O’Brien turns to accredited research conducted in Europe that confirms the toxicity of America’s food supply, and traces the relationship between Big Food and Big Money that has ensured that the United States is one of the only developed countries in the world to allow hidden toxins in our food–toxins that can be blamed for the alarming recent increases in allergies, ADHD, cancer, and asthma among our children.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/08/31/wall-streets-war-on-the-cities/

Weekend Edition Aug 31-Sep 02, 2012

Why Bondholders Can’t – and Shouldn’t – be Paid

Wall Street’s War on the Cities

by MICHAEL HUDSON

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/9/24/headlines#9245

HEADLINES: September 24, 2012

Obama: Change Comes When "People Are Mobilized"

Campaigning over the weekend in Virginia, President Obama told supporters that the change he has pledged in Washington will only come with the mobilization of ordinary Americans.

President Obama: "You can’t change Washington just from the inside. You change it from the outside. You change it because people are mobilized. You change it with the help of ordinary Americans who are willing to make their voices heard, because the decency and the goodness and the common sense of Americans. We don’t want an inside job in Washington. We want change in Washington. And from the day we began this campaign, we’ve always said that change takes more than one term or even one president, and it certainly takes more than one party. It can’t happen if you write off half the nation before you even took office."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021391665

President Obama Rally in Virginia: "What kind of inside job is he talking about?" (Video):

Excerpt of Remarks by the President at a Campaign Event -- Woodbridge, VA
G. Richard Pfitzner Stadium
Woodbridge, Virginia

12:14 P.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: Now, yesterday, I made this same point at a town hall in Florida. I said, one thing I've learned is that you can't change Washington just from the inside. You change it from the outside. You change it because people are mobilized. You change it with the help of ordinary Americans who are willing to make their voices heard because of the decency and the goodness and the common sense of Americans. That’s what moves the country forward. (Applause.)

Now, for some reason my opponent got really excited. He rewrote his speech real quick. (Laughter.) He stood up at a rally, proudly declared, "I'll get the job done from the inside." (Laughter.) What kind of inside job is he talking about? (Applause.) Is it the job of rubberstamping the top-down, you're-on-your-own agenda of this Republican Congress? Because if it is, we don’t want it. (Applause.) If it's the job of letting oil companies run our energy policy, we don’t want it.

AUDIENCE: No!

THE PRESIDENT: If it's the job of outsources writing our tax code, we don’t want it.

AUDIENCE: No!

THE PRESIDENT: If it's the job of letting politicians decide who you can marry, or control the health care choices that women should be able to make for themselves, we'll take a pass. (Applause.)

We don’t want an inside job in Washington. We want change in Washington. (Applause.) And from the day we began this campaign, we've always said that change takes more than one term or even one President, and it certainly takes more than one party. It can't happen if you write off half the nation before you even took office. (Applause.)

In 2008, 47 percent of the country didn’t vote for me. But on the night of the election, I said to all those Americans, “I may not have won your vote but I hear you voices, I need your help, and I will be your President.” (Applause.) And for everybody who is watching, or anybody here who is still undecided, I don’t know how many people are going to vote for me this time around, but -- (applause) -- hold on -- but I’m telling the American people I will be fighting for you no matter what. (Applause.) I will be your President no matter what. (Applause.) I’m not fighting to create Democratic jobs or Republicans jobs, I’m fighting to create American jobs. (Applause.)

I’m not fighting to improve red state schools or blue state schools, I’m fighting to improve schools in the United States of America. (Applause.) The values we believe in don’t just belong to workers or businesses, the 53 percent or the 47 percent, the rich or the poor, the 1 percent, the 99 percent -- these are American values. They belong to all of us. (Applause.)

Virginia, I still believe we’re not as divided as our politics suggest. I still believe we’ve got more in common than the pundits tell us. I believe in you. I still believe in your capacity to help me bring about change. And I’m asking you to keep believing in me. (Applause.)

I’m asking for your vote. And if you’re willing to stand with me and work with me, we’ll win Prince William County. We will win Virginia. We’ll finish what we’ve started, and we’ll remind the world why the United States of America is the greatest nation on Earth. (Applause.)

God bless you. God bless the United States.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/22/voter-id-laws-gop-college-student_n_1791568.htm

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The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University has a student voting guide that includes information for each state. ( http://www.brennancenter.org/content/student_voting/ )

And the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law is supplementing its election protection hotline with a smartphone app that provides voter registration, registration status verification, polling place information, voting rules and contact information for election protection staffers. ( http://www.866ourvote.org/ )

http://www.democraticunderground.com/101757862

"You're are the reason," President Obama in Golden, CO.
September 13, 2012

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/08/business/mylan-invests-in-epipen-as-child-allergies-increase.html?pagewanted=all

September 7, 2012
Tiny Lifesaver for a Growing Worry
By KATIE THOMAS

It has become an all-too-familiar story in schools across the country: a child eats a peanut or is stung by a bee and suffers an immediate, life-threatening allergic reaction known as anaphylaxis.

If parents and school authorities know about the allergy and a doctor’s prescription is on file, a nurse can quickly give an injection of epinephrine, saving the child’s life.

But school nurses in many districts face an agonizing choice if a child without a prescription develops a sudden reaction to an undiagnosed allergy. Should they inject epinephrine and risk losing their nursing license for dispensing it without a prescription, or call 911 and pray the paramedics arrive in time?

After a 7-year-old girl died in January in a similar case in Virginia, the state passed a law that allows any child who needs an emergency shot to get one. Beginning this month, every school district in Virginia is required to keep epinephrine injectors on hand for use in an emergency. Illinois, Georgia and Maryland have passed similar laws, and school nurses are pushing for one in Ohio. A lobbying effort backed by Mylan, which markets the most commonly used injector, the EpiPen, made by Pfizer, led to the introduction last year of a federal bill that would encourage states to pass such laws.

Mylan has also lobbied state legislatures around the country directly and is passing out free EpiPens this fall to any qualifying school that wants them.

“When a child is having an anaphylactic reaction, the only thing that can save her life is epinephrine,” said Maria L. Acebal, the chief executive of the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network. “911 doesn’t get there fast enough.”

The efforts are an acknowledgment of the rising rates of food allergies among children and a handful of deaths from allergies across the country. In many schools, children carry their own epinephrine injectors in their backpacks to use themselves, if they’re old enough, or the devices are stored on their behalf in nurses’ offices.

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[font style=color:blue]Although no one knows exactly why, the rate of food allergies among children appears to be on the rise.[/font] One survey found that in 2008, one in 70 children was allergic to peanuts, compared with one in 250 in 1997.

“I don’t think it’s overdiagnosis,” said Dr. Scott H. Sicherer, the author of the report and a researcher at the Jaffe Food Allergy Institute at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Manhattan. “There really seems to be a difference.”

A study last year in the journal Pediatrics found that about one in 13 children had a food allergy, and nearly 40 percent of those with allergies had severe reactions. A recent survey in Massachusetts, where schools are permitted to administer epinephrine to any student, found that one-quarter of students who had to be given the drug for a reaction did not know they had an allergy. But in many schools, employees are not allowed to use epinephrine injectors on children who do not have a prescription.

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http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014148788

http://allergykids.wordpress.com/2008/06/10/a-ripple-of...

A Ripple of Hope: When Courage and Conscience Collide

June 10, 2008
by Robyn O'Brien

I was raised on capitalism and the Wall Street Journal. As a child, my family celebrated the birth of Reaganomics the way one would have celebrated the birth of a child. There was prosperity to be had by all – if only we believed. My father, like so many of his era, fully supported deregulation and the notion of trickle down economics. If we loosen the regulatory purse strings that government tightly controls, we will all prosper. The system works.

In our house, the Reagans had an almost royal status – to watch them dance, with Nancy in her red dress, gave me the feeling, as a child, that I was watching some magnificent combination of Frank Sinatra and a foreign prince with his graceful companion on his arm.

I trusted my political values would serve me well – I was loyal, patriotic and supported the system.

And then one of my children got sick. With a blood condition that no one could pronounce and a pediatric mandate requiring immediate enrollment at a Children's Hospital. And I awoke.

Suddenly, everywhere I turned, there were sick children. Children with diabetes, children with cancer, children with obesity, children with asthma and children with allergies. What had happened?

As headlines in the paper warned me of environmental dangers, I began to pay attention. What was in the food? Wasn't organics a left-leaning thing? And what about the plastics and the baby bottles and the vaccines? Should I worry? Doesn't our system protect us from these dangers?

And without realizing it, an internal battle had silently begun.

I lay awake at night as I tried to reconcile the loyalty I had to my father with the loyalty I had to my children. Had a generation of grandfathers failed to recognize the health risks associated with capitalism's profits, unintentionally jeopardizing the well being of their grandchildren?

I had been raised to support the system, to believe in it, to never question it, and certainly to never speak out. Activism was something that "radicals" did, certainly not conservative soccer moms.

But I couldn't shake the internal dialogue. And armed with an MBA in finance and my four children, I began to investigate the expanding role that corporations had taken in the system in which I was raised to believe. And I was stunned.

There were insecticidal toxins engineered into crops to increase profitability for the world's largest agrichemical corporation – a company whose former employees included Donald Rumsfeld and Clarence Thomas. There were petroleum based chemicals in my children's toys and shampoos that were a product of an oil corporation that had recruited me in business school. How had this happened? Had we forsaken our physical health for financial wealth?

As I struggled with the responsibility that I felt for betraying my own children, I realized that it was now my responsibility to act. But the internal battle raged on – as the call from my conscience collided with the familiar comfort of conformity – and I was paralyzed.

But with sick children, paralysis was not an option.

I realized that I had to find the courage, on behalf of my children and others, to speak out against the very system in which I was raised.

And I reluctantly stepped forward.

With the words of another crusader in hand, I found my voice: "Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls." (Robert F. Kennedy).

It is with that hope, and holding the hands of my four children, that I took a stand.

Our world is changing. Our children's voices are not being heard; there is no "show of hands" to gauge their reactions to the impact that our environment is having on them.

It is our turn to engage, to help our fathers recreate the world that their grandchildren deserve. We must not be daunted by the enormity of the task at hand, nor fear political "activism". For the sake of our children, it is our political responsibility.

If you take just one step forward, it might send forth that tiny ripple of hope that will touch your daughter's life years later or your son's health in ways you might never foresee.

If we dare to dream that it is possible to affect this change for our children, we will be inspired by hope and find the courage and capacity to act. Together.

http://www.robynobrien.com/speaking.html

“Robyn’s analysis is a startling revelation of the corruption of our food supply and our failure to protect two of our country’s most valuable assets, our children and our environment. Her message of courage, tenacity and hope is a beacon of light in our toxic world."
—Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Robyn recently addressed a crowd of 600 at TEDx Austin and received a standing ovation for her presentation, "Patriotism on a Plate" as seen in the VIDEO:

http://blogs.prevention.com/inspired-bites/2012/05/22/generation-rx-the-changing-landscape-of-childhood/

Generation Rx: The Changing Landscape of Childhood

May 22, 2012 10:26 am Posted by Robyn O'Brien


Childhood appears to be under siege.

From the escalating rates of childhood cancers, to the increasing diagnoses for conditions like autism and allergies, the landscape of childhood has changed, earning our children the title “Generation Rx”.

And this is changing the face of American families and our economy. We already spend 17 cents of every dollar on health care, managing disease. The pharmaceutical companies can’t keep up with demand, and now there are shortages for drugs used to treat cancers and ADHD.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, cancer is the leading cause of death by disease in children under the age of 15. The journal Pediatrics has reported that 15% of American girls are expected to begin puberty by the age of 7 (with the number closer to 25% for African American girls) and a growing number of American children struggle with obesity. On top of that, the rate for having food allergies is 59% higher for obese children, with the Centers for Disease Control reporting a 265% increase in hospitalizations related to food allergic reactions. And while not all of those hospitalizations are for our children, what is becoming increasingly obvious is that the health of our children is under siege.

But more often than not, the solution is not found in the medicine cabinet, but in the kitchen.

And as scientific evidence continues to mount, courageously presented by doctors like Mark Hyman, MD, in his groundbreaking book, The Blood Sugar Solution, and pediatric specialists like Dr. Joel Fuhrman and Dr. Alan Greene, about the role that diet and nutrition plays in the health of our children, parents are beginning to take notice.

And as we introduce new foods that are nutrient-dense (meaning full of vitamins and minerals) and try to reduce our loved ones’ exposure to the foods that are nutrient-void (packing mostly artificial ingredients that have been synthetically engineered in laboratories), we are realizing that we have the power to affect remarkable change in the health of our children and families, so that together, we can stem this tide of children flowing into pediatric hospitals being built across the country.

Because while our children may only represent 30 percent of the population, they are 100 percent of our future. And if spending on health care and disease management is viewed as a leading economic indicator, we need to stem this tide before it becomes a tsunami, for the sake of our children, our families, our economy and our country.

I doubt anyone could get anywhere close to the WH at this point if they even hinted that they want to change these policies and start supporting actual democracies...

Howard Zinn - A Power Governments Cannot Suppress - Part 1




Howard Zinn - A Power Governments Cannot Suppress - Part 2




Parts 3-5
Uploaded on Jul 15, 2011

Sam Wessels Meets Meets The President

September 1, 2012
Published on Sep 2, 2012 by zidlow

Sam is giving the President the inside scoop on effective campaign strategies. The President is all ears.