Bernie Sanders takes on Jim Inhofe: Global Warming is Real + Richard Muller: Humans are almost entirely the cause

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by Bernie Sanders
July 30, 2012

Image by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

In a summer of record heat, severe drought, extreme storms, melting glaciers and raging wildfires, Sen. Bernie Sanders on Monday challenged claims by a leading Republican senator who dismisses global warming as a “hoax.” Sanders rebutted what he called “myths” espoused by Sen. James Inhofe, the ranking Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. “Many who take climate science seriously dismiss Sen. Inhofe. I believe that is a huge mistake,” Sanders said of the Senate panel’s former chairman. “For better or worse, when Sen. Inhofe speaks, the Republican Party follows.  And when the Republican Party follows, it is impossible to get real work done in the Congress.”

The Perversion of Scholarship by Chris Hedges

by Chris Hedges
Featured Writer
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Truthdig
July 30, 2012

Fraternities, sororities and football, along with other outsized athletic programs, have decimated most major American universities. Scholarship, inquiry, self-criticism, moral autonomy and a search for artistic and esoteric forms of expression—in short, the world of ethics, creativity and ideas—are shouted down by the drunken chants of fans in huge stadiums, the pathetic demands of rich alumni for national championships, and the elitism, racism and rigid definition of gender roles of Greek organizations. These hypermasculine systems perpetuate a culture of conformity and intolerance.  They have inverted the traditional values of scholarship to turn four years of college into a mindless quest for collective euphoria and athletic dominance.

Fears of ecological disaster in Bangladesh oil spill + Pipeline Oil Spill In Wisconsin

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Image by The Advocacy Project via Flickr

Jul 30, 2012 by AlJazeeraEnglish

Environmentalists in Bangladesh are warning that leaks from a sunken oil tanker could lead to the country’s worst-ever ecological disaster.

Al Jaeera’s Nicholas Haque reports from Naraayan-ganj, on the banks of the Meghna river.

Behind Obama’s Fake Recovery – The Plan to Gut Social Security by Mike Whitney

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by Mike Whitney
Information Clearing House
July 28, 2012

Image by sandy_sanders via Flickr

Last week’s dismal “data dump” has ended all talk of a strong recovery in the US. Retail sales, factory output, jobless claims, consumer confidence, business investment and existing home sales are all down sharply indicating that the US economy is decelerating and may be headed for recession.

The Obama administration was warned repeatedly that activity would slow when the $800 billion fiscal stimulus (ARRA) ran out and net government spending became a drag on growth. But Obama’s chief economics advisor, Lawrence Summers, shrugged off these warnings in order to keep the economy sputtering along at half-speed. Summers figured that bigger deficits and slower growth would create the rationale for slashing entitlement spending and crushing organised labor (particularly, public unions) In other words, the economy is weak, because the policy was designed to make it weak. Mission accomplished.

Obama and Romney: Start Debating the Prison-Industrial Complex by Ralph Nader + Professional Prisoners in Russia

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by Ralph Nader
The Nader Page
July 25, 2012

Image by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

Ever visit a major prison? The vast majority of Americans have not, despite our country having by far a higher incarceration rate per capita than China or Iran. Out of sight is out of mind.

Imagine the benefits of the average taxpayer touring a prison. The lucrative prison-industrial complex would definitely not like public exposure of their daily operations. Prison CEOs have no problem with a full house of non-violent inmates caught with possession of some street drugs (not alcohol or tobacco). Our horrendous confinement system cannot change when it clings to perverse practices such as cruel, costly, arbitrary, mentally destructive solitary confinement (again, the highest in the world, see: Solitary Watch). Corporate profits drive the prison system’s insanity.

Climate Change and the Next U.S. Revolution by Shamus Cooke

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by Shamus Cooke
www.globalresearch.ca
July 24, 2012

The U.S. heat wave is slowly shaking the foundations of American politics. It may take years for the deep rumble to evolve into an above ground, institution-shattering earthquake, but U.S. society has changed for good.

The heat wave has helped convince tens of millions of Americans that climate change is real, overpowering the fake science and right-wing media – funded by corporate cash – to convince Americans otherwise.

Record breaking drought to affect US food prices

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Jul 26, 2012 by PressTVGlobalNews

The record breaking temperatures in the U.S. and the worst drought in nearly half a century are now driving up food prices.

Mother Energy and Hemp: Part 2 by Rand Clifford

by Rand Clifford
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
July 23, 2012

Image by CSLP via Flickr

US prohibition of hemp farming is a national catastrophe. Addiction to fossil energy is a global, ecological catastrophe.

Both are peoples’ catastrophes; right up there with the consequences of hemp prohibition, and suppression of Mother Energy access, is the demonstrated disregard of humanity.

Nature is infinitely subtle. We are part of nature. Working against nature is working against us.

This is What Global Warming looks like 2.0

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Jul 26, 2012 by NRDCflix

We dump billions of tons of carbon pollution into the atmosphere each year. As a result, the concentration of carbon dioxide has increased by 40%. Excess carbon dioxide traps excess heat in the atmosphere. Excess heat causes extreme heat waves, droughts, and storms.

Veblen’s Institutionalist Elaboration of Rent Theory by Michael Hudson

by Michael Hudson
Featured Writer
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https://michael-hudson.com
July 27, 2012

Image by Tobias Higbie via Flickr

Michael Hudson’s new book The Bubble and Beyond has just been released and can be purchased via here.

Speech given at the Veblen, Capitalism and Possibilities for a Rational Economic Order Conference, Istanbul, Turkey, June 6th, 2012

Simon Patten recalled in 1912 that his generation of American economists – most of whom studied in Germany in the 1870s – were taught that John Stuart Mill’s 1848 Principles of Political Economy was the high-water mark of classical thought. However, Mill’s reformist philosophy turned out to be “not a goal but a half-way house” toward the Progressive Era’s reforms. Mill was “a thinker becoming a socialist without seeing what the change really meant,” Patten concluded. “The Nineteenth Century epoch ends not with the theories of Mill but with the more logical systems of Karl Marx and Henry George.[1] But the classical approach to political economy continued to evolve, above all through Thorstein Veblen.