Coal Miners Reveal Democratic Malpractice
In a fit of pique and rage, the prominent owner of a prominent theoretically liberal Democratic blog has announced that we should all be happy that coal miners are losing their benefits because Fuck them, they didn't vote for Hillary and now are reaping what they sowed, untreated disease and lingering death.
In some ways, it's helpful when masks are dropped in such a manner. Any ideas of Democrats being the compassionate and empathetic Party of the working class can be put aside as the window dressing many suspected it was, but which has now been confirmed by this major cog in the Democratic machine. The gates were crashed and the pickets used to impale recalcitrant blue collar voters who didn't even know what side their bread was buttered on, goddamit!
I might take this story a little more personally than most. How many people do you think choose to be coal miners? I am the actual granddaughter of a coal miner who was a Polish immigrant to this country. My grandfather died from black lung disease. Coal miners are concentrated in small towns and in many cases multiple generations of the same family become miners as it is the best paying job opportunity in their area, albeit the most hazardous.
The question left unaddressed by the prominent blog owner is why these pathetic and ignorant drones of the underground (his apparent view) didn't understand how it would be to their advantage to vote for the most qualified person ever to run for President?
First some backstory -Retired Coal Miners At Risk of Losing Promised Health Coverage and Pensions
This is no new issue and has been on the burner for years if you read the article. So the Democrats and Hillary have a f-ing fantastic position to use to their advantage in coal country - vote for us to protect your pensions and healthcare.
Instead what do they do? Hillary makes the insane pronouncement "we're going to put a lot of coal miners out of work" - in other words threatening the immediate livelihood of current workers in the industry who number about 174,000 which does not include numbers related to indirect employment to the industry. Add to that the 16,000 retired miners whose pensions and health benefits are under threat. So we're up to about 200,000 voters in swing states whose lives and industry have been maligned by the Democratic candidate actually chortling about their imminent unemployment.
Does Hillary attempt to address her reveal mispeak by touring these blue battlegrounds to reshape herself as these workers' champion? No, she does not. She ignores them and their states. She attends small fundraisers with wealthy supporters who will pay six figures to rub elbows with her and Bill. It will be revealed that the Party and it's leaders in fact do consider the blue collar vote disposable and dispensable, because they would actually prefer getting more people of their preferred voter ilk - suburban moderate voters which they hope will replace the blue collar vote by 2 to 1.
If anything, Hillary and the Dems told the blue collar vote in no uncertain terms that they weren't their champions and were actively working against them, but hey, let's blame these voters anyway for their failure to rally around her and to fight off Trump.
Look forward to many more losses ahead with people like this at the helm of the Democratic ship.
Comments
I put 5.5 KW of solar panels on my roof last spring.
I am very happy that I did. They have produced a lot of power and dramatically cut our power bills. They also give a real outcome. When you contribute to environmental organizations, it is not clear how much good the money really does, but I know I have saved well more than 3 tons of carbon dioxide already and this amount will continue to mount up for many years.
Good on you Roy, I too have solar. 10KW plus I've been driving
a Leaf since 2011. It's up to us as individuals to do everything we can to reduce our carbon footprints.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." - JFK | "The more I see of the moneyed peoples, the more I understand the guillotine." - G. B. Shaw Bernie/Tulsi 2020
Here's an essay about the whole sorry mess
From March 2016, but still entirely relevant today, because they are constantly trying to re-animate the TPP zombie.
Not only do we not want TPP, we have to rewrite some of the trade agreements we are already subject to in order to remove the harms we are actually suffering and will suffer. The national health systems of a few countries are under threat due to trade pacts and drug protectionism, if you can believe that. Anyway:
Twofer- Trade Pacts Actively Kill "Buy Local" Employment Efforts and Thwart Clean Energy Initiatives
" “Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.” FDR "
The best way to promote buy local
Is literally locally in communities by community members. The Willamette Valley of Oregon has done a bang up job at that. It seemed to sprout organically when things started looking grim in the beginning of the great recession. Short of issuing company scrip that you can only spend at the company store no one has the right to tell people how to spend their money.
It is the ultimate in rebellion because it creates many insulated small economies. Here the biggest loser has been walmart.
More importantly it would hurt oil companies and execs like
our new Secretary of State. I wonder what his middle east policy is.
We've gone from Goldman-Sachs setting policy back to Exxon-Mobil setting policy.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
Turn the middle east into a giant parking lot
and put a gas pump in it.
"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage
Mining the Arctic
They want to mine the Arctic shelf. This is why they are lying about climate change. They have not factored in the Arctic storms trashing offshore drilling platforms due to the new instability of the Arctic climate, though.
But what are a few oil spills among friends?
You can bet it will be awful but>>>>>
it will have a way to go to be worse than that of the Obama/Clinton team.
KOS......... you suck. Big time.
And so did his chosen candidate - Madame Suck-retary.
As for "Basket of Deplorables" . . .
Excellent!
You have to post that there.
"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage
Kos is crazy.
And the reaction to Trump's win is ridiculous - have all of these people gone insane?
I've never seen dems pitch such a fit over anything, no matter how detrimental it was to the population. They have been perfectly content to go with the flow all these years.
It just proves what I've suspected all along - that the dem party has been taken over by the repubs and identity issues are used to mask the takeover.
dfarrah
I don't know if he's crazy but I'm pretty sure he's an asshole.
One of the best books I've ever read is "The no-asshole rule". It should be required reading in high school.
The real SparkyGump has passed. It was an honor being your human.
"Controlled Opposition" as noted
in a link in a front page story here from jackpineradicals. I used to comment that "DKos is where liberalism goes to get spayed" and that article sums it up well. Social Jusrice being a mask to avoid any talk about our eternal war, the surveillance state, banker plunder, etc. And right now they've erected Emmanuel Goldstein as the cause of the party's troubles.
Orwell: Where's the omelette?
In the interest of fairness
Intellectual honesty compels me to mention that Bernie Sanders was 100 percent onboard with the constrained spectrum of topics permitted during the 2016 Primaries and beyond. He was a blank of omission on foreign policy. He and Hillary had that settled up front, and they both stuck to the script with precision.
I'm a single-issue constitutant, so I'm always waiting the words, Bernie was clearly deactivated and unable to express his policy on the foreign wars of Empire.
He was great on the adversities Americans face as a consequence of the massively corrupt foreign policy junta the US funds with the People's money. But he would never address the actual cause of those problems.
Do things get worse every time you vote?
We need to fix that fast.
Don't see how starting to
talk about the domestic economic needs doesn't get around to talking about the expenditures of lunatic wars though. Given the establishment agenda, and control of what can be discussed I think economics is the camel's nose under the tent, and that Bernie knows that.
Orwell: Where's the omelette?
You can win elections by discussing economic frustration.
That's generally a slam dunk.
As a candidate, you can bitch and moan about the unfairness/outrage of the economic adversity, toss in a few snippets of ideological branding, and stubbornly ignore the hemorrhage causing the fiscal bleed-out — and you can win the election! Your opponent won't dare mention war costs and military spending, especially if he's a Party member. That would be political suicide.
So, in one way Hillary was right. Bernie was happy to pay lip service to the economic screwing Americans are experiencing — but his plans for universal health care and forgiving college loans really don't work without using the government revenues we currently throw down the black hole of the Pentagon. Hillary is well aware that no one at the Federal level of corruption will ever tell that truth, not even Bernie.
The USA uses fiat money.
It can spend on guns AND butter. There is fixed pot that causes an either/or choice. Relatively speaking the Pentagon budget was bigger during the Cold war. it didn't stop economic progress. 90% marginal income tax rates made sure of that.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
expenditures of lunatic wars
It always does. That's why the efforts to spay Bernie were redoubled after the Bird Incident. The MIC powers behind Her Heinous really started to get "concerned" that Bernie would bring up your very point and make it stick.
With half of what we spend on military, we could solve all the nation's other problems and get us back to the status among world nations we had in 1946. I estimate with that rate of spending, it would take us about 12 - 18 months. And we would still be spending more on military than any other nation on Earth.
Of course, that would mean we'd have to get out of the business of being the world's unpaid policeman.......
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
Smug condescension isn't limited to one party.
One of my sisters has four year degree and her children are all college educated. An ex-friend and his wife are college educated as well. They have one thing in common; they all think my other sister and I are ignorant fools to be derided and mocked because we aren't college educated. They're all democrats and they're all still in a state of shock that $Hillary lost. They're blaming Russians and "dumb as fuck" Americans for her defeat.
The real SparkyGump has passed. It was an honor being your human.
Being smart and being stupid are far from mutually exclusive
Today's Democratic party is nothing but an illustration of this principle. The baying for blood at TOP in response to Markos' horrific post was shameful and disgusting. That illustration, and Bob Johnson's strong rebuke, were the perfect followup to the post I put up over there last weekend.
The smug, arrogant assholes are starting to catch a glimpse of how the rest of the country sees them, and they don't like it one damn bit.
Please help support caucus99percent!
Dripping Southern accent and satire, aren't they sweet!
I would bet that most of us olders got better-off than our grandparents. And many of them had rough lives, adapting or not. My maternal grandfather adapted, good thing because his wife became agoraphobic. Paternal grandmother blessed us all with BRCA mutations, and died before I was born. Of breast cancer. Beautiful pedigree to map, for someone interested. Paternal grandfather sold insurance for Prudential, on third wife when he died. I saw him maybe three times in my life, family strife. I got to see two in caskets, open. Yuck.
Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.
Ignore those monsters.
I'm very well educated and have been poor as hell for most of my life. My last degree [in history] helped me understand much more of the world and I'm grateful for it. But it doesn't make me a better person.
Of course, it does lead me to make unpopular remarks like, "The Sunnis and Shiites have been fighting for centuries. What makes us think we can bring peace to them?" Maybe that's why I never was Miss Popularity.
Life is strong. I'm weak, but Life is strong.
Sure it does!
Sure it does! I would hesitate to compare one person to another, but I would not hesitate to say your education makes you a better person than you were before, because it has expanded your horizons and enriched your understanding of the world. It may make you a better citizen and all around human being as well - which is why education has been valued as an essential institution of civilized society from Plato and Aristotle to Rousseau and Thomas Jefferson to John Dewey, etc.
With you there. A good education makes you realize how little
you know. A certain humility gets attained, along with knowledge passed along. There should be constant questioning about that.
Small example: Do you know where your garbage goes after the can? Do you know where the stuff you put out for recycling goes? How close do you live to a landfill, open or closed? How close to a cemetery? Is your water from a public or private source?
Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.
This sort of thing just fuels the crap
I've had to take most of my life as an academic: because I wanted to be a scholar of literature, just about everybody and their sister treated me like parasitical entitled aristocratic scum that shouldn't be in these United States. Or like I was a complete fool for wanting to be a scholar.
At the end of the day, they were right, but not for the reasons they said. They're right because when civilization is falling apart globally, and the globe is controlled by people who have no interest in listening to honest scholarship, there's no point in being a scholar in any of the humanities--or the social sciences either.
But the ridiculous arrogance of some of the highly educated suggests to me that their education wasn't as good as they thought it was.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Scholar of literature -- a valuable kind of person to be.
FUCK them! GRRRRR!!
[pulling claws in]
Your pursuit of true education is a useful and noble one -- in and of its own right. No economic involvement required. Your commenters' reaction sounds suspiciously like "brain envy" to me!
Hogwash! They're full of shit now; they were full of shit then; and they will remain full of shit henceforth, world without end, rAmen, please pass the potatoes!
Again, I call hogwash! That's exactly when we're going to need folks with genuine educations in literature and the humanities! You may not be rolling in the cash, but rest assured, there will be a need for you and a place for you to apply that education. Do please remember that it wasn't all STEM that the returning Crusaders brought back to Europe from the Islamic world. Literature, drama, and the humanities came back too. And we moderns benefit from all of it.
It truly sounds like your attackers got themselves college degrees which only really show how much money the holders were able to bilk out of other people. Genuinely educated human beings would never have done that to you.
Again I say: GRRRR!!
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
Thank you so much for the fierce support!
My attackers likely didn't even think they were attacking me. That's the thing that was the interesting part; they seemed to think it was just natural to question what I was doing, in a way they'd never do if the person were going into IT or becoming a neurosurgeon. Interestingly, both people with and without college degrees have done this to me--including the cabbie who drove me to my oral exams when I was in the 2nd year of grad school!
BTW, all this happened in the past. I got my PhD in 2004. I ignored the critics--well, I ignored them enough to do what I wanted to do anyway (more or less).
But people who get college degrees should never lord it over those who don't. First, because obviously that sort of arrogance is lameass BS. Second, because it just adds fuel to the fire of those who despise us anyway.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
They're blaming themselves?
"They're blaming Russians and "dumb as fuck" Americans for her defeat. "
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
They are!
They just don't know it because...
they are "dumb as fuck"!
Yaldabaoth, Saklas I'm calling you. Samael. You're not alone. I said, you're not alone, in your darkness. You're not alone, baby. You're not alone. "Original Sinsuality" Tori Amos
Good day Phoebe
I enjoy your essays, and mindset, and agree that pensions and healthcare promised to workers should be protected at all costs.
Though callous, and ill considered politically, comments by Clinton about the impending end of coal as a primary fuel for generating electricity, reflect the reality of our future, here and abroad. Coal is a dirty, climate influencing fossil fuel, that is destructive to our environment due to the extraction process, and the subsequent air pollution.
I know you are speaking to the Democratic establishment choice to throw the entire blue collar population under the bus, denigrate their intellect, lifestyle, and political "value". The DNC, Clinton and Clinton Foundation attitudes about the "unwashed masses" make me ashamed of what our nation has become. Their policies are evident in the influence they had over minimum wage movement in Haiti where they affected attempts to raise the minimum wage from pennies, to pennies more.
Your essay would hold greater credibility if you had addressed the undeniable, negative environmental factors of burning coal as a fuel.
Why?
The real SparkyGump has passed. It was an honor being your human.
It is not the workers;
nor the loss of healthcare, retirement, or pensions at question in my comment; nor do I condone the aloofness of Clinton's comments. I simply feel any topic involving coal, must address the incredibly destructive environmental factors around coal (extraction, mountaintop removal, waste storage and disposal, and air pollution)
simply a suggestion to enhance the essayist' point to a broader audience
Thanks you for reading and commenting Scheindog
I appreciate the point you are making although to be honest, I didn't address the merits about the coal industry because to me it is not relevant to the point of the essay, it could have involved any blue collar industry and actually did by proxy. The point is that it's hard to see how Hillary and any Democrats would be surprised at losing the blue collar vote when they openly threatened their jobs, ignored them and announced publicly that they would rather trade in their votes for moderate middle class suburban votes.
I suppose someone could argue that HRC was being refreshingly honest by saying her goal was to put coal-miners out of work and not to pander to them and to be willing to lose their votes, which all seem to be true. My response to that is that because she sacrificed those votes without making any real effort to replace them, relying solely (and wrongly as it turned out) on moderate Trump abhorrant Republicans to fill the gap she created, she was a large part of the reason for losing the "blue wall" of Wisconsin, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, all states she needed as linchpins to election, hence her and the Dems "malpractice." Why be surprised when you reap the exact crop of the seeds you have sown?
Edit to add - No one is arguing for the coal industry, to be clear. I thought it was pretty much accepted that "clean coal" is almost entirely an oxymoron.
" “Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.” FDR "
I think you are missing the point
Logan County WV happens to share a close relationship with Jefferson County, WA. During the Clinton administration we and several other rural Washington counties experienced a 46% unemployment rate. No that's not a typo.
Bill Clinton bargined away our raw resource to benefit 5 large companies. His retraining program was to teach everyone to be TV repairmen and buy our paid for homes for $.03 on the $1.00 and tell us to move. When we said no we were called stupid and greedy.
This is not about coal it's about life after coal and the totally unacceptable way this country treats its working class.
Very powerful comment pswaterspirit
I wish I could rec it fifty times. So sorry for you and your community and all of us when you come right down to it.
You know there's some foundation that contributes to NPR whose slogan is that they are working towards a "more peaceful, just and verdant world" and I always think, gee, if only our politicians had that same goal.
" “Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.” FDR "
We survived
It doesn't hurt we live in an area that is a major international tourist destination. Things are not great but they are okay. As a community we really came to realize what it was we valued and money turned out to be way down the list. You can't live here and value money or career over everything else. There is a trade off and we get by. Once the bluist county in the state of Washington Trump won here.
I think Phoebe is not addressing those because they aren't,
in this case, the point.
It's not like Markos chortled over them losing their healthcare benefits because he's so upset about the ppm of carbon in the atmosphere.
And those people aren't losing their benefits due to some kind of honest accounting of supply and demand that leaves coal behind. There's too many people working in vastly different industries and jobs who are losing their benefits, their pensions, and even their jobs, for the phenomenon to be explained as an actual reaction to the poisonous nature of coal.
If it were an environmental concern, why are the heads of fossil fuel companies so damned rich--and getting richer all the time? As far as I can see, the only problem the coal CEOs have is the competition with methane.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
The oil should be nationalized
More than 90 percent of oil pumped in the world is nationalized. Natural resources belong to the people, not to fascist cartels, formed by state-corporate partnerships for private wealth extraction. That's another thing that all the nations the US is currently destroying happen to have in common: Nationalized oil. The US awards the oil it seizes to their corporate overlords, once all the Shias have been exterminated or displaced.
That's another thing that
ALL THE NATIONS THE US IS CURRENTLY DESTROYING HAPPEN TO HAVE IN COMMON: NATIONALIZED OIL.
There...that needed to be said a little louder.
"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X
They are all walking around knee-deep in chickenshit because
just about all of their chickens unexpectedly came home to roost.
After years of riding the horses of lesser evilism, Supreme Court, where else you gonna go, enjoy President Trump/Romney/McCain, it's a big Internet, you're a racist sexist, caged media, internal rigging, etc. a bunch of people for different reason simultaneously took up on the Dems offer to get out of the shrinking tent as unwanted occupants. And, amusingly, the Dems are left slack jawed. "Whaaa happened?"
Hillary was inevitable Hillary was a lock. She's got this. Only when she's not and she doesn't. The Hillary is a shoo-in myth was beneficial in that it made the status quo Dems parade around clothed only in their naked hubris as they allowed themselves to show their true contempt for their own voters.
" “Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.” FDR "
Heh.
Naked hubris.
Heh 2
Phoebe knows how to turn a sentence beautifully. The same "naked hubris" struck me as a classic!
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
A Republican administration was inevitable at some point
As long as Democrats kept moving to the right, Republicans could keep getting greedier and more hateful. If it weren't Trump, it would have been Ted Cruz in 2020.
Trump's maladministration is going to engender a lot of opposition. It would probably be better if the smug "liberal" Democrats keep marginalizing themselves, so they can't co-opt a lot of movement energy. They've lost the trust of a lot of people, and I personally hope they keep losing it. My post over there was a challenge to them, and they conspicuously failed to meet it. This pleases me greatly.
Please help support caucus99percent!
"As long as Democrats kept moving to the right..."
"The people don't want a phony Democrat. If it's a choice between a genuine Republican, and a Republican in Democratic clothing, the people will choose the genuine article, every time; that is, they will take a Republican before they will a phony Democrat." __ Harry Truman
Thanks for what you posted there.
There's an essay here linking to jackpineradicals essay calling out the "controlled opposition" such as Kos. The site is literally useless now if you are interested in either. truth, reality, or improving people's lives. I guess Markos' stint at the CIA wasn't just a phase he left behind.
There's almost no intelligence nor intellectual honesty over there at all these days.
Orwell: Where's the omelette?
The trustee Democrats
the ones who keep the questioning and demanding ones in line with "never happen" "it's the best we'll ever get" "don't let the perfect be the enemy of the obviously crappy", etc.
" “Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.” FDR "
The Inadequate is the enemy of the Necessary
Orwell: Where's the omelette?
LSM
LSM - you create the best graphics.
So good to see you posting them here at C99%
thanks.
Thank You Caerus & I just wanted to let everyone know that if
you ever see one you'd like to use, please feel free to do so.
Here is the link to my meme album over at Imgur.com. I'm up to 205 and counting and that doesn't include about 200 others I made during the Primary that are hosted on another site.
Every time you post one
and I say to myself, this is LSM's best yet, you come up with another. Like several others here have said, I really enjoy them and often find myself laughing out loud.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
We shouldn't overlook
the possibility that Markos was personally financially hurt by Hillary's loss.
He might have been "promised" financial/career rewards by the DNC, and they went up in smoke because a bunch of working class slobs don't know what is good for them.
I wonder how much
Kos got paid by Shillary campaign. He had the perfect vehicle for their lies: A well-established site full of faithful Democrats who had the skills to disseminate the propaganda.
It appears that he believed that he could convince (or bully) his readers into voting for HRC. It would be win/win for him. He could make a lot of money during campaign while proving his worth and then he could demand even more money once HRC would be installed into the WH.
The problem with selling your soul (according to all good literature) is that there is usually some kind of ironic twist where the devil always wins. It appears that with a Trump win, Kos lost his credibility, lost the site's faithful life-long democrats, lost some of his ad potential for his site, and lost future revenue that should have been streaming in from other Dem party wannabe winners.
I imagine that Kos (and the rest of the shills) are scurrying to build back up that market niche where they are relevant and in demand. The only way they can imagine that their worth will increase is to double down and be even stronger shills.
And think about this: Hillary surely would have taken us into WWIII with Russia. Therefore, all of her donors would be disappointed that we aren't going to have that massive war to keep millionaires/billionaires selling lots of war machines. So by continuing the "Putin is bad" argument that he manipulated our election and keeping the saber rattling going, the Hillary war machine can still possibly drum up that delicious war they've been salivating over and paid their cold hard cash to get.
We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when we are afraid of the light.
--Plato
Kos does not need
the income. He's set up for life he sold off his internet media empire Kos Media LLC consisting of Vox, Sports Nation and god know what else in 2014-2015? Daily Kos was not part of the deal. Kos Media LLC is now Vox Media. Then again the greed of these savvy businessmen, vulture capitalist's and the vaunted the entrepreneur's is insatiable. It explains a lot of his 'values'. He's the very definition of a neoliberal/neocon who made a fortune off the net. Dkos is still owned by Kos Media LLC. His business dealings sure as hell explains the political bias and the love of the meritocratic inevitable 'free market' run amuck ruling business class. He's one richy rich blogger entrepreneur as well as a CIA loving neocon. It's more likely he want's to be a powerful Democratic political broker. His disdain for 'the common good', economic equality of workers and ordinary people comes shining through Daily Kos. He's a Republican in every way. Socially liberal my ass.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vox_Media
http://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=...
I imagine the irony of a diary over at TOP
Mocking Markos' loss of income and prestige in an HRC administration would be lost on them, eh?
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
King Coal needs to Die
and I hope everyone here agrees. But, that is not what this article is about so I have nothing of any value to contribute.
Full Employment - - - Full Benefits
Peabody Coal has created a nightmare (ask them where they have used the mine tailings "constructively") in Arizona and other places. If you don't trust me, there is another here that is familiar with the situation in Arizona.
Cautionary Note: My point of view is colored by the fact that I am aware of (ssh, don't tell anyone I said this) the radioactivity no one monitors at these sites. And, I have a special, personal interest in Arizona, so my judgement is further clouded.
We could keep generations of miners employed packing tailings, and other inert aggregate into the virtually uncountable holes throughout the USofA and other places around the world. I am sure spelunkers might object but, they are a minority, so I don't care. By the time this monumental task is completed everyone would be ready to move on to more fulfilling enterprises, I think.
The Bureau of Land Management has allowed 50,000 or more
mines to be abandoned on the land it "manages." I would say you are completely correct in saying it would be a social plus to begin filling them up and making the public land safe to walk across.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
I used to hike the backcountry
where you can cross private as well as public lands. The problem includes the very many holes outside BLM land. We would be in much better shape if a WPA like effort was funded to fix this problem as well as a whole host of problems with our crumbling infrastructure. This is just not part of the dialogue, anywhere.
Sure we have a lot of problems in this country, but solutions for some are trivially easy to implement, the will to seriously discuss solutions is lacking.
For this particular off topic aside this is the perfect coda:
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXsQAXx_ao0]
Like I said elsewhere--
we've got work that needs to be done, people willing to work for pay, and the knowledge and ideas (policy) of how to do it--and how to improve the overall system so that it works better, which creates more work to be done for the people willing to work for pay.
But we haven't got financing.
Because the rich don't want to build a civilization, or to improve one.
They want to dismantle all of them and sell them for scrap.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
"But we haven't got financing." Wrong!
The reality is we have a sovereign currency there is no impediment to "financing" the only impediment is the will to do what is needed.
OK, let me clarify.
When I say, "We don't have financing," I don't mean "We can't do it because we don't have enough money." I mean there's only two places, currently, to get the money: the government, and wealthy people in the private sector. WPIPS include the banks, who are Wealthy People formed into institutions who have established a monopoly on currency, corporations, who are Wealthy People formed into organizations that make them more wealthy and also, when they can't help it, employ people and pay them as little as possible for their work, and Wealthy Individuals--people who have gotten so wealthy they don't need to get together with other Wealthy People to wield direct influence over the economy.
I agree with you about us having a sovereign currency. I agree with Ellen Brown. The current system is a scam, and has more in common with the ugliest kinds of religion than it does with social science or bedrock reality.
I guess that's what governed my word choice: why I said "financing" instead of "money." There's plenty of money. The government could do this today, or at any time during my lifetime.
If you like science fiction, check this out for a vision of how the government could easily do this without even disturbing one hair on the classical economists' heads (it also happens to be one of the best damned things I've seen on TV ever):
[video:https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3nh93k_babylon-5-s01e12-by-any-means-...
Or, we could deficit spend, which has its down sides, but frankly, the budget deficit doesn't scare me much in a world filled with things like global warming, possible nuclear war, Wall St's semi-planned crashes, a global surveillance and assassination network, etc. Even if we were going to be afraid of deficits, the trade deficit frightens me far more than the budget deficit.
Or, we could do what you're suggesting (I think?) and have the government create money to spend on promoting the general welfare, and then do it.
There's a million damned ways to do this. Hell, if the capitalists are really so efficient and so great at being a bedrock of civilization, like they keep claiming, maybe they should do it. But they don't seem particularly inclined to create broad-based prosperity, nor even to save the earth, which, as the Tick so eloquently proclaims, is where they keep all their stuff.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Wh2CruhrKk]
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
I am not sure I understand you.
Are you suggesting sovereign currency is a scam?
No.
I am suggesting that giving private banks a monopoly on creating currency, then having governments borrow from those banks at interest, and then mocking anybody who questions that system, while pretending that the private banks AREN'T creating money out of thin air, is a scam.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
The coming market crash will show that money can magically
disappear from the Big Banks. I hope credit unions stay solvent. 6 more days until I can repatriate $87K CDN to my credit union.
Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.
DAPL gave me the additional kick in the butt I needed
Gonna move the money as soon as I get past this remodeling job on the house.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
People need to become familar with the term "bail-in"
and to keep their eyes and ears open.
New Rules: Cyprus-style Bail-ins to Take Deposits and Pensions
" “Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.” FDR "
aka THEFT
Robbery. Mattress hoarding may return. I think futons might be easier. Mayonnaise jars as well, buried in the yard.
Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.
Posted in wrong place, sorry.
Again !?
We are on the same page.
Banks creating currency, as in non-governmental sovereign currency, is a scam. This is what is destroying the EU. The government creating sovereign currency is the only way an economic system can (and has only ever) function. Classical economist have lied about this forever.
Also the whole "deficit spending", and "Your Tax Dollars at Work" tropes have been distorted by those same classical economists. So, "tax", "government spending", and various other words are "red flags" to me.
Absolutely.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
I know all about "hot" water over Marcellus shale
If there were a counter for alpha particles, my house is edging over, even with 20 min venting per hour and my water is screaming. But I earlier did lab experiments with 10 milliCuries of beta/gamma 32P. I retired a shoe to a closet for 3 half-lives after that.
Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.
Alpha / Beta counters exist, the EPA no longer deploys them.
I wrote a revised protocol for the RadNet Monitoring Program to directly track airborne short lived α and β activity. The EPA removed those detectors from all monitoring sites.
I used track etch monitors here, several times.
How interesting they determined to ignore background radiation that we are all exposed to. But there is the sun...
Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.
ZnS(Ag) sheets mated to a PM tube and discriminator
Near real time results, measured twice a week. I found short lived isotopes accounted for 30,000 times the β activity as determined and reported by the EPA as gross beta activity from the filters they received through the mail several days after the fact. They only are interested in the activity of long lived isotopes.
The α activity was usually less than ten percent of the β activity in our dust samples. We have an (α + β) exposure from our outdoor air that ranges from 50 pCi/m³ to 480 pCi/m³ with occasional excursions to over 1000 pCi/m³. To put these numbers into perspective the EPA guidelines and many municipalities require remediation if your basement "Radon" activity is at or above 4000 pCi/m³.
It's so nice to have a physicist around the blog….
Only if said with a wry smile and that special tone of voice.
Real spelunkers avoid old mines like AIDS.
And for exactly the same reasons.
-- Colorado Department of Natural Resources
. Division of Reclamation, Mining and Safety
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
Even Active Mines Will Kill You
One short story then I'll pop off for the night.
A colleague of mine once worked a mine in Colorade. One day while drilling at a vein he "zoned out" a bit as the mechanical vibrations focused his attention a bit too much on the task at hand. Suddenly, a fellow miner hit his shoulder and gestured as he ran up the narrow passage. My colleague moved shortly before the fault shifted and a rather large slab of mountain interior occupied his former location.
If he had not "zoned out" he too would have noticed the telltale signs in time. I was lucky his partner got to him in time, otherwise, I would have never met him. What a shame that would have been.
See you on the other side, RIP
There are at least a couple of us familiar
with the situation in Arizona...one that worked in the industry, and one that just lives among the aftermath. I, for one, would just love to see the giant pile of toxic dirt at the top end of my street slowly trucked and packed back into the hole from whence it came.
Your interests almost always seem to interest me...what special interest do you have in Arizona?
"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X
Long History : Short Version
My mother was born in Bisbee. I went to ASU for my PhD, and knew more about the state than most "sons of the soil" that I met there. While in college (La Grande, OR) I got to know an awesome artist from the Navajo Nation. I "own" a bit of land near Snowflake which is South of the Peabody Coal site.
While at ASU I gave talks on the ecological disaster known as Phoenix. I also took long bicycle rides (sans water bottle) along the Salt River. I really miss the Verde River Valley, et cetera. Over time this all will just become words from a Zane Greyish novel (I can feel the idealized imagery pressing its way into my brain), and that is sad · · · Oh!, and the awesome geology!, biology!, and culture! stunning!
For a variety of reasons I will not be able to retire to Arizona, but C'est la vie as grandpa would say.
As for this: many hours are needed:
If you ever need a place to stay, for a visit...
...check out some Escabrosa Limestone, listen to some waila....
"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X
A contract involving capitalists is binding under the law.
A contract made with workers is not.
Life is strong. I'm weak, but Life is strong.
You got that right. If I may, I'll add a treaty made with
American Indians is not to be considered binding on Uncle Sam either.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
I can't think of one
that has ever been.
"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X
I'll go back
to the orange shit hole one more time and that will be to flame out in a spectacular way. I almost did it when I read this post. However, I'm starting to believe the little weasel bastard is saying off the wall shit to get more clicks to his dying site. His numbers have to have fallen big since the primary.
Anyway, using his twisted logic, I guess he all his minions should relish the idea of say, Texas, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Michigan and all the other states that went for trump, having some kind of natural calamity befall them. forget about all the people that voted for clinton in these states. My ex-inlaws, father in law and his 3 brothers, were all Eastern Kentucky coal miners and damn good Dems. Still are to this day and I'd have to bet they voted for clinton.
Shame on that little piece of shit. I'd like to ship his ass down to coal country and have him say he's glad they're losing their benefits. I would be great to never hear from him again....
Coal no longer makes financial sense
Her comments where absolutely misplaced however.
The miners, and not just coal miners, have been screwed by their industry, Many of the companies have split their companies and intentionally move the pensions into the split they shoved all the failing mines into, The evil committed by Patriot coal, can not be understated.
Congress hasn't helped either, by allowing Companies to take out bankruptcy loans that are a super priority over pensions(Reagon era), they created the situation that needed legislation to fund these benefits to the pathetic level they where at.
Republicans have been on the active warpath against the only tools these people have, the union, and few of them have unions anymore, And companies flat do not care about worker lives, workers are 12 times more likely to die in a non union mine, then a union mine. Safety work is often left badly neglected in non-union mines.
Democrats have been so busy not wanting to upset the Company apple cart, have been inhumanly negligent. And only want to let things play out.
Coal is a terrible evil industry, often ran by a combination of longtime family business owners, and wallstreet. They are very much the embodiment of an American Aristocracy, often ran like a feudal fiefdom, and I do mean this litterly, In the begging they only paid company script which could only be spent at the company store, and used to pay for company owned houses. People died fighting to be paid actual money and not monopoly dollars.
The modern reality of coal, is that it does not in fact hire that many people, deep mines have been replaced with strip mines and mountain top removal, which require far less workers. Coal power has also been shrinking putting a great deal of pressure on low profit parts of coal extraction to be shut down, aka the deep mines that have lots of workers. The advent of natural gas's growth has cut into coal a lot to, as its often cheaper. Solar is cheaper then coal now.
Coal isn't coming back, Big coals new plans are not expanded sales of the stuff in the USA, but rather to export the stuff. And even China is catching up in alternative energy production, so exports are at best a short/mid term thing.
What has to be proposed can't be a half solution, this is in effect war with the worst actors in our economic system. We badly need to address the environmental situation left by the coal industry in the 10's of thousands of superfund sits left by defunct coal companies. We need new low/modest education work that pays well in these economy depressed places. And we need to be sure we are taking care of the obligations the coal companies abandoned. And if possible in a fashion that makes the typical actors that caused this to help pay for it.
I propose a carbon tax!, 35% retained and 65% prebated back to each American. The collected funds would be used to provide a $20,000 dollar tax credit for the purchase of an electric car(1 per household), a grant program for new manufacturing facilities to build these vehicles, these grants would require the plants be located in economically depressed locations, as would some subsidy for extra transport supply chain costs for locating in these places. Also funds for increasing solar deployments, wind, etc.
Also included and this is important, a victims compensation fund for property stolen via emanate domain for extraction industries, in effect if you had land taken for reasons other then telephone, water, house heating gas lines, things that can be described as basic household utilities. If you property was wrecked by a spill, etc. This can also act as an insurance fund for industry wind down fund. As eventually this industry stains need to be removed from the landscape. Lower cost solutions sometimes could be land exchanges, a 150 foot wide swath of un-farmable land taken from the middle of a farmers property might easily make the whole farm un financially viable.
This sold along side the de-stupidification of Trade policy, and a huge increase in top brackets for income tax(65% atleast for top bracket), Classify all income as income, no more carve outs, and create a situations where businesses would rather reinvest or pay workers then payout money to executives or in dividends. That is why taxes need to be high, also party why the stock market does better under democrats, even small increases in top brackets have this effect to an extent.
treat all income the same
Actually, corporations need to be required to pay a certain part of their profits as dividends. The scam of speculation-only common stock, where one cannot obtain one's profits while retaining his share of ownership in the business, unfairly favors management and short-term speculators over actual buy-and-hold investors. The practice needs to be banned. If a company can't afford to pay dividends, it should be treated as if it is not profitable -- period. (With, of course, the exceptions you point out, i.e., choosing to self-invest and pay new workers, etc.)
This actually goes to your proposal of treating all income alike. It's easiest to do that when the income is clearly visible (dividends) rather than theoretical (stock share price speculation).
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
Your wrong
Low taxes encourage divestment from equity. When profits are paid as dividends or bonuses that is money that is not being reinvested in the company, and hens not creating jobs.
High taxes discourage divestment from equity, as it creates the situation where executives would rather reinvest profits into the business to avoid taxes then eat the hit that taxes would bring.
Every dollar spent as a business expense is a dollar that isn't taxed in our marginal tax system. Having higher taxes will not cause business to suddenly not investment, rather high taxes forces them to reinvest profits as their means of avoiding taxes.
A businessman who can't easily divest without tax penalty is a businessman who wants long term stable growth of his equity holdings. This is one of the reasons the economy worked so well 1946-1970~.
The purpose of higher taxes is behavior modification.
The masks come off
And the partisan players warm up their arms for another game of Fuck The People. This time the Democrats are up to bat. Markos just made it easier to point out how awful both sides are.
On point essay. Rec'd and Shared.
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
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