 | 1995 Top Ten Stories |
|---|
1 Closing Up America's "Marketplace of Ideas" | The Telecommunications Act of 1996, which allows for unprecedented consolidation of media ownership, was wildly debated and shaped by communications industry lobbyists during 1995. Unfortunately, the nation's major media, which couldn't have a greater interest in the outcome, declined to inform the public. |
|---|---|
2 Balancing the Budget On the Backs of the Poor | While the conventional wisdom on balancing the budget continued to revolve around cutting Medicare, Medicaid, education and social welfare programs, very little attention was devoted to reports released by bipartisan groups ranging from the conservative Cato Institute to Ralph Nader's Public Citizen, calling attention to the litany of "corporate welfare" programs that cost taxpayers an estimated $167 billion. |
3 Child Labor | Violations of child labor laws are greater in number than at any point during the 1930s, leaving children to work in environments that are harmful to their health, social and educational development, and even their lives. |
4 Privatization of the Internet | Though most mainstream media failed to report it, the federal government has been gradually transferring the backbone of the U.S. portion of the Internet to companies such as IBM and MCI as part of a larger plan to privatize cyberspace. |
5 U.S. Pushes Nuclear Pact But Spends Billions To Add Bang To Nukes | While urging other nations to eliminate nuclear weapons, the U.S. Department of Energy is planning a multibillion-dollar project to resume production of tritium, a radioactive gas used to enhance the explosive power of nuclear warheads. |
6 Radical Plan from Newt Gingrich's Think Tank To Gut FDA | Newt Gingrich's Progress & Freedom Foundation quietly released a plan, enthusiastically supported by the pharmaceutical industry, that would place responsibility for drug development, testing, and review in the hands of private firms hired by the drug companies themselves, while retaining a weakened FDA to rubber-stamp their recommendations. |
7 Russia Injects the Earth With Nuclear Waste | For more than three decades, Russia secretly pumped billions of gallons of atomic waste directly into the earth -- and according to Russian scientists, the practice continues today. The injections have been taking place in three widely-dispersed sites -- all thoroughly wet and all near major rivers. |
8 Medical Fraud Costs the Nation $100 Billion Annually - Or More | While most of the reporting on "medical fraud" focused on patients who defraud the government or private insurance companies, it is, in fact, health care providers who are responsible for the lion's share. According to the General Accounting Office, the annual take is $100 billion, while other investigators estimate the amount as high as $250 billion. Virtually all investigators agree, however, that no one really knows how much is stolen every year -- and worse, no one has any way of finding out. |
9 U.S. Chemical Industry Fights For Toxic Ozone-Killing Pesticide | Methyl bromide is a highly toxic pesticide that is at least 50 times more destructive to the ozone layer, atom for atom, than chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). And while it has been banned, or is in the process of being banned, by a number of other countries including Denmark, Germany and Switzerland, the American chemical industry is fighting to preserve its use in the U.S. |
10 NAFTA's Broken Promises | While the nation's major media devoted plenty of coverage to the promises made by government and American business in the push to get NAFTA passed, little coverage has been devoted to following up on the outcome of the celebrated trade agreement. From the deepening economic crisis in Mexico, to increased Mexican emigration, to assurances of environmental and labor reforms, the story of NAFTA's trail of broken promises became a "non-story" in 1995. |
Albion Monitor March 30, 1996 (http://www.monitor.net/monitor)
All Rights Reserved.
Contact rights@monitor.net for permission to reproduce.