Socialism for whom?

Re: “In a World 'sans Socialism'” - Margaret Wente's column June 21^st, 2011

The puzzling thing about the term “socialism” is its application to various actions. It is “socialism” to have medicare, but not the building of roads. It is “socialism” to have universal car insurance (as Saskatchewan does) but public support for construction of sports facilities – hockey rinks and football stadiums – is not. It is “socialism” to provide government support to low-wage earners but baling out banks or multi-national automobile manufacturers is business. “Privatization” is what happens if a government-run business becomes profitable because goodness knows, we, the people, wouldn't want to be “socialists”.

It seems to me that the term is used pejoratively and in a limited way to describe activities that prevailing corporate think tanks and private enterprise want to control.

Definition of “socialism” from my Apple computer dictionary: “a political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole”.....(it) ”necessarily implies an opposition to the untrammelled workings of the economic market”. Why did our banks and mortgages not fail when the US went broke? Because Canada's regulatory system is better than that in the US...oh dear, socialism at work!! Does anyone remember that we, the people, once owned PetroCan - but it was making money! What is so wrong about our government making money off of something other than its people?

I, for one, am tired of seeing my tax dollars supporting the already wealthy, corporations or just plain monied. Going to companies that make fictitious airplanes and helicopters to be delivered in the far distant future to do what? Paying elected representatives to "sell" Canada abroad - translate advertise Canadian manufacturing goods and Canadian resources abroad so that capitalism can continue to work - which means that we continue to believe in endless growth in a finite world! Who is crazy? And how do we, the ordinary citizens, get control of the media to break the addiction to pap and talk shows, educational systems so that our children are not told the lies of the colonial capitalist past, monetary system so that we are not paying the cost of the international gambling ring that trades up in nanoseconds, health care so that we are not sold pharmaceuticals for fear, our environment so that we can really smell the roses!

Time to look after myself and go for a bike ride!

Manufacturing Doubt

Manufacture of Doubt

There is an industry for this!! There is probably an industry for everything but in this case, a book called “Merchants of Doubt” (2010) has been published which outlines the ways in which the public relations (PR) industry has systematically sought, trained and paid scientists and politicians to cast doubt on research on such varied issues as dangers of cigarette smoking, pesticides and ozone depletion. A few years earlier, Devra Davis mentions the “maturing of the science of doubt promotion” in the forward to her book The Secret History of the War on Cancer (2007).

How does it work? A 1969 memo from a tobacco company executive states "Doubt is our product since it is the best means of competing with the 'body of fact' that exists in the minds of the general public. It is also the means of establishing a controversy".

The public relations industry creates doubt, uncertainty, and confusion. Be it tobacco, exposure to radioactivity, the dangers of DDT, acid rain or global warming – the doubt industry is having a heyday. Witness the scientists who currently eagerly walk to centre stage to stow doubt in a willing public about global warming.

After all, if global warming is a threat, then we might be required to change something. Human beings – even those who live on the edge of adventure and imagine themselves to be flexible, nimble and contrary to mainstream thought – find that change, internal and behavioural is not an easy thing. “A potent subset of the scientific community leads the world in denial” and, the world, eager to believe that it does not need to change any fundamental beliefs happily and vehemently complies.

The most pressing issues of our era are skewed by manufacturers of doubt. Global warming, radiation from nuclear power plants, and rising cancer statistics become mired in complex arguments between people who otherwise agree – because something has led them to doubt the findings of their comrades and fellow travelers.

The woman who speaks out about the dangers of radiation, Dr Rosalie Bertell – with impeccable credentials – is “an old lady and a nun at that”. The mathematician, Dr. Gordon Edwards, who has voluntarily spent decades researching nuclear power, has “a personal axe to grind”.

In 2009, I had the privilege to represent the Saskatchewan Medical Association (SMA) at the Uranium Development Partnership hearings. The SMA is a conservative organization, slow to change and most members were quite supportive of the nuclear power, Saskatchewan was openly supportive of and a recipient of enormous grants from Cameco, a uranium mining global giant. My presentation had to reflect the organization, the board of the SMA approved it so it did.

It questioned regulatory bodies, reviewed the literature with respect to radiation exposure and concluded that more studies should be conducted including a baseline health study of Saskatchewan residents who might, in future, be affected by a nuclear power plant. It said nothing about whether or not radiation was harmful and nothing about my personal beliefs.

Nevertheless, the president of the Saskatchewan branch of the Canadian Nuclear Association (CNA) phoned the SMA the following morning before 9:30 am and asked him if “Dr. Dewar had represented the organization appropriately” and if “everything that Dr. Dewar had said had been approved by the SMA”. I know this because I phoned at 9:30 am to debrief with the executive director. Later the Sk CNA person wrote a letter to the SMA casting doubt on the material that I had presented to the SMA. The SMA appropriately forwarded the letter to me and I responded immediately, closing my letter with “please provide the exact nature of the research which is questionable”. He never responded. He didn’t need to because it didn’t matter – the only thing that mattered was the doubt cast upon me and my presentation.

A more recent similar episode occurred this past winter after the Ottawa Citizen published an opinion piece written by Dr. Caldicott and myself. Our piece was fully referenced (which the Citizen published on line). The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission in the person of Mr. Binder wrote a reply claiming that they had more than 150 peer-reviewed studies in their Port Hope Synthesis Report which proved that “there was no danger to radioactivity in Port Hope”. Who besides those of us who have read the Synthesis report know that there are only 120 references and that, of these, less than 50 are studies, none of which are “peer-reviewed”?

When the Merchants of Doubt get such publicity, how can truth prevail?

George "Must-be-Bought"

George “Must-be-bought”

On March 14, George wrote “as long as the following four conditions are met, I will no longer oppose atomic energy.

“Its total emissions – from mine to dump – are taken into account, and demonstrate that it is a genuinely low-carbon option.

“We know exactly how and where the waste is to be buried.

“We know how much this will cost and who will pay.

“There is a legal guarantee that no civil nuclear materials will be diverted for military purposes.”

None of these requirements have been met yet on March 21^st, George was unequivocably convinced that nuclear power would save the world from global warming.

The nuclear industry has huge pockets – Cameco gave a million dollars to the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations (FSIN) allegedly on the sole condition that they make no statements in opposition to uranium mining. The FSIN did not need to support mining, it merely had to quit squeaking about such little things like environmental assessments, potential water pollution, and loss of traditional land use.

Total emissions – from mine to dump – are not “green” but estimates of the full cycle are much lower than coal or gasoline, closer to that of natural gas as a source of electricity. Hydroelectric, wind and solar outrank nuclear power. And conservation would cut needs and use by a whopping 25 to 40%! Even if it were a long term viable choice for the environment, it takes an estimated 10 years before one plant can go into production and we would need to be building more than 400 NOW to tackle global warming.

There are better cheaper more environmentally friendly choices.

As for George's other assertions, nothing comes close. The natty little problem of waste disposal remains, no one knows how much decommissioning or waste disposal will cost and, of course, while there is a legal guarantee that civil materials won't be diverted, there are no means of enforcing it.

There is absolutely no reason for George to have changed his tune except that he was bought. His credibility is seriously undermined.

Osama bin Laden

Osama bin Laden

We received the news of his death on May 2nd as we were preparing to leave Iraq. No matter which language of the t-v channel, news of Osama bin Laden's death was the headline. People celebrating in streets, politicians frantically positioning themselves, Obama declaring it a “great victory” for the United States – a tiresome litany.

Hmm.

Who was Osama? Was he, in fact, the leader of al-Qaeda? Did he order the destruction of the twin towers where 2500 civilians were killed? Is al-Qaeda a centralized organization or a loosely knit of collection of men who espouse a brutal Islamic fundamentalist jihad on the West?

Whoever he was, he was summarily executed by US hit-men. Do we believe in justice, the court of law and the opportunity to open a crime to “the facts”?

Ah. That is exactly what the United States, and others who manufacture and supply the world with guns and ammunition, do not want. The release of Saddam Hussein to his executors before hearing him on the witness stand, before hearing about those who supplied the means by which he betrayed his own people and about undercover agents who played roles in, and supplied weapons for, wars with Kuwait and Iran is highly suggestive of a trend to muzzling inquiry.

What could Osama have told us? Would we have learned why his family was spirited out of the US after 9/11 when almost every other plane on continental USA had been grounded? Perhaps we might have learned more about his actual role in the 9/11 incident – still believed by many academicians to have internal US involvement just as did the Gulf of Tonkin incident. A legal process would have served to demystify him, debunk his cause and undermine the brainwashing of his followers. An opportunity lost. As we were leaving Iraq, echoes of his elevation to sainthood was already occurring. We can expect the “blow-back” to be extensive.

It was an extra-judicial killing, outside due process of law, carried out unitlaterally by agents of one country (as far as we know). Sadly, the media is now hailing vengeance as an instrument of justice.

Motherhood's silent scourge, Globe and Mail, 14.4.11

While governments ignor them 2.6 million babies and 400,000 women die annually. Since “the problem exists largely where there is rampant poverty, no education and poor housing”, there is a solution.

Poverty must be reduced. In the face of the human and economical costs of these deaths – to say nothing about environmental, emotional and spiritual costs – every political party should have plans to reduce poverty. Not pie in the sky plans – evidence based plans.

Some Poverty reduction steps:

1. Tough on Crime = Getting rid of crime.

While I feel like drawing and quartering a rapist or pulling a child killer apart slowly on the “rack”, I have to good sense to realize that these methods have been tried and do not decrease the occurrence of those crimes.

What does work?

While there will be sociopaths for whom there can be no trust and psychopaths who can never be safely medicated, the vast majority of rapists and killers perform their crime spontaneously, heedlessly and often under the influence of drugs or alcohol. The vast majority have mental health problems, have been abused themselves, and come from poor backgrounds. Studies of Canadian inmates indicates that almost half should be in a treatment facility, not a jail. Recidivism is more likely to occur amongst the unemployed and uneducated prisoners.

Sweden has been experimenting with entirely different jail incarceration - prisoners are sent to a facility which is a cross between a college, a spa and an army boot camp. Result? A recidivism rate of less than 15%!

Treatment instead of incarceration doesn't mean the the prisoner is in the community. The whole point of being a prisoner means that movement and activities are restricted.

Action: Decreasing recidivism – which means decreasing crime – should be the goal of the criminal justice system. Build more rehabilitation and educational programs for criminals.

2. Education:

Early childhood development programs, adult literacy programs, grade X equivalency, and college preparation courses are either underfunded or not funded at all. Most European countries fund post-secondary education. Canada increases tuition fees.

Does education make a difference to poverty? Of course it does.

Action: Increase investment in education at all levels.

3. Housing.

Government, municipal or reserve-funded houses always have slipshod construction, paper-thick interior walls and thin-skinned exterior walls. They are always drafty. Is “always” too strong a word? As an itinerant physician in Northern communities in Saskatchewan, and across the sub-Arctic, and having friends who live in subsidized housing, “always” is what I've seen.

It would marginally increase the cost and greatly increase the energy efficiency if skilled workers and experienced building contractors constructed quality housing which, in turn, would decrease the incidence of discomfort and disease. Decreasing disease and disability decreases health care costs. Decreasing disease and disability also increases the ability to attend school and get an education.

Action: Build better houses. Create a national housing plan.

4. Tax.

While we do need an entirely different economic system because this one is failing – has done so once and is back on the same trajectory – an intelligent step could be taken right now. The passing of a bill by the Canadian government to institute a “Tobin Tax”, a tax on the cash accrued by “flipping” currency, occurred on March 24, 1999 but was never enacted. This is a form of institutional gambling for which we all pay. Since the vast majority of Canadian citizens stand to benefit from this tax, there should be no problem ratifying the bill.

Action: Enact the Tobin tax. Increase the government's coffers!

5. Military.

The Canadian military is the most costly of all government programs, delivers the least benefit to the tax-payers and spends its money badly.

Most Canadians want a cadre of well-trained young people with good equipment who can respond international and national emergencies. Most Canadians also want peace-keepers and even the hawks are uncomfortable with the current schizophrenic military mandate. We have ample evidence that violent conflict resolution does not bring peace or stability. Besides loss of life, it is environmentally unsound and wastes an inordinate amount of petroleum producing a gargantuan carbon footprint.

What would a peace-keeping military look like?

The airforce would have pilots and planes and helicopters that can search, rescue and operate under extremely inclement conditions. It should have large transport planes for troops, equipment, housing and hospitals and highly maneuvrable transport helicopters capable also of carrying large numbers of people.

The navy would also have reinforced and stable ships for personel and equipment. It would have ice-breakers and should have aircraft carriers for search and rescue and surveillance planes and helicopters. It would have research submarines.

The army should be capable of digging a major city out from a blizzard, locating people during an ice storm and searching for children and others lost in wildernesses. Its personnel would be well-equipped with skills and discipline in mediation and nonviolent action. They should be physically fit, mentally stable, mobile, and probably young.

For all the armed services, a personnel plan should be developed so that replacement officers have trained for a peace keeping militia. A wide open communications network would end secrecy and promote timely informative dialogue among personel. Any new government-provided housing would be energy efficient. Health care for personnel and their families should be paramount. They should receive appropriate exit interviews, special access to educational opportunities after a specified length of service, and continued access to counseling and family services. Did I mention pension plan?

Action: Immediately start meeting the needs of the veterans and their families. Tackle the change from attack mode to life-saving mode one item at a time through spending choices. Increase the role of such trainers as those who teach in the Department of Peace and Conflict Studies at Kingston and the many others who work in non-violent conflict action.

Will this Action Plan provide enough money for the programs that are needed to change rising poverty levels to decreasing poverty levels? By reversing the slide into poverty, the federal budget would reap the benefit of reduced crime rates, more jobs and more people to pay taxes. An ascending cycle of prosperity!

Final result: Less mothers dying in childbirth, less babies dying as newborns and a lower incidence of stillbirths. A happier world.

Galileo and Nuclear Power: fact and fiction

In 1610, Galileo Galilei joined Copernicus in describing the sun as centre of the solar system. By 1616, he was called to the Inquisition and was forced to recant. Fortunately for us, his denial did not change the facts.

Today the same situation exists between the nuclear industry and the facts of its radioactive legacy.

The nuclear industry insists that low levels of radiation are not harmful to human health. Physicians know better. And so does most of the public. Background natural radiation is dangerous – eg. radon in basements and cosmic rays from the sun.

The US National Research Council came to the conclusion in 2008, after five previous reports, that “current scientific evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that there is a linear, no-threshold dose-response relationship between exposure to ionizing radiation and the development of cancer in humans.(1)” In lay terms, this means that there is no dose that is completely safe, just different levels of risk.

There has been more than enough evidence linking radiation and effects on health.

In 1954, the US dropped a bomb on the Bikini Atoll irradiating some of the Marshall Islanders and more than 7000 square miles of Pacific ocean. The United States funded a Nuclear Claims Tribunal which recognizes thirty-six conditions for which citizens can be compensated. Most of the conditions are cancer but mental retardation is included(2).

In 1985, the UK government established the Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment (COMARE) to respond to anecdotal reports of higher rates of childhood leukemia near the nuclear installation at Sellafield. The authors note a “serious excess of childhood cancer might be related to radioactive emissions from the nuclear facilities” but concluded that the emissions measured at the facilities were too small to explain this finding(3).

In 2008, the Germans concluded a study that provided compelling evidence of an unequivocal positive relationship between a child’s risk of leukemia, and residential proximity to a nuclear power plant. The authors state that these findings are compelling, that the elevated risk does indeed exist and that it is related to the nuclear facilities. Then they concluded that “the reason for the elevated risk is unexplained, as the levels of radioactive emissions from these facilities are considered too low to explain the increase in childhood leukemia”(4).

It should be noted that in neither the COMARE study nor the German study did the researchers claim that there was no connection between the power plants and the effect upon health.

Closer to home, the Port Hope Synopsis report by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission includes a study(5) which makes the following statements: “there was an excess of childhood cancer deaths”, "lung cancer mortality was of interest because of the increased incidence observed amongst women" and "increased mortality from circulatory disease, including ischaemic heart disease, cerebrovascular disease and disease of arteries". None of the increases were statistically significant. The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission states that there was no ill effects of the radioactivity in Port Hope. Researchers would conclude that “more research is needed”.

Where are the voices of physicians? In December 1998, International Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War adopted a Swiss proposal in opposition to nuclear power(6). Their affiliates, Physicians for Global Survival (Canada), and Physicians for Social Responsibility (US) eventually followed. In 1982, reconfirmed in 2004, the Canadian Medical Association's position is that: “there is at present no conclusive evidence of a measurable increase, in the long or short term, of adverse effects due specifically to radiation in populations thus exposed”.


Just as the Church defended its long held belief that the sun circled the earth against scientific evidence, so the nuclear industry defends the myth that it is clean green and safe for human consumption. It's time for the CMA to reconsider. Or keep defending fiction.

Radiation exposure: comparing apples and oranges

No danger to health.....

The latest group to join the chorus reassuring the public that the amount of radiation reaching North America from Fukushima are aviation organizations. They claim that inincreased amount of radiation is no greater than the amount that a person would receive when flying across the continent! This is like comparing apples to oranges!

The average Canadian is regularly exposed to 1.7 to 3.0 mSv of radiation per year and mostly doesn't get cancer. However, some people do get cancer from "normal" exposure to radiation. Roughly 20% of lung cancer is caused by entirely natural exposure to radioactive radon and an estimated 20% of leukemias are from "normal" background radiation. Certainly almost everyone knows that increasing exposure to cosmic rays from the sun also increases the incidence of skin cancers. Still, the number of people who get cancer is low compared to the hundreds of thousands who don't.

Through studies done on airline pilots, there is evidence that the greater the number of air miles traveled, the greater the chances of developing cancer!

The difference, which is egregious, is that the traveler or the sunbather makes a choice to expose him- or herself to greater risks; his exposure doesn't affect his neighbour who doesn't travel or sunbathe. In the case of radioactivity released from a nuclear power plant accidentally or intentionally (as Pickering does regularly), the population has both no knowledge of the risk and no choice in the matter of exposure.

The other difference is that exposure to cosmic rays is limited to the actual time that the traveler is in the air. The effects may linger but the radiation does not. The radioactive particle of iodine, cesium or any of the 48 other potential emissions absorbed through eating or breathing is not limited to the moment of exposure. The particle is the "gift that keeps on giving" releasing radioactivity until all its atoms have decayed to their stable non-radioactive end product.

Certainly aviation organizations know the difference between apples and oranges! It is ingenious if not a little dishonest.