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
Read 'Night comes to the Cumberlands'.
The eastern US coal mines came after the rape of the eastern forests. The book is dated, but I sense the author's love of the region and the people. Growing up in KY, in a privileged school, we learned about the traveling nurses, on mules and horses, who visited the hollows and tiny communities.
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.
Looked it up - looks interesting
My grandparents lived in Illinois, not Appalachia, just to be clear. I remember the first time we visited them in their small town, (they always came to visit us and rarely the opposite) I really didn't know what to expect. When you say "coal miner" I think of the films How Green Was My Valley and Matewan, the Molly McGuires, etc. - long lines of coal swarthy men emerging from the pits swinging their lunchpails and going home to their hovels.
My grandparents lived on a big piece of land covered with fruit trees and arbors and vegetable gardens in a large bungalow style house with a big porch. It had that Depression style interior with a big farm house sink, awful wallpaper etc, but really it reflected a mostly comfortable working class lifestyle for the times. My mother and her sibs all went to college and joined the middle class through their educations and professions but she was never ever embarrassed about her father being a coal miner.
" “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 "
coal miners' progeny
Phoebe,
I too had an immigrant Polish grandfather who ended up working in the mines in southern Illinois.
I learned a lot about perseverance, overcoming obstacles,loving to learn,being ok with oneself,making do, and community,as well as many other things such as the polka. I learned some of the same things from my first generation Lithuanian grandfather who also ended up as a coal miner in southern Illinois, as well as a love of nature and gardening. The second one died with black lung.
I have more than a little respect for the trades, hard physical work, and personal responsibility. All minors have earned their health care.
Although I could not have acquired any more academic degrees and have been in business for myself for decades, I am very pro union and a proud granddaughter of coal miners
Great book!
Completely changed the way I looked at the region and its people. Tragic irony in the fact that the do it yourself go it alone attitude of the people there played a key role in their exploitation, first by logger companies then by the mines.
Scots-Irish, the second or third displacement.
Half of my family ancestors. Shows up in my DNA and family names. Mine were not miners, but farmers becoming foundry folk.
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.
Will check it out; ty. May I recommend Denise Giardina's
Storming Heaven?
“It’s important to know that people fought back. When I found out that people fought back, I thought maybe I should, too.” - D. Giardina
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." --Jiddu Krishnamurti
The UMW quandary of the early 1950's: There was real
pressure from the rank and file for a raise in pay. John L Lewis had the choice to allow mechanization of the mines and raise pay but at the loss of more than half the workers. Where Lewis failed was agreeing to recognizing the capitalist right to own the coal and mine it for a profit - He had the union agree to this. UMW members were probably the most class aware of any union and this hurt.
Also, the pact changed the way pensions and health benefits were organized and later companies declared bankruptcy and reorganized shell companies and shed worker obligations. The loss of the class nature of the worker/capitalist organization was lost and the country suffered.
There are about 15,000 coal miners left in WV - far below the numbers even 30 years ago. Non union miners are very common in the state and in the neighboring coal fields of VA and KY.
Gloating over the forced ill health of miners is awful and needs to be condemned. It also needs to be seen for what it is: the class warfare of capital against those with only their labor to sell. Neoliberalism is the name given it but it's really slow and steady war on the majority of people in this country.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
Harlan County, USA
A film that captures something of the drama of that class war, from the '70s
The battle of Blair Mountain, Logan County, WV - it should
be a National Monument dedicated to the spirit of the miners in their class struggle against the owners, scabs, law enforcement bodies, and thugs misnamed as "detectives" of such companies as Pinkerton and Felts.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
Absolutely.
Matewan (film) tells a small part of that story. I don't think there has been a film of Blair Mountain, yet; but there are a few good books on it. It is one of the biggest forgotten strike actions in US history - basically a full-blown armed rebellion. Said then-journalist Winthrop Lane: "West Virginia is today a state of civil war." Might also add the Blair Mtn was only one action in a long-running class war, that prompted (among other things) the creation of a State Police force in WV (more militarized and centrally controlled by the Gov in cahoots with corporate power), precisely to act as a reliable force for the suppression of the People.
When I took my daughter to Matewan, we were able to see
bullet holes in the brick walls from the battle.
Cops always seem to align themselves with corporate power. I guess in part it's because they are job scared and in larger part they are ordered to do what they do and don't mind.
Even as recently as 10 years ago a person could find a jack-rock in the barrow ditch or a little farther from the road surface in coal country.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
Police are generally control oriented
(as opposed to achievement or affiliation orientation per McClellan psych tests).
This does not mean they have control; it means the desire for control is a primary motivation.
So I would say that cops are happy to attack and even kill dissidents. Not only does it give them the feeling of control, they are attacking that which they feel is out of control.
I don't know if this has been demonstrated or not, but I believe the need for control originates in a feeling of powerlessness. Anyone raised to feel powerless was raised in a dysfunctional environment, imo - one that is pervasive in our country.
These are learned behaviors that span generations, so it is difficult to envision this evolving into a healthier nation. But it is my opinion that this is the root cause of many of our nation's ills, if not the major ills of the planet.
I find what you say to be very plausible.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
Good News
There are some that are working to change the way policing is implemented. But like everything else of concern at this site it may very well be too late.
Some have been working on the inside to stop the militarization
of the police function for 20 years with precious little effect.
One incident that comes up again and again was the bank robbery in CA where the perpetrators had armored themselves and even though law enforcement was in place they were able to fire dozens of rounds because they out-gunned and out-armored the police. It's on film and it had an impact of PD's.
Then there the whole sad story of the administrations basically giving away military equipment to the cops which turns community based policing on its head.
So far, it's a losing battle for the citizens.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
Your cynical assessment may be more realistic
than my more optimistic assessment. I am basing my point of view on the Nebraska cops I have known (and taught) and the few cops I have met in Jackson County, Oregon. The significance of the recently elected sheriff accepting a position in Gresham, Oregon cannot be overstated.
Now that's unusual · · · me being the optimist.
There are a lot of officers who take their oath seriously and
whole departments that do too. But there's a large number of departments and officers who mimic the military model and even though it's against the training officers receive at the beginning of their careers and annual week long updates, the military model is entrenched in too many places, especially large cities.
Mayor Bloomberg referred to the NYPD as "my army" and I believe he meant exactly that.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
Many a H.S. bully
ended up wearing a badge and a gun.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
I believe most, if
not all State Police forces were created for the same reason as WV. In the event of something like Occupy or DAPL the powers that be could sic the Troopers on the rabble rousers.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
Your beliefs may be more valid
than my experiences with the Oregon State Patrol in the 1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s.
Ludlow, Colorado, 1914 --
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludlow_Massacre
The entire strike would cost between 69 and 199 lives. Thomas G. Andrews described it as the "deadliest strike in the history of the United States".
For some reason, the coal miners always seem to be the ones getting kicked around -- or maybe they are simply proxies for the rest of us?
When Cicero had finished speaking, the people said “How well he spoke”.
When Demosthenes had finished speaking, the people said “Let us march”.
Could be that there is no fight unless both sides are willing.
So there could be a reason for that ...
Strikebreaking goons: "do you want to risk injury or even death, or do you want to get back to work?"
Coal miner: "Or?"
-- Virtually, etc. B)
Copper miners, too.
I live right next door to the ballpark in Bisbee, AZ, where 1181 POTENTIALLY striking miners were frogmarched into railroad cars by 1200 "deputies" (one of whom was a relative), driven a hundred or so miles out into the desert, and left. Machine guns were present at the ballpark, and were later set up on the passes back into our mining town. One of my neighbors was later ordered to watch until one dissolved in a sulfuric acid pool.
http://archive.azcentral.com/travel/articles/2011/08/17/20110817bisbee-d...
My part of town was built by the Calumet & Arizona Mining Co., subsidiary of this one: [video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSCybelXX5Q]
"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X
"Mine Wars." Doc reminding us bombs were dropped on WV miners
Yes, there should absolutely be a national monument at Blair Mountain, duckpin.
I also have family, who were first generation Italian-Americans, that originated in the mining country of Pennsylvania. In 2008 I chose to canvass for Obama in Schuylkill County so that I could visit the small, rural industrial towns my mother's family came from. It's one bleak scene there, with those classic tight, cramped company housing projects (at least they appeared to be to me) making up much of the main street there. So many homes along the two-lane country roads in that part of the state are completely crumbling and dilapidated. If you really want to see the destruction wrought by unbridled capitalism and the Economic Terrorists of Wall St running amok venture out into the heartland of this country.
Because of it I've always had a place in my heart for the struggles of miners worldwide though I hadn't really began to explore what that word was actually like until fairly recently. One of my favorite books is George Orwell's embedded reporting which led to "Road To Wigan Pier.". It chronicles the sheer dehumanizing misery of the miner's lives inside these damp, cold and dark caves, as well as the filthy, overcrowded company housing and the trap of being at the mercy of the owners and the company store basically rendering your existence to indentured servant. He goes into the mines to see some of the most backbreaking, Dante-esque travails in the break up of coal from deep underground inside a mountain. He concludes with long chapters of why socialism is the only dignified solution to their and the lives of people who have to work for a living.
I hadn't known the extent of what became an all-out war in Logan County, WV between the striking miners and the local sheriff and his puppet master mine owners ("Mine Wars")
As we know from Howard Zinn's life mission to bring us the untold stories of class struggle this kind of treacherous murder by the state of oppressed working people most times goes unpunished and sends a message to nascent social movements and solidarity unions that their lives don't matter when there's money on the line for Big Business and Wall St (The Ludlow Massacre, Lawrence Textile Strike, etc).
It's amazing to me that this truism, that the rights of workers have always been rigged against them and tilted toward those who own the deeds and the keys to the fields, mountains, manufacturing plants and the offices, doesn't get more traction from fair-minded Americans. But then I quickly remind myself that no country, including Russia, does brainwashing propaganda against its people better than the good ole USA.
Instead we are conditioned from an early age to see the American Dream purely in a material sense, rather than the original premise that all should be free of want and have access to a decent, human and dignified life where no one falls through the cracks. We Worship The Rich and think we're all just one lottery ticket or ponzi scheme or Get-Rich-Quick scam from becoming the next contestant on "You're The Next American Dream Millionaire(TM)" sweepstakes tv series. This is in part how we get a sleazy and dangerous schmuck like Trump.
It couldn't be more obvious to me that any sector in which everyone relies on, most notably energy, must be removed from private hands and socialized. Things are going to come to head, soon, because the whole facade, like those dilapidated houses pockmarking our countryside, is crumbling. And like the miner's plight, there's great opportunity for a massive solidarity movement of those who have been churned up in the relentless grinder of unbridled capitalism. This time it won't be the just one sector in a remote rural town; it'll be the entire middle class awakening to the truth that we've been duped for too long.
Thanks for another excellent essay Phoebe. Great thread of information about this subject too!
"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"
- Kurt Vonnegut
Great comment Mark from Queens
You know already how much I revere Howard Zinn. All of history is a struggle for dignity and a decent life between the Haves and Have Nots.
I have always thought that some aspects of society are simply too broad and all encompassing to allow to be placed in private hands and should be socialized for the benefit of all. I put healthcare, natural resources (including our water and aquifers) and all public utilities in those categories - I'm all for nationalizing those areas for the benefit of all and to prevent the plundering of the public by private entities who profit at everyone else's expense.
One thing that makes me laugh darkly is when I see ads about America's "Energy Independence" which makes no sense at all. It isn't like all the oil and gas and coal supplies are put in some private storage and cordoned off for American use alone - it all gets sold on international markets to the highest bidder. (Please, someone correct me if I'm wrong.) This energy independence stuff is one of the most cynical plays on the rubes I've seen yet. America can have her aquifers polluted, suffer earthquakes induced by energy seeking humans, and have her bays turn black from oil spills, but we are not sharing in the wealth generated by the usurpation of our common resources.
" “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 "
Your surmise is correct, Phoebe --
the international markets control where the coal goes (or even if it gets mined). Here in the mountain West (Colorado & Wyoming) most of the coal used to go to China (at the time, a coal-fired economy); but several years ago, China made the bold decision to REDUCE THEIR GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS -- i.e., fewer coal imports. Consequence for the US -- EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THE BIG COAL PRODUCERS IN THE ROCKY MTN WEST HAS DECLARED BANKRUPTCY; and the huge coal-export terminal in Washington State sits mostly idle. Guess there really might be some consequences to committing fully to century-old technology, while depending on "socialism" (i.e., US government intervention) to protect your industry.
Despite what Trump would love to promote (apparently -- who knows?), coal is a dead industry --
When Cicero had finished speaking, the people said “How well he spoke”.
When Demosthenes had finished speaking, the people said “Let us march”.
Phoebe, in addition to the sectors you mentioned
that should be nationalized, I nominate the oil industry also be taken for the people's benefit.
Oil IS nationalized in most oil producing countries. In fact that is one of the arguments the American oil industry brings up when wanting particular benefits or legislation or some such. When they bring up that argument, it is in and of itself an argument for nationalization.
I believe the sectors you mentioned are already nationalized in most nations. Please correct me if I'm wrong - but of course we need to stop the exploitation of public water for private profit.
Your reply was a fine essay in itself.
The coalfields of PA were mostly Anthacite - black diamonds - the finest coal on earth. Fine or not, the owners kept the workers in poverty. Hall of Famer Hughie Jennings from near Scranton was typical: Went to work as a breaker boy at age 10 at Pittston. Trams would dump their load down the chute, covering the boys in coal dust, and it was their job to remove the coal from the slate. They got maybe $1/week for 12 hour days.
The Mollie Maguires became active because of the ill treatment the miners and their families received from the capitalists and spies and thugs were sent in to suppress any labor unrest. There were 4 major anthracite fields and many miners were Irish so the AOH had a distinct presence there. Many other nationalities were represented especially from the Baltic countries and southern and eastern Europe.
"Lose your job, lose your home" - many miners had to live in company housing and this is what they were up against. As recently as the 1980's national guard and/or state police were sent to evict strikers and their families. Babbitt, governor of AZ, did this to the striking copper workers and Clinton made him Secretary of Interior.
I totally agree that the energy sector should be nationalized and run as government agencies with corporations and private capital excluded.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
Solar on every rooftop and Nationalizing enery
I agree that for profit companies are a problem in the health, prison and energy sectors. If there were low-interest government loans for homeowners to put solar panels on their rooftops it would benefit the environment and decentralize the power of the energy sector. Poor families could get credits. The grid and power plants for cities and industrial power should be run by coops.
This is so true
My family is from western Pa, and the headuarters for the Rochester and Pittsburgh Coal Company was in my parents' hometown. My great grandfather and my grandfather both worked for the R & P Coal Co. in mid level management. My great grandfather emigrated to the US from Scotland to work for the coal company as a boiler maker and later moved into management. His younger son, my grandfather, worked in the mines during the summers as a boy and eventually went to work for the coal company as a regional general manager. He was a real SOB too.
The R & P Coal Co. mined western Pa and into West Virginia. They did both shaft mining and strip mining (another type of environmental hell). Whole towns were built and owned by the Coal Company and the workers paid rent to live in company houses, bought goods from the company store, banked at the company bank, and had their lives totally intertwined with the company. My father was born in one of those towns before my grandfather moved up in the company and they moved to a real town.
I remember as a child when Tennessee Ernie Ford made the song Sixteen Tons popular, my grandfather hated that song. It was way too close to the truth for him to admit it.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
*Those* bastards.
Still around, so I hear.
"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
Kos can easily dismiss coal miners
Kos can easily dismiss coal miners because he's got more smarts than them (snark, of course). When I heard Her Heinous make that remark about putting coal miners out of work, I was stunned. I'm not a miner, but my first thought was "what if she made the same statement, but it was my job and not the miners'?" I'd have worked against Bernie Sanders, JFK or Jesus Christ if they'd have made that statement. You can't hit a man where he eats and not expect a fight. And if it's a person's livelihood, the Marquess of Queensberry Rules won't apply, it'll be a street fight.
When elites like Kos beat on coal miners, it shows an inability to put themselves in someone else's shoes; a trait reserved for Rethugs in the past, but now the Dems are getting in on the play. If HRC had said "We're gonna put for-profit blog owners out of work" would Kos have still voted for her, supported her and run interference for her on his for-profit blog? Of course not. But that's exactly what he expected coal miners to do. You see, their jobs are not as important as his. Gawd, I'm glad I left that sinkhole of a site.
"Just call me Hillbilly Dem(exit)."
-H/T to Wavey Davey
The coal miner comments along with the deplorables
and the one about 'we came, we saw, he died' and the one about staying in the primary with Obama because look at what happened to Bobby Kennedy in June, really make me think that either Hillary has some kind of political Tourette's malady that makes her say incredibly strange or inappropriate things at inopportune times, or that she is actually missing some empathetic pathways in her thinking.
This goes all the way back to her very first exposure with the 'I could have stayed home and baked cookies' comment which alienated a large population of women who chose to stay home and look after the kids of their own free will and volition. That comment was simply unnecessary, it didn't help her in any way and actually hurt her like all the others. Okay, maybe some other people enjoyed gloating about the death of Gaddafi, but most world leaders are more circumspect.
" “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 "
Lots of people enjoyed Gaddafi's death.
Along with Tojo's hari-kari, Mussolini's death at the hands of the Partisan's and Hitler's suicide.
Your other comments are all spot on.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
Being privately glad/relieved is one thing, but
publicly gloating about it with Caesarist mockery is a big No-No. Still.
Frankly, a simple "Good riddance" would have been twice as effective and done half as much harm. The damn woman is as tone-deaf and insensitive as a fencepost.
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
The damn woman is as tone-deaf and insensitive as a fencepost.
Can't argue with that!
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
Ditto.
That is, I agree. Not that I too am tone deaf and insensitive.
Please check out Pet Vet Help, consider joining us to help pets, and follow me @ElenaCarlena on Twitter! Thank you.
Gaddafi's role in Libya
Gaddafi's role in Libya was much more complex than the cartoonish version presented in the US media. He had, after all, taken one of the poorest countries in the world and made it the wealthiest in Africa with a very low poverty rate. They had the longest life expectancy in Africa. The money was shared. There was extensive social welfare. Newly married couples were given the equivalent of $50,000 to help buy a house or apartment. There were huge gains in education for everyone, but particularly women. When he was murdered more than half of the students in universities were women. Among his "sins" were a fairly brutal crackdown on radical islamists, support for the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and support for various other revolutionary movements in Africa and elsewhere. He was also strong supporter of Pan Africanism. His regime was oppressive at times and he had his quirks like his all virgin praetorian guard. The reasons he was attacked were that the US was, and is, moving militarily into Africa and Gaddafi's support of Pan Africanism was an obstacle, the leaders of the Gulf States had always hated him and he would not give in to full blown neoliberalism. The advent of the Arab Spring gave the enforcers of neoliberalism and the repressive royalist regimes of the Arabian peninsula their chance. The Qatari intervention in Libya on the side of the rebels was decisive. Libya is now a hell hole. Another triumph of smart power.
I don't give a damn about Libya!
He killed innocent US citizens at Lockerbie. That's what I care about and I venture to say 70% of Americans agree with me.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
Libya wasn't the power behind the Lockerbie bombing
Just an easy to hit scapegoat.
Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.
Amen
The evidence for a Libyan involvement was very weak. One of the two suspects was found innocent. The other (Abdelbaset al-Megrahi) was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment but the evidence was very weak. He was released early because he had terminal prostate cancer, but a group of relatives of Lockerbie victims campaigned for his name to be cleared, because they did not believe he was guilty. Many have concluded that the original verdict was politically influenced.
Excellent comment Roy Blakeley
One of my best friends from my school days moved in the 60's with her family to Tripoli for her father's job with an oil company. Have never found out what happened to them. Gaddafi was a hero for Africans who did not want to bow to the Climate Killers PetroChemical hegemony.
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
Sociopaths will say sociopathic things.
"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
It is the way neoliberals think
The belief in meritocracy forms the basis for neoliberal beliefs. Those of the meritocracy truly believe themselves to be superior to anyone who did not graduate from the right college and did not move up in the hierarchy of urban professionals. This disdain for the blue collar and white collar workers is the reason that neoliberals have no problems shitting on them.
There is no empathy or sense of shared concerns for "those" people. The thinking has been "after all, where are they going to go?" I think we saw the answer to that question in the Rust Belt which got tired of voting for the same old, same old and still losing ground.
It is appalling to think that a significant number of people in this country think that way, even when they are not part of the meritocracy. We saw that blatantly in the owner's post over at the other place. But we also see it subtly in other neoliberal sites and from the entire Democratic party apparatus. In reality, they do not care what happens to real people, only about getting their votes.
Here is what I posted over there. I need to quit going there as in doing so makes my opinion of so called Democrats go even lower than it already is.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
The role of government under Neoliberalism
is managing decline, the decline in people's standard of living demanded by finance capital.
We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.
I agree 100%. It's the Military/Industrial/Financial Complex
and has been for 40 or more years. As end-stage capitalism hits its default position, which is stagnation, financialization takes place to wring the remaining profits out of the earth and its people. It can only do this by having the military and diplomatic power of government in thrall to Big Finance which is has had.
We are beyond the point of having a reserve army of labor: It's estimated that there are over 1 billion unemployed people worldwide which is more than capital needs. These people are waste to monopoly capital and are being treated as such.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
I've read that we've entered the Post Employment world
simply not enough jobs to go around period, let alone jobs with living wages.
Thus, some countries are proactively investigating the concept of minimum guaranteed incomes to provide their citizens with enough to keep them fed, clothed and sheltered.
This seems like a wise move since "Get a job!" will no longer suffice to shout at unemployed people since there will be no hope of fulfilling that suggestion. The handwriting is on the wall when hundreds of people line up to work in a new candy store as happened not that long ago. Anyway, if countries don't do this, we will experience robberies, scams, cons, etc. as people do whatever is necessary to stay alive.
Time to break out my Nation of Bloggers concept again, wherein the government pays people to log-on and maintain regular hours doing research and writing on any random topic they are assigned for the day. No professional clothing required, no transportation, etc. Provide a decent wage and health benefits until we get single payer healthcare. Cheaper than other forms of public assistance, plus the income would be taxed and re-circulated back into our consumer society. Honestly, I can't see any drawbacks with this idea. In the same vein my other idea was Nation of Dog Walkers wherein the government pays us to walk each others dogs.
" “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 "
As long as global monopoly capitalism rules the political
economy, there will be very needy people. I like your idea of a guaranteed income, or services provided, to allow people to keep body and soul together. With all of the money flowing to the top 10% during the Obama recovery, it's hard to see where the will to do this will come from, but something along your lines needs to happen. More people are dying from opioid overdose than from guns in the USA lately. The markers for a misery index, like declining longevity rate and rising new born deaths, are documented.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
When you look around at the jobs that need doing ...
... that are going undone, it would seem to be a case of "not quite there yet".
Hell, there'd be a lot more jobs per ton of Appalachian biocoal than per ton of mineral coal, but the problem is that it wouldn't tip such massive piles of cash into a few pockets, so it doesn't get pushed through our fact free mess media.
-- Virtually, etc. B)
The neoliberal/meritocratic ideology has no room for empathy.
Not looking at the big picture, that we are all humans with the same aspirations and failings, will be, and has been their undoing.
"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
Not Tourettes, it's SOCIOPATHY
The Bobby Kennedy statement showed me that. I was stunned at the time. I remain so.
There are myriad accounts of inappropriate remarks from her which is why they needed to keep her so tightly handled and away from recording devices. Remember the protest of the one gal at a tiny fundraising party who had the sign about the Super Predator comment? There is also a story about her throwing a lamp at President Clinton in the White House and the SS guys not knowing if they would have to restrain FLOTUS... She's got anger and entitlement issues.
'What we are left with is an agency mandated to ensure transparency and disclosure that is actually working to keep the public in the dark' - Ann M. Ravel, former FEC member
10 seconds of proof.
And this, as we all know, was directed at her supporters.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMrNggFlmm8]
"Just call me Hillbilly Dem(exit)."
-H/T to Wavey Davey
That speech really hurt her.
'Why aren't I 50 points ahead?' is probably second only to 'Basket of Deplorables' in terms of rhetorical own-goals.
The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?
Thanks for the Public Service Announcement
A reminder of how awful she is.
Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.
a more appropriate video for that:
[video:https://youtu.be/XTGmTrQXrwg width:480 height:420]
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
Un-fucking believable
For those who don't remember:
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLNFsl130_Y]
"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
Man ...... I miss me some Olberman Rant .....
Not sure if he still has it in him, but it would be nice to see him in a suitable venue again.
PBS could use a shot in the credibility arm, but co-owner David H. K would never sign off. ;}
21st Century America: The distracted, superficail perception of a virtual reality.
He's turned himself into a HillShill.
"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
Did some some (much needed) catching-up.
Really disappointing to have to agree with you.
Do me a favor CSS, sit on the S Claus intel analysis post Xmas. Already have his cookies setting out. ;}
21st Century America: The distracted, superficail perception of a virtual reality.
Is that an analysis, of M. Claus, or one we're doing with him?
"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
Check him out on YouTube. The Resistance.
Pro Hillary, but very anti Trump and still funny.
Please check out Pet Vet Help, consider joining us to help pets, and follow me @ElenaCarlena on Twitter! Thank you.
I have not found the most recent rant about Russia funny.
It's just unhinged at this point, and carrying water for the distortions.
'What we are left with is an agency mandated to ensure transparency and disclosure that is actually working to keep the public in the dark' - Ann M. Ravel, former FEC member
Found it
'What we are left with is an agency mandated to ensure transparency and disclosure that is actually working to keep the public in the dark' - Ann M. Ravel, former FEC member
I'm sorry, I still do find it funny.
I have a warped sense of humor. He's just so unhinged. I'm sure few are taking him seriously.
Please check out Pet Vet Help, consider joining us to help pets, and follow me @ElenaCarlena on Twitter! Thank you.
Even the cheering over Bin Laden's death
left me cold. I don't care who he was or what he did, to go out into the streets and shout USA, USA, USA was just the height of tacky in my opinion.
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
If they could kill him and take the body, they could have
drugged him and brought him to trial.
Obama absolutely did not want bin Laden on the witness stand telling what he knew. The Saudi dictatorship didn't either.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
Oh, but, but, but....
The Democrats will provide them with job retraining funds. They can learn skills for jobs that pay half of what they make, IF they can get anyone to hire a middle aged person with no experience in the area for which trained.
My family came from Italy and landed in Boomer, W. Virginia. They ran a bakery and a boarding house in a coal mining town. Instead of stripping everyone's pension and health care, Dems should be fighting to make sure that private industry provides these benefits in return for the trillions in tax cuts and welfare they get.
Ignoring the decline in voter support for the Democratic Party is foolish. No matter how much money either party has, they need votes whether earned or stolen.
Kos is a traitor and an ass. As I said to you in another comment, it makes sense that dkos has been loaded with paid trolls for the last 8 years.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
I know, the retraining mantra is getting a bit threadbare
Train for IT jobs that will be filled with hb-1 visa workers anyway? Train for creative techniques with foam artwork on lattes as to be employed as a barista? Train for what exactly?
Although, if we had actual single payer healthcare and everyone in the country was entitled to care as opposed to insurance, we could train for doctors and nurses and physical therapists and radiologists, and medical technicians, and phlebotomists, and build facilities, etc.
As to the trolls, it is hard to believe that such a large cadre of vituperative commenters could rise organically. I always thought anonymous flagging was a weird policy for anyone trying to promote authentic and civil discussion of alternate viewpoints - makes suppression of unpopular opinions much easier.
" “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 "
All of the h visas smell bad when one examines them.
Import cheaper labor, happy to escape to the USA for slightly better paying jobs. Nannies, housekeepers, CAD workers, all.
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.
anonymous flagging
bothered me, too; I could not understand the change. It made it hard to know who was who and to gauge the validity of the flags. Why would you choose to grant anonymity to acts of bad faith?
Perhaps this is the context
In the 08 primary DK was a giant thorn in HRC's side and a contributing factor to her failure.
The Clintons are known to woo opponents. They got to work on MMZ. They had six years. Hindsight indicates he was on board the HRC train from the get go. I doubt HRC waited until the primaries to woo him, given their strategy he was wooed a long time ago.
What could HRC have offered to get him on board? Anyone's guess really - support for electoral office and/or MMZ/DK become an arm of the Clinton White House for tech, outreach, marketing are my leading contenders. Whatever it was, it got him to reverse himself. And losing it was sufficiently devastating that he's ranting and raving at the evils that have thwarted him.
If all that holds (and please poke holes) then the anonymous flagging empowers the site and any group it supports to silence groups it doesn't. Ultimately it enabled the purge of Sanders supporters under cover of "oh well, that's how the system works" plausible deniability. Which falls apart when confronted with the fact that the system was working fine and then was broken on purpose, despite the obvious flaws being pointed out at the time.
I'm drawing a blank
On when Markos changed the flagging system. Early 2016?
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
I am thinking more like around Thansgiving (US) in 2015
but after that things really heated up.
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.
Ah, yes
That would make sense.
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
That site was cycling operatives from the moment
…Hillary entered the State Department. Most folks didn't encounter them, but I catalogued them. My interests were geopolitical, and they were there to spin Libya, Iran, Syria, Ukraine, and Russia for the budding Neocon emergent there. It was extremely disturbing and was flying under the radar.
BTW, that blog is actually a "lab" affiliated with a think tank. Lab time can be purchased. Things are tested there. That's the business plan.
IMAGINE if you woke up the day after a US Presidential Election and headlines around the the world blared, "The Majority of Americans Refused to Vote in US Presidential Election! What Does this Mean?"
I remember arguing at DKos about the Maidan coup
and wondering, "Who are these people?"
We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.
You were there. Yes.
That's when I flipped over the rock to look underneath.
This is a seamless continuum.
IMAGINE if you woke up the day after a US Presidential Election and headlines around the the world blared, "The Majority of Americans Refused to Vote in US Presidential Election! What Does this Mean?"
What do you mean
Things are tested there?
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
Nothing real sexy. Luntz level stuff like...
…test driving frames, semantics, and propaganda durability.
What pays the bills is the daily grind on the front page, that reinforces the Party narratives and pushes counter-intelligence. Doesn't matter whether you read it. It's promoting selected trends and playing chutes-and-ladders with the AI algorithms that crawl the web. When it works well, the front page efficiently delivers misinformation and redirects intellectual focus into emotional nonsense. It was singularly effective pushing the anti-Trump hysteria, which replaced Hillary's entire presidential campaign. It worked great during the Benghazi affair, too. Made the entire site dumber when the community was on the threshold of seeing the place for what it was.
IMAGINE if you woke up the day after a US Presidential Election and headlines around the the world blared, "The Majority of Americans Refused to Vote in US Presidential Election! What Does this Mean?"
Really? What think tank?
And lab for what? Sounds intriguing.
Please check out Pet Vet Help, consider joining us to help pets, and follow me @ElenaCarlena on Twitter! Thank you.
Markos was publicly
on board with Clinton as early as July 2014 when he wrote that Clinton will be the nominee. It is the only diary of his that I ever bookmarked simply to show just how early he was publicly shilling for her.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
He tried playing the predicting not influencing line
for all it was worth.
Still many over there believe it.
I did too,
and then put it in his face when he made some stupid comment that I can't remember.
"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X
We could be so lucky
I would be happy if the Dems would just start calling this what it is: theft. It is the legalized robbery of workers by capitalists.
they can learn skills for jobs.....
...... which will then be shipped out of the country as fast as possible so they can't even earn those reduced paychecks at all.
Althpugh never a coal miner, I've been there. Straight A's in electronics school, unemployed again two years later.
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
Well, of course they *could*.
They *could* actually retrain them to do one of the myriad jobs left undone in this society, of which there are many--and to do them for a living wage. Or they could retrain them to take jobs in a new green energy infrastructure, which desperately needs to be built. There's plenty of things they *could* do: the work needs to be done, the policy exists (i.e., we know how to do it and there's an obvious, persuasive case to be made for doing it). But you know what's coming:
Who's gonna finance it?
The work's there, the ideas are there, the willing workers are there, and we know how to train people. Where does it all fall apart? The people who control the money don't want any of it to happen, and the politicians are owned by them. Because the politicians are owned by them, they won't use any of the government's powers, of which there are several, to spend money where the private sector fails to.
Someone, I think duckpin, said it right: the government's job is to manage our decline, preferably with as little armed revolt as possible.
"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 bet a lot of those middle-aged miners
could learn to assemble solar panels while paying them what they were earning, maybe better. The money could be block granted from the federal gov't to the state(s) affected --- build enough to line the highways with them.
But Nooooooooooooooooooooo. That might actually work and help people.
KOS......... you suck. Big time. And I'm being nice.
"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage
Incredible that you mention solar panels
because I just finished making a comment about the solar industry in the thread about fake news which I'll just cut and paste here:
I heard Jennifer Granholm ( I think it was her, could be wrong) talking on some show the other day about how we needed to promote Buy American policies in order to employ Americans and I wondered if she knew she was promoting something that has become close to impossible to do due to "local content" rules in the trade agreements we are already a party to.
For instance, India's initiative to go massively solar and to employ masses of their own citizens creating domestic solar panels was derailed by the American solar industry under the "local content" rules of the WTO agreement both are signatories to. Ironically, India could do exactly the same thing to us if we had a similar initiative to build a green solar panel industry in this country to both build and use domestic solar panels.
This is the madness of the world we live in. The welfare of companies is clearly paramount to the welfare of nations. How many people do you think are aware of stuff like this? I know I wasn't until just recently because of the informed discussion about the TPP and I have been a news junkie for my entire life. All I ever heard previously was "free trade = jobs". The only person who ever told the truth to the American people was Ross Perot and he was portrayed as a lunatic. To this day the trade pacts are promoted as job creators when most have led to trade deficits and job loss.
" “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 "
'zackly--
I think it was the energy connection that made me think of solar. Coal is energy. Dirty energy. Solar is energy. Not dirty energy. Yay!
I did not know that India had such a program in place. We should be embarrassed.
"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage
The price of solar is actually less than coal now.
So let's see if the so-called 'invisible hand of the free market' actually does some good. Solar and electric vehicle adoption will hopefully accelerate to the point of crushing obsolete fossil fuels sooner rather than later. One can only hope.
"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
Pages