Send this to ALL the Republicans and others who are dedicated to the deregulation of a Wall Street gone mad, whose rancid behavior has taken your 401Ks, your homes and in so many cases your jobs. Read up on it by reading Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone Magazine, see the documentary Inside Job, read others who explain in detail what they did in language you can understand. See how these new robber barons have destroyed millions of lives and bought off Congress and then ACT. Get these miserable swine OUT of office, get them OUT of state houses, get them OUT of governors' mansions, and get them OUT of Congress and most especially OUT of the White House too or make the one who occupies the oval office know that your vote cannot be bought with lies! AND regulate Wall Street to within an inch of its life separating investment banks from savings banks and by reintroducing Glass Steagall. If you do not know what Glass Steagall is LOOK IT UP on Wikipedia.and by eliminating bonuses of bailed out banks!
Occupy Wall Street, now, tomorrow and forever and NEVER let what happened in 2008 the Greatest Recession/Depression EVER happen again!
Scroll down, read Ralph Nader's brilliant message and then pass this along to whomever you think needs to read it!
-----Original Message-----
From: Ralph Nader
To: alerts
Sent: Mon, Oct 3, 2011 3:13 pm
Subject: corrected column
Masters of the repeated lying sound byte, the craven Congressional Republicans
are feasting on the health and safety of the American people with gleeful greed
while making the corporate and trade association media swoon. “Job-killing
regulations,” exudes daily from the mouths of Speak John Boehner, his Wall
Street-licking side-kick Eric Cantor and Senate minority leader, Mitch
McConnell.
Then all the way down the line, the Republicans are on cue bellowing
“job-killing regulations” must be revoked or stopped aborning over at OSHA
(protecting workers), EPA (protecting clean air and water), FDA (safer drugs and
food), and NHTSA (making your vehicle safer). Imagine how much more civil
servants could do to accomplish the statutory missions of their respective
agencies if they could get the Republicans and their corporate pay masters off
their backs.
These same Republicans get in their cars with their children and put on their
seat belts. Out of sight are the air bags ready to deprive them of their freedom
to go through the windshield in a crash. Who makes those seat belts and air
bags? Workers in the USA.
The jobs these regulations may be “killing” are those that would have swelled
the funeral industry, or some jobs in the healthcare and disability-care
industry. On the other hand, by not being injured, workers stay on the job and
do not drain the workers’ compensation funds or hamper the operations of their
employer.
About twenty years ago, Professor Nicholas Ashford of MIT came to Washington and
testified before Congress in great detail about how and where safety regulations
create jobs and make the economy more efficient in avoiding the costs of
preventable injuries and disease. He received a respectful hearing from members
of the Committee. It is doubtful whether Messers Boehner, Cantor, McConnell and
Dr. Coburn (Senator from Oklahoma) are reading Professor Ashford these days, who
just co-authored a book with Ralph P. Hall called Technology, Globalization, and
Sustainable Development.
The corporatist Republicans’ minds are made up; don’t bother them with the
facts. But we must keep trying to dissolve the Big Lie.
In 2009 Professor David Hemenway published a stirring book titled While You Were
Sleeping: Success Stories in Injury and Violence Prevention which in clear
language described the success stories of people, often with the support of a
past, more enlightened Congress, made lives safer and healthier in the U.S. Yes,
life-saving, injury-preventing, disease-stopping regulations resulting in
life-sustaining technology produced by American industry and workers.
Wake up Democrats. Learn the political art of truthful repetition to counter the
cruelest Republicans who ever crawled up Capitol Hill. You’ve got massive,
documented materials to put the Lie to the Republicans.
President Obama should set an example. For instance, on September 2, 2011
President Obama fell for the regulation costs jobs lie. He said: “[I] have
continued to underscore the importance of reducing regulatory burdens and
regulatory uncertainty, particularly as our economy continues to recover."
Pete Altman, from the Natural Resources Defense Council wrote:
"In reversing his Administration’s previously strong support for ozone
regulations to protect the health of American children, President Obama (in the
words of one observer): “drank the conservative Kool-Aid, and agreed that
tightening ozone emission rules would have cost billions and hurt the economy.
But clean air is very popular politically, and the EPA's own studies show that a
tighter standard could have created $17 billion in economic benefits.”
Earlier this month, Public Citizen issued a report about five regulations that
spurred innovation and a higher quality of economic growth. As one of the
authors Negah Mouzoon wrote, "when federal agencies implement rules for
efficiency, worker safety, or public health and welfare, companies need to
reformulate their products and services to comply. And so begins good ol’
American competition. To comply with federal standards, companies need to invest
in research and development, which often yields to new products and systems that
both solve public policy problems and, often, boost business. The result? A
brighter idea emerges."
It is important to note that such regulations give companies lengthy lead times
to comply and, under the daily sandpapering of corporate lobbyists, regulations
issued lose much of their early industry-controlling reach.
Here are the report’s five innovation-spurring products or processes that at
their outset encountered significant industry resistance and inflated estimates
of complying with the regulations. Before that is, the companies came to their
senses, responded and found that such changes were not just good for the people
but for their own bottom line.
1. Protecting workers from poisonous vinyl chloride.
2. Reducing sulfur dioxide emissions.
3. Preventing ozone-layer-destroying CFC emissions from aerosols.
4. Improving the energy efficiency of home appliances.
5. Utilizing energy-efficient light bulbs.
For the full report go to http://www.citizen.org/regulation-innovation.
Maybe some “kids”—between the ages of 10 and 12 – having learned from their
parents the importance of telling the truth, can start a Kiddy Corps for a
Truthful Congress drawn from the Internet-savvy children all over the U.S. What
a wonderful expression of grassroots truth-telling directed toward the Great
Prevaricators on Capitol Hill. Yes –job-producing, life-saving,
economy-stimulating, innovation-producing regulations for a more secure future
for our children.
Interested parents may contact us at info@csrl.org.
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