Richard Wilkinson: How Economic Inequality Harms Societies

(via Rebecca Glasscock, a TED talk, posted on Common Dreams)

Richard Wilkinson: How Economic Inequality Harms Societies

We feel instinctively that societies with huge income gaps are somehow going wrong. Richard Wilkinson charts the hard data on economic inequality, and shows what gets worse when rich and poor are too far apart: real effects on health, lifespan, even such basic values as trust.

Veterans March for Occupy Movement in New York City

(from Thursday's Democracy Now headlines)

Veterans March for Occupy Movement in New York City

In New York City, dozens of U.S. military veterans marched to Zuccotti Park on Wednesday in support of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Standing in front of the New York Stock Exchange, the veterans read a statement underscoring the oath they took to defend the Constitution and declaring themselves supporters of the Occupy movement. A number of the veterans expressed that they were motivated by Scott Olsen, the U.S. Marine veteran who was critically injured protesting in Oakland last Tuesday after police fired tear gas canisters into the crowd. Iraq War veteran Eli Wright described the conditions service members face when they return to the states.

Eli Wright, Iraq War veteran:

Veterans are coming home and finding that we don’t have access to proper medical care, we don’t have access to jobs. We’re having a difficult time getting the educational benefits that we were promised and that we served for. So, you know, I’m worried about how I’m going to feed my daughter and how I’m going to put her through college. So I’m basically here with everybody else, marching for economic justice for all of us.

Democracy Now: "Deadly Monopolies" -- Medical Ethicist Harriet Washington on How Firms are Taking Over Life Itself

"Deadly Monopolies": Medical Ethicist Harriet Washington on How Firms are Taking Over Life Itself
Democracy Now

One of the major themes raised by the Occupy movement is the increasing power of large corporations over more and more aspects of our lives. We spend the hour looking into the issue of the corporate control of life itself. Our guest, Harriet Washington, is a medical ethicist and has just published a book that examines the extent to which what she calls the medical-industrial complex has come to control human life. In the past 30 years, more than 40,000 patents have been granted on genes alone—many more patents are pending. Washington argues that the biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies patenting these genes are more concerned with profit than with the health or medical needs of patients. Her new book is called "Deadly Monopolies: The Shocking Corporate Takeover of Life Itself—And the Consequences for Your Health and Our Medical Future."