October 2008 – Page 2 – Citizen Reporter

So Long Agricultural Free Trade

In a few hours I head to Brussels where I’m participating, for the second year in a row, in European Youth Media Days.? This year I’m helping coordinate and speaking as part of a workshop on Food Prices and the Media.

In preperation for this event I’ve been stepping up my own research into the global food production system over the past 100 years and the current breakdown it is experiencing.? Although the conference is Europe focused, I’m finding alot of useful and I would argue, applicable examples and analysis from North American news sources.

My hope is that one thing young journalists at this event will think more about is what lay behind the story of food prices. I have no interest in the typical commercial media exercise of finding a person-on-the-street and asking how they feel about prices. A more useful exercise would be to look at who benefits from increased food prices, and even before that, how was the global agricultural system organized that it could fall so hard, so fast.? From there the connections should be made to climate change, CO2 emissions, the lack of emphasis over the last decades on growing local and crop diversity. All these things happened for a reason, and if we’re to solve this problem as a society, we need journalists to do more than just point to the price tags and stick a microphone in front of consumers.

bmtv91 New Jersey Voter Fraud Alert

Attention all who are concerned with voter fraud and/or New Jerseans: this video involves you.? IF you want your vote counted this election, you’re going to have to you absentee ballots. The voting computers they use throughout the state, especially those in Union County, have not met necessary requirements. Your vote may or may not count if you use them.? To quote the Joanne Rajoppi, Union County Clerk, “seriously consider” using absentee ballots.

Watch this video for more details, YES it is out of sync.. my computer was doing too many things at once, time for a memory upgrade.

National Self Esteem

There is no shortage of blog posts and online commentary about the US elections right now.? Despite being dedicated to under reported news, today I’m going to add just a little more to this excessively covered, global concern.

There is this long tradition in the United States that during presidential elections, candidates constantly play the patriotic card and use variations of these slogans:

The US has the greatest workforce in the world.

The US is the greatest force for good in the world.

The US is the greatest country in the world.

Yet anyone who studies history or labor statistics will find plenty of evidence contrary to these statements. Actually you don’t even have to study anything, regardless of country, when you read those statements you should recognize they aren’t true.? Yet election after election, the two mainstream ruling parties say these three over and over.

Watching speeches and debates between Obama and McCain or Biden and Palin, all of them make sure to spew these empty lines as if they’re trying to appease some segment of the audience that despite all logic and facts to the contrary, want to believe this is true.

Thankfully there are countries in the world were candidates don’t do this. Smaller countries, older countries that have weathered mass destruction and extreme poverty, they don’t bother repeating mantras about being the best and the greatest in the world.? Even the Finnish national anthem is about being one nation among many great nations of the world.

I wonder if I will live to see a major candidate in the US that finally stops pandering to jingoism and a mass superiority complex.? Besides being inaccurate, these types of statements help validate and continue destructive and failed policies and practices. I also hope this tradition doesn’t spread further in the world. Of course nationalism is not simply an American phenomenon and it isn’t going to disappear. But this rhetoric of we are the best, we are always right, everything we do is good; if a country is ever going to get better and a candidate make a real change, this practice will have to end.

Zizek on ROS

My recommendation for you on this friday is a very inspiring podcast conversation that came out on Radio Open Source recently.? Chris’s guest was Slavoj Zizek, a fantastically crazy human who mixes history with philisophy with 80’s movies… and uses it all to help us understand what is going on around us and what can be learned from it.

Among my favorite of his statements is when he is speaking about the US political culture and the current presidential race, he mentions the tendancy for some candidates to say “We’ve had enough talk, we need action” to which Zizek? something like NO. Now more than EVER, WE NEED TALK. TALKING is essential before we take significant action.

As you run around this weekend, turn on this episode of Radio Open Source, Zizek is a fantastic blend of your favorite teacher, your favorite movie critic, and you crazy next door neighbor.

Eye on Amtrak

When I was a kid in New Jersey there were always abandoned railroad tracks somewhere. You could be playing baseball or soccer and the ball would roll away from the field and toward some tree line or old factory and there would inevitably be tracks that were out of service, usually with bits of garbage strewn around them for good measure. It was the 80’s and 90’s, the era in the US where people just assumed rail had no future and it was more important to widen the highways and sell more cars.

Almost 20 years later more and more people in the US realize this outlook is what has no future, and railroads are needed now more than ever.? The problem is when they look to those old lines, they find they’re unusable or, in many cases, they’ve been removed and replaced with condo’s and parking lots. Occasionally they’ve managed to salvage an old line.

Meanwhile on the existing rail lines still in use, national rail service is a pitiful shell of what it could have been compared to Europe or Japan. Years of under funding and mis-management have left AMTRAK with an outdated fleet of trains that can’t travel more than an average of 80mph/128kph, and that is when they’re not being delayed by freight trains. Recent studies have revealed that indeed freight trains are the leading cause of the national rail carrier’s infamous delays.? Crazily enough, the freight companies actually own much of the track that AMTRAK uses.. again making it expensive and irratic in terms of costs and service as they illegally take priority.

The US congress has now approved a bill that must face the ignorant pen of the president, which provides funds and invesment to keep AMTRAK going and make a few strides towards mordernizing national passenger rail in America.

I suppose to many in the US, this is not interesting, as the belief that “rail isn’t practical” still somehow dominates.? Few have experienced High Speed Rail in other countries and even fewer could ever afford to ride the few ACELA – high speed trains that exist in the US.? Whereas regular people with modest incomes can afford to take a TGV in France or the Alfa Pendular in Portugal, most of the people you find on high speed American trains are executives who’s companies cover the high cost.

Whether the bill will be passed by GW Bush is still not clear.? Whether beyond some symbolic language, these funds will really make rail more accessible and efficient in the US, is also still not clear.? But the absolute need for such investment for both the present and future of the country – that part should be clear by now.