Medical Spa LaCost - HIPFiSHmonthly

what lola wants . . . lola gets . . .
New!
in Town
lola’s
consignment
Open: Thur ~ Mon 12pm - 5pm h Sun 12pm - 4pm h 503.325.5115
1126 Marine Drive Downtown Astoria
The Poison of Extremism
Following the Democratic victory in 2008,
Republicans listened to their most ideological
spokespersons and instead of moving toward
the center, started the Tea Party movement
and moved further to the right. Media propagandist
Rush Limbaugh told them that they
had lost because they had not been conservative
enough. Anti-tax ideologue, Grover
Norquist, together with Fox News, played key
roles in birthing the Tea Party movement. Their
propaganda succeeded in convincing a plurality
of intellectually undernourished Americans that
Obama’s health care program was a socialist
plot, even though it is a bonanza for insurance
corporations. Fear works politically, and so far
right Republicans, who think government exists
to advance militarism and corporate rule, took
over the House as well as many state governments
in 2010.
In these states, they are driving democracy
into a ditch, as they do the bidding of right
wing industrialists. Outlawing public employee
unions, replacing city governments with politically
appointed czars, passing voter identification
laws that make it extremely difficult for the
poor, the old, and low wage workers to vote,
and gerrymandering districts so as to forestall
public attempts to recall governors and legislatures
that pass these unpopular measures, are
now common goings on in states run by the
Tea Party right.
by Stephen Berk
On the congressional level, Tea Party House
Republicans take marching orders from the
likes of Norquist, as well as the high flying one
per cent of Americans who now account for
some ninety per cent of the nation’s income.
As I write, House Majority leader, Eric Cantor,
and Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell,
refuse to budge on their dogma never to raise
taxes on those who benefit most in a corporate
dominated America. Early in the year, they
bludgeoned the president into retaining the
Bush tax cuts for the richest among us by
threatening not to extend unemployment benefits
and thus throw millions into dire poverty.
Anti-tax extremists now seek to extract concessions
from the president on “entitlement,”
programs, that is federal legislation that helps
older Americans retain their health and retire in
dignity and gives others a leg up. An ever conciliatory
Obama states his willingness to make
cuts in these programs in exchange for closing
some glaring tax loopholes for the rich, such as
the one that enables billionaires to get taxed at
a lower rate than their chauffeurs. That occurs
because the wealthiest among us get most of
their income from investments taxed at the
capital gains rate of fifteen per cent, ten per
cent lower than the rate paid by most working
Americans. But even this “compromise” is
insufficient to placate anti-tax extremists, who
threaten to block raising the debt ceiling, thus
causing the US to default on its debt, provoking
economic meltdown, rather than vote for
anything that would increase the share paid by
billionaires and multi-millionaires.
Since the Reagan years, anti-tax propagandists
have succeeded in convincing a sizeable
portion of the American public that all taxation
is bad, particularly at the federal level. This is
a nihilistic position that would have appalled
American statesmen from Franklin, Jefferson
and Hamilton to Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt.
Taxation is the price we pay for a civil
order with individual advancement. Taxes pay
for roads, education, public parks, libraries, the
electrical grid, and the whole gamut of projects
to build and improve a complex, up-to-date
national infrastructure. Graduated taxation,
wherein the wealthy pay their fair share and are
thus taxed at a higher rate, has in the past facilitated
the creation of innumerable American
jobs. To limit tax liability, wealthy industrialists
poured money back into their American based
businesses, thus expanding the labor force, or
into non-profit entities, like museums, that enrich
our national culture. But anti-tax nihilists
would have a society where all public services
are privatized so that only those who can pay
may use them. Their ideology supports not a
civil society with upward mobility, but an order
of vast inequalities, where the few monopolize
opportunity while the overworked, impoverished
multitudes struggle to survive.
Oregon Governor Signs Legislation to Protect Shark Populations
Oceana Commends Action to Prevent Shark Fin Trade
Adoption
schmoption...
you’re not coming
home with me and
that’s final!
Clatsop County Animal Shelter
1315 SE 19th in Warrenton, Oregon
Hours: noon to 4 pm, Tuesday thru Saturday
Phone: 503-861-0737
Salem, OR- On August 4, 2011
Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber
signed a bill banning the sale,
trade, and possession of shark
fins within the state. The bill (HB
2838) passed the State House of
Representatives and Senate with
overwhelming bipartisan support.
The bill’s passage moves the U.S.
West Coast closer to a full ban on
the trade of shark fins, thereby
helping to protect global populations
of at-risk shark species that
are being targeted in unsustainable
and unregulated fisheries
worldwide. Oceana commends
Governor Kitzhaber for his extraordinary
leadership to protect a
species that has been swimming
the world’s oceans for more than
400 million years.
“With the global trade in shark
fins pushing sharks toward extinction,
it will take strong actions
such as this to prevent us from
making irreversible changes to
our ocean ecosystems,” said Whit
Sheard, Senior Advisor and Pacific
Counsel for Oceana. “The bipartisan
support for this bill once
again demonstrates that support
for healthy oceans is a non-partisan
issue,” added Sheard.
Each year, tens of millions of
sharks are killed for their fins,
mostly to make shark fin soup. In
this wasteful and cruel practice, a
shark’s fins are sliced off while at
sea and the remainder of the animal
is thrown back into the water
to die. Without fins, sharks bleed
to death, drown, or are eaten by
other species. In recent decades
some shark populations have
declined by as much as 99%.
Removing sharks from ocean
ecosystems can destabilize the
ocean food web and even lead to
declines in populations of other
species, including commerciallycaught
fish and shellfish species
lower in the food web.
While shark finning is illegal
in the U.S., current federal laws
banning the practice do not address
the issue of the shark fin
trade. Therefore, fins are being
imported to the U.S. from countries
with few or even no shark
protections in place.
Governor Chris Gregoire of
Washington State signed similar
legislation into law on May 12,
2011 and a bill in the California
legislature passed the Assembly
and is currently under consideration
in committee in the Senate.
“The bipartisan passage of these
bills in Oregon and Washington
provide an example that we
hope California will follow,” said
Sheard. “Protecting species
being driven to the edge of extinction
by unsustainable human
consumption should be a commonsense
priority for legislatures
across the country.”
aug11 hipfishmonthly.com
6