Sunday, April 21, 2013

Sunday Round-Up April 21. 2013


This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the mainstream media. Today we look at the Senate vote on universal background checks for gun sales and, on a more pleasant note, Earth Day 2013.

US Gun Control

What can you say about a political system where the will of 80-90% of the country is thwarted by a minority filibuster vote ? In one of its more gutless acts, the US Senate was unable to muster the required 60 votes to pass universal background checks designed to keep guns out of the hands of felons and the mentally disturbed. The lies and robocalls of the NRA did their job. But why? The huge amount of money the NRA spent trying to defeat Obama in 2012 was ineffective. He won. They lost. What are the Senators afraid of ?

Mother Jones has a series of excellent short articles related to the debacle:



Cerberus Capital Management is trying to sell its ownership of  Freedom Group, the manufacturer of the gun used in the Newton CT tragedy.  Relating the difficulty of finding investors to buy them out MJ writes:  "In this case, it seems that Wall Street has a better sense of American public opinion than the Senate, which failed to pass a bipartisan background check bill on Wednesday."

They also look at the four Democrats who voted no on backegroundchecks - turns out they are all up for election in 2014 and all hail from states that went for Romney in 2012.  [Kudos on the other hand to John McCain and the other 5 Republicans who votesd for the background checks.]
 
MJ then takes on the gun lobby myth that guns stop crime. Charts are provided that show, among other myths, that "that less than 3 percent of gun-related homicides are committed in self-defense " and that the "typical gun is more likely to be stolen than to be used in an attempt to stop a crime".
 
They then give you some screen shots of the Mitch McConnell Facebook Page posted "after the defeat of the watered-down Manchin-Toomey background checks compromise".
 
This TomDispatch article explores the actual causes of violent crime as opposed to the fear-mongering of the right. "To acknowledge what really threatens us is to upset two of the most guarded citadels in this country: the military and masculinity. They are perhaps the same force on different scales. Armed intervention is imperial machismo in the same way a raging husband or father is the military dictator of a household."
 
 
Earth Day 2013
 
News from Europe, Asia, and Africa on plans for Earth Day 2013...
The town of Cefalu on the north coast of Sicily is organizing three days of activities - among them "a Conference on sustainable issues, guided excursions on the rock of Cefalù, concerts, wine tasting of organic products, sports performances, environmental awareness-raising campaigns also at the various schools, and a photographic exhibition on planet Earth, designed as a multi-sensory experience (images, sounds, scents '), which will be held at the St. Catherine's Octagon."
 
 
 
In Japan Kids Weekend at Earth Day Tokyo is again organizing a recreational tour for children from Fukushima (the site of the 2011 tsunami-caused nuclear accident).
And in South Africa, the day is being used to raise environmental awareness. The Greenworks South Africa website asks people to commit to "a billion acts of green" while nicely summarizing the world's and South Africa's environmental challenges: "Earth Day is a global movement to highlight and address environmental issues. These are just some of the major environmental issues our Planet faces: global warming and climate change... destructive energy sources... toxic waste... groundwater contamination, abuse of water resources, wetland destruction, and pollution of waterways and the oceans... litter... overfishing and unsustainable fishing...destruction of rainforests...and expanding deserts."
 

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