Fat-Free Snake Oil

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New World Notes News
Vol. 6, No. 23 -- June 11, 2013

This week in New World Notes, radio program #275, June 11, 2013

Fat-Free Snake Oil

In brief

Two critical views of the American economic system--one trivial, one profound.

First, product marketing run amok. K.D. discusses the 40 different varieties of Colgate toothpaste at the supermarket.* Then we explore why spray cooking oil--which is 99% fat--is sold as "fat-free spray oil."

Then Noam Chomsky discusses Big Business's expensive campaign to accelerate global climate change regardless of its threat to all life on the planet. This recent talk is titled, Wrecking Nature for Short-Term Profit.

* Full disclosure: Stop & Shop in Manchester had only 29 varieties. Anyone desperately needing Colgate Total Zx Pro-Shield Plus Sensitivity is just going to have to settle for Colgate MaxFresh with Mini Breath Strips--Crystal Mint.

The state-socialist economic system of the Soviet Union resulted in plentiful arctic ice but frequent shortages of consumer products.  The capitalist economic system of the United States has resulted in 40 different varieties of Colgate toothpaste alone--to say nothing of "fat-free" spray oil--but a bit of a shortage of arctic ice.  This proves that the obviously superior economic system is ... er ... give me another minute ... 

Notes, credits, & links

Of particular interest: Chomsky explains that the Magna Carta (signed in 1215) had two sections. The section establishing political liberties (the Charter of Liberties--the part you've heard of) has been largely scrapped by the Bush II and Obama administrations. The section they never told you about, the Charter of Forests,established the people's rights to free use of the natural resources they needed to live. This part was scrapped a couple of centuries back, in the early days of capitalism.

New World Notes is produced under the auspices (Latin for "What, me worry?") of WWUH-FM, a community service of that beacon of light in darkest Connecticut, the University of Hartford.

You can listen to any installment of New World Notes online or else download it (as an mp3 audio file) for later listening. The show is archived at both radio4all.net and (from #90 onwards) The Internet Archive. Either link should get you a reverse-chrono listing of available installments. Or browse the show's Web site: Each installment has a page, and each page has links to the recorded audio. See the gray sidebar on the right ("CONTENTS [Links]") for a table of contents.

Series overview: Political and social commentary in a variety of genres. Exploring the gap between what we want ... and what they're trying to make us settle for.

Coming soon (Tuesday air debut date shown)

• June 18 -- Glen Ford, speaking in Hartford (part 1)

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