Consumer Power

Editor's Note: This article was originally published on DailyKos by OrangeClouds115 and syndicated with permission. See more of her series here.

Hi all. This week's installment isn't quite something I can make much sense of, but it's in the news all over the place so I feel obligated.

Lately, article after article I've read points to the growing amount of corn Americans are allocating to ethanol production. It seems like everyone and their sister is building new ethanol plants, and when they are complete, they will use a substantial proportion of the corn we produce (some estimate half). The result? Higher corn prices - and, in turn, higher food prices.

Ok, back to corn and ethanol. The scoop is that ethanol's not terrific for fuel in terms of gas mileage, but corn is a renewable crop and we seem to have found an economically viable way to turn it into ethanol (i.e. ethanol production doesn't cost more than gasoline).

Many talk about making ethanol from other crops (like switchgrass) but we're not there yet. Either nobody's growing it, nobody's building plants to make it into ethanol, or we don't have the technology yet to turn it into ethanol in an economically viable way. My dad, a chemical engineer, has worked on turning everything from switchgrass to waste paper into fuel over the past few decades and he told me it was damn near impossible without significant government investment.

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Okay – we’ve made it through the 2006 campaign cycle. All of the volunteers that have been busy working on campaigns are rested and refreshed. It’s time to look forward to 2007 and then the 2008 cycle. Yes – we at BuyBlue know the site on the surface hasn’t changed. Well we admit it – we’ve done improvements on the backend in 2006. The surface hasn’t changed very much. As individuals, completely separate and apart from BuyBlue, we’ve been involved as volunteers in our various states and nationally. We figured you would all understand. Getting a progressive Congress in place is part of who we are as individuals – part of why we shop at progressive companies. Companies that support progressive values are part of our supporting progressive candidates that also support our values!

So – what have the corporations been doing in 2006? Well – we’ll know very, very soon! The final Federal Election Commission (FEC) reports are being finalized. The year end reports are due January 31, 2007!

It’s action time for volunteers! We need volunteers to actively help us update the site information. This will involve checking details and keeping your volunteer coordinator updated. Pretty straightforward – and we’ll work out details on training new volunteers for mid-February.

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Editor's Note: This article was originally published on DailyKos by OrangeClouds115 and syndicated with permission. See more of her series here.

If you read my diaries regularly, you probably have a good idea of what I like to eat. Maybe not specifically, but in general at least. Lots of fresh, organic fruits and vegetables, nuts, beans, and grains. No trans fats, high fructose corn syrup, rBST, refined grains or sugars, factory farmed meat, PCB- or mercury-laden fish, etc etc etc.

If you saw what I put in my mouth this week, you would fall over. I was doing good until about Christmas eve, when I ate my great aunt's nameless culinary creation (It tasted like a cheesy blintz with a bit of a cheddar and no berry syrup). As the entire meal was the cheesy stuff and some delicious salad, it was easier to just eat it. Not to mention tastier.

I was back on track until twelve hours later, when I gobbled down two home made cinnamon sticky buns. Later in the day, the eggnog was calling to me. First I tried a little bit of soy nog (Silk, another brand I boycott), which tasted OK. When nobody was looking, I went after the real stuff.

The binge continued. Greasy home made rolls came with dinner. The next day, more greasy rolls.

Surprised I was eating a bunch of junk? Well, get this: the kind angels providing those meals were a dietician and a retired home ec teacher. Now I need to resolve to eat healthy again...

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A blog on the Tom Paine site mentions that Circuit City is in effect endorsing a political candidate. Circuit City is backing former mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani, who is running for president in 2008. Some people got an ad to this effect in their email.

The ad announces a contest for entrants to write an essay about how much their firehouse has helped the community. Giuliani has been pretty shameless in trying to associate his name with the heroism of the 9/11 firemen (and just firemen in general). Frankly I didn’t think Giuliani was really all that much of a friend to the NYC firemen who died on 9/11, and he’s been trying to bask in their reflected glory since that day.

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The following announcement is being posted on behalf of Progressive Action East Bay (PAEB). You can contact them via email by sending a message to DelphaSnow (at) aol (dot) com. You can find our coverage of this event last year here and here.

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Let’s build on our great success earlier this month and build lasting progressive foundations. Progressive Action East Bay (PAEB) is leading its second annual BUY BLUE for the HOLIDAYS CAMPAIGN at Union Square in San Francisco.

We NEED YOUR HELP:

- VOLUNTEERS: Join the fun and volunteer for a 2 hour shift on Saturday (Dec. 16)
- DONATIONS: Your Generous Donation to defray $2,000 in printing costs.

We are supporting BuyBlue.org to promote a shopper education campaign called "Buy Blue for the Holidays.� BuyBlue.org is a non-profit consumer education website and guide to supporting the companies that share progressive values.

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Editor's Note: This article was originally published on DailyKos by OrangeClouds115 and syndicated with permission. See more of her series here.

I lived in London over the summer of 2002 and I ate everything that found its way to my plate - including beef. I lived with a British family and I figured if they thought it was safe to eat, then it was okay.

After reading Mad Cow USA by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber, I still don't worry about the beef I ate in London, but I am concerned that America didn't learn the lesson it should have from the British Mad Cow epidemic.

Join me on the flip, and don't worry - I'm not out to scare you away from eating meat.

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If you don't know, the Reverend Flip Benham recently engineered a boycott of Wal-Mart on the two days following Thanksgiving. [This would have been the same boycott championed by Donald Wildmon's American Family Association, but Wildmon called his off. Benham didn't.]

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Editor's Note: This article was originally published on DailyKos by OrangeClouds115 and syndicated with permission. See more of her series here.

All I've got to say is Ho-ly crap. I've got some leaked Monsanto documents here and WOW! If only more people knew...

When many Americans think of milk, they envision a wholesome product produced on bucolic farms. The first hint to burst that bubble is that some milk comes chock full of extra hormones. The controversy over rBGH started before it was even legally marketed commercially in 1994. In 1990, a dairy industry publication, The Milkweed, obtained and published several documents from Monsanto.

It may be hard for you to believe that the company responsible for Agent Orange is also less than honest about cow hormones, but suspend your disbelief for a moment as you read on.

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Just a quick administrative note for everyone since we've gotten a few emails about it. Since we first launched we've had a store up at buybluestore.com. The store was run by a group of volunteers that were offering BuyBlue merchandise as their contribution to our efforts. Recently they've had to shut the doors on that store.

We've made plans to move over to a store provided by our friends at Goodstorm. We don't know when we'll be re-opening but watch the blog and you'll be among the first to know.

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There is an article in E Magazine that you may want to check out. You can read it online here. The part I wanted to share is this:

Only Just the Beginning

As one of the leading advocates of aligning values with purchasing power, UC Berkeley Professor Dara O’Rourke is as bullish as anyone on the potential social and environmental benefits of sites like Alonovo and BuyBlue. But he considers the current offerings to be embryonic at best. “Right now we’re at very early stages of what is going to be a huge movement of new types of consumer information and empowerment,� says O’Rourke. “In my view, the sites out there give very incomplete information about the overall impact of a firm.�

According to O’Rourke, recent studies show that as many as 80 percent of American consumers say they would prefer to shop according to their values, yet only approximately three percent actually do so. “There is a chasm between stated concerns and values and our purchasing practices,� he says.

O’Rourke believes that sites with more comprehensive data will be the wave of the future. Betsy Power, a business director with the Natural Capital Institute, agrees, and she adds a caveat: “Unfortunately, it isn’t always apparent what the underlying information source is on these sites, or what the criteria is based on,� she says.

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Media Matters has obtained an internal ABC memo that you might find interesting.

An internal ABC Radio Networks memo obtained by Media Matters for America, originally from a listener to The Peter B. Collins Show, indicates that nearly 100 ABC advertisers insist that their commercials be blacked out on Air America Radio affiliates. According to the memo, the adverstisers insist that "NONE of their commercials air during AIR AMERICA programming." Among the advertisers listed are Bank of America, Exxon Mobil, Federal Express, General Electric, McDonald's, Microsoft, Wal-Mart, and the U.S. Navy.

You can view the enlarged version of the memo here.

On this list you'll find the following names. I've taken the liberty of linking you to our profile of them (if one exists) or otherwise trying to show their political giving practices. All data comes from the 2004 election cycle unless otherwise noted.

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The following article was written by Tula Connell over at the AFL-CIO Blog and reproduced with permission. I haven't added anything to it.

It's not enough for the world's largest retailer to contribute millions of dollars to support presidential candidates who will do the bidding of corporations at the expense of America's workers. Now it turns out, Wal-Mart is trying to tell its employees how to vote—and you can bet its list doesn’t include any candidate who supports working families.

Wal-Mart is mailing 18,000 "voter guides" to its employees in Iowa, state of the first presidential primary in 2008. The guides attack potential candidates for president—all Democrats—for supporting groups that oppose Wal-Mart’s everyday low wages that mean many workers require public assistance to support their families.

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This article from the Wall Street Journal via the AP is interesting and worth a read.

Here's a small clip of it.

(AP) - HERSHEY, Pa., Few businesses have more at stake in next month's congressional elections than pharmaceutical makers. Assailed by Democrats, drug companies are pouring millions of dollars into close races, giving some Republicans a financial edge. In the process, the industry is becoming not just a campaign backer, but also a campaign issue.

Pennsylvania Republican Rick Santorum is a big beneficiary of the industry's push. He was a leading proponent of the 2003 law that gave seniors Medicare coverage for prescription drugs, and helped shape the law in ways that benefited the industry. Battling to keep his seat in a crucial Senate race, Mr. Santorum's campaign has received almost $500,000 from pharmaceutical interests and their employees, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan research group. The industry has also helped fund television advertisements and aided get-out-the-vote efforts.

Mr. Santorum's opponent, state treasurer Bob Casey Jr., regularly attacks the Medicare program as "a giveaway to Big Pharma," in part because it bars the government from negotiating prices. He and many fellow Democrats say they will overhaul the benefit if they win control of Congress on Nov. 7. Not surprisingly, Mr. Casey counts just $11,850 in contributions from pharmaceutical interests.

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I've just run across this non-profit organization called MAPLight.org. They've recently launched this very powerful database that allows you to make the connection between money spent by special interests and specific votes and legislation by members of the California assembly and senate. According to their about page they have plans to roll this out nationally in the future.

But without further ado, I figured I'd just share their press release with you. Go check them out.

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The hybrid version of the Camry will begin production in Kentucky and a high percentage (14%) of Camry sales are expected to be hybrids.

Toyota is all set to start producing Camry Hybrids at their Georgetown, Kentucky plant. They've announced that they will initially be producing Camry Hybrids at a rate of 60,000 per year -- a pretty respectable number. To put it in perspective, 60,000 vehicles is equivalent to about 14% of model year (MY) 2005 Camry sales in the United States, and is greater than the MY2005 sales of such popular models as the Toyota Avalon, Honda Element, and Chevrolet Monte Carlo. It's a good start.

The link is to Working for Change (Working Assets) which in turn links to a site of the Union of Concerned Scientists which explains hybrid technology.

http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=21539

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Editor's Note: This article was originally published on DailyKos by OrangeClouds115 and syndicated with permission. See more of her series here.

The government recognizes the need to keep bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), better known as Mad Cow, out of the food chain, and we all expect it to. This involves (among other things) testing animals to make sure none of them carry BSE - and if a cow with BSE is discovered, tracking where it came from, and which other cattle were with it that might also have the disease.

NAIS - the National Animal ID System - started as a solution to the animal identification and tracking half of that very problem. However, some say it's being implemented with FEMA-like expertise and it's more of an unfunded mandate and a Patriot Act for animals than a way to solve any problems. Now it's a major election issue in the Missouri senate race.

More on the flip...

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Bill Moyers with PBS recently aired an excellent news program called The Net @ Risk. From their site you can watch clips of it online, it runs about 2 hours in length in the Tv version.

The program is on the subject of net neutrality and towards the end of the program it also starts discussing media consolidation. Over the past year we've written several articles about net neutrality because it is not only a critically important subject for consumers and sites like ours, but it is a prime example of the influence that corporations (in this case telecommunications and cable companies) exert over government against the best interests of the consumers they serve. The articles we've written are: US Financial Firms Throw Muscle Behind Net Neutrality, Net Neutrality Blog Ads, What Companies Oppose Net Neutrality?, A primer on net neutrality, and Google will flex its political muscles.

As much as I've studied this topic, done research and made presentations on it, even I learned something from this PBS special. One of the interesting angles they took is that the principle at stake here is not only at the very core of capitalism itself, but it has been grossly abused in the past.

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Ad backdrops are where advertising appears in the background (or foreground) at news conferences. This is an example of increasing commercialism or ad creep in different aspects of our lives. These ads can appear at news conferences given by politicians, business executives, or sports people.

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The Center for Public Integrity announced today that they have improved and re-launched their Media Tracker database. What is Media Tracker you might be wondering?

Who controls what you read in the newspaper, what you see or hear on television or radio, and the bits of data that flow over cable and telecommunications wires? You can find out simply by typing your ZIP code into the Media Tracker.

A cornerstone of the Center for Public Integrity's "Well Connected" project, the Media Tracker is a free, searchable online database relaunched on Tuesday. Its core benefit is that it gives anyone the ability to search out details about the U.S. media and telecommunications companies that control the flow of information in our digital age.

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