We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Obama Approves Raising Permissible Levels of Nuclear Radiation in Drinking Water

Click here to access article by Helen Caldicott from Global Research
Issued by the Environmental Protection Agency, the radiation guides (called Protective Action Guides or PAGs) allow cleanup many times more lax than anything EPA has ever before accepted. These guides govern evacuations, shelter-in-place orders, food restrictions and other actions following a wide range of “radiological emergencies.”
The government employees of the ruling One Percent (Obama and EPA staff) no doubt expect more incidents of radiation exposure, the most likely source of which will likely occur from the inadequate and dangerous condition of the existing storage sites of radioactive waste. In my own neighborhood, reports have slowly been appearing in mainstream media about leaking 40 year old containers (likely leaking into the Columbia river) and other hazards at the Hanford nuclear site (central Washington state) which contains probably the most radioactive waste in the world. This site is a disaster waiting to happen.

The history of the Environmental Protection Agency, like most government regulatory agencies staffed by people from the industries they are supposed to regulate, has functioned largely to protect the nuclear industries from public outrage and law suits as recently documented in Full Body Burden: Growing Up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats by Kristen Iversen.