LIFE-NET NEWS

by Ret Z.

Covering Poverty Widely in a Net of Many Voices

May 24, 2006	No Profit; No Proceeds
Volume 10 Number 2	All-Volunteer

"Give a family a fish, and they'll eat a meal;  give them a Net, and they'll have fish for Life."

US Plan to Lure Nurses May Hurt Poor Nations

As the US runs short of nurses, senators are looking abroad. A little-noticed provision in their immigration bill would throw open the gate to nurses and, some fear, drain them from the world's developing countries. The Senate provision, which removes the limit on the number of nurses who can immigrate, has been largely overlooked in the emotional debate over illegal immigration.       Sen Sam Brownback (R-KS), who sponsored the proposal, said it was needed to help the US cope with a growing nursing shortage. He said he doubted the measure would greatly increase the small number of African nurses coming here, but he acknowledged that it could have an impact on the Philippines and India, which already send thousands of nurses to the US each year.       The exodus of nurses from poor to rich countries has strained developing-world health systems that already face severe shortages of their own. Many African countries have begun to demand compensation for the training and loss of nurses and doctors who move away.       Public health experts in poor countries reacted to the new provision with dismay and outrage, coupled with doubts that their nurses would resist the magnetic pull of the US, which sits at the pinnacle of the global labor market for nurses. Removing the immigration cap, they said, would particularly hit the Philippines, which sends more nurses to the US than any other country, at least several thousand a year. Health care has deteriorated there in recent years as tens of thousands of nurses have moved abroad. Thousands of ill-paid doctors have even abandoned their profession to become migrant-ready nurses themselves.       The nurse proposal has strong backing from the American Hospital Association, which reported in April that US hospitals had 118,000 vacancies for registered nurses. The federal government predicted in 2002 that the accelerating shortfall of nurses in the US would swell to more than 800,000 by 2020.       The American Nurses Association, representing 155,000 registered nurses, opposes the measure. The group said it was concerned the provision would lead to a flood of nurse immigrants and would damage both the domestic work force and the home countries of the immigrants. Said Erin McKeon of the ANA, "We're disappointed that Congress, instead of providing appropriations for domestic nursing programs, is outsourcing the education of nurses."       Source: New York Times

Don't Let Phone and Cable Giants Seize the Net

Imagine you’re a voter on the Net trying to make yourself more informed. You visit the candidates’ Web sites, but the videos of their speeches and debates won’t load. You log on to an advocacy site that last year had an interesting blog and other interactive tools that helped you learn about the candidates and issues, but you have no luck in using those, either. You try a search for today’s campaign news, but your Internet service provider seems to be steering you to the download page for episodes of Commander in Chief.       Make no mistake, the telephone and cable companies would like to transform our Net from a medium that allows people to connect to one another, engage in debate, and learn about the world into little more than a portal to sell goods and transmit television programs, films and games. Unless Congress acts, they're likely to get their way.       The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) used to protect "network neutrality": our right to access any information we want on the Net. But we lost those protections last August, when the FCC decided to change the way it enforced rules dealing with the Net. Thus, there is now no rule or regulation that will keep the phone and cable companies from doing what they’ve said they want to do: to charge content providers for the use of their Net grids, and to make special deals with some companies to ensure that their sites and services work faster and are easier to find.       The Internet Freedom and Non-Discrimination Act (HR 5417) now in the legislative pipeline would restore our rights to a free and open Net. This bipartisan bill, co-sponsored by Reps James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) and John Conyers (D-MI), would ensure that antitrust law covers the actions of the providers of high-speed Internet by specifically banning discriminatory practices that affect our right to access the information we want.       Failure to preserve net neutrality now would open the door to allowing providers to divide the Net into two tiers: a "fast lane," accessible to only those who can afford to pay the fees to telephone and cable giants, and a "slow lane", for small businesses, nonprofits, entrepreneurs, political candidates, and local governments.       Such a system would stifle the innovation that brought you Google, eBay, the blogosphere, instant messaging, and so much more. If network providers are allowed to control the flow, then the vast Internet could lose its open, freewheeling nature. This is why supporters of net neutrality include not only Common Cause and Consumers Union, but also the Christian Coalition and Gun Owners of America.       Common Cause, in particular, expresses concern about this seemingly obscure telecommunications issue "because we care about the potential of the Internet to spur citizen engagement in their democracy. We know how democratic discourse has benefited from this technological marvel."       In 2004, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 63 million Americans went online for political news. An estimated 7 million asked for e-mail updates from candidates, and 4 million donated money online to parties and campaigns. That involvement is only growing.       Millions of citizens access information from advocacy sites ranging from Amnesty International to the National Rifle Association. E-activists are revolutionizing the way citizens communicate with their elected officials and make their opinions heard.       We must not let this Renaissance fall under the feet of corporations more interested in selling goods and entertainment than in encouraging democratic discourse. Speak up for net neutrality now.       Source: TomPaine

Cocaine and the Exploitation of Poverty

Drug trafficking -- the monumental, multinational trade aimed at fabulously enriching its businessmen -- is made up, from beginning to end, of poor people. The difficulties of economic survival cause some poor people to lose the notion of what is allowed and forbidden.       For example, Colombia. Peasants cultivate coca in the southern part of the country in secluded, hard-to-reach areas.       Thousands of Colombian peasants called "colonos," harassed by violence or seeking better lands, venture into the forests to plant "fundos": crop fields of plantains, rice, soy and other products. Some also raise cattle. But the colonos are completely abandoned by the government.       Colombia has two seasons, rainy and summer. During the rainy season, great floods occur, riverbeds overflow, and peasants have to travel through waist-high mud amid snakes, poisonous bugs, beasts and other hazards. To take their crops to market, these peasant farmers have to wait for the rain to stop before they depart in small wooden boats and navigate them through marshes and swollen rivers.       While the peasant is enduring all of this, there appear kind and generous people bearing a miraculous solution: the cultivation of a new plant called coca. They teach him about the crop and give him seeds, money, and technical help. They provide clothes and medicine, and even radios, TVs, and battery- or electric-powered stereos. It's a miracle, and it also comes with small but powerful fiberglass boats and clandestine airports.       A workday that used to pay a peasant 50 cents or less now pays $200 to $300 or more. Of course, that bonanza brings other problems. The kindly coca missionaries are replaced by demanding and dangerous bosses. Real armies of outlaws watch over the crops and the labs and keep everybody in line. But the peasants learn that, if they work and observe "good conduct," there will be enough money to live.       This first stage is not the one that generates the fabulous coke riches. But it is an essential stage because it gives the country in which it occurs an aura of socioeconomic content. Peasants make a lot more money than if they were cultivating the land legally.       The last stage is retail distribution. A good part of that work is done on the streets of the cities where the drug is consumed. It's done there by people who, just as the peasants and "raspachines," find this illegal activity easier and more productive than working within the law.       The cultivators and the sellers work in opposite ends of the business, but they are united in the belief that this illegal activity is better for them than working honorably. To convince them of the contrary is the first powerful punch in knocking drug trafficking out.       Source: Courier-Post

US, Leader Against AIDS Abroad, Fails at Home

The US has received recognition as a leader against the AIDS epidemic overseas. But a new report shows that the US is falling short on its commitments made at the UN five years ago to curb the disease at home.       The report, published by the Public Health Watch HIV/AIDS Monitoring Project of the Open Society Institute, provides the first comprehensive analysis of how the US is responding to the domestic AIDS epidemic. It calls on the US government to step up prevention and treatment efforts. It reveals, among other findings, that: US efforts against the disease are uncoordinated, with no national plan for comprehensive HIV prevention, treatment, and support. Half the people in the US who need HIV treatment are not receiving it. The number of new HIV infections in the US -- 40,000 a year -- has not decreased in over a decade. HIV/AIDS continues to have a devastating impact on communities of color, gay men and men who have sex with men, injecting drug users, and the poor.       "America has no deficit of dedicated scientists, health care workers or prevention providers, but chronic rates of HIV incidence and inadequate access to care reveal a shocking level of systems failure," said Chris Collins, the report's author. "This is not the fault of any one president or Congress, but an ongoing shared responsibility. Still, this report shows that the federal government is becoming even less responsive to the growing needs of those most affected by the epidemic here at home."       Report: HIV/AIDS Policy in the United States

For and Against Water Privatization

The world water crisis comes at a time when the neoliberal economic model is globally ascendant. The predictable response, since water can now be treated as a scarce resource, is to let supply-and-demand set the "right price". Thus, water provision services go private, and water assets like lakes, rivers and ground water sources get sold outright to private companies. A vital resource is taken out of the ecological commons and made into a for-profit commodity.       The world water industry already rakes in profits equal to 40% of those of the oil industry. The potential for expansion is gargantuan, given that only 5-10% of the world’s water is currently in private hands.       The way the World Bank (WB) sees it, public subsidies resulting in low water prices encourage its wasteful use. Costs leave governments unable to finance the pipes, tunnels, and so on, that the poor in urban shantytowns and small rural farms urgently need. Thus, shutting the private sector completely out of water services will only keep the poor from needed water.       Is there some truth to the neoliberal view?       The 1990s saw a series of high-profile failures of privatized water management to deliver safe, cheap water to poor communities. For example, in Cochabamba, Bolivia, when a subsidiary of US-based Bechtel was entrusted with the city's water supply, the price of water doubled and tripled. Bolivians earning $100 a month were billed $30 a month for water.       Recent experience has shown that the private sector can be much more inefficient, wasteful, and corrupt than the government. Moreover, in the case of a vital environmental resource like water, long-term ecological issues of sustainability and conservation are important. When faced with depletion of a water source, a profit-driven firm is likely to abandon it and go to another.       As for the governmental insufficiency argument, one look at the tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy in the US shows the true priorities of conservative budgets and policies. Across the world, many governments forced by the WB and IMF to adopt neoliberal policies have consistently found sufficient resources, amidst cutbacks in spending, to pursue military adventures, nuclear arms races, etc.       We do not need more private sector involvement in water management. Nor do we need the ongoing operation of bureaucratized and corrupt state-run facilities.       We do need more efficient and democratic public or community water management. Popular struggles in the Third World against the privatization agenda have already shown the way. Shocked by outrageous water bills, the citizens of Cochabamba, Bolivia, raised their voices and made the government reverse its decision. More and more community-managed water systems are coming online and succeeding.       Source: Center for Popular Economics

Religious Left Struggles to Find Unifying Message

1,200 people from 39 states had come in mid-May to All Souls Unitarian Church in Washington DC to wrest the mantle of moral authority from conservative Christians, and they were finally planning how to take their message to those in power. After rousing speeches, participants in the new Network of Spiritual Progressives split into small groups to prepare for meetings with members of Congress.       Yet the 50 or so activists in a workshop on ethical behavior (including sexual) talked little about what to tell Congress about abortion or same-sex marriage. Instead, the Rev Ama Zenya of First Congregational Church in Oakland CA urged them to talk to one another about their spiritual values and "to practice fully our authentic being."       Since the last presidential election, liberals of various faiths have talked about taking back religion from the conservative Christians who helped bring Republicans to national power. Yet liberal believers have so far been unable to approach, even modestly, the success of the religious right and command the attention of Congress.       The biggest barrier for liberals may be their regard for pluralism: for letting people say what they want, how they want to, and for trying to include everyone's priorities, rather than choosing two or three issues that could inspire a movement. "We didn't get on the same page with everyone, and it is about getting on the same page," said the Rev Tony Campolo, an outspoken liberal Baptist minister from Pennsylvania. "The thing about the left is that they want everybody to feel good."       Initiatives by liberals have been percolating locally and nationally, from state interfaith alliances in Ohio to counter a powerful conservative Christian movement there, to national campaigns to reduce poverty led by liberal evangelicals like the Rev Jim Wallis. Religious leaders at the conference here cautioned that it would take years before liberal believers could match the savvy and strength of conservative Christian groups.       Rabbi Michael Lerner of Tikkun magazine called on the assembled activists to define progressive faith, rather than let politicians do it. He said research begun years ago showed that Americans were experiencing a deep spiritual crisis but that only conservative Christians had responded to it, with an agenda that, he said, "backs the ethos of selfishness and materialism in our society."       "They get away with this because the left isn't even in the relevant ballpark," Lerner said.       Campolo explained to the participants in a seminar that many people on Capitol Hill were religious, and that to reach them and to establish authority, liberals should rely on the Bible. "People in Congress respect the Book."       Source: New York Times

#  LNN  #  Small  #  Hauls  #

During an often contentious three-hour hearing on May 16, the NJ Assembly Budget Committee implored college leaders to explain why administrative spending has outpaced enrollment growth in recent years while yearly tuition increases have averaged about 8%. A state report found that NJ colleges added 20% more administrators and 11% more faculty in the last four years but only 4% more students. Statistics supplied by the schools show that NJ colleges graduate only 57% of those who enter college as freshmen. (Associated Press) China's Three Gorges dam is nearly complete. It's anything but the "harmonious development" touted by leaders. Before it even starts operating, the giant hydroelectric scheme is threatened by silt, which means pouring yet more concrete into the Yangtse River. More than a million people have been relocated from areas flooded to make the dam's 590km-long reservoir. China's rapid economic growth has brought an electricity supply of which the dam will provide less than 1/30th, compared to the 1/10th originally expected. Several species of freshwater fish can't spawn now; much biodiversity has already been lost under the reservoir. The upstream water quality has deteriorated due to the slow flow keeping the river from cleaning itself. Sewage from from Chongqing enters the river untreated. River water is slowly stagnating. Consultation was absent from the approval debate for the dam. (Guardian Unlimited) US food prices are low and consistent because of strong government involvement in the form of subsidies, grants, tax incentives, buying surplus, supporting technological development, and paying farmers not to produce. We pay twice for our food: once to the IRS and once in the supermarket. The cheapness of food is a delusion. Organic agriculture doesn't get the same support. Many organic farms are too small to participate in government programs aimed at huge operations. With organic, the "inputs" -- the prices of labor, fertilizer, pest management, seed, baby animals -- are in most cases more expensive than for conventional products. Organic food middlemen and groceries, like any, charge what the market will bear. When you buy organic, you pay food's real cost. (Grist)

Life-Net News Extras

Warning Signs of Gang Involvement

No single warning sign is sufficient for predicting gang involvement, but a combination of indicators may indicate a distraught child. They should prompt parents to talk with their child and, if necessary, get them help.       Warning signs include: Abrupt changes in your child's friends. Withdrawal from the family. A change in the way he or she dresses. A desire to wear the same logos or color combinations all the time. Wears jewelry with distinguishing designs and only wears it on one side of the body. Suddenly has an unusual desire for privacy or secrecy. Has an unexplained large sum of money. Begins to do poorly in school or skip classes. Starts keeping late hours with no explanation. Has paint or permanent marker stains on clothing. Begins using hand signs with friends. Displays unusual drawings or text on schoolbooks or displays graffiti in their bedrooms and on books or posters.      Source: Courier-Post

NJ Cops Need Non-Lethal Alternatives

Attorney General Zulima Farber ought to speed up review of alternatives to firearms to reduce the number of police shootings. New Jersey is the only state in the nation that doesn't allow its police officers to use nonlethal weapons to defuse a threatening situation.       Instead, as was the case with a knife-wielding Willingboro man who possibly suffered a mental breakdown in March, police often use deadly force when other means for disarming a threatening individual would suffice. Charles Dunn, whose 19-year-old son Richard was fatally shot by police when he didn't obey officers' orders to drop a knife, said police should have the option of using a stun gun on people such as his son.       Many New Jersey officers agree. Police at the local and state level have long asked the attorney general's office for permission to arm themselves with nonlethal weapons along with traditional firearms. State Attorney General Zulima Farber is putting together a task force to investigate what kind of nonlethal weapons, if any, officers should be allowed to carry.       Farber has reason to study this issue. Some nonlethal weapons, such as stun guns that temporarily paralyze people with 50,000 volts of electricity, are controversial. Amnesty International has linked the use of the Taser stun gun to about 74 deaths in the United States and Canada since 2001. Taser Inc, the maker of the weapon, disputes this finding.       There might be problems with some nonlethal weapons, and the state task force should explore these issues. But we urge Farber to speed up the review. Many states have used nonlethal weapons for five years or more. There is ample information that the various alternatives available -- which include firing bean bags, nets, rubber bullets and pepper pellets -- are effective. Even police departments whose officers use Tasers report a decline in police shootings. In Phoenix, officer-involved shootings dropped 54%, from 28 in 2002 to 13 in 2003. Fatal shootings decreased from 13 to nine in the same period. Other departments using nonlethal weapons had similar declines in police and fatal shootings. Although use of nonlethal weapons rose in some police departments -- possibly in situations where no force was necessary, as Amnesty International argues -- this suggests a need for thorough training. It is not a reason for New Jersey to continue denying police officers these alternatives to firearms.       Fatal shootings are often traumatic for officers and the family members of suspects. Many cases involve a person who is mentally ill and apparently unable to obey orders. In such cases, nonlethal weapons would allow police to protect the community without relying on deadly force. It also would mean that a mentally ill suspect receives a more appropriate response from authorities.       Nonlethal weapons should be made available in New Jersey soon.      Source: Courier-Post

Most material here is adapted, not quoted. Views expressed do not

necessarily represent ours. Life-Net News biweekly newspage, Club

LIFENET online, the Web site www.lifenetradio.org, and

broadcast Life-Net Radio (where you can star!) together make

up Mr. Ret Z.'s private charitable enterprise. To get Life-Net e-mail

free, or to unsubscribe, just ask:   lifenetradio@broadcast.net

+ Iesous Khristos Theou Huios Soter +