On Class Warfare

I am irritated gentle reader. I have been watching, reading and listening to the news and I keep running into this notion of “Class Warfare.” To quote the great Spanish Philosopher Inigo Montoya, “I do not think those words mean what you think they mean.” Placing a extra tax on millionaires may be class conflict, it may be punishing the job creators, that is debatable; but it is no way, shape, or form is it Class Warfare.

I wish I could round up every politician and political pundit that vomits the term into the public debate and have them actually endure Class Warfare. When those who survive tell their stories of what real Class Warfare looks like, then we will be done with the hysterical drama queen and drama kings who toss this term about like so much confetti.

First Class Warfare involves real warfare. We’re talking people with murder in their hearts, and the tools to bring their heart’s desires into reality. In much of history this went by the term of “Peasants’ Revolt.” If you have the stomach for such thing, peruse any history book that you might fancy. Those books will be chock-a-block full of harrowing tales of slaughter and rapine indulged by the lower orders, and the counter-reaction by the nobility. Such tales are soaked in blood.

But if clubbing and swordplay are not your milieu, perhaps something from the wrongly named “Age Of Reason” is more to your liking. Wander about the descriptions of the French Revolution, it's a barrel of laughs. Don’t forget to think about the horror of what Napoleon's “whiff of grape” really meant.

But if being shredded by shrapnel spat out of cannon does not sound very pleasant, you can always fast forward to the Russian Revolution, and the horrors performed by both the Red and White forces. Now that Lenin, he really knew how to do class warfare on an industrial scale. Stalin learned from the master, and wiped out millions of class traitors and other undesirables as routine.

But that is wholesale matters, in our own great nation of the United States, we were strictly retail about such things. There were the sundry butchering of the odd Labor member, or the judicial lynching of the odd anarchist, but the US preferred the slow genocide of Slavery and the fast genocide of the First People to the messy business of class warfare.

If brutal murder was needed to keep the lower orders in line, the elites could always fire up a race riot.  Divide and conquer was always the preferred method in the US, where the lower classes did not enjoy the homogeneity of the European agricultural workers.

The institutionalization of racism also explains why a true class war never broke out in the United States. Poor whites could always look down on the blacks and find false kinship with the Captains of Industries that shared their Caucasian coloring. Toxic racism, and even more toxic misogyny insured that the poor whites always had someone they could look down upon, and who was in worse state then they were.

But there are limits to such skulduggery. Looked at in the perspective of Class War, one can see the US Civil War as such a phenomena. At the end of the struggle a whole class of people, the Plantation Slave Owners, were crushed. For almost a generation enormous social, political, and economic changed occurred because this block had been eliminated.

Eventually the progress ended, and the next uprising did not occur until the turn of the Century with the excesses of the Gilded Age in clear view. Granted, the anarchists of the Victorian Age made things very dicey for the political leaders of the time, but they never set off the revolution that they dearly desired. Class conflict got brutal, but there was never a real danger of class warfare until the Bolsheviks popped up in Russia.

Ironically, it is with the end of the Communist regime in Russia that class warfare became a talking point again. When the only nation in the world that could actually foment real class war was tossed into the dust bin of history, the threat became alive again--passing strange.

I have no patience with the meme, as I hope you have gathered. It is an over-the-top bit of hysterical heavy breathing. No one in the US is rallying the lower orders to fetch their weapons and torches to burn down the residences of the new Robber Barons. No one is advocating that the 0.1%, hyper-wealthy billionaires be chopped up into cat kibble. No one is advocating that the women-folk of this subset be raped, or that the even smaller subset of pregnant hyper-wealthy be cut open, or their infants be beaten to death before their mother’s eyes. Wall Street was temporary occupied, it was never burned down to its foundations.

I wonder when or how the super-wealthy became so thin-skinned. When did they come around to the notion that they should never, ever, hear a discouraging word? What weird form of egomania makes them need to hear how marvelous, great, wonderful, munificent, and super sexy they are? When did they become so thin skinned?

I guess it comes from believing in the utter garbage their paid sycophants in the Hoover Institute, the AIE, the Cato Institute, and other organizations feed them on a 24/7 basis. I get the need for the hyper rich to fund wing nut welfare to confound and confuse the masses. I just have issues with the hyper rich actually buying into the bilge water propaganda that Wing Nut Welfare pumps out. The ideological insanity that the Koch brothers fund, and actually believe in, is gob-smacking. Ditto for Richard Mellon-Scaife; and the others of the inner circle. The cluelessness mixed with the excessive self-regard is incredible. It would be the stuff of farce if the damage it was doing to the republic were not so real, so massive.

By blocking minor and popular fixes to the economic disparities that warp and twist our nation, these proud few are actually bringing about the class warfare they decry. With participatory democracy blocked, the pressures will only grow. Society will warp and buckle as frightened citizens look for more radical solutions. We see this in Europe already where the austerity craze is causing the rise of fascist, anti-immigrant, ultra-right wing nationalist parties. The elites insistence on perpetuating bad policy, because that is what “the market” wants, is causing nations like Hungry to go off the rails. By tearing up the social contract, by racing to the bottom, the Transnational Corporatist Elite are undermining the very stability that Capitalism needs to thrive.

I have no idea were this temper-tantrum of the pseudo-libertarian right is going. I have no idea how long the super-rich can scotch the will of the people by purchasing politicians by the bucket loads. I don’t  know how long low-information voters will buy the crap of protecting the “job creators” when too few jobs are being created. Let’s ignore the fact that the jobs being created pay less than jobs that were eliminated; and the middle class keeps getting vaporized, that only adds insult to injury.  I have no idea how long the citizens of the US will put up with no jobs, no benefits, no prospects. That seems the perfect recipe for revolt.

Occupy Wall Street, The True Third Way

Deep in the dark days of Ronny Reagan, when the Democratic Party was getting beaten from pillar to post, a man from Hope came to offer salvation. That man, Bill Clinton offered a third way of politics. Clinton, a politician forged in the white-hot furnace of Arkansas politics, was a new breed of Democrat, part of the DLC movement. The Democratic Leadership Council was an attempt to shed the left / right extremes and find a new pragmatic center. At least that was the spin.

What the DLC turned out to be was a capitulation to the Reagan right. It was small bore politics. It was “triangulation.” In one way it was wildly successful. Clinton was able steal Republican ideas, tone them down, and then pass them to universal acclaim. Republican heads exploded when a Democrat got the credit for ending “welfare as we know it.” Clinton out-thought, out-maneuvered, and out-ran a furious Newt Gingrich led Congress. In the end the “Big Dog” trotted out of the White House with sky-high approval. Gingrich ended up out of luck and out of a job, done in by a cabal of Republican Congressmen who had enough of his egomaniacal leadership.

With Clinton gone, other southern politicians cribbed the DLC playbook to great effect. John Edwards parlayed his good looks and Democrat-lite credentials all the way up to the VP slot in 2004. John Kerry was none too pleased when his supposed attack dog turned into a lap dog in the general. Oddly enough, with the ashes of defeat fresh in Edwards mouth he tore up the DLC coloring book and went populist.

From 2004 to 2008 Edwards was pushing something called One America. One of the more bitter ironies of 2011 is that now that One America is long gone in the scandal of Edwards 2008 run, its message is finally resonating . Edwards central theme of two nations, separated by a vast gulf of wealth has never rung more true. The message now soars, while the messenger sinks in the quicksand of a criminal trial. But I have not come to praise John Edwards, nor to bury him, nine jurors will have that terrible responsibility. I am much more interested in the Occupy Wall Street movement.

OWS, as it is known, has the chance to be the first non-partisan, grass-roots, mass movement since the glory days of feminism. That would be feminism 2.0, when Republicans in good standing like Betty Ford could support a woman’s ability to control her own body and the ERA. Feminism 2.0 died in the right-wing backlash of the culture wars. From there the progressive movement shattered into numerous diffuse causes, with activism sometimes degrading into the screeching non-sequitur of “causes” like PETA.

What I like about OWS is the studious non-partisanship and ground-up organization. These are small “d” democrats, who follow though on their beliefs lock-stock-and-barrel. They really put the participatory in participatory democracy. It is this trait, more than anything else, that scares the bejesus out of the oligarchical right. You can really see the flop sweat pouring from every available gland as the mighty right wing Wurlitzer attempts to counter message OWS. The default of lazy, dirty, rotten, hippies copulation in the street just reeks of desperation. Note to Faux News, you can only post the same picture of nubile teens covered in a sleeping bag before the ginned up outrage evaporates.

Part of the flail and the fail of the right wing must have to do with their pet grass roots movement: the TEA Party. The transparent co-option, and rebranding of the Ron Paul movement by the Dick Army and the Koch brothers, was Astro-Turfed to the hilt. Fox News was at the tip of the spear providing agitprop for the TEA Party. Sadly for Fox and the Wingnut right, they really bought into their own propaganda; so OWS came as a real shock. How dare the general public stray from the one true TEA faith?

Unfortunately, there is a real danger in comparing the TEA Party to OWS. OWS is organic and unattached. It has already beaten off an attempt by the unions to co-opt it. It was deftly done, OWS laid down terms and the unions agreed. The unions showed solidarity with OWS and OWS got tons of warm bodies to man the revolution. When crunch time came for OWS with mayor Bloomberg, those union members showing up really queered the attempt to clear out the occupation

It is OWS un-attachment to the political duopoly that makes it such a force for change. OWS taking over the Clintonian “it’s the economy, stupid” meme is pure genius. That is the core message behind “we are the 99%.” The TEA Party on the other hand is nothing more than a rebranding of the far right of the Republican Party . The passions of the socially conservative right are front and center in the TEA Party. Lopsided majorities in the TEA Party agree down the line with every bit of the far right, Christianist agenda. OWS is studiously avoiding such a connection with the left.

Point of fact, the worst thing for OWS would be for it to get tangled in the web of Democratic Party politics, to become the progressive “answer” to the TEA Party Republican right. God knows, the usual gang of idiots who are deep in the tank for Obama can only see OWS as a great GOTV mechanism for the president. Stephanie Miller is pushing OWS for such a role.

Sorry Steph, this is not about Obama, it is a about economic justice; which is damn near one hundred and eighty degrees out from re-electing the president. Obama does not get OWS because he does not get political passion. It is not part of his mindset. Contrary-wise OWS should not have Obama’s reelection in its mindset. OWS, if allowed to grow on its own terms, may become the true post-partisan solution to the corporatist duopoly that infests the politics of our nation. It may provide the truth to the fiction that Obama sold to the nation in 2008. It can do this, but only if it stays the hell away from the Democratic Party as presently constructed. In time, perhaps, it may be forced to stage a Deaniac type seizure of the Donkey Party, but only if all non-partisan options have been exhausted

Nonpartisanship is the only correct corse for OWS. If 2012 boils down to the choice between the Tweedledum and Tweedledee of Obama v Romney. OWS’s default should be “a pox on both your houses.” It would be shear insanity for OWS to get entangled in a GOTV campaign for either candidate. OWS works best as a mass movement that is outside the box, truly non-partisan, and small “d” democratic. OWS could then hoover up most of the Independents, plus many of the big “D” Democrats and maybe a few of that most endangered of species; Moderate Republicans. The key is not bi-partisanship, that is just double speak for being a corporatist stooge, but non-partisanship

I am interested in how this plays out. OWS is going to go sabbatical fairly soon; at least in places where winter means business. During the winter months it can retool, refresh and rethink. When the blossoms come out in the Spring, OWS can come roaring back to befuddle the elites one more time. After all why should only the Arabs have a political spring? Our nation is as overdue for a shake up. We have spent over thirty years in the Reaganite wilderness. Conservatism is an intellectual corpse. Neo-liberalism is nothing more than fear-base capitulation to the demands of the Reaganite Right. Our politics and political thinking is suffering from brain freeze. Our politics are utterly skewed and totally corrupted; time for real change, not chump change. Time for the true third way of OWS.

Globalization In Action, Palistinian symbol now made mostly in China

In a rundown office to the side of a gloomy and deserted breeze-block factory, 76-year-old Yasser Hirbawi is hunched on a low couch turning his life's work over and over between his fingers.
In his lap – and on his head – are specimens of what has become the internationally recognised symbol of the Palestinian national struggle, the kaffiyeh, the chequered headscarf worn by politicians and militants alike and adopted not just by their supporters but by fashionistas across the globe.
But the kaffiyeh's ubiquity is of small comfort to Hirbawi, his two sons and the sole employee left in the last factory making the headscarves in the Palestinian territories. After almost 50 years, the family business is struggling to keep afloat amid a flood of cheap Chinese imports.

Ain't Capitalism Grand?

Lobbyists push use of deadly asbestos in developing nations | McClatchy: "WASHINGTON — A global network of lobby groups has spent nearly $100 million since the mid-1980s to preserve the international market for asbestos, a known carcinogen that's taken millions of lives and is banned or restricted in 52 countries, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists has found in a nine-month investigation.

Backed by public and private money and aided by scientists and friendly governments, the groups helped facilitate the sale of 2.2 million tons of asbestos last year, mostly in developing nations. Anchored by the Montreal-based Chrysotile Institute, the network stretches from New Delhi to Mexico City to the city of Asbest in Russia's Ural Mountains. Its message is that asbestos can be used safely under 'controlled' conditions.

As a result, asbestos use is growing rapidly in countries such as China and India, prompting health experts to warn of future epidemics of lung cancer, asbestosis and mesothelioma, an aggressive malignancy that usually attacks the lining of the lungs"

BP faces Lockerbie accusations amid delays over oil cap tests

The Guardian

Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, pledged today to look into demands from a group of senators for an investigation into charges thatBP lobbied for the release of the Lockerbie bomber as part of an oil-for-terrorist deal.


Snip


Tony Hayward should just cut to the chase and start wearing a top-hat and opera cape. He should then grow a lustrous  handle-bar moustache and go around rubbing his hands while chortling Moo-ha-ha-ha. Here is the general idea Tony:

Really, it’s not about the money, it’s about class warfare

There’s something darkly literal about the way this whole story about Wal-Mart’s overblown hatred of OSHA has played out, in that in their attempts to squash the little guy, an actual human life was taken by being trampled to death. If you recall the horrible story, a Wal-Mart employee was trampled to death by thousands of customers who lined up at the door on Black Friday to take advantage of the crazy sales---and were perhaps more frantic than usual because of the financial crunch.  Despite the fact that Wal-Mart has already had a history of fighting regulations that would control crowds, they were only hit with a $7,000 fine from OSHA for this man’s death.  But here’s the kicker---Wal-Mart is so outraged, so morally offended at the idea that they should be required to treat their workers like human beings whose lives matter instead of just cogs you throw out when they break that they have spent millions of dollars and thousands of man hours fighting a $7,000 fine.

The Turtle and the Peterbilt; Obama gets run over by BP Gulf Spill

The Bible claims that Noah had to deal with forty days and forty nights of rains that covered the whole globe. President Obama is fast approaching the same slice of time with the Deep Water Horizon disaster that threatens to submerge his reelection bid not in water, but in a vicious covering of oil. At least Noah had options, the lord almighty whispered some shipbuilding specifications in his ear and Noah ran with them. The only person whispering in the ear of President Obama is his pollster and the pollster has no exit strategy.


When loyal Democrats like Carville, and Obamacans like the Greek Goddess of the left Arianna Huffington start tossing brickbats at you and comparing you to George W. Bush, it is time to hit the panic button. Problem is Obama does not have a panic button; he is for all intents and purposes part of the Borg collective. The man does not do emotional response. He is no drama Obama. What we are witnessing here is how a cool cat can become a cold fish.


In the last election the electorate voted for the anti-Bush. Other than those pesky policy issues, that is exactly what they got. Bush was an inarticulate mess who could barely construct a sentence. He was the master of malapropism. Obama on the other hand gave great speech. Not since Kennedy has a politician been such a master of the oral arts. Bush was a hyperactive peripatetic, constantly careening around the political landscape and caroming into policy disasters. Obama is slow and steady, gathering data, collecting opinions, considering the options. Bush was all action, making gut decisions and then moving on. Obama is the more pensive scholar, making decisions after calculating the effects out to six digits past the decimal point.



Obama's style could be discerned all the way back to the election of 2008. His style turned what could have been a narrow win into a big victory. When the sub-prime mortgage crisis exploded, Obama was the cool policy professional while John McCain was the one acting as if his hair was on fire. Obama got onboard the politically and economically dubious TARP program, while McCain was crashing about like a five year old who had just guzzled an entire two liter bottle of Jolt Cola. With the selection of Sara Palin, and its Hail Mary pass connotations becoming clear to even lowest of low information voters, McCain's behavior during September of 2008 were the final blow to his candidacy.



If you really want to get a grasp of Obama's personality, read his book. No, seriously, it's all there in the chapter about his becoming born again. The contrast with Bush could not be starker. In his own words Obama lays out a slow, steady unveiling of faith. No sudden Pauline conversion for Obama, no Road to Damascus; perhaps a gradual filling of a cup by the Holy Spirit. The story is important, even if you do not believe it. It reveals a more profound truth than the author would probably like to admit. With Obama nothing, not even coming to Jesus, occurs in moment. Everything with Obama is a slow accretion of events and decisions that gradually achieve a result. The man is an automaton; he is Barry of the Borg.

Thus it is more than a little unfair for Obama's critics to insist that he suddenly show emotion. The man does not do emotion; he does not rush to conclusions; that is why we elected him president almost two years ago. Emotional tirades are just not in the man's make up; at least not public ones. The man has to have some passions after all; he has two lovely daughters to show for it. But the public man is every inch the man his mother made him. This is a man who was raised by an anthropologist. This is a man who imbued moral and political relativism at his mother's knee. This is a man who only measures worth by accomplishment. This is man who sees all ideas as equally valid, and equally as mental playthings. The man has no center, never had one, never will. In all his actions this man behaves as if public emotion, or excess of any type, is bad form. Really people, if you wanted a President who could easily fly into a righteous rage, you should have voted for Hillary Clinton or John McCain. Obama does not do righteous rage; or any kind of rage at all. The man runs away from confrontation the way most folks would run away from a swarm of Africanized bees. Thus, the demand by the public and the punditocracy that Obama start barking at the corporate bad boys of BP is a non-starter.



The wonder is not why Obama is not verbally shredding BP, but it is why we are insisting on this particular shadow play. Exactly what in the short or long run will be accomplished here? Understood, this line of thinking is both cold and cruel; what about the wildlife and the people of the Gulf? Still place the rage to one side and be totally cold and calculating; be Barack Obama for a few moments. The cold, hard and hideous facts are that we are totally screwed here. The disaster of the Deepwater Horizon will not be nailed down until August when the relief well is drilled. Oh and for added abuse by Mr. Murphy, NOAA thinks we may be in for a truly rotten hurricane season. Thus, what good will screaming and shouting at BP do? It is not going to get them to drill any faster. It is not going to change the horrific physical facts of how this particular oil well plays out.



Obama cannot void the rules of physics, or the size of the reservoir. He cannot prevent a hurricanes formation, or that hurricane from making a bee line to the relief well. He cannot undo the decades of too-cozy government-oil company relationships. He cannot undo the gutting of rules and regulations, or the gutting of government agencies that were supposed to ride herd on these kinds of thing. Real regulators like NOAA and EPA were cut out of the discussion. Captured and captive regulators like MMS were given the lead. The BP Deepwater Horizon disaster is exactly what you get when regulators are literally in bed with the corporations they are supposed to regulate (and snorting meth off the odd toaster with their corporate buddies.) This is a systemic disaster, and the odd photo op with Obama holding hands with Gulf area shrimpers is not going to solve squat.



What do Obama's critics propose we do now that this event will continue on until August? Do we propose that he keeps screaming at BP until that time? Are we going to force him to jump up and down and hold his breath until he turns blue like some five year old denied a cookie? What do we want from Obama? More to the point, when did the President of the United States of America become Oprah? When did he become our grief-councilor-in-chief? No, seriously, where in the Constitution does it require the President to march down to every natural disaster and have some poor slob cry on his shoulder? When the hell did this happen? People, the President's job is not to hand out hankies; it is to fix the damn problem.



At the core of this issue is just that; Obama cannot fix this problem. It really is BP's problem. More to the point it is private industries problem because the public sphere has absolutely no tools to deal with this. It has no such tools by design. Are we going to deal with that issue? Most likely not, it is far too much fun to distract ourselves with trivia, like Obama's failure to rush down to the Gulf and perform the comic operetta that is the Disaster photo op. It is far too much too much fun to play got-you with the question of whether the director of MMS left on her own volition or was booted out the door. Does this niggling fact really matter? The bureaucrat is gone and her department is going to suffer a quick and painful death. You have your heads on the assorted pikes, enjoy.



If there is a complaint about Obama, a complaint that holds water, it has to be about this perverse need for hand-holding and messaging. Like it or not there is an unwritten requirement that our Chief Executive been seen soothing the fevered brows of disaster victims. Not only is there a requirement for this to happen but there is a requirement for it to happen with alacrity. This is what tripped up Obama.

The first unpardonable sin was a failure to trumpet the Administration's efforts on day one. Obama did release the required federal assets early on; he just failed to make a big deal of it. In our media saturated world it is no longer any good to send off the appropriate high level staffer, you have to send him or her off with a brass band and fireworks. Of course when you do such a send off, the media will only complain about how ostentatious you are being. Not only must you send off your staffers with major hoopla, you must micromanage their messaging. People were and are furious because of the confused media messaging of the Administration.



Contradiction, confusion, cross-purpose, consternation, the headlines blare. It is great fodder for the media and political hacks. No one seems to want to deal with the unfortunate fact that BP was stonewalling the government and the government had no real response to that. Other than making us feel warm and fuzzy all over; to what purpose would using the bully pulpit to bully BP serve? People scream to push BP out of the way; push them out of the way and replace them with what? Some make odd references to the military.



Of all the resources of the federal government, there is no branch more ill suited to solving this problem than the military. What is the military supposed to do, blow up the rig? Sorry folks, that mission was already accomplished by BP. The military's job is death and destruction, not capping out-of-control oil wells. Some people were suggesting that the military nuke the well or do the same thing with conventional weapons. It is claimed that the Soviets did such things during the cold war. We are now seriously contemplating using the techniques of the discredited Soviet Union; the very people who created Chernobyl? That idea, dear reader, is the very definition of insanity. The military, specifically the Navy, is not set up to solve these kinds of problems. In point of fact the military, through the use of ordinance, creates these kinds of problems. The only branch of the military that can credibly help, the Coast Guard, is on the scene. Unfortunately the shallow water sailors are starved of the resources they need to solve this problem. Ditto for NOAA and other federal agencies they are blessedly mini-sub and resource free. Most of those capabilities have been outsourced; just like the buses in NOLA during Katrina.



Federal institutions are starved of those resources by design, because in our deregulating ideological insanity, we as a nation decided that corporations like BP would do the right thing. We voted for less government with Ronny Regan, Bush Senior, and Bush the younger (and don't forget Bubba,) and now have found out that drowning the government in the bathtub meant doing that deed with one hundred million gallons of viscous crude oil. Remember, as far as the Elephants are concerned, Obama's feeble and far too corporate friendly response to the Deepwater Horizon disaster is further proof of his secret socialist agenda.



Obama is the furthest thing from the wild-eyed socialist destroyer of democracy. He is exactly the opposite, a bloodless technocrat. He is what we voted for. We wanted a technocrat manager as an antidote to Bush, and that is exactly what we got. We got a man deeply in love with process and decision trees and careful consideration. We got a philosopher-king and policy wonk. We got a slow and steady tortoise who will plod through the decisions with next to no emotion and little drama. Obama marches to the disciplined beat of his own drum. He will not be rushed, he will not be flummoxed, and he will not deviate. He is after all "no drama Obama."



Maybe this is incompetence, this insistence on slow-walking every decision. It is definitely not the fierce urgency of now. But constitutionally, that is due to Obama's constitution, his personality, the slow walk is the default of this administration. Obama will not move until he has a consensus. Again this is the exact opposite of Bush and his cowboy unilateralism. Bush was more than willing to lead the nation in to all kinds of rash directions. Obama appears unwilling to lead us even to the bathroom. It would be nice if the nation could find a happy medium.



Until that time we are stuck with the consensus driven tortoise that is Obama. And because he moves so slowly and deliberately, he will get overtaken and run over by the rush of some events. He is the tortoise, and the rush of events is the oncoming Peterbilt tractor-trailer. It is ugly to look at, but it is the end result of the choice we made in 2008. We had a choice between the slow and steady purposefulness of Obama and the mercurial flitting about of McCain. We chose the tortoise over hare (and the March Hare of Alice in Wonderland at that,) and that is what we have for a leader for the next two years. Look on the bright side; in 2012 we have another chance to totally screw this up again.

BP comes to terms with Karma

Only a month ago British Petroleum was sitting pretty. A major marketing push had slapped a happy face on what was once a very tarnished image. But all good things come to pass and Mr. Murphy was having none of it. Once Mr. Murphy got the go-ahead from a vengeful deity (pick one) his machinations went into overdrive. Every attempt by BP to solve the oil volcano spewing death and destruction in the Gulf of Mexico has met an ignominious end. One month in, BP is looking much less the dashing figure of the future and much more like Warner Brother's Wiley Coyote.

 

BP lived by greenwashing and now it is dying by greenwashing. For years it attempted to shed its much earned reputation as the bad boy of the oil patch. Not too long ago, in a decade know as the 1990's , BP had one of its major oil refineries in Texas blow up with tragic results. Federal authorities clobbered BP after the fact with huge fines because of BP's lackluster attitude toward safety. Even after the disaster the Feds were still fining BP at a furious pace due to further safety lapses.

It takes some doing to have the worst reputation in an industry chock-a-block filled with scoff-laws and reckless operators, but BP was up to the task. Finally it got so bad that shareholders sent the CEO packing. Enter the new boss. Gazing into the future this man saw a new reality, one "beyond petroleum." BP got into solar plants, into wind power and into other green ventures. Of course BP tooted its own horn loudly over these new ventures. It even did a makeover on its corporate iconography.

Of course some were not so easily hornswoggled. The miniscule investments in non-fossil fuel energies made them cast a jaundiced eye on BP's efforts. Many in the environmental movement were much less forgetful or forgiving of BP's wildcat past. In the end they were proven correct. It was the same old BP; meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

BP was hoisted by its own petard in the shape of the Deep Water Horizon. This was oil drilling technology pushed to the razor's edge and then beyond. It was hubris spelled in all capital letters. To the question put forth by BP of "what could possibly go wrong" Mr. Murphy just piled on his answers. From the failure of the ill named blow-out preventer to the latest efforts at resolution, BP is learning the hard way why you do not mess with Mr. Murphy and his iron laws.

The accident has ripped off the carefully constructed happy face that BP has presented to the unwashed masses and revealed the rot beneath. It is the same old BP with the same sloppy and careless attitude. It is the same reckless disregard for safety and common sense. It is the same monomaniacal drive for profit no matter what the cost to others. It is the same privatization of profit and socialization of loss that has been BP's stock and trade since the founding of the company.

BP stock has taken a nose dive since the Deep Water Horizon exploded onto the front pages of newspapers and into the general public's conscious. It had to be extra galling to BP for the unwashed masses to find out how the whole effort went south. It was just after the corporate big-wigs were celebrating how "safe" the Deep Water Horizon had been up to that point. The grand pooh-bahs were on site when things started to literally explode in their faces. Any dark humor in the situation was lost though with the eleven lives that were sacrificed to BP's hubris.

More than thirty days in, the oil disaster has dragged BP into a whirlpool of controversy. The green and happy face of BP is a relic of better days. The company is in damage control in the real world of the oil spill and the more surreal world of public opinion. In both cases BP's lack of planning is causing an accumulation of damage that cannot be measured.

It is hard to say how serious BP was about being a green energy company. Even granting the corporation the best of motives, the attempt to make the corporation greener environmentally was always going to run at cross purposes to the attempt to make the corporation greener financially. Corporations will always try to maximize profits by minimizing cost. That is capitalism 101. BP was cutting corners every way they legally could with the Deep Water Horizon. Perhaps their efforts pushed the limits so far that they pushed right past legality, it is way too early to determine that possibility. It is fairly obvious that financial green easily trumped environmental green when the subject of off-shore drilling was discussed by the BP honchos.

The only real mystery left is why anyone is surprised that crony corporate capitalists act in such a reckless and privileged manner. Other than libertarian ideologues, no one should believe that corporations will act in the most civic minded and fair manner possible. The Regan maxim of "trust but verify" should be the minimum operational procedure for any one dealing with corporate behemoths like BP. Regulators should take Regan's advice as holy writ. That this self-evident behavior pattern is just dawning on Obama and company is more than a little distressing.

The flat footed response of team Obama is a subject for another time. The subject before us is BP. BP is in a world of hurt because the image they tried to project had no relationship to the actual working of the company. Instead of being green, the company was shown to be just another gross environmental polluter like any other resident of the oil patch. There is just something in the DNA of extractive industries that make them bad neighbors. From Massy Energy to copper mining and beyond; show us a extractive industry and you will find a corporate culture that cares not a whit about the very land they prospect. It is always about ripping out the resource at the lowest possible price , selling that resource at the highest possible cost and never mind the cost to the public commons. It matters not one iota that precious natural resources, the land, the air and the water are permanently damaged as long as the extractive industry can make a profit. That attitude was laid bare for all to see with the Deep Water Horizon disaster. That attitude is still being brought in sharp relief because at this writing the spill continues. BP pretended to be something it was not; something it could never be, and it continues to pay the price for that deception.


 

The Cost Of Cool Toys

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/07/chinese-workers-sickness-hexane-apple-iphone

Next month, amid the usual hoopla, Apple is expected to officially unveil its latest gadget: the much-awaited iPhone 4G. But halfway round the globe from the company's California headquarters, a young worker who has spent months in an eastern Chinese hospital wants consumers to look beyond the shiny exterior of such gadgets.

"People should know what we do to create these products and what cost we pay," said Bai Bing as she perched on a bed in her ward.

She is one of scores of young workers in the city of Suzhou who were poisoned by the chemical n-hexane, which they say was used to clean Apple components including iPhone touch screens.
Wu Mei – who, like the others, asked the Guardian to use her nickname – recalled her fear as her health suddenly deteriorated last spring.

At first, she thought she was simply tired from the long working hours at Wintek, a Taiwan-owned electronics giant supplying several well-known brands. She was weaker than before and noticed she could not walk so fast.

"Then it became more and more serious. I found it very hard to go upstairs and if I squatted down I didn't have the strength to get up. Later my hands became numb and I lost my balance – I would fall over if someone touched me," she said.

By summer, she was admitted to hospital, where doctors struggled to diagnose the cause. "I was terrified. I feared I might be paralysed and spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair," she said.
Because she was using n-hexane directly, she was one of the first and worst affected.
But more and more workers from the same room were suffering headaches, dizziness and weakness, and pains in their limbs.

An occupational diseases hospital which saw several victims diagnosed the problem in August and Wintek stopped using the chemical. But thanks to the previous months of exposure, at least 62 workers would require medical care. Many spent months in hospital.

Some believe more employees left Wintek after being taken ill, before they realised what was wrong.
Prolonged over-exposure to n-hexane can cause extensive damage to the peripheral nervous system and ultimately the spinal cord, leading to muscular weakness and atrophy and even paralysis, said Paul Whitehead, a toxicology consultant and member of the UK's Royal Society of Chemistry. It can also affect male fertility. Recovery can take a year or more.

The chemical's potential risks are well-known in industry, as are safe exposure limits. But the Wintek manager who decided to switch from alcohol to n-hexane for cleaning – apparently because it dried more quickly – did not assess the dangers. It was used without proper ventilation.
...
There is no suggestion that Apple was responsible for the use of n-hexane.

Apple declined to answer questions about the poisonings or about the firms involved, saying it does not reveal who it works with, although its spokeswoman added that Wintek had been "quite proactive" in discussing the issue. Instead it pointed to its code of conduct, which sets strict requirements for working and environmental practices, adding that many suppliers say they are the only customer carrying out such checks.

But the 2010 audit shows that manufacturers are routinely breaching the code. The majority – 54% – broke the 60-hour weekly work limit more than half the time. Another 39% failed to meet occupational injury prevention requirements; 17% failed on chemical exposure standards; and 35% did not meet wage and benefits requirements, with 24 of the 102 factories audited paying less than minimum wage for regular hours.

Three facilities used underage workers and three had falsified records. Apple said it terminated the contract in one of the latter cases, and required suppliers to make improvements and submit to reviews following other breaches.

It has also trained more workers about their rights. The firm argues that publishing the audits provides a level of transparency.

But until it identifies its manufacturers, outsiders have no way of assessing how well its policies are working and what action it is taking to deal with problems such as the n-hexane poisoning.
"Apple is the most paranoid about commercial and product secrecy. That's getting in the way of ensuring workers' rights are protected," says Geoff Crothall of China Labour Bulletin, a Hong Kong-based organisation campaigning for workers' rights.

For the Love of God or Dog, Please Shut Up!

Cruise company boss says tourists helping Haiti quake relief effort

Royal Caribbean boss claims holidaymakers at private Labadee beach are aiding country by propping up economy.

Holidaymakers should continue to relax on Haitian beaches and spend money on typical tourist pleasures such as hair-braiding and buying local crafts, the chief executive of the Royal Caribbean cruise line insisted today.

Adam Goldstein said thousands of cruise customers who have been enjoying themsleves in the last five days at Labadee, the Florida-based company's private pleasure beach less than 100 miles from Haiti's devastated capital, have helped relief efforts.

In defence of his company's much-criticised decision to continue sending cruises to the fenced-off and heavily-guarded resort, he said the livelihoods of 230 staff and about 270 local traders depended on their visits.

The firm was vilified for continuing its cruise schedules to the island as if nothing had happened.

An estimated 2,800 passengers from Navigator of the Seas disembarked yesterday and enjoyed barbecues, watersports and parasailing while about 400 passengers decided to stay on board.

The 4,370-berth Independence of the Seas arrived today and heaved out more holidaymakers.

"People enjoying themselves is what we do," said Goldstein. "People enjoying themselves in Labadee helps with relief.

"We support our guests who choose to help in this way."

Only one way to respond to that:

Can You Find Me Now

CARROLLTON, OH —

A 62-year-old Carrollton area man was found unconscious and unresponsive Thursday morning during an intense search overnight by Carroll County sheriff deputies, an Ohio State Highway Patrol trooper and the patrol’s airplane.

Two K-9 units, several fire departments and 100 individuals on foot also were involved in the search for the man, who Sheriff Dale Williams said fled his residence on Kensington Rd. after a domestic disturbance call to deputies.

The man, who was treated at the scene by emergency medical technicians, was taken to Aultman Hospital and released Thursday afternoon.

Sheriff Sgt. Ron Clapper and firefighters found the man about 1 a.m. after 11 hours of searching in an area just north of Augusta, including Manfull Orchards, where there is a Verizon cell phone tower.
Williams said he attempted to use the man’s cell phone signal to locate him, but the man was behind on his phone bill and the Verizon operator refused to connect the signal unless the sheriff’s department agreed to pay the overdue bill. After some disagreement, Williams agreed to pay $20 on the phone bill in order to find the man. But deputies discovered the man just as Williams was preparing to make arrangements for the payment.

More at the Times-Reporter

Snip


Ain't capitalism grand? Can you hear me now Verizon? Good! You guys are heartless shmucks.

Supporting The Troops--Not a Drop to Drink

Undersupplied US soldiers forced to steal water in Iraq
By David Edwards and John Byrne (Raw Story)

Published: May 13, 2009
Updated 9 hours ago


You thought the lack of armor-plated Humvees was bad.

US soldiers are now being forced to steal water in Iraq. With supplies tight, and the number of trucks carrying potable water even tighter, troops have resorted to stealing water from civilian contractors. Many have also reportedly suffered from dysentery because they were forced to drink untreated water from Iraqi wells.

The shocking news aired Wednesday on Houston-based CBS affiliate KHOU.

It gets worse. Soldiers say the situation has become so dire they were forced to raid the United States’ own airbase in Baghdad for bottled water. They found the water stored in pallets held by civilian contractors, who were supposed to be distributing it.

“It really hit me the day I was with my commander and we’re stealing water,” Army Staff Sgt. Dustin Robey told the station, describing his mission to collect water at the Baghdad International Airport. A second soldier said he’d also stolen water from civilian contractors: “We’d just run out and start grabbing cases of water and start throwing them in the gunner’s hatch,” Private Bryan Hannah quipped.

Soldiers averred that they’d been given two to three liters of water per day by their commanders. But according to the Army’s own field manual, the human body can lose as much as four gallons of water daily in the desert.

Two to three liters isn’t enough, Robey said. “You’ll see guys throw up, you’ll see them pass out.”

Who’s supposed to be maintaining the water supply? At least in some parts of Iraq, it’s the US engineering contractor KBR. KBR is a spinoff of Halliburton, which it separated from in 2007.

Let The Marketing Of Obamalot Begin!

Michelle Obama boils over on beanies. First lady blasts plush dolls of kids.

From the Boston Herald. Byline: Jessica Fargen

First lady Michelle Obama is hopping mad after a toy company turned her adorable daughters’ likenesses into cheap collectibles, even as the for-profit firm tried to duck claims that the new bean-filled plush dolls are made to look like the popular first children.

Michelle Obama was so perturbed by the dolls, she issued a statement through her spokeswoman, Katie McCormick Lelyveld.

“We believe it is inappropriate to use young, private citizens for marketing purposes,” the statement said.

The cuddly creations from Ty Inc. - called Marvelous Malia and Sweet Sasha - had one psychologist using the word “sickening.” They are being heavily marketed on the company’s Web site.

“The only people this benefits is the people making money off it,” said Charles Figley, a psychologist and Tulane University professor of social work, referring to Ty, which has already made billions off its Beanie Baby craze.

He urged parents to voice their disdain for the dolls - which cost $9.99 apiece. “It is very unfortunate and I hope something can be done. My hope is that the pubilc will speak up and will not let this happen,” he said.

Ty spokeswoman Tania Lundeen did not return calls from the Herald to her work and home yesterday. The company has flip-flopped on whether Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7, were the models for the latest in the “Tygirlz” line.

She told the Chicago Sun-Times that the Obama girls inspired the dolls. “How can we resist?” she said.

Snip

How could they resist indeed? Hear that sound? It is the siren call of cash registers racking up sales for Ty Inc. Welcome to crass capitalism Madam First Lady, it is only going to get worse.

AstraZeneca row as corruption claims engulf Nobel prize

The integrity of the Nobel prize was called into question last night after it emerged that a member of the jury also sat on the board of a pharmaceuticals giant that benefited from the award of this year’s prize for medicine.

Prosecutors were studying whether AstraZeneca, the London-based multi-national pharmaceutical company, could have exerted undue influence on the award.

The joint winner of this year’s Nobel Prize for Medicine, Harald zur Hausen, was recognised for his work on the human papilloma virus (HPV), which can lead to cervical cancer. AstraZeneca has a stake in two lucrative vaccines against the virus.

Two senior figures in the process that chose Mr zur Hausen have strong links with the pharmaceutical company, which has also recently begun sponsoring the Nobel website and pro-motional subsidiary. The company strongly denies any wrongdoing.
Related Links
So many awards, judge for yourself
Nobel Prize row as HIV scientist excluded

It is not the only question mark hanging over the probity of the Stockholm-based foundation. The Swedish prosecutor yesterday opened a parallel investigation into bribery allegations after several members of Nobel committees admitted enjoying expenses-paid trips to China to tell officials how candidates are selected for prizes.

Other members of the Nobel Foundation are said to be gravely concerned that the reputation of an organisation that honours the highest achievements in human endeavour is under threat from companies and nations hungry for Nobel glory.
From The Times
December 19, 2008

Prominent Trader Accused of Defrauding Clients

On Wall Street, his name is legendary. With money he had made as a lifeguard on the beaches of Long Island, he built a trading powerhouse that had prospered for more than four decades. At age 70, he had become an influential spokesman for the traders who are the hidden gears of the marketplace.
But on Thursday morning, this consummate trader, Bernard L. Madoff, was arrested at his Manhattan home by federal agents who accused him of running a multibillion-dollar fraud scheme — perhaps the largest in Wall Street’s history.
Regulators have not yet verified the scale of the fraud. But the criminal complaint filed against Mr. Madoff on Thursday in federal court in Manhattan reports that he estimated the losses at $50 billion. “We are alleging a massive fraud — both in terms of scope and duration,” said Linda Chatman Thomsen, director of the enforcement division at the Securities and Exchange Commission. “We are moving quickly and decisively to stop the fraud and protect remaining assets for investors.”
Andrew M. Calamari, an associate director for enforcement in the S.E.C.’s regional office in New York, said the case involved “a stunning fraud that appears to be of epic proportions.”

$13 Billion in Iraq Aid Wasted Or Stolen, Ex-Investigator Says

By Dana Hedgpeth
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 23, 2008; Page A19

A former Iraqi official estimated yesterday that more than $13 billion meant for reconstruction projects in Iraq was wasted or stolen through elaborate fraud schemes.

Salam Adhoob, a former chief investigator for Iraq's Commission on Public Integrity, told the Senate Democratic Policy Committee, an arm of the Democratic caucus, that an Iraqi auditing bureau "could not properly account for" the money.

While many of the projects audited "were not needed -- and many were never built," he said, "this very real fact remains: Billions of American dollars that paid for these projects are now gone."

He said a report that went to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and other top Iraqi officials was never published because "nobody cares" about investigating such cases. Many investigators, he said, feared for their safety because 32 of his co-workers have been murdered.

Adhoob said he reported the abuses to the U.S. Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, an agency charged by Congress with helping to root out cases of waste, fraud and abuse in the nearly $50 billion U.S. reconstruction effort. SIGIR spokeswoman Kristine Belisle said her agency continues to "actively follow up" on Adhoob's information, but she would not discuss ongoing investigations.

Adhoob was one of three Iraqi men who testified before the Democratic panel yesterday. Abbas S. Mehdi, a former Iraqi official who held a cabinet-level post, told of widespread corruption. And an Iraqi American who for five years has been a senior adviser to Defense and State department officials in Iraq testified in silhouette by video from an undisclosed location because, he said, he feared for his safety. In a modified voice, he said Iraqi government officials worked with al-Qaeda terrorists at the Baiji refinery to steal oil to sell on the black market.
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Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.), who chairs the committee, said that "taxpayers have been bled dry with massive misuse of public dollars."

More at the Washington Post

Paulson plan throws oil on fire

By Hossein Askari and Noureddine Krichene

With the creation of the so called Mortgage and Financial Institutions Trust (MFI), the unfolding financial crisis, considered by many to be the worst in over 60 years, has become ever-more dangerous.

While such an institution has not existed in any country, the MFI could prove to be disastrous for US public finance, economic growth, the dollar, relations with major foreign holders of dollars, the global financial system, and could ignite the worst inflation in the economic history of the United States and reverse globalization to levels not seen since the Great Depression.

The initial cost of the MFI, put at US$700 billion, could easily
escalate to trillions of dollars. At the same time, the Congressional Budget Office had previously projected a record fiscal deficit of US$500 billion for 2009. The MFI will further blow up the deficit to an unprecedented level, exceeding US$1.4 trillion. US debt, jumping with the takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to 86% of GDP, has moved to an unsustainable level.

The financing of previous large fiscal deficits under the George W Bush Administration has already caused external deficits (current account) to widen to 5-7% of GDP, turned national savings negative, sent the dollar plummeting, and ignited rapid inflation, particularly in food, energy, and housing prices. Further financing of extraordinary large fiscal deficits, as required by the MFI, can only disrupt economic stability both in the US and world-wide. It will only further undermine the dollar, exacerbate widening external deficits, soaring energy and food prices, and rising unemployment.

Nonetheless, the main architects of the MFI, Messrs Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke, Treasury Secretary and Federal Reserve chairman respectively, are determined to protect Wall Street. They have decidedly transformed the US budget and the US central bank into vehicles that only care for the welfare of Wall Street and divert public resources to bankers, under the guise of protecting the economy and averting systemic risk.

Albeit evidence of a systemic risk has not been established, vast public resources have so far been devoted to bailouts at the expense of growth-generating spending. The Fed has been pouring billions of dollars into financial institutions, buying worthless paper, and incurring huge losses. To quote Paulson "I am convinced that this bold approach [that is creation of the MFI] will cost American families far less than the alternative - a continuing series of financial-institution failures and frozen credit markets unable to fund economic expansion."

Contrary to Paulson’s claim, domestic credit is still expanding at a fast rate, at 9% per year as of July 2008, and the notion of frozen markets cannot be supported by Fed’s published monetary data. Banks have excess liquidity and are still extending loans to safe customers. Certainly they are no longer in the mood of reigniting a new speculative euphoria by lending to speculator and impaired credit.

And contrary to Paulson’s belief, the MFI will in the end cost American families more than other alternatives. As Philip Stephens from the Financial Times put it, it is horrifying to think that the huge liabilities of failing institutions have now been loaded on to the backs of taxpayers: a case, as far as speculators are concerned, of heads, we win, tails you lose.

Snip

More at Asia Times Online

Army, Sears clothing deal irks lawmakers

From Cantigny, France, and the Argonne Forest to North Africa, Normandy, Vietnam’s Iron Triangle and Iraq —and now hauteconcept.com?

Foreign battles aren’t new for the 1st Infantry Division, but this firefight is from another world, a clash between the New Army and Old over plans to commercialize the 1st Division’s historic “Big Red One” insignia in a sportswear line at Sears.

After days of questioning, the Army confirmed Monday the arrangement was first reached in June 2007 on the advice of an outside licensing agency, The Beanstalk Group in New York, but the full scope of the royalties to be earned has yet to be disclosed.

“I’m astounded,” said Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), who chairs the House appropriations panel overseeing the Pentagon’s nearly half-trillion-dollar budget.

“There is a great deal of concern among the senior Army brass about this deal,” said a Defense official.

But Sears, Roebuck and Co. is already moving to market its 1st Division “collection” this fall, and All American Apparel Inc., a privately held New York manufacturer, told Politico on Saturday that it had license from the Pentagon to proceed.

Caught most by surprise are combat veterans of the 1st Infantry Division, who see their familiar red-and-green shoulder patch splashed across Internet websites celebrating soldier chic.

“The U.S. Army launches an all-out fashion offensive,” reads the headline on stylelist.com. A Sears corporate press release quotes an unnamed Army spokesman extolling the new line for melding the “Army’s timeless traditions with iconic styling.” And following the Republican convention, the fashion blog Haute Concept added this note: “Now gun-toting soccer moms like Sarah Palin [can] get all their fight gear with one stop!”

Charles Horner, a retired Army officer now working for Murtha, isn’t happy. He served with the 1st Division in Vietnam, as did his father in World War II, including landings in North Africa, Sicily and Normandy.

“That patch is to be worn by only people who served in the 1st Division,” said Horner. “What right does the Army have to sell our patch?”

Ed Burke, president of an association for veterans of 1st Division’s 28th Infantry — in which this reporter served in Vietnam as an infantry medic — is more philosophical. “Surprise is what I hear most — and not knowing what is going on,” he said of the reaction to the Army’s venture. “[Defense] didn’t talk to anyone.”

Snip

More at Politico

Dan Hilliard, you're a Shmuck

Owen Sound, Ont., waitress laid off after shaving head for cancer charity

20 hours ago

OWEN SOUND, Ont. — A waitress from Owen Sound, Ont., says she can't believe she was laid off after she had her head shaved for a cancer fundraising event.
Stacey Fearnall raised more than $2,700 for charity, but when she showed up for work and refused to sport a wig for her shift, her boss told her to take the summer off.
Her employer, Dan Hilliard, says his restaurant has certain standards prohibiting men from wearing earrings and requiring employees to keep their hair at a reasonable length.
He says Fearnall is still on the payroll and she can return to work once she sprouts some locks.
Hilliard admits the story isn't great PR for the restaurant but as far as he's concerned, it's an internal staff problem.
He says he's already heard from some customers who agree with him and say they would have been "appalled" to have been served at Fearnall's table.
Snip

Which customers are appalled Dan? Balance that against all the other people who are appalled at you being such a tone deaf jackass.

Billions wasted on UN climate programme

John Vidal, environment editor
The Guardian,
Monday May 26 2008




Billions of pounds are being wasted in paying industries in developing countries to reduce climate change emissions, according to two analyses of the UN's carbon offsetting programme.
Leading academics and watchdog groups allege that the UN's main offset fund is being routinely abused by chemical, wind, gas and hydro companies who are claiming emission reduction credits for projects that should not qualify. The result is that no genuine pollution cuts are being made, undermining assurances by the UK government and others that carbon markets are dramatically reducing greenhouse gases, the researchers say.

More at the Guardian UK
And at International Rivers