Government oversight is a good thing

If you disagree, read this story from CNN about the government taking over three Tylenol factories for numerous safety violations.

The government is taking over three Tylenol plants following a blizzard of drug recalls and a Food and Drug Administration criminal investigation into safety issues at the factories.

The FDA and the Justice Department on Thursday took action against McNeil PPC and two of its executives — its vice president of quality and its vice president of operations for over-the-counter products — for failing to comply with federally mandated manufacturing practice.

The violations “include inadequate quality controls; lack of safeguards to isolate ‘rejected’ raw materials and drugs; and human error resulting in product mix-ups.”

I don’t know about you, but I’m grateful the government is making sure I don’t ingest tainted medicine. Or tainted beef:

A Kansas company has recalled more than 14,000 pounds of ground beef due to possible E. coli contamination, federal authorities have announced.

… The USDA classifies the recall as “Class 1,” having determined “this is a health hazard situation where there is a reasonable probability that the use of the product will cause serious, adverse health consequences or death.”

Good thing the government is doing its job by protecting its citizens from products that everyday people couldn’t possibly know were dangerous. Yet the GOP wants to slash $400 million from President Obama’s FDA budget for the next fiscal year, despite its role in safeguarding the United States from bio- and agro-terrorism and overseeing food production facilities.

I know a variety of programs are going to take hits as Congress tries to cut spending and reduce the deficit, but $400 million sounds like a lot when no one has seriously considered touching defense expenditures, which are a huge part of the budget. The GOP needs to realize that in this case, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and the FDA should be funded as fully as possible.

Read Full Post »

WHM Day 10: Why I’m Leaving Feminism

No, not me personally. But I found S.E. Smith’s Why I’m Leaving Feminism on Wednesday via Twitter. Smith says:

So many disabled people, nonwhite people, transgender people, people of colour, poor people, adamantly refuse to identify with feminism in its current incarnation in the United States. ‘Feminists’ talk about this in the sense that we’re all really feminist in how we think, behave, and act, we just have some irrational resistance to the label. No, we’re not really feminist. The model of feminism we see is one where oppression perpetrated in the name of ‘activism’ is acceptable, where casual ableism, racism, classism, transphobia run so deep that many of us don’t even bother to point it out anymore. The model of feminism we see is one where a handful of people profit at the expense of others. And that’s not how we think, behave, and act. That is not what we believe.

Smith thinks mainstream feminism has failed at intersectionality so she no longer wants to be a part of that. I share her disappointment and I hope I don’t end up making that same declaration one day. I still believe feminism can help solve a lot of the problems she mentions, although I am not a part of mainstream feminism and maybe that’s why I remain optimistic. Coincidentally, today Ms. published a blog post titled What Would an Intersectional Women’s History Month Look Like? Feminists need to ask ourselves more questions like this and work to make sure the movement is accessible to everyone who could benefit from it.

Read Full Post »

The real threat is from the radical right

New York Rep. Peter King is holding puppet hearings on the risk of radical Muslims in the United States. As noted back on November 1, 2010, fear-mongers like this hack should be a greater concern to all of us than his “shock doctrine” paranoias.

The first time I heard the term “shock doctrine” used was Tuesday night on the “Rachel Maddow Show.” It is a term that defines the radical right and the conservative agenda for at least the past decade, probably longer. A related term is “disaster capitalism.” Both come from a book of the same name, “The Shock Doctrine,” by Naomi Klein.  The basic gist of “shock doctrine” is to take advantage of the painful aftershocks of a terrible national tragedy or disaster like 9-11 or the Wall Street collapse to weasel nasty conservative legislation (e.g. the Patriot Act) into law.

Why does this approach by the radical right not surprise me one bit? Only human weasels (my apologies to real weasels) sneak nasty legislation through the process when society is in shock or mourning. Catch everyone off guard and then pounce is their modous operandi.

Personally, if anyone should be investigated, it is those on the radical right who are trying to circumvent the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, voters, and collective bargaining agreements across the nation.  If  HB 4214 of 2011 passes and is signed into law in Michigan, the new governor will have the sole ability to declare a fiscal emergency in any jurisdiction (township, village, city, county, or school district) and have it taken over by a dictatorial person or corporation. You read that correctly. First the U.S. Supreme Dorks declared corporations as humans and now they can become our community task-masters. And Peter King is worried about Muslims? I have good friends who are Muslim and I trust them more than I trust radical conservatives.

Thank you, Peter King, for wasting another wad of taxpayer money on your kangaroo court and for setting the bar even lower than it has already been set by your fellow conservatives. You and your ilk on the radical right are the real threat to America.

Read Full Post »