Surviving Capitalism (Not) : The Government Lies to the American People About the Safety of Gulf Seafood

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

The Government Lies to the American People About the Safety of Gulf Seafood

from Washington's Blog.

Once again the "government of the people, by the people...." lies to its people. But this is because that statement from the Declaration of Independence was a promise that was never kept. Instead what we got was a government of, by, and for the owners of economic property that have managed to concentrate all of the latter into just a relatively few hands--people who constitute a ruling class.

Also, read an article from the World Socialist Web Site entitled, "Scientists estimate nearly 80 percent of oil remains a threat" in which we find this interesting paragraph:

According to Kindra Arnesen, of Louisiana’s Coastal Heritage Society, fishermen in the Gulf are being forced by dock owners to sign waivers that would make them and not BP potentially liable for any contaminated seafood. Arnesen notes that if the Food and Drug Administration “has waved this magic wand and says that the Gulf is clean and that the seafood is safe, let’s get some FDA mobile units on our docks and let’s do some chemical testing.”

A similar, and most egregious example of "your" government lying to you was when Christine Whitman, Bush appointed head of the Environmental Protection Agency, publicly announced to the people of New York shortly after the 9/11 attack that

the toxins released by the attacks posed no threat to their health. On September 18, the EPA released a report in which Whitman said, "Given the scope of the tragedy from last week, I am glad to reassure the people of New York and Washington, D.C. that their air is safe to breathe and their water is safe to drink." She also said, "The concentrations are such that they don't pose a health hazard...We're going to make sure everybody is safe."

Soon people became aware of the lie.

Countless people exposed to the pollution are suffering from symptoms of respiratory illnesses today, years after the attacks, like difficulty breathing, coughing, asthma, and even lung cancer and mesothelioma. As the years pass, more and more it has become obvious that more and more of our citizens have been infected with cancer and respiratory disease.