I was walking the dog a few weeks ago and she started sniffing at something which I didn’t recognize at first. After a closer look I realized what it was.
Dead Fish
Hundreds of them
They weren’t the ones in the picture above and most people wouldn’t consider what I came across as serious as many other disasters. These were just a large school of baby fish no more than two inches long, most of them were probably less then one inch. Presumably the nearby stream overflowed during a recent rain storm which wasn’t that bad and they went over with it but when the water drained back into the stream they were left high and dry.
What makes this seem relatively trivial compared to many other disasters may be what actually makes it important.
I doubt if many if anyone else even noticed them; they certainly weren’t reported in even the local newspaper; which is the point.
For every report that does make the newspaper how many are there that don’t? For every disaster that makes the national news how many do you think there are that only makes local papers?
Of course this isn’t just dead fish or other animals it involves an enormous amount of different environmental destruction of all kinds. Shortly after I saw the fish in the road which quickly disappeared, presumably they may have been eaten by the birds, without notice there was a fire that made relatively big news for a few days in New England but doesn’t seem to have drawn much national attention. This was a Back Bay electrical fire in Boston; they say the smoke isn’t toxic but that people should stand clear anyway as a precaution. Presumably they mean no more toxic than any smoke full of excessive amounts of carbon-dioxide which can kill you or lead to other health problems if you breathe enough of it.
A relatively quick Google search for dead fish in the road photos should be more than enough to confirm the fact that there is much more of these types of disasters than the vast majority of us think about. Seeing it makes it easier to think about but when it is relatively trivial it is also easier to quickly forget about it.
One of the things that came to mind was Mickey Knox saying “It's just murder, man. All of God's creatures do it, some form or another, I mean, you look in the forest... you got species killing other species. Our species is killin' all the species includin' the forest, and we just call it "industry", not murder.”
If you don’t think a fictional mass murder is the best source for this then you can consider Charles Manson’s words, "Everyone's God and if we don't wake up to that there's going to be no weather because our polar caps are melting because we're doing bad things to the atmosphere… The automobiles and fossil fuels are destroying the atmosphere and we won't have air to breathe.” “Charles Manson Breaks 20-Year Silence, Warns Of Global Warming” Huffington Post
Mickey Knox and Charles Manson may not be the most credible sources arguing for the protection of the planet but it shouldn’t take much to realize that, at least on this issue, they are far closer to the truth than many so-called more reputable sources. If there is any doubt a relatively quick look through some Google photos of deforestation before and after; deforestation children; oil explosions; coal environmental concerns; and environmental pollution in general; not to mention many other terms you could come up with on your own if your inclined, should be enough to indicate that we have a much more serious problem than the corporate media is reporting on.
There is enough reliable information about how much we are destroying the planet available to anyone with access to the internet to indicate that we need much more action to repair the damage that has already been done and we need to start by stop adding to it at what might be record breaking rates. I don’t know this is increasing for certain due to the lack of reporting from the largest institutions with the most resources and the fact that they do more to distract from the issue than to address it but it is a real possibility and even if they aren’t destroying the planet at a record breaking pace they still aren’t repairing the damage at a rate that is required to begin to repair the damage.
The current political and Media establishment seems to have gone insane when it comes to addressing this issue and many others.
Another way we are attempting to destroy the planet at a possible record pace is of course the non-stop state of war that is being maintained and used as an excuse to prevent real coverage about many issues.
The following is another picture of a larger disaster of some sorts that I never even heard about on the national news last year when it happened; it wasn’t until I Googled for Dead fish that I found the photo that led me to the story. And there are certainly many more where that came from.
Both major parties have indicated that they don’t seem to be taking this seriously if they consider it at all. The Republican party has indicated that they seem to be unanimous in the opinion that Global Warming is a Hoax. The Democratic Party has attempted to portray themselves as the rational moderates on the issue by saying that we need what they call a fair balanced approach, between the protection of the environment and the economy, to the situation.
This is kind of like cutting a major artery and saying maybe we should put a band-aid on that!
I suppose compared to what the Republican’s are doing they might seem somewhat rational but that is only because the Republican’s are behaving in such an insane manner. The entire presidential field of candidates has indicated that they’re unanimous in the opinion that we should, “Drill baby drill,” or something along those lines.
The Democrats have often tried to debunk this argument by saying that Barack Obama is already drilling more than we have ever done before; which should raise serious doubts about their claims that they’re trying to increase alternative energy. They have tried to implement some renewable energy but they have often attempted to prioritize many other things that slow the repair of the environment down dramatically, or for all practical purposes they indicate that they aren’t serious about it at all. They indicate that they’re just as concerned about other issues like what they call “free trade” and “intellectual property” rights; this is generally presented in a manner that is clearly designed to protect the best interests of the campaign donors that happen to be trying to do something, not much, but something on the issue. Clearly collecting campaign contributions is much more important to him and any other candidate for higher office that the corporate media consider viable. (Some of this was covered more in “Thought control outweighs environmental protection.”)
James Inhofe author of “The Greatest Hoax” has may be one of the GOP’s leading representatives from the oil companies along with Joe Barton who actually apologized to Tony Hayward and BP for the grilling they received about the enormous amount of damage he did. To the best of my knowledge he hasn’t apologized to the American people or the victims of any of the disasters that have occurred as a result of the oil company’s corruption. Perhaps he only apologizes to campaign contributors and the only reason Sadam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden haven’t received apologies is because they haven’t donated.
Apparently James Inhofe claims that only God can change the climate; this is a very common belief among many of the most devout religious people. The problem is that even if God exists he doesn’t have a very good track record when it comes to preventing many disasters or getting his point across in a manner that people can understand and confirm. He didn’t prevent the Crusades, WWI or II, the attack on 9/11 and many other events. In fact if you look at the causes that preceded all these events you’ll find a major contribution on the part of many religious people that helped bring about these events and many more.
This doesn’t mean that the hypothetical God created these disasters but it does mean that even if he does exist that he couldn’t be bothered to speak up and tell people this isn’t what he intended for them to do in his name; which indicates that at best the hypothetical God gave his tacit support for all these disaster.
One of the more obvious cases where people allowed their beliefs based on faith or superstition involves the plagues where they somehow came to the conclusion that the cat’s were the ones that were causing it and they killed off thousands of them which of course had the opposite result because the cats were actually keeping the rats in check and it was the fleas that lived on the rats that were actually causing the plague. The point is that even if there is such a thing as God that the way problems are solved depends on people doing what is rational to solve them; and that doesn’t involve saving the economy by destroying the planet. It should be obvious that without the environment there can be no life or economy.
This isn’t something that most of these people that call themselves “pro-life” seem to understand. Sincere pro-life attitudes would hold protecting the environment and preventing wars as a high priority, since they cause much more problems than abortion ever could. But their beliefs aren’t developed by rational thinking instead they’re dictated to them from an early age when children are told what to believe by their parents and they’re taught to believe authority figures. I went into this in more detail in Dobson’s Indoctrination Machine where I also mentioned Dan Gilgoff’s chapter on how James Dobson convinced many of his followers to oppose environmental protection (at Talking Points Memo). Gilgoff clearly indicates how religious leaders and political leaders have colluded with politicians to convince the public to do what is in the best interest of the business leaders that donate to campaigns regardless of how much damage it does to the planet.
This is very similar to the way James Inhofe and Joe Barton seem to have been bought off by the oil companies. As indicated in Mitt Romney’s Mormon prophets and a previous post about the Mormon religion the Mormon’s and Mitt Romney can’t be trusted to do much better. In fact the Mormons have an enormous amount of stock in many media corporations, far more than any other religion; if they wanted to get out a positive message about how they would try to reverse the damage being done to the planet they could have and would have done so by now. Instead they adopt a belief system that is very similar to the Evangelicals on the subject and they’re counting on God to do it for them or they’re counting on this and other problems to help usher in the apocalypse that will allegedly precede the return of Jesus.
They don’t seem to ask why Jesus would need to allow all this destruction any more than the Evangelicals do.
The Branch Dravidians, which was a break off of the Seventh Day Adventists who were originally inspired by William Miller, didn’t ask that either nor did the followers of Jim Jones.
Things didn’t work out well for them.
All of these religions are apocalyptic and they seem to think it is a good idea to help bring about the disasters that they’ve been predicting.
Not everyone agrees.
It is hard to know whether or not these politicians or any of the business men actually believe their own propaganda. For all I know they may repeat it to themselves so often that many of them actually do believe it or they’re in denial or something. Regardless of whether or not they believe their own lies they’re clearly acting on it and they have an enormous amount of power can control over the Mass Media that is delivering messages to the public. If there are some people within the establishment that actually do want to reform the problem, judging by their actions, they don’t seem to be doing much if anything to do so. Perhaps, for all I know they’re giving into an enormous amount of peer pressure and if they don’t they find themselves out of a job and without access to the Mass Media. Whether this is the case or not it is clear that the establishment can’t be trusted to fix this problem.
The moderates like Rachel Maddow seem to argue that something’s need to be done but when it comes to actually implementing solutions they don’t have the power to do it and the things they want to do aren’t nearly good enough. Furthermore, judging by the way they present things on TV I often get the impression that they may want to usher in only enough change to prevent a total collapse without allowing more reform than they need too. The propaganda pieces that they continue to play on MSNBC is a clear indication that there is something to this; these are obvious attempts to implement partial reforms without actually educating the majority of the public on many of the most important issues. Instead these propaganda pieces are designed to dictate a different version of the truth to the public without allowing peer review from many of the most reliable sources and they’re trying to replace one distorted ideology with another.
The corporate media has been giving the public the impression that we have to chose from one of the two major parties or we’re wasting our vote.
They indicate that in order to be viable a candidate has to collect an enormous amount of money that can only come from the corporations.
The corporations don’t donate this kind of money if they don’t expect to get something in return; for money this big they expect something much bigger in return.
This is a crock of shit!!
If the public accepts this absurd premise it may already be too late.
There is no reason to accept this absurd premise although changing the system won’t be easy. There are already many alternatives to the two parties but they just don’t have the resources to get their views across to the majority of the public due to the politicians allowing the corporations to consolidate their control over the mass media and boycott everyone who doesn’t go along with the corporate agenda.
This is a result of several decisions including the Buckley v. Valeo case which equated money with speech; the Citizens United case which enabled corporate contributors to donate enormous amounts of money in secrecy; and the Media re-regulation that took place, mostly, in the late nineties that enabled a small number of corporations to control all the major media outlets and turn them into propaganda machines.
For one reason or another once they did this they turned them into propaganda machines that are so extreme that just about everyone can see that they have no credibility!
This means that the grass roots organizations may have a better chance with many of the people that haven’t been as well organized in the past. When you talk to a reasonable person it is hard to see how they could possibly not realize how incompetent or corrupt the media, government and the corporations have become. One of these parties that deserves a closer look should be The Green party. and their political candidates for many offices including the president which Jill Stein is running for. The Green Party isn’t very powerful here in the United States, presumably due to the enormous amount of influence that the corporations have over the government and the fact that this isn’t nearly as democratic as most of us would like to believe but that doesn’t mean that will remain that way.
In fact I suspect that due to the extremes that the current system has been going to it will be much easier to run many more successful candidates and help usher in some form of election reform that would enable the public to have control over the campaign process not the corporations.
The Green Party has been much more successful in other party of the world. However I suspect that in order to obtain that success they had to have more democratic systems than we have in the USA and I also suspect that they may have had to make coalitions with other parties including the corporate world. This may have led to a more moderate Green Party that does more than other parties but still doesn’t do nearly as much to solve many of these problems as we need to.
Whether this is true or not we need much more efforts to educate the public on the subject. This will have to involve media reform which enables many more people to have access to the Mass Media to get their points of views across. As it stand now only the most corrupt can access the mass media.
This will of course involve more than can be discussed in just one Blog and I’ve already discussed some of this in others. One of the things that should be done is to correct many of the misconceptions that the corporate indoctrination machine has been giving the public.
For starters one of the things that should be made clear is that organizations like PETA, Earth First and many others are not, as the Mass media has often implied, “Nuts!”
For a long time I actually thought that they had some good points but that some of the things that they do really are “Nuts;” somewhere along the line I tried to think of the things that made them “Nuts.” At first I couldn’t come up with anything but figured it must have slipped my mind and that there had to be something. Then I thought of an event that was somewhat recent at the time where they hired a model to pose half naked in a cage in Manchester NH with make up that looked like a big cat and a fake tail attached to her. This received a lot of attention at the time and it doesn’t seem to be a good way to get their point across but after thinking about it it is clear that the corporate media does the same thing much more often and they’re not considered “Nuts.” Sex has always been used to sell; if it is “Nuts” in one of these cases it should be the one that is more destructive and that is generally the corporate tactics. The only reason they seem more rational to many people is because they have control of the propaganda machine.
Given time I’m sure I could come up with similar things about Earth First; the closest things that comes to mind is the eco-terrorism that they’ve allegedly been involved in. But there is a problem; I have heard conflicting stories about that. The most common stories that I have heard are about spiking trees and property damage. I have also heard that it is actually other organizations that have been doing this.
Regardless of which is true there clearly hasn’t been nearly as much damage done to the public of property by the so-called eco-terrorists as there has been by the enormous volume of disasters. In fact these tactics actually work into the hands of the oil companies since they can use them as propaganda to indicate that the bigger problem is the terrorists and it creates a distraction.
The main reason that many people are inclined to think of these organization as being fringe or nuts is almost certainly because the corporations have overwhelming control over the media and they use it for propaganda purposes. The incident with the model in the cage must have been over a decade ago; once I started thinking about whether they actually were doing that would be “nuts” and how they were being portrayed in the Mass Media it became increasingly obvious that they were distorting their coverage and that it was almost certainly this propaganda that led me to think of them as being “nuts” for a long time.
If you want an oversimplified example consider a scenario where one person said it was a bad idea to destroy the planet and another said it was a good idea. Assume for the sake of argument that there was also something that led you to believe that they were both serious. Which one would you consider “nuts?”
Or a slight variation of that option where they both say that it is a bad idea but one of the person demonstrates overwhelmingly, with his actions that he doesn’t mean it.
Then who’s “nuts?”
That is the situation we have here on a much larger scale with many additional contributing factors. However, some things are simple enough that should enable you to understand that despite all the spin the environmentalists are right unless for some reason some people simply don’t want to understand or they have limited thinking skills and are inclined to go along with the crowd.
The corporations have been playing an enormous amount of public relations pieces on TV and there have been few if any from sincere environmental groups. The news coverage that is provided by the same people that collect an enormous amount of money from these advertisers do little if anything to question these propaganda pieces. This essentially means that the vast majority of environmental “education” that the public is receiving is from the companies that are destroying the environment.
This isn’t education; it’s indoctrination!
One of the most common of these ads are some by Iris Cross who works for BP
.
She almost certainly didn’t say something like the following; it certainly wasn’t in any ad that I saw.
Hi I’m Iris Cross public relations spokes person for BP: I would like to assure you that BP is going to do every thing they can to repair the damage that they have done; or at least they’ll spend an enormous amount of money on public relations to convince you to believe this. They’ve spent money hiring public relations experts that tell them which tactics are most effective when it comes to convincing the public they're repairing the damage done whether they are or not.
There will of course be some payments which we will highlight; others who aren’t satisfied with their payments will of course not be featured in our ads and we will be much less likely to buy these ads from news outlets that give them an opportunity to speak. We would also appreciate it if you decline to pay to much attention to the small print that uses the phrase “all legitimate costs” when I smile and say that were making things right by repairing the damage and funding our own approved environmental studies.
Our public relations specialists have informed us that if we come up with simple phrases like “I was born here, I'm still here and so is BP.” And we say it with a smile we can fool "the small people," as Carl-Henric Svanberg would say. Our public relations experts have let us know that most people will fall in line if you just flirt and appear friendly with them like me and Melody Stacey who is also doing public relations for Exxon Mobil.
Melody is part of the sponsorship for schools that adopt the appropriate ideology. As Susan Linn wrote "In-school advertising began escalating in earnest in 1990. It now includes (but isn’t limited to) corporate-sponsored newscasts, field trips, classroom materials, vending machines, gymnasiums, walls, and whole buildings. Have you visited your child’s school lately? Perhaps she’s learning about energy production and consumption through the lens of companies like Exxon Mobil or professional associations like the American Coal Foundation (“Unlocking Coal’s Potential through Education”).” (Susan Linn "Consuming Kids" 2004 p.75-6)
This in school advertising and other sponsorship programs for schools are intended to ensure that they teach the approved environmental studies. This way you can think of us as the great protectors of the environment.
In fact we’ve been at this for quite a while; in fact long before we had the BP disaster in the Gulf we were promoting the idea that BP stood for “Beyond Petroleum” which referred to the clean energy that we intend to promote… some day when it becomes profitable…maybe.
There will of course be some payments which we will highlight; others who aren’t satisfied with their payments will of course not be featured in our ads and we will be much less likely to buy these ads from news outlets that give them an opportunity to speak. We would also appreciate it if you decline to pay to much attention to the small print that uses the phrase “all legitimate costs” when I smile and say that were making things right by repairing the damage and funding our own approved environmental studies.
Our public relations specialists have informed us that if we come up with simple phrases like “I was born here, I'm still here and so is BP.” And we say it with a smile we can fool "the small people," as Carl-Henric Svanberg would say. Our public relations experts have let us know that most people will fall in line if you just flirt and appear friendly with them like me and Melody Stacey who is also doing public relations for Exxon Mobil.
Melody is part of the sponsorship for schools that adopt the appropriate ideology. As Susan Linn wrote "In-school advertising began escalating in earnest in 1990. It now includes (but isn’t limited to) corporate-sponsored newscasts, field trips, classroom materials, vending machines, gymnasiums, walls, and whole buildings. Have you visited your child’s school lately? Perhaps she’s learning about energy production and consumption through the lens of companies like Exxon Mobil or professional associations like the American Coal Foundation (“Unlocking Coal’s Potential through Education”).” (Susan Linn "Consuming Kids" 2004 p.75-6)
This in school advertising and other sponsorship programs for schools are intended to ensure that they teach the approved environmental studies. This way you can think of us as the great protectors of the environment.
In fact we’ve been at this for quite a while; in fact long before we had the BP disaster in the Gulf we were promoting the idea that BP stood for “Beyond Petroleum” which referred to the clean energy that we intend to promote… some day when it becomes profitable…maybe.
It isn’t just the public relations that is trying to ensure that we make the maximum amount of profits for the corporations regardless of what it does to the planet many powerful institutions, including the World Bank, are also doing what they can to ensure this. In 1991 Lawrence Summers was chief economist for the World Bank when he wrote the following.
'Dirty' Industries: Just between you and me, shouldn't the World Bank be encouraging MORE migration of the dirty industries to the LDCs [Less Developed Countries]? I can think of three reasons:
1) The measurements of the costs of health impairing pollution depends on the foregone earnings from increased morbidity and mortality. From this point of view a given amount of health impairing pollution should be done in the country with the lowest cost, which will be the country with the lowest wages. I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that.
2) The costs of pollution are likely to be non-linear as the initial increments of pollution probably have very low cost. I've always though that under-populated countries in Africa are vastly UNDER-polluted, their air quality is probably vastly inefficiently low compared to Los Angeles or Mexico City. Only the lamentable facts that so much pollution is generated by non-tradable industries (transport, electrical generation) and that the unit transport costs of solid waste are so high prevent world welfare enhancing trade in air pollution and waste.
3) The demand for a clean environment for aesthetic and health reasons is likely to have very high income elasticity. The concern over an agent that causes a one in a million change in the odds of prostrate cancer is obviously going to be much higher in a country where people survive to get prostrate cancer than in a country where under 5 mortality is is 200 per thousand. Also, much of the concern over industrial atmosphere discharge is about visibility impairing particulates. These discharges may have very little direct health impact. Clearly trade in goods that embody aesthetic pollution concerns could be welfare enhancing. While production is mobile the consumption of pretty air is a non-tradable.
The problem with the arguments against all of these proposals for more pollution in LDCs (intrinsic rights to certain goods, moral reasons, social concerns, lack of adequate markets, etc.) could be turned around and used more or less effectively against every Bank proposal for liberalization. Whirled Bank.org
1) The measurements of the costs of health impairing pollution depends on the foregone earnings from increased morbidity and mortality. From this point of view a given amount of health impairing pollution should be done in the country with the lowest cost, which will be the country with the lowest wages. I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that.
2) The costs of pollution are likely to be non-linear as the initial increments of pollution probably have very low cost. I've always though that under-populated countries in Africa are vastly UNDER-polluted, their air quality is probably vastly inefficiently low compared to Los Angeles or Mexico City. Only the lamentable facts that so much pollution is generated by non-tradable industries (transport, electrical generation) and that the unit transport costs of solid waste are so high prevent world welfare enhancing trade in air pollution and waste.
3) The demand for a clean environment for aesthetic and health reasons is likely to have very high income elasticity. The concern over an agent that causes a one in a million change in the odds of prostrate cancer is obviously going to be much higher in a country where people survive to get prostrate cancer than in a country where under 5 mortality is is 200 per thousand. Also, much of the concern over industrial atmosphere discharge is about visibility impairing particulates. These discharges may have very little direct health impact. Clearly trade in goods that embody aesthetic pollution concerns could be welfare enhancing. While production is mobile the consumption of pretty air is a non-tradable.
The problem with the arguments against all of these proposals for more pollution in LDCs (intrinsic rights to certain goods, moral reasons, social concerns, lack of adequate markets, etc.) could be turned around and used more or less effectively against every Bank proposal for liberalization. Whirled Bank.org
After this memo was leaked one of the arguments that was made to defend it was that he was throwing it out for discussion implying that the purpose was to prevent it from happening. This might sound good if there was follow up along those lines but instead they continued to put into practice the policy that he described in the memo. It won’t take much to search the internet to find an enormous amount of damage being done to the planet in Less Developed Countries while the environmental protection improves for a small percentage of the public including those in the most privileged part of the US. There are still many part of the US that are having more than their share of environmental destruction and they are of course the areas where people are the poorest and least educated and politically involved.
The following Photo is just a small sample of the Damage being done too many parts of the world and the children without political power who live there.
This is in Vietnam where the forest has been burnt by slash and burn agriculturalists who will cultivate crops for a few years before allowing the forest to grow again. This is part of the desperate tactics that many poor people are still forced to use due to the fact that they have little or no resources. This is of course because of the fact that they never fully recovered from the enormous amount of damage that was done during the Vietnam war which was based on lies. They told us that we were going there to defend democracy but the US was fighting against the side with much more popular support from the local people; while propping up generals that had no popular support.
They were actually fighting to suppress democracy not defend it. And they also did an enormous amount of environmental damage during the war which was never repaired. Since then Nike has become the leading employer in Vietnam which is riddled with complaints about sweat shop conditions (PDF file) some of which have environmental implications.
The United States is still unwilling to acknowledge the full implications of that war and they continue to portray the people who fought the war as “war heroes” without acknowledging the fact that it was based on lies or considering the possibility that the real war heroes were the ones that stood up to the authorities that ordered them to kill innocent people. Both John Kerry and John McCain have been portrayed as the good guys who normalized ties with Vietnam and enabled Nike to create these sweat shops. They continue to use a propaganda version of this war that blatantly contradicts the more credible one found in many libraries and the Pentagon Papers.
The way we’re treating the environment is kind of like a classic Steve Martin sketch where he talks about applying leeches to bleed the sick, or dunking witches in vats of oil -- Theodoric would pause for a sudden blinding insight, and question whether we need a new, enlightened approach -- whether due process of law, or the scientific method, or the rule of reason. And after musing poetically about the possibilities of the future, he'd admit: "Naaah."
I got news for some people; this was supposed to be a joke to demonstrate how stupid that approach was and yet we’re doing it anyway.
And we’re creating an enormous amount of propaganda and pseudo-scientific studies to prove the claims of the oil companies that enables them to make the most short term profits at the expense of the planet.
The link on the picture leads to an article to go directly to easier to read blow up of the picture click here.
“It's just murder, man. All of God's creatures do it, some form or another, I mean, you look in the forest... you got species killing other species. Our species is killin' all the species includin' the forest, and we just call it "industry", not murder.”
When it comes to being a Natural Born Killer Mickey Knox and Charles Manson can’t hold a candle to Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, Barack Obama, James Inhofe, Joe Barton, Tony Hayward, James Dobson, Carl-Henric Svanberg, Lawrence Summers, John Kerry, John McCain and many others who use more subtle ways to indirectly kill millions through environmental damage and complicated institutions that maintain some degree of plausible deniability. These people don’t go to jail for their crimes nor is it even considered a crime due to the fact that they have influence with the government that makes the laws; instead they live in nice houses often mansions or yachts bought with the proceeds from the products sold at the expense of the planet and everyone else living on it without political power. Even Iris Cross and Melody Stacey should know that what they’re doing involves covering up for the destruction of the planet and they’re enabling it for what might appear to them as a public good or a paycheck.
(For more information on Blog see Blog description and table of context for most older posts.)
The following are the original replies when this was first posted on Open Salon.
It is sad ...
rated Rolling March 22, 2012 01:49 PM
Fantastic piece.
Myriad March 22, 2012 06:34 PM
[r][r][r][r][r][r] ... you deserve these and so many more. Zachd you are on fire!! This is brilliant and takes on so much with such fantastic insights! I began to copy stuff on one issue to put in comment and then got caught up on the next and let go of the first. I have to come back and reread. The walking the dog stuff and dead fish, what an intro. And with our amoral media ... you can bet that things don't make it to the teebee screen until they is such DESPERATION and the coverups aren't working, but we all know how insane things have INSANE CONDITIONS to even begin to crack the coverup process of craven media and political denial and miminization. I love love love the BP subtext!!!! Green party mention is terriff!!!! I have to read this again and I hope the length of this doesn't discourage your readers. YOU SO ROCK, ZACHD!!!!!! bravo. THIS SHOULD BE PUT ON THE COVER FOR THE YEAR!!! best, libby (I'll be back. This deserves more than one readthru!) (Steve Martin's ... Naaaaaa!!!! you nail it!!!)
libbyliberalnyc March 22, 2012 06:59 PM
Great post. You're right. Voting for president solves nothing. I am really pleased to see so many local communities successfully enacting municipal ordinances stipulating that residents - and the environment - have more rights than corporations.
Dr Stuart Jeanne Bramhall March 22, 2012 09:23 PM
Libby, it clearly should be better to take notice of this long before one of these post apocalypse movies like Mad Max gets any closer to the truth than they already are. The solution to these problems won’t be like anything you see in the movies or on TV right now. Real solutions involve tedious things like thinking things through and implementing the small details in the most effective way possible.
Stuart, voting for president alone clearly solves nothing but if it is combined with other methods to keep him accountable and ensure that the candidates are all required to lay out their plans before being elected and keep their promises after then it could be a big part of the solution. That doesn’t mean that the current system is the best; it might be better to have a different set of representatives or to rely more heavily on ballot questions when possible; and of course there will be additional follow up required; but I think there is opportunity for major improvements.
Thanks Myriad, Rolling etal
zacherydtaylor March 23, 2012 10:37 AM
Jesus Christ would be mortified as I am here and now...
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Algis Kemezys March 25, 2012 05:26 AM
It is sad ...
rated Rolling March 22, 2012 01:49 PM
Fantastic piece.
Myriad March 22, 2012 06:34 PM
[r][r][r][r][r][r] ... you deserve these and so many more. Zachd you are on fire!! This is brilliant and takes on so much with such fantastic insights! I began to copy stuff on one issue to put in comment and then got caught up on the next and let go of the first. I have to come back and reread. The walking the dog stuff and dead fish, what an intro. And with our amoral media ... you can bet that things don't make it to the teebee screen until they is such DESPERATION and the coverups aren't working, but we all know how insane things have INSANE CONDITIONS to even begin to crack the coverup process of craven media and political denial and miminization. I love love love the BP subtext!!!! Green party mention is terriff!!!! I have to read this again and I hope the length of this doesn't discourage your readers. YOU SO ROCK, ZACHD!!!!!! bravo. THIS SHOULD BE PUT ON THE COVER FOR THE YEAR!!! best, libby (I'll be back. This deserves more than one readthru!) (Steve Martin's ... Naaaaaa!!!! you nail it!!!)
libbyliberalnyc March 22, 2012 06:59 PM
Great post. You're right. Voting for president solves nothing. I am really pleased to see so many local communities successfully enacting municipal ordinances stipulating that residents - and the environment - have more rights than corporations.
Dr Stuart Jeanne Bramhall March 22, 2012 09:23 PM
Libby, it clearly should be better to take notice of this long before one of these post apocalypse movies like Mad Max gets any closer to the truth than they already are. The solution to these problems won’t be like anything you see in the movies or on TV right now. Real solutions involve tedious things like thinking things through and implementing the small details in the most effective way possible.
Stuart, voting for president alone clearly solves nothing but if it is combined with other methods to keep him accountable and ensure that the candidates are all required to lay out their plans before being elected and keep their promises after then it could be a big part of the solution. That doesn’t mean that the current system is the best; it might be better to have a different set of representatives or to rely more heavily on ballot questions when possible; and of course there will be additional follow up required; but I think there is opportunity for major improvements.
Thanks Myriad, Rolling etal
zacherydtaylor March 23, 2012 10:37 AM
Jesus Christ would be mortified as I am here and now...
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☼(ˆ◡ˆ) ⋰ ⋮ ⋱(¯`•´¯)¸.(¯`•´¯).¸.(¯`•´¯)¸.Have a Memorable Week NOW! ☼
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Algis Kemezys March 25, 2012 05:26 AM
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