29/10/2008

Tainted Food Alert in the US (video)

In China, ANYTHING made with Chinese-manufactured milk powder before September 14th was PULLED from their store shelves. In the US, these products are still being sold!


Foods at risk
: ANY food manufactured in China and potentially any food containing milk powder. US food manufacturers imported millions of pounds of milk powder from China before September 14th. The FDA continues to this allow to be sold. This includes chocolate, cookies, cakes, and even things like packaged macaroni and cheese.


Background

Mike Mozart is a product designer who also runs a video blog about new developments in the toy industry. His reviews are normally light, cheerful affairs and completely apolitical.

If he appears distraught, it's because he is. Tis is serious. Mozart has discovered that the US is the ONLY country that still permits potentially melamine-contaminated food on its shelves. Even China has removed these products from its stores. This poison that killed and injured thousands of people, mainly children, may be in US food.


A few facts:

1. Melamine was added to food products manufactured in China to simulate protein content. These food products were imported into the US by the ton.

2. Melamine itself is bad, but much worse - and not reported - is that melamine is an industrial product, not a food product and often comes contaminated with a wide range of dangerous industrial toxins.There is no such thing as ‘food grade’ melamine. None of it is suitable for food.

3. The widespread practice of adding melamine to powdered milk products has killed and seriously injured thousands of children in China. Melamine injuries children by damaging their kidneys. There has already been a reported spike in kidney stones in American children.

Last year, when melamine was found in pet food sold in the US and traced to death in animals, it was headline news. This news, potentially far more serious, is being censored.

4. The Chinese government knew this contaminated food was on the shelves killing children and said nothing so as not to put a damper on the "Olympic spirit."

5. As much 20 MILLION POUNDS of food manufactured in China that contains milk powder was imported into the US this year. Also, it's not clear how many US food manufacturers use milk powder manufactured in China in their products.

6. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) refuses to test for melamine contamination - or if is has, refuses to make the results of these tests available to the public. Further, the FDA refuses to force food manufacturers to remove the contaminated food from its shelves, something they are completely capable of doing.

7. Why is this being done?

Mozart theorizes: a) to prevent a scandal before the election and b) to avoid further deterioration of the US stock market. He could have added another: profit before human safety.

Are these motivations plausible?

Needless to say, the FDA has demonstrated over and over again throughout its history that it is a political agency designed to protect well connected corporate law breakers and has next-to-zero interest in the public welfare. Knowing the parties involved - China, the FDA, the Bush administration, the US news media, and corporate America - you can be sure that none of them can be trusted to look out for the welfare of the workers.


28/10/2008

Vote Rigging in the US

We all know the story of the 2004 US presidential election. The exit polls showed Bush was in for a kicking at the polls; John Kerry was to be the next US president, winning by a million-and-a-half votes, but by midnight in US the news was that Bush was in the lead and, next day, lacking legal evidence to contest the results, Kerry conceded and bowed as Bush took the helm for another term. Bush was officially given a mandate to continue shredding the US constitution, increasing his own powers and those of the surveillance state, while pandering to the US corporatocracy and the merchants of war.


Those who cried foul were dismissed as conspiracy theorists by the press and nutters in “tin foil hats” by the GOP. The news media, Congress, and the Democratic Party, whilst well aware of the nationwide irregularities on election day, have never even attempted to do anything about it. Likewise, here’s a government hearing - never reported by the news media - that sums up the status of the security of the US voting system, while being suggestive of a vote rigging scam that should have sent Bush not to the White House but into the dustbin of history.


The possibility of rigged voting machines aside, there was undoubtedly a colossal and synchronised attempt to subvert the popular will of the US people. All over the US, Across the country, Repuke election personnel used a wide range of illegal and unethical tactics to fix the election.


In Ohio alone, at least 357,000 voters, the vast majority of them Democratic, were prevented from casting ballots or did not have their votes counted in 2004 - more than enough to shift the results of an election decided by 118,601 votes. Indeed, a staggering one in every four Ohio citizens who registered to vote in 2004 turned up to cast their vote only to discover that they were not listed on the rolls, thanks to GOP efforts to stem the unprecedented flood of Democrats eager to cast ballots. And that doesn’t even take into account the troubling evidence of outright fraud, which indicates that upwards of 80,000 votes for Kerry were counted instead for Bush. That alone is a swing of more than 160,000 votes -- enough to have put Kerry in the White House. But Ohio was not unique. Irregularities were reported all over the country with voters finding they had been disenfranchised via registration challenges, faulty machines, turned away because voting queues were too long or one of the many other hurdles put in their way by Repuke election officials.


If this film is anything to go by the Repuke’s will be doing all in their power to see McCain takes over from Bush. Not convinced? Check out these films previously posted on this blog here : Don't be too surprised if McCain and Palin "win" next week. No matter how unlikely the outcome, the US news media stands ready to pump out a plausible