TYT: America's Nuclear Nightmare

[alp227]

Run time: 08:00 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJ9Wxmwab0M   Posted on YouTube: August 13, 2011 By YouTube Member: TheYoungTurks Views on YouTube: 302   Posted on DU: August 13, 2011 By DU Member: alp227 Views on DU: 1718

 
A Rolling Stone article by Jeff Goodell shares shocking facts about the dangerous state of many nuclear power plants and lack of oversight in America. Is a Fukushima type meltdown inevitable in the United Sates? Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian discuss.

[DeSwiss]

1. K&R

The reality is that institutional establishments, institutions of codified thought, and institutions of societal influence and power, meaning philosophies, dogmas on one hand and corporations and governments on the other, each have a high propensity to engage in denial, dishonesty, and corruption to maintain self-preservation and self-perpetuation. The result is a continuous culture lag where social progress by way of incorporating new socially-helpful scientific advancements is constantly inhibited. It is like walking through a brick wall as the established power orthodoxies continue to perpetuate themselves for their own interests and comforts.

The profit mechanism creates established orders which constitute the survival and wealth for a few groups of people. The fact is that no matter how socially beneficial new advents may be, they will be viewed in hostility if they threaten an established financially-driven institution. Meaning social progress can be a threat to the establishment. So to put this into a sentence: "Abundance, sustainability and efficiency are the enemies of profit."

Progressive advancement in science and technology which can solve problems of inefficiency and scarcity once and for all, are in effect making the prior establishment's servicing of those issues obsolete. Therefore in a monetary system corporations aren't just in competition with each other, they're in competition with progress itself. That is why social-change is so difficult within a monetary system. In other words, the established monetary system refuses to allow free-flowing change.

Today we use paper proclamations to denote a person's so-called 'rights.' And just like laws, they are culturally biased, artificial concoctions which attempt to solve recurring problems by simply declaring something with words on paper. Rights, in fact, have been invented to protect ourselves from the negative byproducts of the social system itself. And once again instead of seeking a true solution to a problem, we invent these patches by way of paper proclamations in an attempt to resolve them. This does not work. It has never worked. There is really no such thing as an inalienable right outside of the culture in which it is assumed. We are making this up. Therefore liberties need to be inherent in a social system by design not alluded to ambiguously on paper.

We have to understand that government as we know it today, is not in place for the well being of the public, but rather for the perpetuation of their establishment and their power. Just like every other institution within a monetary system. Government is a monetary invention for the sake of economic and social control and its methods are based upon self-preservation, first and foremost. All a government can really do is to create laws to compensate for an inherent lack of integrity within the social order.

In society today the public is essentially kept distracted and uninformed. This is the way that governments maintain control. If you review history, power is maintained through ignorance. ~ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPmHaTirnCc">Peter Joseph

- The sleeper must awaken......

[JohnyCanuck]

2. A good observation to keep in mind (and not just in matters of nuclear safety):

Cenk: "I don't give a damn what the government is officially saying. I don't know if you know this, but governments lie all the time."

[bulloney]

3. And it's not because government is inherently bad. It's because of the other point Cenk made:

The money that revolves between industry and the government that is supposed to regulate it. It's the government regulators and industry moving employees among them like there's a revolving door between them.

[JohnyCanuck]

4. Another classic example of this revolving door between gov't & industry:

A lawyer who had worked for a law firm which acted for Monsanto just happened to be conveniently in place at the FDA to write the guidelines regarding labeling requirements for milk produced from cows treated with Monsanto's bovine growth hormone product. Later he quit the FDA to assume a vp position at Monsanto. Also a former Monsanto employee quit Monsanto and then went to work at the FDA where she was assigned the job of approving the same report she had previously written as a Monsanto employee claiming that the use of Monsanto's rBGH product in dairy cows had been proven to be safe - a decision with which the scientists at Health Canada strongly disagreed when they rejected Monsanto's application to sell the same product in Canada.

Revolving Doors

But What was going on behind the scenes? "The FDA's pro-rBGH activities make more sense in light of conflicts of interest between the FDA and the Monsanto corporation. Michael R. Taylor, the FDA's deputy commissioner for policy, wrote the FDA's rBGH labelling guidelines. The guidelines, announced in February 1994, virtually prohibited dairy corporations from making any real distinction between products produced with and without rBGH. To keep rBGH-milk from being "stigmatized" in the marketplace, the FDA announced that labels on non-rBGH products must state that there is no difference between rBGH and the naturally occurring hormone. In March 1994, Taylor was publicly exposed as a former lawyer for the Monsanto corporation for seven years. While working for Monsanto, Taylor had prepared a memo for the company as to whether or not it would be constitutional for states to erect labelling laws concerning rBGH dairy products. In other words. Taylor helped Monsanto figure out whether or not the corporation could sue states or companies that wanted to tell the public that their products were free of Monsanto's drug" <16>. Rachel's Hazardous Waste News adds a few details, "It is no accident that the FDA and Monsanto are speaking with one voice on this issue. The FDA official responsible for the agency's labeling policy, Michael R. Taylor, is a former partner of King & Spaulding, the Washington, D.C. law firm that has brought the lawsuits on behalf of Monsanto.... In 1984 he joined King & Spaulding and remained there until 1991; during that time the law firm represented Monsanto while the company was seeking FDA approval of rBGH.... Taylor signed the FEDERAL REGISTER notice warning grocery stores not to label milk as free of rBGH, thus giving Monsanto a powerful boost in its fight to prevent consumers from knowing whether rBGH produced their milk" <17>.

"Taylor did not simply fill a vacant position at the agency", says Jeffrey M. Smith in his book Seeds of Deception, "In 1991 the FDA created a new position for him: Deputy Commissioner for Policy. He instantly became the FDA official with the greatest influence on GM food regulation, overseeing the development of government policy. According to public interest attorney Steven Druker, who has studied the FDA's internal files, 'During Mr. Taylor's tenure as Deputy Commissioner, references to the unintended negative effects of bioengineering were progressively deleted from drafts of the policy statement (over the protests of agency scientists (1)), and a final statement was issued claiming (a) that foods are no riskier than others and (b) that the agency has no information to the contrary" <18> <19>. After his stint at the FDA Taylor went back to work as Monsanto's vice-president for public policy <20>.

In disappointing news however, Taylor was again appointed to the FDA, this time for the Obama administration in July of 2009 as an "Advisor to FDA Commissioner" as a "food safety expert" <21>. His new duties include, "Assess current food program challenges and opportunities", "Identify capacity needs and regulatory priorities" and "Plan implementation of new food safety legislation".

Another example of the Government-industry revolving door is Margaret Miller, "In order for the FDA to determine if Monsanto's growth hormones were safe or not, Monsanto was required to submit a scientific report on that topic. Margaret Miller, one of Monsanto's researchers put the report together. Shortly before the report submission, Miller left Monsanto and was hired by the FDA . Her first job for the FDA was to determine whether or not to approve the report she wrote for Monsanto. In short, Monsanto approved its own report. Assisting Miller was another former Monsanto researcher, Susan Sechen" <22>. Here <23> you can read Robert Cohen's testimony before FDA on the subject of rBGH including the disclosure that, while at the FDA and in response to increasing sickness in cows on the stuff, Miller increased the amount of antibiotics that farmers can legally give cows by 100 times. See also <24>. "Remarkably the GAO determined in a 1994 investigation that these officials' former association with the Monsanto corporation did not pose a conflict of interest. But for those concerned about the health and environmental hazards of genetic engineering, the revolving door between the biotechnology industry and federal regulating agencies is a serious cause for concern" <25>.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Labeling_Issues%2C_Revolving_Doors%2C_rBGH%2C_Bribery_and_Monsanto