This article by Rebekah Wilce is re-posted from PRWatch.
Remember “fecal soup”? A CBS “60 Minutes” exposé in 1987 documented widespread food safety violations by the poultry industry, making use of undercover video from a hidden camera placed by the “60 Minutes” crew. The episode vindicated U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) whistleblower Hobart Bartley, who had been ignored and threatened by his superiors and finally transferred to another plant when he warned of unsanitary conditions at a Simmons Industries plant in Missouri. Bartley was particularly irate about the “eight-foot-high vat of water called the ‘chiller,’ where as many as 10,000 chicken carcasses were routinely left to float, soaking up moisture to increase their selling weight. Dried blood, feces, and hair were floating in along with the dead birds. Diane Sawyer later called it ‘fecal soup.'”
In the modern era, effective enforcement of food safety and the humane treatment of animals has long relied on undercover video investigations by reporters and citizens. The footage and images gained can serve as proof of criminal wrongdoing or lay ugly practices bare. Such images can vindicate whistleblowers who otherwise risk retaliation when speaking up. Now this practice, which has time and time again exposed hidden dangers — including downer cows linked to Mad Cow disease in the food supply — is under threat by a series of state bills dubbed “ag gag” bills.
Recent Ag Gag Law in Florida, Followed by 17 Others in Two Years
In 2011, a 21 million egg-a-year Florida producer, Wilton Simpson of Simpson Farms, requested a bill from then-state Florida Senator Jim Norman.
At Simpson’s behest, in February 2011 Norman introduced a bill to the Florida Senate that would make photography “at or of a farm” a first-degree felony. SB1246, the “Farms” bill, and copycat bills in Minnesota and Iowa would later be called “ag gag” bills by the New York Times‘ Mark Bittman.
Simpson and the Florida Farm Bureau wanted to “deter animal-rights activists from obtaining imagery used to harm the industry,” according to The Florida Independent, but the bill as written would have applied to anyone, including journalists. The bill died in committee in 2012.
But while Florida’s bill did not pass, similar “ag gag” bills were introduced in Iowa, Minnesota, and New York in 2011. A modified bill passed in Iowa in March 2012. The bill’s proponents in the Iowa state legislature were heavily funded by corporate agribusiness interests.
2012 saw the introduction of similar bills in six more states. “Ag gag” became law in Utah, and a modified version was signed into law in Missouri. Nine “ag gag” bills have been introduced so far in 2013: in New Hampshire, Wyoming, Nebraska, Indiana, Arkansas, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Tennessee, and New Mexico. (See the Center for Media and Democracy’s article on SourceWatch for more.)
New Tactic Devised to Make Bills Legal
In its original form, the “ag gag” bill was a blatant violation of the First Amendment right to freedom of speech and expression and would have quashed the right of independent investigators to document the truth. So legislators in Iowa and Utah changed the bills to make lying on employment applications a crime. Now factory farms and slaughterhouses can screen out reporters and other investigators by asking on job applications, “Are you affiliated with a news organization, labor union, or animal protection group?”
A former Humane Society investigator, Cody Carlson, wrote in The Atlantic, “Two years ago, I had to answer a similar question when I applied to work at the nation’s second biggest egg producer, located in Thompson, Iowa. If the Ag Gag law had been in effect then, I might be writing this article from a cell.” The same would have been true for a New York Times or Chicago Tribune investigative reporter.
Instead, Carlson was able to work undercover at four Iowa egg farms in the winter of 2010 and expose abuses such as manure pits not cleaned or maintained in multiple years, and laying hens with unnoticed and untreated prolapsed uteruses.
Carlson wrote, “A few months later, Iowa’s egg farms were in the news again when nearly identical conditions were found at several other locations, this time by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The farms were at the center of a massive salmonella outbreak that caused the biggest egg recall in United States history.”
March of Bills Have Roots in ALEC
The ideological ancestor of these bills is a 2002 “model” bill called the “Animal and Ecological Terrorism Act” (AETA) pushed by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the corporate bill mill responsible for spreading 2011’s spate of “voter ID” laws and the NRA-drafted “Stand your Ground” law, as Green is the New Red author Will Potter points out.
AETA broadly prohibits various kinds of “obstruction” of “an animal or natural resource activity,” including by damage or destruction, trespassing, as well as “entering an animal or research facility to take pictures by photograph, video camera, or other means with the intent to commit criminal activities or defame the facility or its owner.”
The newer “ag gag” bills focus more exclusively on “prohibiting a person from entering onto a farm or photographing or video recording a farm without the owner’s written consent” (from Florida’s 2011 bill).
ALEC approved AETA and started pushing it both in the states and at the federal level in January 2004, with its publication of the propaganda pamphlet “Animal & Ecological Terrorism in America.” According to a text comparison performed by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), the ALEC bill appears to be based on a 1990 Kansas bill called the “Farm Animal and Field Crop and Research Facilities Protection Act.”
After ALEC started pushing the bill, it was introduced in Tennessee in 2006, but died in committee; a limited version was passed in California in 2008; and a nearly identical bill was introduced in Washington State in 2010 (see CMD’s text comparison here), but died in committee.
As the New York Times‘ Mark Bittman commented in the first wave of bill introductions two years ago, “The biggest problem of all is that we’ve created a system in which standard factory-farming practices are inhumane, and the kinds of abuses documented [by the investigations criminalized by the bills] are really just reminders of that.”
The path between Washington’s 2010 bill and Florida’s 2011 bill is not clear, but it is clear that the intended result is the same. “Ag gag” bills seek to prevent the documentation and exposure of safety violations and atrocities in animal industries by criminalizing them and labeling them “obstruction.” In other words, turn off the tape and bury the evidence rather than reforming the system.
National Call-In Day on Comprehensive Immigration Reform
There are several West Michigan groups participating in the National Call-In Days for Immigration Reform.
Groups like the West Michigan Immigration Coalition, the Micah Center and AIR-MOP are all encouraging people to call their Senators no later that Thursday afternoon and ask them to support Comprehensive Immigration Reform.
The Call-In is part of a larger campaign to pressure Congress to support Comprehensive Immigration Reform, which also include delegations to meet with members of Congress and the March on Washington that is being planned for April 10.
This video is re-posted from ZNet.
In this video interview Noam Chomsky talks to TJ Armand about the mixed legacy of Hugo Chavez, freedom of speech violations in Turkey and religious fundamentalism in the US.
Chomsky also addresses questions around the Tea Party, Civil Liberties under the Obama administration and the issue of gay marriage in the U.S. On the matter of gay marriage in the US, Chomsky says that it’s not a class issue and that those in the corporate world could care less about it, since it doesn’t challenge power.
Students plan on Demanding that GVSU Make Adidas Pay $1.8 Million to Indonesian Workers
Last month we reported that a new chapter of United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) had formed at GVSU.
In February, GVSU students hosted 2 speakers from Indonesia who were on tour with USAS, talking about the campaign against footwear giant Adidas.
On Tuesday, March 19, students from United Students Against Sweatshops at Grand Valley State University, will be meeting with the vice president to demand the school take action against Adidas, who has refused to pay their Indonesian factory workers $1.8 million they are legally owed for making college-logo apparel. They will join students at more than 30 universities throughout the U.S. in a national day of action to demand that universities hold brands like Adidas responsible for worsening sweatshop abuse.
According to the GVSU United Students Against Sweatshops:
2,800 workers from the now-shuttered PT Kizone factory sewed Adidas products for $0.60 an hour, and were intially left without their US$3.3 million in legally-owed severance pay when the factory closed in April 2011. While other buyers have paid a portion of the severance, Adidas is the only major buyer that has refused to contribute a single penny. As a result former workers have had to withdraw their children from school and are barely able to afford two meals a day for their families.
In Sept 2012, Cornell University announced its decision to terminate its eight-year contract with Adidas effective October 1st, becoming the first U.S. University in history to terminate an agreement with the apparel giant over labor rights abuses. Oberlin College recently followed suit and became the second school to sever ties with the company.
“Part of our schools mission statement is “Grand Valley State University educates students to shape their lives, their professions, and their societies” we now have the chance to shape our society by showing Adidas we will not stand for oppression of fellow human beings. Grand Valley has the chance to show the rest of the world that we are a leader in social responsibility,” said Lindsey Disler, one of the GVSU USAS organizers.
In addition to the unresolved violations at PT Kizone, USAS student leaders have received reports from Central American and Caribbean workers about deteriorating conditions at Adidas supplier factories, including stories of anti-union threats at several factories owned by Gildan Activewear, which recently became Adidas’ largest supplier in the Western Hemisphere. Adidas’ behavior at PT Kizone is part of a much larger pattern of abusing workers rights. Students across the country are ready to take action when new Adidas violations come to light.
The GVSU chapter of USAS welcomes people from the community to join them next Tuesday for the action in support of labor rights around the world.
I Think I’m Emma Goldman
This video by subMedia is re-posted from dissident voice.
I have not rocked out a mash-up in quite some time, and I forget how much I enjoy it. This one is for a new track by anarcho-rapper MC SOLE with beats by DJ Pain 1 in an homage to the legendary american anarcho-feminist Emma Goldman.
Nationally renown activist, LaDonna Redmond, to lead OKT’s April 27 Convening on food justice
LaDonna Redmond is at the forefront of the food justice movement. She currently leads an Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) project that focuses on health, justice and the food system. The project centers on health disparities resulting from the food system, from the farm to consumers—particularly as they affect low‐income populations and communities of color. It also entails creating universal Food Justice Principles. Our Kitchen Table, managers of the Southeast Area Farmers’ Market, attended IATP’s Food + Justice =Democracy conference September 2012 and took part in the co‐creation of these food justice principles.
As a next step, local collective gatherings across the nation are reviewing the draft principles.Redmond will lead part 4 of the Grand Rapids area Convening, hosted by OKT, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday April 27 at Madison Square Church, 1441 Madison SE.
A speaker, radio host and former Food and Society Policy Fellow, Redmond was one of 25 citizen and business leaders named a Responsibility Pioneer by Time Magazine. She successfully worked to get Chicago Public Schools to evaluate junk food, launched urban agriculture projects, started a community grocery store and worked on federal farm policy to expand access to healthy food in low‐income communities.
“We have a food system that has largely been built on the backs of people who don’t have a lot of rights and access to our public policy infrastructure,” said Redmond. “We need to collectively better understand the inequities in the food system and make sure we include people who have faced these inequities in finding solutions.”
Here is a video of Redmond presenting at TEDxTC
This article by Steve Horn is re-posted from CounterPunch.
On March 1, the U.S. State Department published its long-awaited Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on the TransCanada Keystone XL (KXL) tar sands pipeline.
The KXL is slated to bring tar sands crude – also known as diluted bitumen or “dilbit” – from Alberta, Canada to Port Arthur, TX. From Port Arthur, it will be refined andexported to the global market.
Flying in the face of the slew of scientific studies both on the harms of burning tar sands andon the KXL itself, State determined that laying down the pipeline is environmentally sound.
Unmentioned by State: the study was contracted out to firms with tar sands extraction clientele, as revealed by InsideClimate News.
“EnSys Energy has worked with ExxonMobil, BP and Koch Industries, which own oil sands production facilities and refineries in the Midwest that process heavy Canadian crude oil. Imperial Oil, one of Canada’s largest oil sands producers, is a subsidiary of Exxon,” InsideClimate News explained. “ICF International works with pipeline and oil companies but doesn’t list specific clients on its website.”
Writing for Grist, Brad Johnson also revealed the name of a third contractor – Environmental Resources Management (ERM) Group – which TransCanada hired on behalf of the State Department to do the EIS.
“(ERM) was paid an undisclosed amount under contract to TransCanada to write the statement, which is now an official government document,” Johnson explained. “The statement estimates, and then dismisses, the pipeline’s massive carbon footprint and other environmental impacts, because, it asserts, the mining and burning of the tar sands is unstoppable.”
ERM, a probe into the University of California-San Francisco (UCSF) Tobacco Archives reveals, has deep historical ties to Big Tobacco. Further, a key employee at ICF International – via familial ties – is tied to the future of whether hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) for shale oil and gas becomes a reality in New York’s portion of the Marcellus Shale.
TransCanada Utilizes Tobacco Playbook in Hiring ERM Group
ERM Group – headquarted in the City of London – a square mile sub-section of Londoninfamous for its role in serving as a tax shelter for multinational corporations – has aided the tobacco industry in pushing the “Tobacco Playbook.”
Many fossil fuel industry public relations flacks learned the tactics of mass manipulation by reading the “tobacco playbook,” meticulously documented in Naomi Oreskes’ and Erik Conway’s classic book, “Merchants of Doubt.”
“Doubt is our product,” a tobacco industry document once laid out the playbook, “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.”
ERM has done studies on behalf of both R.J. Reynolds and Philip Morris, penning a report titled “Fundamentals of Environmental Management” for the latter.
It was also a former member of the American Tort Reform Association, a group that fights to limit the tort law rights of citizens to sue for damages inflicted upon them by corporations and featured in the documentary film, “Hot Coffee.”
ERM: In-Service to Big Oil, like Big Tobacco
In the 2000 version of its website, ERM referred to climate change advocates as having an “agenda.”
“[T]he gloabl (sic) climate change agenda has very specific implications for the oil and gas industry, and factoring CO2 emissions into operations is a key concern,” read ERM’s website at the time.
The firm has also boasted of doing its studies in service to the oil and gas industry’s bottom lines.
“ERM works around the world with the private sector assessing how their business is likely to be impacted by environmental and social issues, new regulations, consumer concerns, and supply chain issues and help companies develop appropriate policies and management systems to manage these business risks,” its website proclaimed in 2000.
This all sits, of course, in juxtaposition to the needs of the decaying ecosystem andincreasingly severe and horrifying climate crisis.
The ICF/New York Fracking Decision Connection
ICF Consulting is a thread tying the forthcoming fracking decision in New York by Democratic Party Gov. Andrew Cuomo to the Obama State Department decision on the Keystone XL.
Though ICF doesn’t list its clients on its website, its vice president Karl Hausker is the husband of Kathleen (“Katie”) McGinty, one of the members of the New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Hydraulic Fracturing Advisory Panel.
McGinty formerly served as Vice President Al Gore’s top climate aide under the Clinton Administration, segueing from that position into one as chair of the Clinton Council on Environmental Quality from 1993-1998. From 2003-2008, she served as head of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection under Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell, helping usher in the state’s ongoing fracking boom.
Named as a member of the industry-stacked Obama DOE fracking subcommittee in May 2011, McGinty now works as an Operating Partner alongside Rendell at Element Partners, a Philadelphia, PA-based firm that has capital investments in several firms operating in Pennsylvania’s portion of the Marcellus Shale. McGinty also serves on the Board of Directors of NRG Energy, an electricity-generating utilities corporation that owns natural gas-fired power plants around the U.S.
Tying it all together, Ernest Moniz is leaving his position on ICF’s Board and his professorship at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he was a major “frackademic,” to serve as head of the Obama DOE.
In chess, moves of this sort are known as “check” and “checkmate.”
The weeks and months ahead will demonstrate if the chess match is over with regards to the destiny of the Keystone XL pipeline and fracking in the Empire State.
Wealth Inequality in America
This video info-graphic is reposted from Portside.org.
This video presents a series of infographics on the distribution of wealth in America, highlighting both the inequality and the difference between our perception of inequality and the actual numbers. The reality is often not what we think it is.
While the information and graphics are very useful in visualizing the current wealth inequality in the US, some of the comments about redistribution are limiting. For instance, the video sort of dismisses the possibility of anything other than Capitalism, which is the reason why there is such inequality in America to begin with. The narrator points on the gap between CEO income and the average workers, and rightly criticizes it. However, such a disparity will not change until people organize at the workplace or start a revolution.
Violence, Brutality and Militarism in 2012 Films
This is the third is a series of four studies GRIID is conducting in our investigations into Hollywood films released in 2012. The first study looked at Gender Representation in films and the second one provides an analysis of Product Placement in films. Warning: Some of these images used in this report may be disturbing.
In this study we look at violence and militarism. While militarism and violence are often interconnected, we wanted to look at both the use of gratuitous violence in films and films that involved the US military. This investigation will be broken down into three sections: fantasy violence, gratuitous violence and militarism & violence. Some of the films fall under more than one category, which speaks to the pervasive nature of violence in almost any Hollywood genre. Of the 67 films we looked at in our overall 2012 film study, 35 films used either fantasy violence, gratuitous violence or military violence. The 35 films identified in this study are listed at the end.
Fantasy Violence & Killing
When looking at films where fantasy violence is a central part of the script, we understand that it is an inherent part of films that has heroes. It would be hard to produce a film with superheroes, where no violence or force was used.
Films that we identified as using fantasy violence are Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter, Battleship, Chronicle, Dredd, Hunger Games, John Carter, Looper, Lockout, Men in Black 3, Prometheus, Resident Evil: Retribution, Snow White and the Huntsman, The Amazing Spider Man, The Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises, The Hobbit, The Raven, Total Recall and Twilight Breaking Dawn 2.
Each of these films is based upon a super hero or heroes (Spiderman, The Avengers, Batman), a science fiction or futuristic reality (Dredd, John Carter, Prometheus), and some are based on fictional literature (The Raven, The Hobbit).
Again, it is hard to imagine such films without the use of violence or force, but some of these films used violence in ways that were more than just a battle between “good & evil.”
For instance, while the characters in The Avengers fought off an alien army, there is no gratuitous violence or excessive violence. We do not see lots of blood or viciousness in the depictions of violence.
However, with a film like The Raven, we do see more brutal displays of violence. The Raven is a story about a murderer who uses the stories of Edgar Allan Poe to kill his victims. In this film we see the murder of women and men in brutal ways, some which involved torture.
In a remake of the 1980s film Dredd, there are scenes involving rape, torture and mutilation, with both sides of the conflict engaging in brutality.
In some of the films in this category, the kill rate is rather high, so viewers will be subjected to the deaths of dozens or even a hundred people during the film. The film Resident Evil: Retribution is an example where the number of deaths is high, even if they are “zombies.” In one scene someone is even killed with a chainsaw. This is the kind of film that George Gerbner talked about in his research entitled The Killing Screens, where the increase in movie deaths has been occurring for decades, as movie goers have become numb to just a few killings per film.
Even fantasy films like Hunger Games and Twilight: Breaking Dawn 2 displayed scenes where people, mostly young people, are killed is brutal ways. These are films where the heroes generally present characteristics that we can identify with, but still use harsher forms of violence in the script in ways that may not seem necessary or enhancing of the main storyline.
Gratuitous Violence
Films that we identified in this category were Dredd, Lockout, Prometheus, Resident Evil: Retribution, The Raven, Cabin in the Woods, Chernobyl Diaries, Contraband, Hit and Run, House at the End of the Street, Lawless, Safe House, Savages, Taken 2, The Expendables 2 and The Man with the Iron Fist.
Some of these were already identified in the fantasy violence section, but are included here, since they involved scenes with harsh forms of murder, torture and rape.
In the film The Cabin in the Woods, several college students go off to a remote cabin, only to discover that they are part of a plan to sacrifice humans to appease certain gods. In one scene, a young woman is cut in half with a large bow saw and most of the college students end up being killed in horrible ways.
There are other young adult-themed films like Chernobyl Diaries and House at the End of the Street that also include some harsh violence, as does the Alien movies series prequel, Prometheus.
In Prometheus, there are numerous people who are killed, often brutally. In one scene, viewers see a man’s arm being broken by an alien, another one having his face melted off with acid and a scene where one of the scientists, who has been infected, is burned alive. Perhaps the most difficult scene to watch is when another scientist has to surgically remove an alien from her womb.
Then there are the films that feature gratuitous violence that are more true to life, in that they deal with street violence, violence at the hand of the law enforcement and political violence. These films would include Lockout, Contraband, Hit and Run, Lawless, Safe House, Savages, Taken 2, The Expendables 2 and The Man with the Iron Fist.
In the film Lockout, the pseudo-hero must rescue the President’s daughter from a prison in space, which has been taken over by the prisoners. Once they have taken control of the space prison, the former inmates engage in brutal violence against the guards and anyone who tries to stop them.
In the Oliver Stone film Savages, we witness brutal violence at the hands of a Mexican Drug Cartel, police and US drug dealers who seek revenge against the drug cartel. There are scenes of torture, mutilation and numerous brutal killings. And while the brutality of the Mexican drug war is real, one wonders why Stone decided to include so much violence in this film.
Another film with a significant amount of brutality is the movie Lawless. Lawless is a period film, which looks at a family involved in trafficking alcohol during prohibition in the US. The three male members of this family all engage in acts of violence, particularly gun violence. However, the FBI is also part of the plot, it also engages in brutal violence throughout the movie.
There is also a significant amount of violence in the movie Hit & Run, where a former bank robber, is being chased by his former bank robbing partners, along with the police officers.
While some of these movies depict some cops as corrupt (Savages and Premium Rush), most of the films normalize the violence necessary in police work. In fact, police violence is often not portrayed as violence, since it is “necessary” to protect the public good. Thus, police violence, which is institutional or structural violence is often overlooked in studies on media violence.
The films 21 Jump Street, Taken 2, Safe House, Contraband, Dredd, The Amazing Spiderman and even The Dark Knight Rises, all depict police in a positive light and as the “good guys.” Films like these normalize the structural violence of law enforcement, since their actions are merely meant to protect us.
Normalizing US Militarism
The last theme we want to tackle in this study is US militarism in 2012 films. The following films depicted the US military and/or US foreign policy, either in the present or the past. Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter, Battleship, The Avengers, Safe House, Argo, The Bourne Legacy, Taken 2 and The Expendables 2.
Some of these films deal with military intelligence, covert operations forces or the CIA. Safe House and The Bourne Legacy both deal with CIA personnel, both with some negative connotations. The CIA assassin in The Bourne Legacy comes to terms with his role as a hit man for the Agency and in Safe House, a CIA agent finds out that other members of the Agency have been engaged in illegal activity, even killing some of their fellow agents.
In Taken 2 and The Expendables 2, there are former CIA agents or former US military personnel involved. In Taken 2, an ex-agency man must rescue his wife and daughter from a sex-trafficking ring that had several of its members killed in the original film. In The Expendables 2, former US military and agency members act as a private army to engage in covert military operations to stop someone who wants to traffic in nuclear weapons. And in The Avengers, S.H.I.E.L.D. organizes the superheroes to take out forces from another planet. There are numerous scenes where S.H.I.E.L.D. is clearly using US military or US military-like equipment, thus normalizing its role is “protecting the planet.”
There are two period films in this section, Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter and Argo. In Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter, there is a section of the movie near the end, where the Union Army is battling the Confederate Army, which is being aided by an army of vampires. The Union Army wins because Lincoln is able to get silver bullets to the troops in order to defeat the vampire assisted Confederate soldiers. This film is of course fictional, but it does add a new twist to how we think about the Confederate Army.
In the movie Argo, we see the story of the early days of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, told through the eyes of US diplomats and State Department officials. There is some contextual history presented at the beginning the film, but Argo is fundamentally a US State Department propaganda piece that grossly misrepresents what US policy was towards Iran in the late 70s after the Shah was deposed.
The last film we want to look at in this study, was the summer 2012 film Battleship. Battleship is a fictional film about aliens attacking the earth, particularly the US military. Much of the film surrounds characters aboard a US aircraft carrier, so viewers were given the whole tour of the ship and US military practices throughout. This film clearly relied on US military cooperation, which means that since US military personnel and equipment were used in the film, the Pentagon had a say in the script.
Battleship ends with US military personnel figuring out the aliens’ weakness and defeating them with US weaponry. Therefore, Battleship functions as a wonderful public relations tool for the US military that was seen by millions.
In this study we sought to look at examples of fantasy violence, gratuitous violence and US military violence that fulfills numerous functions. Such use of violence not only normalizes the amount of violence, but the brutal violence often used in Hollywood films.
We also noted that in this film study, numerous institutions are affirmed, particularly those that use violence, such as police departments, the CIA, FBI, DEA and the US military. These entities are most often depicted as using necessary violence for the greater good, thus normalizing structural violence that experienced by millions of people in the real world both in the US and abroad in a much different way that what Hollywood depicts.
Here is a listing of the 2012 films used in this study:
21 Jump Street, Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter, Argo, Battleship, Cabin in the Woods, Chernobyl Diaries, Chronicle, Contraband, Dredd, Hit and Run, House at the End of the Street, Hunger Games, John Carter, Lawless, Lockout, Looper, Men in Black 3, Premium Rush, Prometheus, Resident Evil: Retribution, Safe House, Savages, Skyfall, Snow White and the Huntsman, Taken 2, The Amazing Spider Man, The Avengers, The Bourne Legacy, The Dark Knight Rises, The Expendables 2, The Hobbit, The Man with the Iron Fist, The Raven, Total Recall, Twilight Breaking Dawn 2.
This article by Dave Zirin is re-posted from Edge of Sports.
The death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez will mean unseemly celebration on the right and unending debate on the left. Both reflect the towering legacy of Chavismo and how it challenged the global free market orthodoxy of the Washington consensus. 
Less discussed will be that the passing of Hugo Chávez will also provoke unbridled joy in the corridors of power of Major League Baseball.
Historically, Venezuela has trailed only the Domincan Republic in the global race to provide a cheap source of Major League Baseball talent. In 2012, 58 players on MLB rosters were born in Venezuela, second only to the DR’s 64.
For decades, teams had set up unregulated “baseball academies” in both countries where children as young as 15 could be signed for a pittance, and then, for 97 percent of major league hopefuls, casually disposed without any future prospects. A Mother Jones article published this week exposed in excruciating detail the DR baseball “sweatshops” and the preventable death of young Washington Nationals teenage prospect Yewri Guillen. They describe the academies as a deadly breeding ground for tragedy defined by “corruption and youth exploitation.”
This is exactly what Chávez, a baseball fanatic himself, was aiming to challenge. Venezuela is the birthplace of towering talents such as the 2012 Triple Crown Winner Miguel Cabrera, “King” Félix Hernández and World Series MVP Pablo Sandoval. In the last twenty years, 200 Venezuelans have played in the Major Leagues with more than 1,000 in the minors.
But the academies also left a wreckage of young lives behind, a status quo Chávez sought to challenge. He told MLB that they would have to institute employee and player benefits and job protections. He wanted education and job training, subsidized by MLB, to be a part of the academies. He also insisted that teams pay out 10 percent of players’ signing bonuses to the government. Chávez effectively wanted to tax MLB for the human capital they blithely take from the country.
As the CS Monitor put it, “the threat of expropriations and onerous foreign exchange controls make teams wary of doing business in Venezuela.”
Sure enough over the last decade, the number of teams with “academies” in Venezuela has dwindled from 21 to 5. The threats of kidnapping and violence are often cited by teams as the primary reason for this move, but the facts say otherwise. As one major league executive said anonymously to the LA Times, “Teams have left Venezuela because of issues with the government and security that have made it more difficult to do business there. Absent those problems, there would be a lot more teams here using academies.”
Major League Baseball has never been shy in their rage that Chávez wasn’t “rolling out the red carpet” for them “like they do in the Dominican Republic.” Lou Meléndez, senior advisor to the MLB’s international relations department, said in 2007, “We don’t pay federations money for signing players anywhere in the world, and we don’t expect to do so. It’s certainly not a way to conduct business…. When you see certain industries that are being nationalized, you begin to wonder if they are going to nationalize the baseball industry in Venezuela.”
But despite the academy closures, baseball never stopped strip-mining Venezuela’s baseball hopefuls. Instead, they now sign Venezuelan children and whisk them off to the Dominican Republic to be trained, miles and an ocean apart from their families. Rather than be more humane in response to Chávez, MLB was just more brutal.
I spoke with Illinois history professor and author of Playing America’s Game, Adrian Burgos, Jr. He said it in perfect albeit wrenching fashion:
The irony is palpable. On the same day Mother Jones publishes an article on Yewri Guillen’s death and the Washington Nationals’ lack of having a certified medical official on staff at its Dominican academy, Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez dies. Certainly, Chávez’s demise makes MLB officials excited at the prospect of re-establishing their own blueprint for a baseball academy system being put into place in Venezuela, an effort that Chávez had forestalled. I still wonder who is/are the Latino representative(s) within the Commissioner’s Office speaking for Latinos. Do we need any more teenagers [like] Yewri Guillen, MLB prospect, dying for a lack of access to proper medical care due to a lack of health insurance and funds in the DR or Venezuela—health care that ought to have been, would have been, provided for such a signed prospect in the US? Dead prospects and dead president—I am weary of the road ahead in Venezuela and on its baseball diamonds.
Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy 