29 results for author: Denele Campbell


WHEN MACHINES REPLACE WORKERS

(Denele Campbell blogs from Arkansas. You can read more at www.denelecampbell.com) On March 11, 1811, hand loom weavers (the Luddites) swarmed the streets of Arnold, Nottingham in the dark of night. They broke into textile factories equipped with the latest technologies, smashed pieces of factory equipment and burned the mills. Over the next five years, the movement spread throughout England. Industrialists invested in safe rooms inside their factories to protect themselves from attack. The movement died in its tracks when the government stepped in with mass trials, with over thirty men ultimately executed or transported to penal colonies in ...

ON LEGALIZING DRUGS

(You can read more of Denele’s writing at www.denelecampbell.org) Americans must confront the reality that we are the market,” Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said this past Thursday. “We Americans must own this problem.”[1] Meeting with his Mexican counterpart, Tillerson acknowledged the role of American drug consumption in the proliferation of violent Mexican drug cartels. Citing the enormous demand for heroin, cocaine, and marijuana by Americans eager to get high, he argued that “drug trafficking had to be addressed as a ‘business model,” attacking cash flow, gun procurement, production and distribution.’” Oh, please. ...

WHERE ARE THE FRESH DEMOCRATS?

(Denele blogs from Arkansas. You can read more at www.denelecampbell.org.) If the Democratic Party wants to regain their proper place in American politics, that is, as the progressive, common man’s party, they have to move away from the faces and voices that have become tired and futile. They’ll also have to step up their game. Before the Democrats assembled to vote for their national leadership earlier this year, I sent an email to the head of the Democratic Party of Arkansas. I voiced my concern about a potential leadership win by Tom Perez or Keith Ellison. I urged the party to start a clean slate by bringing the relative newcomer, Pete ...

HIS FIGHT, OUR FIGHT

(Denele blogs from Arkansas. You can read more at DeneleCampbell.org.) According to the brief description that accompanied this photo that crossed my Facebook timeline the other day, the funeral of Pretty Boy Floyd drew the largest attendance of any such event in Oklahoma history. The image gives me goosebumps, almost puts a lump in my throat. It’s not the coffin—I can’t even discern where it is. It’s the people, backs straight, their attention focused entirely on the dead man. On what he represented. My dad sometimes talked about Pretty Boy Floyd although at the time of Floyd’s death, my dad was only seventeen. For him, like so ...

PART ll ….CHEMICALS AND AUTISM

(Denele Campbell blogs from Arkansas.) Despite compelling and well-documented scientific studies showing the strong link between certain chemicals and a slate of neurodevelopmental disabilities including autism, the EPA has for decades postponed any meaningful action to more strictly regulate (or ban) the culprits. In a recent publication, scientists stated: In 2006, we did a systematic review and identified five industrial chemicals as developmental neurotoxicants: lead, methylmercury, polychlorinated biphenyls, arsenic, and toluene. Since 2006, epidemiological studies have documented six additional developmental neurotoxicants—manganese, ...

MEDICAID AND THE CHEMICAL INDUSTRY

Denele Campbell blogs from Arkansas. You can read more of her work at www.denelecampbell.org As of 2002, the majority of Medicaid beneficiaries (54%) were children under the age of six years. Contrary to the popular myth of aging slackers, drug addicts, and welfare queens sucking at the national teat, this majority of Medicaid provides healthcare to children and adolescents with limitation of activity due to chronic health conditions. Their numbers quadrupled from two percent in 1960 to over eight percent in 2012. This increase parallels the growth in manufacture and use of agricultural chemicals. One of the fastest growing patient groups ...

YES, GET OVER IT…..CONSTRUCTIVELY

(Denele Campbell blogs from Artkansas.) Yesterday I attended a town hall meeting sponsored by Rep. Steve Womack (Republican) of our 3rd Congressional District (Northwest Arkansas). The room would comfortably hold thirty people. Over 200 showed up. With the hallways and doorways and standing room thronged, half the people ended up standing outside in the parking lot for the 1.5 hour event. Womack could have taken charge of the situation by reconvening five blocks away in the much larger community center. He chose not to do so. He could have opened the meeting by immediately taking questions, but instead he spent at least twenty minutes talking ...

A SWORD CUTS BOTH WAYS

For decades, the religious right has gained access to tax dollars by filling a niche in the education system. In addressing an ‘at risk’ population among children, these religious activists have made great strides toward the use of tax dollars for religious instruction. It’s a clever end-run around the law. In Arkansas until 2012, a quietly growing swarm of such preschools illegally utilized millions of tax dollars for programs that began each day with prayer and Bible study. (Which they have never been required to pay back.) Classroom activities included coloring images of Biblical scenes, singing hymns, and the occasional time-out at the ...

Another War With The Indians

What about the current stand-off in North Dakota over an oil pipeline? According to an Associated Press report, "the $3.8 billion, 1,172-mile project would carry nearly a half-million barrels of crude oil daily from North Dakota's oil fields through South Dakota and Iowa to an existing pipeline in Patoka, Illinois, where shippers can access Midwest and Gulf Coast markets. Announced in 2014, supporters said the pipeline would create more markets and reduce truck and oil train traffic — the latter of which has been a growing concern after a spate of fiery derailments of trains carrying North Dakota crude. "The Standing Rock Sioux's lawsuit ...