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Thanks sandlewould- but I'm over it. It's like being a missionary- we have to look for our reward in the things in life that money can't buy.
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Could it be that over 30 years of Saint Raygunomics have taken their toll. Saint Raygun was against regulations of any kind and this is where we are today. Smaller government is their aim so it can be drowned in a bathtub. When Ahole Raygun was elected, I had been working for the U.S. Forest
Service as a civil engineer for 14 years in California and we took our job seriously. We hired all kinds of specialties and did endless master planning to protect the forests, the wildlife, and the water. After Saint Raygun cut our budgets to the bone, and the USFS was faced with massive layoffs of engineers and other specialties, I said to hell with it in 1986 and quit. After I left I found that they had cut out all engineers and every other specialty and pretty much ended their logging program in California. Before I quit, Saint Raygun was demanding that we privatize every damn thing you can imagine. Talk about destroying a fine branch of the Department of Agriculture. Saint Raygun obviously has done the same thing to the Department of Interior, the Bureau of Land Management, et al. In fact at one point, he wanted to sell off all federal lands to his rich friends. This disgusting act of terrorism has gone on now for over thirty years and I for one am sick of this crap.
"How much more evidence do we need?"....Gondolas navigating up and down Wall Street!
sandals -- Rachael Madow -- was covering the spill plus the previous two last night (Feb 11,2014).
Leigh...
So sorry you have worked so hard for so little reward. I am proud of you for standing strong. I find it ironic that NC profs. in your shoes now have to duke it out w/ Duke energy...hang in...
Thanks for reporting about the 2nd spill in W.VA, Thom...I've not heard it anywhere else. I live in N. KY...literally ON the OH river, 2 watersheds away from spill #1. After that spill, we went out and bought a 'Zero Water' filter...which supposedly filters out everything...I figure we're screwed anyway and I refuse to contribute to the millions of miles of plastic water bottles that run the circumference of the earth unless I know it will kill me. A friend of ours who is an environmentalist w/ the KY Dept. of Environ. Protection in the water Q/A dept. says W.VA basically has no regs., no standards, cause their EPA has no $$$. The power the Oiligarchs have and their desire to... well.. 'get rid of' the "riff-raff" is very frightening to me.
As I write, Thom is speaking to Bob Ney. And they are discussing the fact that congress actually passed something clean! (what a concept!) Could it be that these useful idiot neocons that the KRochs bought and installed are waking up to the fact that they won't have a seat on the Ark?...and so it goes...
Despite our huge manuals of environmental protection laws, it is up to county, state, and federal agencies to make sure everyone is in compliance so failures and accidents won't happen. They are not doing the job.
(West Virginia is subject to the Federal Wetlands Protection Act, regardless, which includes water pollution).
I slaved for a Masters Degree to work in the field of environmental remediation of Florida wetlands. I have only had a few career projects for all my labors academically, because environmental laws and permit requirements are arbitrarily enforced. Monitoring is not performed, though it is part of a permit price. My county has collected fees for five year monitoring of projects they never see. It's somewhat like our Social Workers who lose children in the system they are supposed to be visiting.
When a large project, such as revising Port Everglades has to be mitigated because it is so obvious an impact, somewhow the big money involved by-passes we who have studied and prepared to protect and properly restore the environment and ends up in the hands of the same old rednecks who have been polluting the state for generations and wouldn't know a gopher tortoise from a gopher. What a waste of a fantastic education and the great professors who inspired me.
I would rather starve than sell-out for a "Departmental" job where I see my peers doing what they know is wrong, and looking the other way when they are told. They have benefits, paid vacations, and a lot of office birthday parties.
I finally figured out this is why my professors became professors. In academia you can teach a model for the world, but you never have to duke it out with the charlatans who have control of the dough.
Thom, I have had the pleasure and the good fortune to speak to you live on your 3 to 5 program twice. I am following up on what I think is essential to get our message of change information to a larger audience. I suggest you do a program on the First Amendment right to a “free press”. I have been researching this subject and have contacted the FCC and posted a section of their rules on Facebook, that I believe demonstrates they are not following their own rules on licensing of news programs.
I thought there might have been suits or other court cases challenging the FCC and Congress for violation of the Constitution, but I could not find one case. I then went to ACLU to see if they were involved in any cases and they are not. Corporations that own 90% of all Medias, and the FCC could be sued for failing to protect our airwaves and under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. ATT was broken up because of their monopoly, why not do the same to those who monopolize our Medias.
I have been researching this subject and have filed a complaint with the FCC concerning the control of the TV news media through not reporting and falsely reporting news. I know you have access to more informed people than I to explain how we got to where we are with all media and solutions to the problem.
I will gladly share what I find.
Keep up the good work!!
PS: Your book “Crash of 2016” is a must read for those who know nothing of the history of capital and labor in US History.
Mark S -- Would not dieing workers tighten the labor market? Thom often points out the black plague brought about the renaissance.
No, the US has no justification for using drones to kill anyone in any country other than a "country" with whom we are at war. What would the US do if another nation used the methods we have used to attack citizens and/or our country? Correct, we would go to war with them. You just don't mess with Americans, who do you think you are? We can mess with you because you are not an American!
***sarcasm
Florida, California and Hawaii are the roughest states to be homeless as far as the laws and authorites are concerned, according to the National Coalition for the Homeless.
Orlando tried to ban public food sharing, some activists for feeding the homeless went to jail there.
In San Francisco, which is the most gentrified city in the United States, there is a virulent hatred and animosity for the homeless on the part of the better off and mayors of the city have been elected on anti-homless platforms, most notably Frank Jordan who conducted a scorched earth policy against the homeless in SF. He got his police helicopters outfitted with heat seeking military aircraft technology so he could find where the homeless were sleeping in Golden Gate Park. By account of someone I knew who'd been there, he put the homeless in a "concentration camp" for a while.
That may've been an exageration but whatever he did, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch got involved in denouncing and opposing his policies as well as the Catholic Church and many local labor unions who opposed them more actively. Many Catholic clergy and union members went to jail before he finally gave them up.
In Los Angeles, where arguably much of our society's consumerism and superficial values originate, the city tried to put all the homeless on an island for a while according to my friend who transplanted from there and who is a social worker by profession.
The homeless are a somewhat distinct socioeconomic and somewhat subcultural group and they are often singled out for bigotry and animosity that in many ways resembles racial or ethnic animosity or that against other groups and categories of people.
Sorry, had to spout off again. I guess I can't but. You all already know this is a subject dear to my heart.
They don't care about our economy on Main street as long as their economy on Wall street is okay. If there is, after gerrymandering, voter suppression and electronic voting machines (not to mention the privatized propoganda service that is main stream media), still some semblance of democracy then Boehner might prevail.
They certainly don't care what happens to us, don't mind if a few of us die off. Would loosen up the labor market. They obviously aren't interested in recovery of our economy with their austerity, as long as their economy on Wall Street is okay. They just kill us slowly, starve us, or, "starve the beast", i.e., the government - of the people. Keep the privatized government of and for the elites.
When you privatize and reduce government big business becomes the government, a neofeudalism.
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How about a list of pro-labor songs?
sandles -- I read the first 50 pages or so of Shock Doctrine and I couldn't handle any more.
Chuckle8...
Ya think? This has been in the making Since right after the new deal. Ever read Naomi Kline 'Shock Doctrine and the Rise of Disaster Capitalism' ? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWI4p8KuJfs
I have dozens of news sources but I pull strongly to the four below.. Fact-Based, In-Depth News | Al Jazeera America (International) http://america.aljazeera.com/ Obama Set To Sign Executive Order On Minimum Wage http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/11/obama-minimum-wage_n_4769464.ht... The GOP's debt ceiling surrender - Manu Raju and Jake Sherman - POLITICO.com http://www.politico.com/story/2014/02/republicans-debt-limit-surrender-1... And last but not least our own Thom Hartmann
sandles -- I think you give the "Global Elites" too much respect. I think their short term greed explains everything they do.
Speaking of "seeing" things (above post) and in ref. to Thom's headlines of today's Big Picture re. Obama, drones, targeting US citizen's abroad etc; The ENTIRE 'war' on "terror" (more like war of terror) is currently being waged against the poorest, most helpless populations in the world for 1 reason and 1 reason only...why? Target practice. Once this technology is refined and precise, (as in they can target with near 100% accuracy), This assassination technique will be used by the Corp elites (government, same diff.) to assassinate Americans and anyone who tries to speak out or dissent. Clean and remote, this technology will be used to make Orwell's 1984 look like a Child's sandbox in comparison. Every micro-move we make will be monitored...by the corporations who are now IN CONTROL of our Government's agencies and security apparatus. What Obama proposed, allowing a 3rd party to keep the meta data as a solution to Gov. over-reach is exactly what is already going on...and how do you hold a private corp. like Booz-Allen Hamilton accountable...we can't vote them out!!
Hey Alice,
Going out on a limb here, but I sense that most peops here are pretty open minded...my 'gut feeling' (as in, sometimes I "see" things) is that Global Elites want to use global deprivation of resources, the delibrate agravation of climate change and polution of air food and water as indirect means of population control...those along with arming as many as possible so that we kill each other off when we get desparate enough so they don't have to. The goal of the elites? Enslavement of able-bodied poor and genocide of all non-useful poor, yes...sounds extreme, I have no proof. My family used to think I was nuts when I awoke screaming in the night in childhood from 'dreams' that later came true and as a young woman w/ visions of people desparate for water drinking chemical slurry straight from poisoned rivers & wells just to stay alive...and the horrible consequences that ensued. They no longer do. Being in nature used to nurture my soul, now, although it still does, it's hard to cope w/ the cries of agony I 'hear' from our Mother. If I told you what I see when I'm in the twilight between the dream time and the physical world...I just keep imagining green energy and clear blue skies...I will believe we can get there no matter what!! Fortunately, thanks to a near drowning as a child, I know we never end and, no matter what, there will always be love, hope & beauty if we look for it.
I do not care for I do not listen to garbage, I don't have time to waste at my 70 years. One of the 1% guys owns Fox, I think his name is Sherman ... Ale? who served Bush, Reagan and Nixon. NPR interviewed a guy who wrote a book about how he follows Mike Douglas techniques in reaching out the conservative middle class. Well, if anyone is interested search for Charles Chaplin 1940 The Great Dictator, his speech is a replica of our times! Nothing has changed except it has gotten worst. Now is 99% vs 1%.
Sandlewould, I clicked on that link. And I am, once again, horrified, outraged and sickened. So now it's a criminal act for a homeless person to protect him/herself from cold weather with a blanket! Wow. What'll these ugly fascists outlaw next; umbrellas? Coats and rain jackets?! I wish tens of thousands of sympathizers would show their support some cold night by filling the parks there, all wrapped in blankets.
In the blog immediately following that article, one of the participants claims to have a long list of cities around the U.S. with similar laws. Unbelievable.
I strongly encourage everyone to click on that link Sandlewould includes here, in post #33.
A CNN anchor said in the weeks prior to the last Presidential Election how he wished there was a way to get the real core of the issues. Really! He said that. He was the head anchor, suit and tie GQ spokesperson for a multi billion dollar enterprise with assets and communications equipment around the world. What part doesn't he get? As much as our economy has been commoditized into a handful of corporations - with operating budgets larger than some countries - so to you and I have been hypnotized in an Orwellian world of scarcity, fear, and war without victors - or honor. We are at a pivotal point, not only in terms of whether corporations will determine our elections, but whether the very freedom of thought through cyberspace will open doors of peaceful sustainability.
Alice and Mark,
Speaking of making it ilegal to try to survive: http://www.forwardprogressives.com/florida-ordinance-makes-illegal-homel...