Tracking the Growth of American Authoritarianism

“Can There Really Be Fascist People In A Democracy?”
Libertarians are stealthily taking over America.
Since the 1971 Powell Memo, America has moved closer and closer to Fascism.

 

War with ISIS?, Kock Brothers Teaching our Kids, MSM is a Failure, NeoCons Growing al-Qaeda, 1800 Revolution Repeating Now

Posted on September 21, 2014 by Andy Hailey

Suggested Reading for Week Ending 9/21

  • The Questions Congress Should Ask About Obama’s War on ISIS
    “The public is told there’s no imminent threat to the US, so why are we rushing to war? Could weapons given to Syrian rebels eventually be used against the US?” reads an ad placed by MoveOn and Win Without War in Politico. “How could military force undermine nonmilitary strategies? How will we know when our objectives have been met? What is our clearly defined exit strategy? Under what legal authority are we intervening in Iraq and Syria?”
  • The Koch Brothers’ 3-Step Plan to Conquer the Next Generation
    It’s been well-documented by now how the Koch Brothers are sponsoring economic programs at colleges and universities around the country. By itself, this could be interpreted as philanthropy. There’s nothing inherently wrong with a billionaire donating some of his wealth to education. But the greater strategy in the Kochs’ chess game isn’t just to make themselves wealthier, but a far more sinister one. That strategy can be broken down into three steps:
  • How The Main Stream Media Lost All Credibility & Why It’s Too Late To Save It
    In the end, what matters is that mainstream media, despite everything it’s done, the corporate sponsors, the spin zones, the outright awkward political commentaries. From everything to pundits and attractive looking people on the news media, the breaking news graphics to the outright lies told and the misdirection thrown left and right.
  • Blocking a ‘Realist’ Strategy on the Mideast
    In other words, the just-approved congressional action opening the floodgates to hundreds of millions of dollars more in military aid to Syrian “moderates” could actually contribute to al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate gaining control of Syria, which could create a far greater threat to U.S. national security than the consolidation of the Islamic State inside territory of Syria and Iraq.
  • Does Someone Really Have to Do Something to Stop Islamic State?
    Which bothers you more? General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, publicly warning that Obama might have to send in ground troops to defeat Islamic State? Or former president Jimmy Carter supporting Obama’s new war?
  • The American Revolution of 1800
    Remarkably relevant today: Sisson shows why Jefferson’s ideas about ensuring the primacy of the people’s interest over factional politics are as needed today as they were in 1800.

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    No new war on Iraq
    Give peace a chance.

     


    Despotism, Authoritarianism, Single Party State, Don’t Question Authority,
    Excessive Wealth and Income Inequality, Censorship

    Posted in Authoritarianism, Avid Militarism   |   Leave a comment   |  

    Lawrence Lessig’s “The USA is Lesterland” – But It Take More Than Spreading the Funding Influence

    Posted on September 15, 2014 by Andy Hailey
    Lawrence Lessig: We the People, and the Republic we must reclaim

    Please watch the video first.

     

    Lessig ends by saying, “We have lost that Republic. All of us have to act to get it back.”

    I agree with that statement, but I think more is necessary than spreading the funding influence and that we must first remove certain obstacles.

    The Lester Election is always a midterm election and it’s controlled by those who always vote, and currently that’s the right-wing authoritarians. In 2010 in Texas, only 3% of the African-Americans and Hispanics in the 11 largest Texas metropolitan areas voted. That compares to only 34% in 2008. We have Rick Perry, who caters to the “funders,” or insiders, because Texas ranks 51st in voter participation, not because insiders paid for his campaign.

    Texas is not a red state, it's a non-voting state

    If the 99% vote, the “corruption” is irrelevant. If 99% vote, a win by a poorly funded third-party is possible. As Lessig said in the TED talk, “It’s solvable by being citizens.” However, decades of free market fundamentalism, neoliberalism, have replaced critical thinking citizens with lovers of shopping and reality TV and put our “love of this republic” on a shelf in the closet.

    If the 99% votes ...

    Another issue with Mr. Lessig’s proposal is with spreading the “funder influence” across more citizens – “citizen-funded campaigns.” Today’s citizens are just now beginning to seriously strike for a living wage. They can barely pay for their necessities much less contribute to a national campaign fund.

    Vote to refute the ONE%

    Controlling the money flowing into our politics is necessary, but more important is citizens showing up in significant numbers to elect the best candidate in every election. To enable this, we need a living wage, easier access to the polls, and removal of all recently implemented voter restrictions authored by ALEC.

    Posted in Corporate Intrusion, Politics   |   Leave a comment   |  

    Resisting Urban Shield, Billionnaire God-like Desires, Public Gas Station, Violating Law Ok If It Saves Money?,

    Posted on September 15, 2014 by Andy Hailey

    Suggested Reading for Week Ending 9/14

  • Militarization, Surveillance, and Profit: How Grassroots Groups are Fighting Urban Shield
    “The line between police and military is blurring as parallel military tactics are being deployed globally to repress dissent and increase state control over people who are calling for freedom and justice.”
  • How the Koch Brothers and Other Family Capitalists Are Ruining America
    Our imperial tycoons are a mixed lot. They range from hip technologists like Zuckerberg to heroic nerds like Bill Gates, and include yesteryear traditionalists like Sam Walton and the Koch brothers. What they share with each other and their robber baron ancestors is a god-like desire to create the world in their image.
  • Koch Foundation Proposal to College: Teach Our Inequality Curriculum, Get Millions
    The Koch’s philanthropic operation is preaching to academics a free market gospel. But with it comes loads of cash. is this just another billionaire takeover?
  • Kentucky Town Beats High Gas Prices – By Opening a Public Gas Station
    A municipally owned and operated fuel center has opened up in a town in Kentucky in an effort to drive down gas prices for local residents. Is this new model a positive step in the right direct for climate change?
  • There is No Future in War: Youth Rise Up, a Manifesto
    How many times do we have to be lied to, how many times do we have to be tricked, how many times do we have to be exploited until we say enough is enough? We are tired of war! War accomplishes nothing. War only fattens the wallets of economic and political elites, leaving millions dead in its wake. War only leads to more war, destroying the planet and emptying the national treasury in the process.
  • Vermont City Acts Unlawfully & Unconstitutionally, Judge Finds
    At its nasty little heart, this is a story that reflects the power of big banks to get their way, starting with their well paid legislative lobbyist, John Hollar, who also happens to be mayor of Montpelier, where there’s no hue and cry about such blatant conflict of interest. The vested interests in the city have not objected even when the bank-drenched mayor set about in early 2013 to pressure the city manager to muzzle his planning director when she failed to follow his personal party line. Her “insubordination” amounted to exercising her free speech right to support public banking.

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    Vote to refute the ONE%
    STOP the ONE% from buying our government – VOTE

     


    Koch Industries, the company owned by Charles and David Koch,
    is the major stumbling block to a coherent U.S. energy policy

    Posted in Authoritarianism, Corporate Intrusion   |   Leave a comment   |  

    Functioning Democracies Require Citizen Participation and That …

    Posted on September 13, 2014 by Andy Hailey
    • Government is crucial for building a public infrastructure that equally protects and empowers every citizen
    • Citizenship dues are necessary to fund this public infrastructure and that these dues are in proportion to the use of said infrastructure so as to maintain it for future generations.
    • Voting is a right and requirement of all citizens regardless of wealth, family, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, etc.
    • Quality public education for all citizens is necessary for maximizing the opportunities for success and for becoming a responsible and participating citizen in the political process that assures the government operates as desired by the people
    • Freedom from abuse by those with EXCESSIVE power requires limitations on those powers enforced by a properly funded government
    • Citizen freedoms, even those listed in the constitution, require limits to avoid harm by those who might abuse them
    • Equality of opportunity for all citizens and progressive citizenship dues on ALL income are absolutely necessary to prevent both EXCESSIVE inequality of wealth and income and a government that no longer represents its citizens.
    • Acceptance of citizen diversity is necessary for long-term surival
    • Growth has limitations and unlimited growth, like cancer or nuclear bombs, will lead to chaos and death
    • Cooperation maximizes the possibility of success for more citizens than I-win-you-lose competition
    • We all do better when we care about our own wellbeing as well as the wellbeing of others
    Posted in Protect & Empower   |   Leave a comment   |  

    TTIP-Concerns About Food Safety, Suppressing Civil Disobedience, Tax Reform, KochKash, Lies & Why’s of Ukraine, Stopping Privateering

    Posted on September 10, 2014 by Andy Hailey

    Suggested Reading for Week Ending 9/7

  • EU-US Trade Deal Lets Corporate Interests Steamroll Food Safety, Groups Warn
    We are writing to respond to claims by the European Commission (EC) that there is “no contradiction” in the US – EU trade talks with the “enforcement of high safety standards” in food. We disagree. Fair, sustainable and safe food could permanently be damaged by the transatlantic trade deal on the table.
  • Pentagon preparing for mass civil breakdown
    … in their unswerving mission to defend an increasingly unpopular global system serving the interests of a tiny minority, security agencies have no qualms about painting the rest of us as potential terrorists.
  • Bill Moyers Encore with Joseph Stiglitz: How Tax Reform Can Save the Middle Class
    In America right now inequality is too great, unemployment too high, public investments too meager, corporations too greedy and the tax code too biased toward the very rich.
  • Reforming Taxation to Promote Growth and Equity
    This white paper outlines concrete policy measures that can restore equitable and sustainable economic growth in the United States, in the context of the country’s recurring budgetary crises. Effective policies are within our grasp, because these budgetary crises are the result of political and not economic failings.
  • Politicians Line Up at Big Money Trough
    Money remains the nourishing milk of politics and both parties are lining up to get their fill by hobnobbing with the plutocrats who have the most to share. Whether the Koch Brothers or Vernon Jordan, the process of political corruption shows no sign of ending, Bill Moyers and Michael Winship lament.
  • Who’s Telling the ‘Big Lie’ on Ukraine?
    Official Washington draws the Ukraine crisis in black-and-white colors with Russian President Putin the bad guy and the U.S.-backed leaders in Kiev the good guys. But the reality is much more nuanced, with the American people consistently misled on key facts, writes Robert Parry.
  • The Whys Behind the Ukraine Crisis
    Given the very high stakes of a nuclear confrontation with Russia, some analysts wonder what’s the real motive for taking this extraordinary risk over Ukraine. Is it about natural gas, protection of the U.S. dollar’s dominance, or an outgrowth of neocon extremism, asks Robert Parry.
  • Reclaim The Commons, Stop Privatization
    This week started with Labor Day and witnessed the biggest act of worker civil disobedience seen in a very long time. Yesterday, nearly 500 fast food workers were arrested and many more joined in civil disobedience, marches and rallies in 100 cities across the country to demand higher wages. In addition, the Fight for 15 movement has been joined by new sectors of workers.

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    Owners need to be licensed and carry accident insurance
    Imagine – Autos w/out licensed users or manditory accident insurance …
    … accidental killing 4 all drivers ????

     


    Georgia Cop Caught On Camera Manhandling Woman for Videotaping Public Event

    Posted in Authoritarianism   |   Leave a comment   |  

    World View of Ferguson, McConnell Kisses Up to ONE%, FBI & Charter Schools, ONE% Con Job, Poor 9%, Kochs In Charge

    Posted on August 31, 2014 by Andy Hailey

    Suggested Reading for Week Ending 8/31

  • Everyone From Tibetan Monks To Iran’s Supreme Leader Is watching Ferguson. Here’s How They’re Reacting
    Why would someone in Gaza care about protesters in Ferguson? One argument is that the resurgence of popular uprisings around the world — the Occupy movement and the Arab Spring, for example — has created a kind of global protest culture, one that unites people against oppression across nations. As Goldhammer puts it, there’s now a “certain transnational homogeneity to scenes of riot police clashing with demonstrators.”
  • Caught on Tape: What Mitch McConnell Complained About to a Roomful of Billionaires (Exclusive)
    At a secret meeting of elite donors convened by the Koch brothers, McConnell laid out his plan for shrinking the federal government and whined about having to vote on minimum wage bills.
  • FBI Tracks Charter Schools
    In 2010, Rupert Murdoch, whose News Corp. has been an ALEC member, declared K-12 public education “a $500 billion sector in the U.S. alone that is waiting desperately to be transformed.”
  • The 1 percent’s long con: Jim Cramer, the Tea Party’s roots, and Wall Street’s demented, decades-long scheme
    And there were incredible prizes to be won as long as the bubble continued to swell, as long as the fiction of Wall Street as an alternative to democratic government became more and more plausible. Maybe the Glass-Steagall act could finally be repealed; maybe the SEC could finally be grounded; maybe antitrust could finally be halted. And, most enticingly of all, maybe Social Security could finally be “privatized” in accordance with the right-wing fantasy of long standing.
  • The very rich are angry at the extremely rich
    The guy with the Long Island summer residence says that income inequality is hurting his quality of life. Because of the helicopter noise of the guy he probably reports to. I’m quite sure he is indifferent to his own noise produced by his late model BMW whizzing its fumes in the face his maid waiting at the bus stop. Because you know … that’s just freedom.
  • Kochs to Republicans: All your voters belong to us
    The GOP Data Trust, the company the RNC has been working with on its Beacon effort, is now going to be accessing the voter data from the Kochs’ company, but apparently all of the data will be dumped into the Kochs’ system. Which arguably means the Koch brothers essentially own the Republican party, not just its Senate candidates.
  • Charles Koch Personally Founded Group Protecting Oil Industry Hand-Outs, Documents Reveal
    Documents obtained by Republic Report reveal for the first time that the group was actually founded by none other than Charles Koch, the petrochemical, manufacturing, and oil refining tycoon worth an estimated $52 billion.

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    The Kochs’ Anti-Civil Rights Roots:
    New Docs Expose Charles Koch’s Ties to John Birch Society
    Posted in Authoritarianism, Corporate Intrusion   |   Leave a comment   |  

    I guess the only thing left to do IS VOTE.

    Posted on August 29, 2014 by Andy Hailey

    – First they came for the unions, but I didn’t vote.
    – Then they diverted pay raises for my increased productivity to corp profit and my spouse went to work to help pay the mortgage, but we still didn’t vote.
    – Then our combined income couldn’t keep pace with inflation so we went into more debt with credit cards and refinancing our home equity, but I still didn’t vote.
    – Then they changed the law and made it harder to declare bankruptcy and get out from under excessive debt, but I still didn’t vote
    – Then they replaced my guaranteed-income, professionally-run pension with a hapless 401K plan with limited choices and low returns, but I still didn’t vote.
    – Then they cut my sick leave and vacation benefits and stopped the company match on my 401K, but I still didn’t vote.
    – Then they passed state laws for Voter ID, eliminating early voting, stand your ground assassinations, vaginal probes, and closing women’s health clinics, but I still didn’t vote
    – Then they reduced my work hours so they didn’t have to help pay my medical costs, but I still didn’t vote
    – Then they changed an old law and let banks gamble with what was left of my savings, but I still didn’t vote.
    – Then they sold my mortgage to Wall $treet, but I still didn’t vote.
    – Then they crashed the economy and the value of my home, and I lost my job, but I thought about voting – next time.
    – Then they bailed out the banks and one of those banks is foreclosing on my home, but I’m too depressed to vote.
    – Then they didn’t extend unemployment and Congress is on perpetual vacation to raise money from the ONE% instead of helping us recovery from the Great Recession.
    —– I guess the only thing left to do IS VOTE.


    Paul Weyrich founded ALEC and ALEC wrote draft of Voter Suppression laws for states

     

    Posted in Politics   |   Leave a comment   |  

    Amerian Wariors Proliferate War Mentality Across America, Atlantic Ocean Warms, Fracking Protest

    Posted on August 25, 2014 by Andy Hailey

    Suggested Reading for Week Ending 8/24

  • A Former Marine Explains All the Weapons of War Being Used by Police in Ferguson
    One small way to measure the police violence against black people in Ferguson is to attend to its details. It is in that spirit that I present this simple catalog.
  • New UT Chief’s Military Background is Cause for Reflection
    The University of Texas System’s incoming chancellor may seem like the perfect fit, but his involvement in a long-running criminal enterprise, is sure not acceptable.
  • Innocent Civilian Deaths Caused by Police Militarization
    By sidestepping the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, the government has blurred the divisions between the military and the police. The executions of “no knock” search warrants too closely resemble the night raids conducted in Afghanistan and Iraq. When the police become the military, the enemy becomes everyone.
  • The Uncivil War Escalating Across America
    We must not minimize or dismiss what is happening; Ferguson represents an ominous sign of the great chasm that has developed between the police and the people of this country. This, unquestionably, is a war of sorts with the vast majority of firepower possessed by this new-type quasi-military police force. If something is not done to address and solve this problem, and soon, then this country is in danger of becoming a full-blown police state.
  • Ferguson And Global Struggle For Justice
    The same city where Dred Scott challenged slavery has become the place of awakening for current racial oppression. Ferguson exposed the reality of militarized and racist policing and created a teachable moment for the nation.
  • Global warming slowdown answer lies in depths of Atlantic
    This February, the national science academies of the US and UK said the global warming slowdown did not “invalidate” the long-term trend of rising temperatures caused by man-made climate change.
  • Native Americans Launch ‘Love Water Not Oil’ Ride to Protest Fracking Pipeline
    The campaign aims to show the destruction the pipeline would cause the surrounding Native communities and local landowners and stop it dead in its tracks.

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    50 Years of progress - in technology
    From Birmingham to Ferguson, the only progress in 50 years is technology

     


    CLASSIC DAVE CHAPPELLE CLIP NAILS POLICE BRUTALITY PERFECTLY
    Posted in Authoritarianism, Avid Militarism, Environment   |   Tagged   |   Leave a comment   |  

    Warren or the Golden Calf, Information Warfare, Another Secret TA, NPR Fooled, AUMF=Endless WAR, Perry/Prison

    Posted on August 18, 2014 by Andy Hailey

    Suggested Reading for Week Ending 8/17

  • Elizabeth Warren’s 11 Commandments
    For progressives just recently let out of the bondage of the long Clinton-Bush interregnum, it would thus be a shame for them to put their faith in a golden calf like Hillary Clinton — no matter how electable she may seem today — when Warren and the Promised Land beckon from just around the corner.
  • Why Is the U.S. Really Helping the Kurds, Now?
    Obama’s defense of Erbil is effectively the defense of an undeclared Kurdish oil state whose sources of geopolitical appeal—as a long-term, non-Russian supplier of oil and gas to Europe, for example—are best not spoken of in polite or naïve company, as Al Swearengen would well understand. Life, Swearengen once pointed out, is often made up of “one vile task after another.” So is American policy in Iraq.
  • The Berlin Wall and Missed Opportunities
    The U.S. State Department’s obsession with “information warfare” as a strategic weapon has made U.S. credibility one more casualty of the Ukraine crisis, along with any remaining trust in the mainstream U.S. media. It was not always thus, laments ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
  • There’s Another Mammoth Global Trade Agreement You’ve Never Heard Of
    Here’s what we know: Fifty countries, including the United States, the EU nations, Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Japan, Switzerland, Taiwan and Turkey, have been in TISA talks since 2012. The resulting agreement will set the terms for almost 70 percent of global trade in “services”: everything from banking and construction to telecom and tourism.
  • NPR Presents CIA-Backed Group as Independent Expert on Snowden’s ‘Harm’
    Yes, by blatant cherry-picking you can produce “a compelling story”–as in, good enough to fool NPR.
  • INSIDE THE GRAND JURY: WHY TEXAS GOVERNOR RICK PERRY WAS CHARGED WITH TWO ALLEGED FELONIES
    If convicted of the first felony count of abusing his office, Perry would face a penalty of between five and 99 years in prison. Perry also faces two to ten years in prison if he is convicted of the second charge of the indictment.
  • 60 Words And A War Without End: The Untold Story Of The Most Dangerous Sentence In U.S. History
    The White House said that the operations in both Libya and Somalia drew their authority from the Authorization for the Use of Military Force, a 12-year-old piece of legislation that was drafted in the hours after the Sept. 11 attacks. At the heart of the AUMF is a single 60-word sentence, which has formed the legal foundation for nearly every counterterrorism operation the U.S. has conducted since Sept. 11, from Guantanamo Bay and drone strikes to secret renditions and SEAL raids. Everything rests on those 60 words.

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    60 Words Make War Perpetual
    AUMF

     


    Endless War Enabled by AUMF – Listen to Radio Lab’s Review of AUMF
    Posted in Authoritarianism, Avid Militarism   |   Leave a comment   |  

    Hoarding Cash, InvertersRDeserters, Putin a Target?, Yahoo PGP, PO Bank, Disaster Goes Unreported

    Posted on August 13, 2014 by Andy Hailey

    Suggested Reading for Week Ending 8/10

  • Cash Hoarding becomes an Addiction
    Several studies have been done since the Great Recession, and we’ve learned that many of the CEOs who devastated our economy weren’t only greedy, but nearly 40% of them bombed at their jobs—and that 10% were psychopaths. Some studies have also revealed that the wealthier they were, the more likely they were to be more narcissistic and more unethical. So unless they were lucky enough to be born into wealth, many of these “job creators” were using nefarious means to accumulate their vast wealth—contrary to the popular myths that they accomplished this with just hard work and/ or a great idea.
  • Minority Astroturf Group Gets Comcast-Affiliated News Site To Remove Article About Minority Astroturfing On Net Neutrality
    Last month, we wrote about the vastly different views on net neutrality from a variety of minority and latino organizations. The key to the story, not surprisingly, was that the minority groups that are heavily funded by the giant broadband troika of Verizon, AT&T and Comcast apparently think that true net neutrality would be a disaster for the minority community — while the groups not funded by those corporate giants believe that more open and free internet devoid of fast and slow lanes is a good thing for the minority community.
  • Why National Security Has Nothing to Do With Security
    Some reflections on these grim prospects were offered by General Lee Butler, former head of the U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM), which controls nuclear weapons and strategy. Twenty years ago, he wrote that we had so far survived the nuclear weapons era “by some combination of skill, luck, and divine intervention, and I suspect the latter in greatest proportion.”
  • Victory! Walgreens Backs Down After Threat Of Boycott #InvertersRDeserters
    Insiders said Walgreens’ board had decided that the intense political pressure on companies examining inversions could have a significant impact on its reputation among American consumers.
  • Was Putin Targeted for Mid-Air Assassination?
    As the pieces of this puzzle fill in, the image that emerges is of a possible Ukrainian ambush of a jetliner heading into Russian airspace that had markings very similar to President Putin’s official plane. As shocking as that picture may be, there is a grim logic to it, given the demonization of Putin who has been likened to Hitler and Stalin by pundits and politicians from Ukraine to the United States.
  • Yahoo to begin offering PGP encryption support in Yahoo Mail service
    With PGP encryption implemented in a browser plug-in, though, messages are encrypted before they’re transmitted, and the private keys cannot be disclosed by Yahoo because the company doesn’t possess them.
  • Why Banking at the Post Office Could be a Better Option than Payday Loans—and Wall Street
    Physical and operational structures already exist that could help USPS offer basic financial services: prepaid debit cards, mobile transactions, new check cashing services, savings accounts, and even simple, small-dollar loans.
  • Do You Recognize The Culture Of War?
    Each week we see reports of police violence and increasing militarization of police departments. Sometimes police violence is blatant as was this attack on young protesters in Mexico that caused death and serious injuries. And sometimes it is more subtle and dispersed, as this murder of a young Latino in Denver. Sometimes it gets national attention, as is the case of Eric Garner. And sometimes it is part of a daily phenomenon as these youth in Chicago recount.
  • TAILINGS PONDS ARE THE BIGGEST ENVIRONMENTAL DISASTER YOU’VE NEVER HEARD OF
    Last Monday, a dam holding waste from the Mount Polley gold and copper mine in the remote Cariboo region of British Columbia broke, spilling 2.6 billion gallons of potentially toxic liquid and 1.3 billion gallons of definitely toxic sludge out into pristine lakes and streams. That’s about 6,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools of water and waste containing things like arsenic, mercury, and sulphur. Those substances are now mixed into the water that 300 people rely on for tap, hundreds from First Nations tribes rely on for hunting and fishing, and many others rely on for the tourism business.

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    Monday: Mount Polley Dam broke causing 5 million cubic toxic chemicals
    to flow into creeks & waterways
    Posted in Authoritarianism   |   Leave a comment   |