions in enforcing ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ rules and now complains of the minor costs incurred in shifting social policies in the military. This action is a landmark demonstration of nations agreeing to become watchdogs over the trampling of human lives in the insane quest for power and money. It is a protest against the social engineering of world-wide efforts to treat citizens as commodities and possessions.

Just as the ‘cult of never enough’ led to financial disaster here at home, it also takes actual lives here at home through indirect methods. Violence is the result of anger-provoking rhetoric which has replaced much of the actual legislation we expect from our representatives. Citizens are brougth to the point of pressuring and bullying their neighbors into disavowing the need for healthcare or the role of unions in shaping humane working conditions and living (versus ‘dying’) wages in America. Corporations have conditioned people to attribute the withdrawal of jobs and benefits as due to ‘immigrants’ rather than greed. Despots require reigning in by a public having faith in their own governmental principles and the inherent rights of every individual to their freedom, regardless of gender, nationality and belief system.

Yes, this is frightening but may give us the courage to say ‘no’ to laws and court decisions that subject residents to a narrowly defined status prescribing uniformity in matters of work, faith and life-style. Peace comes in a remarkable variety of colors, shapes, sizes and beliefs.

Hopefully, the obvious merits for President Obama’s actions in Libya will translate into greater recognition for the value of lives here at home, above and beyond various ‘class’ distinctions.

Barbara Rubin

Here was my commentary on the editorial praising President Obama for addressing those ‘conscientious’ objectors to medical care for the masses. Perhaps ‘conscienceless’ might be a better term.

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23. Barbara Rubin, Ca.
March 2nd, 2011
10:03 am

President Obama is severely hobbled by a corrupt system. He has shown a great talent in allowing the nature of that system come to the attention of every American citizen. His campaign and subsequent election led to a far more revealing dialogue with those in charge of running and defending a flawed system. Perhaps ‘dialogue’ is too generous a term. We’ve been privileged to hear the ‘diatribes’ that continue to obstruct our march towards a more civilized country honoring its constitutional foundations.

During the years in which we had a CEO in charge, rather than a President, the United States of America became America Ltd. Our congress and governors became our board of directors. We citizens were demoted to the level of mere consumers, chattel to our nation-states as federalism became reviled. Labor, as demonstrated in the latest legislative agenda of the Wisconsin state house, is just another commodity.

Health care is either a right or a commodity to be purchased by those with the means. President Obama presumes it is part of the federal constitutional promise that we have the right to life. Unable to block the bill, conservatives settled for turning it into a less efficient form than existing single-payer options would offer in order to convince Americans to refuse it. I once heard Rush Limbaugh compare the various tiers of his dog’s veterinary services plan with his ideal for human care – just pay for the level of coverage you can afford. Of course, he didn’t specify which level covered the charges for having Uncle Ed ‘put down’ if you couldn’t afford his chemotherapy. However, the very analogy makes us wish for the old title of ‘consumer’, rather than ‘pet’.

Americans must decide if they want health care. If the answer is yes, demand your elected leadership repair the current law for the benefit of all United States Citizens. If repealed, there won’t be another one. America Ltd. won’t permit it for their pets.

Barbara Rubin
www.armchairactivist.us
Recommended by 36 Readers

Government will collude in this process through the expenditure of tax revenues to treat the sick. More will be spent conducting the tests that industry should have conducted during their R&D process, merely to certify the trauma that fracking creates under the earth and in our homes. By the time it is no longer profitable to collect fuel in this manner (through depletion or health costs), the EPA will threaten to end the practice. Ultimately, industry will voluntarily ‘drop’ it, ostensibly to avoid litigation and without admitting fault. In the meantime, politicians will build reputations by endlessly debating the matter threatening job losses while the opposition touts environmental degradation.

Maybe, someone will mention the children at various medical conferences and many petitions will be signed. It isn’t cynical to point out that billions of dollars in profits can never be countered through petitions, demonstrations or dialogue with politicians whose campaign funds are richly supplemented by these companies. It is also the reality of our history in marketing poisons with unanticipated health effects and the marketing of others with highly predictable effects. It simply isn’t possible not to expect horrendous adverse effects when marketing chemicals originally invented for purposes of chemical warfare like pesticides.

Just as our economy collapsed through the ‘trickle-down’ model of economics, so has the health of our citizens by expectations that essential research and development for safe products and services will come from industry. The demand for relegating large numbers of the population to illness, disability and death is not a trade-off for jobs but a defense of overly inflated profits. The ‘cult of never-enough’ is a tangible reality and its members are quick to designate those suffering illness as either being ‘too sensitive’ to chemicals or genetically defective. Given the national cancer rate is over 40%, the march towards complete insolvency through bending to such propaganda is close at hand.

The facts relating to the various diagnoses of those suffering from the intrusion of industrial chemicals into our personal environments offers an entirely new take upon this problem. Discussing the amounts of benzene in water will always be derailed by discussions of the extensive investment being made in water treatment. People are still sick. Why not test our own personal air and water quality? It is far cheaper to do so as a check upon industrial activity than to wait for decades to pass in which a few sites will ultimately be targeted for clean-up. The time for trusting we will be told what is necessary is over.

This blog is full of stories pertaining to the toxicity of pesticides, substances I have measured in offices and residences through certified laboratories in order to determine health risks. Yet, this is a rarely performed service apart from agricultural soil samples. It took the deaths of two children in Utah before outdoor applications of pesticides were openly acknowledged as resulting in indoor contamination and confirmed through such indoor testing. Chemicals travel through doors, walls and windows. Typically, we are concerned about radon entering through foundations and indoor fuels releasing carbon monoxide into our air. The Tooney family of Layton, Utah had their lawn treated with a pesticide. Most of the family suffered illness following this application and carbon monoxide detectors sounded their alarms. However, no measurable concentrations of CO were found by firefighters called to the scene. After the tragic deaths of two little girls, readings for the active ingredient of the chemical used were finally taken and found to be elevated. The surviving family members returned to the home when readings were no longer in evidence.

The reader is urged to note that the fines for contaminating property are cited at a much higher amount than those for endangering human health. The ability to detect such causation of human health problems is due to our lack of testing facilities and protocols. Residues of chemicals can be assessed through air testing and by their absorption by furnishings, carpet or sheet rock. Porous materials capture toxicants and re-release them into the air as temperatures rise or cleaning is attempted, like baseboard heaters which are often the target of exterminator wands as an entry port for insects. Is there any reason to believe that chemicals released through ‘fracking’ would leave less of a signature than pesticides? We have only to conduct tests of the homes of the more obvious sufferers to find out.

Chemicals behave differently in enclosed spaces. We lack an industry truly devoted to indoor pest control. Such chemicals have never been subjected to a re-approval process to determine the degree to which they behave differently indoors. Toxic chemicals emitted by many products we purchase such as insulation, paint, furniture, carpets and air fresheners are of equal concern. We can make wiser choices as consumers if we know the hazardous ingredients used in many of these and, should symptoms develop, could test for them and ensure physicians have a fully accurate exposure history for their patients.

The public is responsible for citing dangers to our own health. Corporations have the rights of citizenship in the US, no matter where they are based. We must therefore accept that our elected leaders have a duty to guard corporate interests, however much in conflict this stands with our own rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

My comment on this article:

148.

Barbara Rubin
Ca.
February 27th, 2011
9:45 am

Key quotes from the article:

.
“Like most of the sewage treatment plant operators interviewed, Mr. McCurdy said his plant was not equipped to remove radioactive material and was not required to test for it.” and ““If we’re too hard on them,” the inspector added, “the companies might just stop reporting their mistakes.”

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Once again, the pollution plaguing our nation is reduced to the concept that chemicals, known to be incompatible with human biochemistry, are worth any risk as long as jobs are offered by the offending industry. No one appears to recognize that workers are immediately divorced from their jobs by occupationally related illness and succumb to bankruptcy as illnesses strike family members living in such environs. However, there is no gain to be had in arguing environmental hazards away from those environments. Does anyone expect a board of directors to admit potential liability?

Our health statistics speak for themselves. It is time to problem-solve issues of pollution ‘inductively’, extrapolating from the specific to the general. Testing the individual homes of the sick for levels of suspected toxicants will reveal both the degree of chemical trespass long denied by polluters. It will also offer physicians and researchers the data needed to make the associations between symptoms and contaminants. Why pose questions outside of the specific settings of concern—our homes, schools and offices? It is no accident that in 2008, the New York City Council proposed a ban on private testing for contaminants without a police permit. The findings of citizens engaged in uncovering their own dangers is greatly feared by industries and governmental agencies.

Let’s make it a routine occurrence through the development of an industry devoted to indoor air quality assessment. Questions about actual environmental impacts upon individual can then be answered, leading to responsible policies and regulations. Perhaps we can then reduce the health care costs currently crippling our economy.

Barbara Rubin

Economics, misunderstood, can kill. Boring as you may think it, economics is the stuff which dictates whether or not YOU become a manager of employees or merely their overseer; whether a skilled worker will be sought out by employers to better their quality of production or merely another disposable commodity to be picked off the shelves for an indeterminate period of employment. It’s about whether or not there is a penalty to be paid in reduced sales for risking the lives of your workers or customers. Unfortunately we are told by all concerned that we don’t need to know product ingredients or how to diagnose related ailments. Since product bans aren’t permitted under NAFTA rules anyway, there is no penalty to be paid by disgruntled consumers. The number one premise of capitalism is that the rewards go to he who builds a better mousetrap. Instead, the reward goes to he who can buy out the better mousetrap company and then discard the product in favor of inferior commodities with higher profit margins. There won’t be much in the way of competition and if other companies spring up, trade associations can ensure no one leads the pack in innovation leaving the others behind.

It is easy to throw around the concept of an either/or system of economics—everything that isn’t capitalism is socialism. We haven’t progressed very far since McCarthy was our King and the worst epithet of the 1950′s was the term, ‘communist’. We’ve recently adopted ‘socialism’ as our buzz work for today, labeling everything and everything that might be considered a right or necessity for life to be a commodity for sale to the fiscally solvent. Would you charge someone for air necessary to breathing? Then why penalize them for needing additional oxygen if they lack healthcare coverage? Do you object to controls upon air pollution? The cost of reducing it to ‘safer’ levels is actually socialism at work as taxes are directed to making the air breathable and the water, potable.

Unless you believe in the ‘polluter pays’ policy, being zealously opposed by industry when congress considers the huge savings obtained through such a policy.

Avoiding the label of socialism is more important to everyone than determining the best label for a product or service. Is it a commodity or a necessity? Do you want heart attack victims being turned away from the ER door for lack of insurance? If not, then health care is a right and not a commodity. Hence, it is exempt at some basic level from being unobtainable to anyone. There will always be premium levels of goods and services for the well-heeled but that doesn’t mean everyone in society doesn’t benefit from healthy neighbors and productive workers. This is why property taxes of individuals without children go to pay the costs of educating all children.

It’s a case of ‘Sticks and stones may break YOUR bones but I will not let others call me a socialist!”. Peer pressure and semantics shouldn’t constitute a moral basis for depriving any citizen of antibiotics for pneumonia or blood pressure medicine for the elderly. True, people are deprived of life for heinous criminal actions in places practicing capital punishment. Is poverty among those listed as capital crimes?

Another ‘label’ war is the misuse of the ‘free market’ term. Who can object to anything with the word ‘free’ attached to it (well, other than healthcare)? Yet it is the antithesis to capitalism which allows consumers to determine ‘the winner and champion’, rather than who can borrow the most money and crush other vendors of similar products until you have a monopoly on that market. Any big dog can best a smaller one. Anti-trust laws, long ignored, were put into effect to restrict such abuses and protect small businesses. Socialism? Perhaps but it’s about evolving a society to match its vision for itself regardless of the label. It ensures competition lives.

Government will never be irrelevant to business. Particularly when we learn that businesses sometimes lie to us. Would you believe Monsanto if they said Round Up herbicide was a safe poison? Hopefully not because the courts in France, and in our own state of New York, examined those claims and found them false. The fines were paid and business not much disrupted. But it should have been. Maya Angelou said “”The first time someone shows you who they are, believe them.”

Krugman graded the speech here, unimpressed with the lack of specifics but then the President wasn’t addressing a classroom of Princeton students studying the economy. Still, the statements made about competitiveness were referencing the kind which takes the form of individual achievement and flexibility, in an age of changing employment patterns and reduced scholastic accomplishments by our young people. The President did not equate business with ‘free markets’ and went as far as noting that Big Oil could afford to do quite nicely without government subsidies.

It’s a beginning.

My comment:

80.
HIGHLIGHT (what’s this?)
Barbara Rubin
Ca.
January 24th, 2011
11:06 am

Forgive my economic naivete, but it would appear that ‘competitiveness’ is effectively being quashed by industry itself. The monopolization of major industries by transnational corporations appears to view the world as a single trough from which only their approved subsidiaries can feed. Trade associations agree to offer inferior products of a uniform nature to the public at prices set for declining levels of income. Falling wages are arranged by the same groups which serve as major employers around the world. If true competitiveness were the goal, wages would reflect the desire for consumers to have more disposable income.

Until farmers can re-use seeds and their own crops (potatoes are grown from potatoes), they aren’t able to compete with one another. Their revenues are always going to belong largely to the vendor of those seeds and attendant technologies required to bring them to ‘fruition’ in chemically laden fields. Feudalism lives in modern times.

As agribusiness and energy cartels dictate changes to our very eco-system, other industries deal with that ‘fall-out’. Developers are dealing with contaminated lands and diminishing supplies of clean water. Building trades are dependent upon inexpensive toxic construction materials from the US and China to house increasingly impoverished populations with low budgets for housing units. These materials can’t be exported to Europe where they’ve learned the costs of ignoring safety (largely through providing universal health care).

Clothing manufacturers, producers of processed foods – what industry can actually boast a large array of competitive businesses falling under these major umbrellas? Competition lies in who can pay the least to workers, offer the fewest benefits and substitute cost-saving chemical treatments to make products look shiny. Worker benefits are provided by the public in medicaid and housing vouchers for working families! Low ‘competitive’ prices of toxic goods and services are made up with costs paid in physician offices and tax funded disability insurance.

I hope President Obama speaks to competitiveness among ‘modest’ businesses which will benefit from employing local residents. Seeing that transnational corporations pay taxes in every nation offering them markets is a start. Ending NAFTA requirements that nations pay companies for losses of profits, if harmful products are banned, is another way to end the stranglehold of monopolies ready to sue nations for such reasonable measures.

Competitiveness lies with dreams of earning a mere million in profits rather than billions. Companies used to compete to achieve sustainability of their operations for future generations. Now a golden parachute rewards those aiming to make a ‘quick killing’ and get out while they can do so.

Quick killing indeed. The cemeteries are filling up quite nicely.

Barbara Rubin
www.armchairactivist.us
Recommended by 240 Readers

How is it different from categorizing the actions of Loughner as merely constituting a ‘repeal’ of the lives of those poor people in Tuscon, Arizona last week? Just as the state is currently determining the fate of that criminal, so our society must determine the fate of his surviving victims. Shouldn’t all of them have access to life-saving technology and rehabilitation services without mortgaging their homes and futures? Should only Congresswoman Giffords rate access from among all of the injured because of her position?

Wherefore is it written in the capitalist manifesto, that health care is a commodity? The determination of medical care as something to be bought and sold in a capitalist country is a conscious decision on our parts. Semantics is currently ruling the rabid fervor of our Republican legislators (and three Democrats) who wasted taxpayer funds on ‘symbolically’ repealing it. We are actually being informed that our access to medical care is entirely based upon the political dictionary used to define it – is it capitalism or socialism? Since they chose to ‘symbolically’ repeal it instead of symbolically ‘passing’ another bill to reform it, we have to recognize that those legislators have made this decision without consulting us. They have defined medical care in the absence of debate about the political and economic labels under which doctors labor when performing an emergency appendectomy.

Semantics doesn’t appear to enter into the debate of whether the socialized practice of constructing bridges to facilitate commerce is permissible in America. However, the proper setting of a broken arm in a young adult to promote his increased productivity as a laborer apparently isn’t as desirable. This can only be a function of labor being defined as a commodity—we all know there’s plenty of laborers on the market with two good arms. No, our Republican legislators (and three Democrats) feel a recent high-school graduate must first be privileged to acquire a job with an employer able to afford the privatized version of the Hippocratic Oath: First Do No Harm to the Profit Margin of the Practice Plan. If a practice plan were constructed by physicians to be ‘non-profit’ in nature, is it somehow superior to the same non-profit structure of the medical plan called ‘Medicare’? Non-profit organizations are not socialist in nature – everyone involved is still getting a salary and benefits while competing against other similar businesses for consumers. I worked in non-profit special education school programs for most of my career. They were often better managed than the ‘for-profit’ schools with whom they competed for students not covered by public education programs (due to their young ages).

Words are symbols by definition but hold enormous power as we’ve seen in the recent, post-Tuscon debates about violent rhetoric. In this country we are so concerned about worker productivity that we have regulated the use of symbols, i.e. words, in the workplace. Yes, ‘un-civil’ and violent words may not be used to describe a co-worker’s beliefs or behavior. This is because it creates a hostile working environment. Shouldn’t political parties be concerned when their spokespeople create a hostile ‘living’ environment? That is the only way to term a country in which people are supposed to envision their neighbors as enemies more powerful than Al Queda, merely for wishing all of their neighbors to have health care.

There have been numerable articles written about this subject but I wrote a commentary on one of them over at the NPR website the other day as follows:

Barbara Rubin (agasaya) wrote:

It is time for us to discuss the fact that ‘un-civil’ rhetoric is actually illegal in the work-place. The drive for productivity has made hostile work environments something which are legally actionable. Employees are not required to endure comments personal to their cultures, appearances or religious and political beliefs. References to violence can get you arrested in a post office or airport.

When will political parties REQUIRE their ‘esteemed’ spokespersons to adopt speech styles that convey information without creating a hostile national ‘living’ environment? Are we supposed to change countries as if citizenship was some job held under a poor employer?

Our politicians do NOT employ us. We employ them. Stop paying them to speak at political events if their speeches disparage rather than educate listeners about the choices available to Americans in governmental policies. You can express any sensible concept just by combing through a dictionary or thesaurus and learning new words which aren’t laden with overtones of hate, violence or discrimination. Being specific to conditions or actions you criticize is also helpful in intelligent discourse.

Barbara Rubin
www.armchairactivist.us

Tuesday, January 18

Recommended by 61 readers

Religiously affiliated Americans aren’t labeled as such in order to describe a segment of the population. The designation is market research for potential consumers of a brand of politics being sold on the American market today.

Here was my reply:

2. Barbara Rubin Ca.
January 8th, 2011
12:51 am

Thank you for pointing out that it is useless to ask a politician questions about their religious beliefs and practice because it is a strong part of their campaign appeal among their voting constituency.

I long for the day when a candidate answers the question thusly:

“I’m sorry but the constitution prohibits my discussing this as an aspect of my candidacy. However, you are invited to examine my past actions and compare them with my stated positions on subjects which are truly part of American politics. You can then reach your own conclusions about my state of ‘grace’.”

Barbara Rubin
www.armchairactivist.us
Recommended by 370 Readers

One of the major reasons for my support of candidate Barack Obama for president, was that he taught constitutional law. I had my doubts that the other candidates had both read and understood that document. It’s easy to slap a bumper sticker of an American flag on an SUV, but that doesn’t turn us into educated citizens, aware of our privileges and responsibilities. Love of country isn’t enacted through the repetition of mindless slogans or assumptions based upon frequently expressed opinions. It takes effort, just as the love of family drives Americans to work more hours than other industrialized nations. It takes logic, which is entirely lacking when members of the Supreme Court convening to protect the constitution, permitted its privileges to be extended to non-human constructs called corporations back in the 19th century. Conferring the rights of ‘personhood’ upon them, separate and apart from the rights of their owners, created a new class of citizenship. In deciding the recent Citizens United case, a modern Supreme Court allowed the constitution to be turned into a prospectus. Justice Steven’s dissenting opinion eloquently details how that decision placed our elections in the hands of businesses (corporate persons), which do not even pay taxes or have any allegiance to the U.S. That decision ratified the transition of this country from an independent nation called the United States, into America, Ltd. Businesses were now allowed to sway our political system from foreign shores and leave the public ignorant of which ‘paper citizens’ were making such an investment in our government.

Competition used to be for the betterment of business entities, trying to outdo each other in building a better ‘mousetrap’, and capturing the largest market share of consumers at home and around the globe. This turned into a competition among states for who could get the largest piece of the federal ‘pie’, while denying the importance of the other states contributing the monies to bake it. Montana’s Representative Baucus noted how his state depended upon the federal funding of special projects (earmarks) to cover close to half of that state’s annual budget despite professed concerns about the deficit. Our ‘union’ has become dis-united because of a misconception that competition, the basis of capitalism, somehow dictates the nature of nationhood. George W. Bush had referred to himself as the CEO of American Ltd., although the members of his board remained in the shadows, meeting in secret with his COO, Cheney.

We can’t be governed by people who have no idea how the United States of America works, yet they appear to be in the majority. The change in government two years ago was largely a reaction to the loss of jobs and health care benefits. Concern was also rising about deficit spending due to our involvement in a war and the enrichment of select corporations through expensive reconstruction contracts.

Back home, the phrase ‘secure employment‘, became an oxymoron while health care insurance costs spiraled out of control for the unemployed and those working for small businesses. Large companies saw no reason to reduce the incredible salaries and bonuses given to executives in order to fairly compensate a disposable workforce. Like so many broken toasters, it is cheaper to replace a worker than to offer raises in a culture which has labeled workers as commodities (much like health care). Why pay higher premiums for workers who will need to use their health care plans as they age? Americans are routinely classed as laborers, patients and consumers. It is time to return to our legal status as citizens. Why worry about illegal immigration when those of us who are legal residents aren’t exercising our rights and responsibilities?

While industry fuels the fears of unemployed Americans that any regulation of commerce will restrict job growth, the public should be able to see through such ploys when the justice system itself is taken out of citizen’s hands. NAFTA attempted to place business interests in the hands of corporate tribunals while the crimes of terrorists were removed from our jurisdiction into the hands of the military. The New York Times has been following the failure of government to support the constitution through the avoidance of jury trials for terrorists. They’ve described the obstruction of legislative activity by elected officials who boast they can shut down our government—merely to discredit a sitting president‘s historical record. And they can, in ways that damage progress in addressing the financial infrastructure that led to our economic meltdown.

Obstruction of justice and refusal by salaried officials to govern. This brings to mind the old saying, “With friends like these, who needs enemies?”. I posted the following comment on the New York Times editorial praising the results of the first civilian trial of a terrorist who had been detained at Guantanamo. No matter the rhetoric of extremists, the constitution triumphed.

135. HIGHLIGHT (what’s this?)
Barbara Rubin
Ca.
November 19th, 2010
6:18 pm

The disrespect for citizens is what has brought us to our current status quo. In America, legislators defraud their constituents by refusing to govern. They hold the government hostage in defiance of their sworn duty to protect and defend the constitution. Jury trials are a constitutional right. If we don’t protect the constitution by honoring its provisions, there is no America.

We are not a democracy but a constitutional republic which elects politicians to make our decisions and laws FOR us. Presidents are made by electoral colleges so the “One Person, One Vote” system doesn’t exist. The right of non-corporeal entities (businesses) to infuse unlimited funds to sway those elections means political campaigns spend (your) millions of contributed dollars merely to counteract messages funded by corporations. Of course they don’t want juries to make these decisions. We don’t make any of the others. Didn’t we demand health care which our ‘leaders’ now swear to dismantle? So much for citizenship.

This jury deserves a congressional medal of honor. They put away a criminal (probably for life – how many convictions do you need?), using legal methodology. Legislators need to stop twisting the purpose for having a military. They guard citizens so we can promote justice.

Thank you NY Times editors.

My own history of disabling pesticide exposures in a school—my former workplace–is no different for having taken place in our nation instead of a war-torn country. Misinterpreting (or misrepresenting) agricultural chemicals as having equivalent value and efficacy for indoor control of pests, industry has been pouring these same chemicals into our homes, offices, schools and public areas for two generations. The amounts applied are prescribed for efficacy rather with respect for the health of human occupants, also subject to the ‘knockdown‘ effect so valued in pesticides. The cosmetic relief of pests returning to their hidden nests after spraying belies the fact that they haven’t been eradicated and survivors will merely breed a generation of chemically resistant descendants. DDT and chlordane would likely not have been banned despite their hazards had not the insects for which they were used become resistant. In that case, industrial interests worked in concert with those of citizens.

Even as we slogged through the mind-numbing—and expensive—process of eliminating a few of the obviously damaging pesticides, we left their sister chemicals alive and well in the marketplace. Today’s pyrethroids are similar in action to DDT (banned in the 60s), mainly differing in their shorter span of environmental persistence. Residues of DDT are finally diminishing nationally, but break-down products (DDE) are found in small amounts everywhere you test. Lindane and other organochlorines remain on the market, despite the ban placed upon chlordane in the eighties. Most intriguing is the fact that chlordane was banned for agricultural uses first while withdrawal from residential uses followed about five years later. It has yet to break down after all these years and millions of people remain exposed to its deleterious effects upon our central nervous and immune systems. Building upon old agricultural sites where this was employed may lead to intrusions of chlordane into the home much as radon enters via foundations. Unfortunately, ventilation won’t erase it’s effects. Dursban and Diazanon were banned in 2002 for most uses and there is an upcoming ban on aldicarb pesticide after thirty years of expressed ‘concerns’ about it. A large number of other pesticides in that same class of organophosphate chemicals are still available for use. . . and harm.

Huge industries such as the manufacturers of pesticides and chemicals, such as pyrethroids and formaldehyde, have arranged to make the distribution of their products so wide that exposure is unavoidable to the general population. Those who are not primary consumers purchasing them for personal use, are second and third hand consumers by inhalation, skin absorption or ingestion through hand/food contamination. Walls, floors and ceilings offer an imaginary privacy but are no barrier to the migration of gaseous emissions from chemicals ‘next door’.

We live in a ‘show-me’ world, which works well for businesses who can slap cosmetic facades upon cheap goods and ‘sell the sizzle’. The comic phrase, “It is better to look good than to feel good-”, is taken quite literally among our often shallow culture. Unfortunately, the same theme sells in the world of medicine. We spend ages seeing ailments, which defy explanation, until we take the plunge and look at the invisible forces around us. First came Leeuwenhoek, who invented the microscope and others like Lister, who endured ridicule and censure to save millions from death by germs lurking in unhygienic medical practices. It prevented minor wounds from developing fatal infections, improved surgical outcomes and reduced childbed fever, which had turned pregnancy into a life-threatening condition.

How long will we wait before existing, and safe technology, overcomes that Madison Avenue fable of ‘better living through chemistry’? Probably not until the sick have easier and independent access to tests which reveal their sources of injury and inflammation so we can begin to improve the health of future generations. For now, as long as we continue to ignore that which is not visible, we will be held hostage to the chemical companies and the ignorance of consumers who support them through the purchase of their outmoded, though still profitable, products.

Today, gas chromatography reveals the presence of many invisible, yet toxic, chemicals present in air, absorbed by objects and invading our bodily fluids and tissues. Unfortunately, such testing is costly – another depends upon sharp doctors taking environmental histories from patients with unusual or multi-systemic ailments. We’ve finally realized the toxic effects of inhaling tobacco smoke in our proximity and proven the long-term contamination caused by smoke in indoor areas (called third-hand smoking). Yet the effects of absorbing other forms of poisons which are less visible, but intentionally applied in order to poison nerve cells and interrupt other bodily functions, go undiagnosed.

Hysteria, depression, anxiety and somatoform disorder is a frequent assumption or default diagnosis when women and children are ill without obvious cause. Certainly such things as poisoning are not possible in the world of psychologists like Simon Wessely and Herman Staudenmayer. These individuals have raised the age-old practice of pinning psychiatric diagnoses on patients to an art form. Instead of ruling out organic problems, patients are asked to prove to clinicians that their illnesses may have an organic basis. Otherwise, the default condition of psycho-pathologically disordered patients goes into effect. It is almost amusing to see the lengths they go in order to make the search for knowledge and peer support. When any novel or puzzling constellation of illness is publicized, as with Gulf War Syndrome, support groups for those patients are labeled (or ‘libeled”) a means of spreading hysteria instead of knowledge via shared experience with the problem. We will next be informed that groups like the Compassionate Friends, lead bereaved parents further into depressive states. We are told social isolation is unhealthy, but now gatherings for mutual support and study are suddenly ill advised. No matter what affective presentation a patient offers, someone will determine it to be pathological. How is one supposed to respond to tragic events? Perhaps the pathology is more likely to be found among those who fear facing such facts among friends and loved one. It certainly appears to be an opportunity for profit in some quarters.

Psychiatrist Dr. Frances Allen, headed up the last group effort to update the DSM ( Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). He has widely criticized an insistence upon pathologizing normal human experience with diagnoses of mental illness. There are no objective medical criteria. The new committee to create a fifth edition of the manual is proposing to reduce the length of time a patient experiencing sadness and related symptoms from six months in order to qualify for a diagnosis of depression to a mere two weeks. Frankly, such a brief period of intense mourning for a loved one would indicate an absence of any depth of feeling—an affective disorder—essential to strong relationships, unless one qualifies for an affective or personality disorder. This means profound grief comes at the end of them, a heavy but worthwhile price to pay for years of sustained joy in human interactions. Why are we so afraid of facing the physiological damage inflicted by a chemically complex modern world? Why are we afraid to become responsible consumers and learn about the products chosen for us, if not by us? Dr. Peter Breggin heads an advocacy group for the use of safer psychoactive medications than the current ones and only then, for a far more limited group of patients. A return to the provision of short-term, supportive counseling should be adequate in many situations.  True pathology is simply not as prevalent as claimed and lacks any supporting medical evidence.

There is a firm movement to stigmatize and dismiss patients seeking relief from acute and chronic conditions that are hard to diagnose. Our economy relies upon an ‘honor system’ for the sale of food, clothing and dwellings essential to life, along with the non-essential toys we choose to enhance our life-styles. Vendors are not required—and may not even know—what goes into their merchandise. From Chinese drywall to melamine laced baby foods to diacetyl in our flavored popcorn, many illnesses are generated through bad decisions in manufacturing processes. Lack of labeling keeps physicians and patients from being able to associate various products with human illness until huge numbers of severe outcomes results in an investigation. Industries willing to reap economic gains via unethical means, rather than modernizing their products and services. This is likely because profit margins may be reduced. Perhaps a few more home-owners will choose to conduct their own pest control activities. Nonetheless, poisons placed unnecessarily in our living and working spaces are a human rights violation. Instead of religious fanaticism, we see a financial fanaticism in which any form of profit is wildly applauded in the mistaken belief it may lead to more jobs being provided.

We don’t owe any industry unearned profits. If the technology of the past is no longer desirable, we have the right to choose vendors supplying more appropriate options. You wouldn’t go to a Ford dealer and ask to buy an Edsel, would you? Or a car without seat belts? The majority of pest control problems, including bed bugs, can be handled with less toxic methods than currently used. It may not be as fast or as easy as we’d like to believe it should be, but life is never that simple. Less toxic choices are actually recommended by the EPA. They note that residences have been rendered uninhabitable after treatments with pesticides intended for outdoor use. Pest control services are more important than ever before, but companies must diversify in their methodologies to truly serve their purpose of improving our lives.

We need to stop pretending that pesticides are regulated in any fashion which is meaningful to the average citizen. Lisa Jackson, the newly appointed administrator of the Environment Protection Agency (EPA), is highly concerned about toxics in the environment but is handicapped by precedents, and the enormous conflict of interests reflected in the oversight of major industries involved in agribusiness. As with any elected or appointed official, Ms. Jackson’s interests cannot turn into effectiveness without public support and participation. A declaration of full disclosure for use of pesticides is at minimum required to fulfill the requirements of FIFRA and to monitor the costs in human health for the marketing of products which have yet to be fully evaluated. Provisions for the bio-monitoring of pesticides in the population needs to be as widespread as the products if we are going to market them as an experiment prior to safety testing.

The harm these chemicals do is measurable whether or not exposed individuals are openly symptomatic. This is rarely understood because people are both fearful and under-informed of the meaning of the word, “poison” . Poisoning isn’t an event restricted to spies carrying cyanide pills or a Lucretia Borgia-type character emptying the deep well of her ring into a victim’s drink. Poisoning doesn’t usually result in the immediate paralytic and knock-down effect we expect insects to experience. It consists of any degree of interference with bodily functions, as with the suppression of enzymes or alteration of hormone levels which act as catalysts for other physiological events. Insulin resistance and Type 2 diabetes are now well documented as consequences of exposures to persistent organic pollutants and herbicides such as Agent Orange. Blood sugar regulation is key in many disease processes and has recently been linked to Alzheimer’s as well. Failure by industry to diversify towards safer methods of pest control and landscaping for non-agricultural purposes in a timely manner, unrelated to regulation or litigation, is a form of Eco-Terrorism. This term no should no longer refer to vandalism of construction sites by a few over-zealous, eco-logically minded activists, but to the huge violence done to humans (Terrorism) in the name of Eco-nomics.

Related posts: Testimony Before the NH Legislature on Pesticides and Schools, A Nation of Patients, Getting the Bugs Out

The comments left by readers posted below that NY Times Op-Ed are certainly proof of the conditioning that the mega-corporatocracy (as opposed to actual businesses which compete to offer goods and services in the marketplace) has imposed on our society. How many hours of radio do they buy up for the Limbaughs and Becks whose vast fund of well-compensated hatred is only exceeded by the absence of logic in their statements. Who was it that equated the practices of ‘Capitalism” with the phrase, “Free Market Economy”? A marketing genius, no doubt since the two are not at all the same. However, the term, “Free” is a buzz-word that automatically spurs positive feelings and condemnation of those who spurn the misuse of the term in that context.

Capitalism is an economic practice with governmental restrictions upon it to ensure fair competition. Monopolies and trusts (the actual inhabitants of the Free Market zone) are forbidden, not that anyone bothers to enforce anti-trust laws any longer. Capitalism is neither a form of government nor is it a replacement for government. The constitution for our Republic actually empowers Congress to intervene in business to preserve constitutional freedoms for citizens. The framers were well able to conceive of robber barons gaining undue influence over government and trampling the rights of citizens.

Capitalism carries a lot of responsibilities for both businesses and for consumers. It’s a contract through which satisfied customers reward good businesses with their hard earned dollars. Bad businesses are supposed to fail as good ones expand and can take on the losses of workers created in a changing marketplace. However, when bad businesses form agreements to conform to policies which place them in adversarial roles with labor, the contract with capitalism has failed. Multiple businesses may be technically separate entities but competition has effectively ended. It represents a decision that the trough is large enough for all to feed. Trough, indeed.

But what happens when the drive to rake in another penny per unit for the sellers, ends up decimating suppliers? What happens when the seller is such a large entity that their profits become losses for the population at large, mesmerized by low costs and hidden ingredients? We wind up with a market full of hazardous products which harm the workers who make them and the consumers who buy them. It leads to low wages, importing illegal labor and exporting local jobs into the hands of people who will not in turn, be consumers of US businesses by and large. It means increased underemployment and unemployment to be remedied by tax funded means to prevent starvation and homelessness. It means poor educational experiences for children living in poverty, diminishing hopes of future generations to surpass the last one.

Everyone is a consumer, including our mega-corporations. What happens when the largest institutions refuse to examine the practices of the smaller ones with whom they trade? Here, the firing of janitorial staff earning under $14 per hour, was of no interest to the giant who referred to the matter as belonging only to another ‘vendor’. Too many providers of essential services (such as cleaning) are forced to sacrifice their more experienced employees for cheaper workers in order to underbid for a contract which further threatens their stability as a business. This practice ensures a smaller pool of trained, secure workers which makes up a stable society. It basically renders the entire workforce a disposable commodity. Were we less of a capitalist society when good workers enjoyed longevity and advancement within their employment settings? Now that the workforce has increased in diversity, the fund of useful knowledge and willing hands is larger than ever. It eradicates the independence of labor which is essential to the growth of a large (politically active) middle class.

There is one circumstance in which “trickle-down” economic theory does work. If the upper echelons of the business world refuse to think about the source of their wealth, mindlessness proceeds the rest of the way down the chain.

How can a violation of sound business practices be made to sound acceptable in society? Simple. You begin to use the term ‘Free Market Economy’. That makes it seem as if corporations work alone in creating a healthy marketplace. If someone refers to capitalism at all, just throw out that ‘other’ phrase, “Socialism” and be sure you sneer as you say it. It can misdirect the conversation admirably and no one has to learn anything new. Ever. Let people infer that if business were just free of all regulation and taxes, there would be two jobs in every pot. Or some such rhetoric (I’m not old enough to recall the New Deal). We’ve had that for quite awhile now. How’d that turn out? Anyone? Bueller? Despite incentives to hire, businesses kept the profits from those incentives and got more for less out of their workers. As we already know, you get ‘less’ for ‘less’ and this has led to a slower recovery and poorer quality of production practices and merchandise.

In the meantime, make business work for their money. To the largest extent possible, patronize ethical businesses which pay a living wage while producing quality products and services with full disclosure of ingredients. Mindlessness may work for industry moguls with golden parachutes but citizens have to eat today and plan for tomorrow. There is a reason why we refer to working as ‘making a living’. The demand that one work only so that others can live (high on the hog if we go back to the trough analogy), is against every principle of capitalism. Unless mindlessness is contagious, citizens should think of the consequences for their consumer choices.

My commentary on this article:

179.
Barbara Rubin, Ca.
September 4th, 2010

Mr. Herbert,

Thank you for bringing this to the attention of NY Times readers. This would have been a bit more effective if the information offered at the end of the column had been stated first. We have been left in the dark about the reasons for the lay-offs of janitorial staff at this huge enterprise.

Once businesses accepted a closer relationship with the general public, (e.g. issuing stock, accepting public monies for bail-outs or relying upon provision of public services for under-employed or underpaid employees), a need for greater transparency arose.

The public should not have the right to demand any company retain incompetent employees or hire more individuals than are needed for their employment rolls. However, what we have seen is that corporations are freely dispensing with necessary jobs and satisfactory workers in order to inflate the bottom line from ‘healthy’ into a form of corporate obesity which harms all consumers and tax payers. Businesses taking advantage of leaner times have seen additional profits in maintaining low staffing levels while requiring unrealistic levels of productivity for remaining workers.

Fearful of losing their minimal incomes or protesting the absence of benefits, protests are few as employees are reduced to the level of serf. Some part time work schedules are always changing, preventing many workers from obtaining second jobs, ensuring consistent child/family care practices or allowing for schedules to accommodate those seeking higher education and job training.

It is nice to think that a free market economy requires no awareness of such internal corporate workings. Unfortunately, the truth is that the corporations look to the public sector to provide health care, housing vouchers and other vital services which used to be part of the reward for putting in a day’s good labor. Does anyone know the high rate of asthma and occupational illness among janitors? It is quite high and tax payers have been paying the price for the use of harmful cleaning and maintenance products janitors are required to use because they are cheap and reduce the time which is actually needed to effectively and safely manage occupied properties.

The Free Market Economy has termed workers to be commodities instead of integral parts of the business culture. No one denies the rewards at the top will rightfully surpass the rewards of lower echelon workers with less training and responsibility. However, there are no unimportant jobs and none which should require any worker to live below the poverty line, depending upon public assistance for the basic necessities of life.

The Free Market Economy has become another code word for feudalism with a larger castle and deeper moat. Worker ‘ownership’ can only be stopped by public awareness of company policies so we can put the more obese corporations on diets of integrity and fairness.