4 Frightening Ways We're Reverting to the Dark Days of Our Past

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/economy/4-frightening-ways-were-reverting-dark-days-our-past



***SNIP

1. The Commons: A Toll Gate in the Grand Canyon

***SNIP

We're heading back in that direction, and we don't have Teddy Roosevelt to knock some sense into Congress. Attempts to privatize federal land were made by the Reagan administration in the 1980s and the Republican-controlled Congress in the 1990s. In 2006, President Bush proposed auctioning off 300,000 acres of national forest in 41 states. Paul Ryan's Path to Prosperity has proposed to sell millions of acres of "unneeded federal land," and the libertarian Cato Institute demands that our property be "allocated to the highest-value use." Representative Cliff Stearns recommended that we "sell off some of our national parks." Mitt Romney admitted that he didn't know "what the purpose is" of public lands.

2. Safety Deregulated: Workers Fell "Like a Living Torch to the Street"

***SNIP

A century later the attitude of big business is that self-regulation works best. For the profit margin, it certainly does, but not for workers. The Texas fertilizer plant, where 14 people were killed in an explosion and fire, was last inspected by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) over 25 years ago. The U.S. Forest Service, stunned by the Prescott, Arizona fire that killed 19, had been forced by the sequester to cut 500 firefighters. The rail disaster in Lac-Megantic, Quebec followed deregulation of Canadian railways. Other examples include a salmonella outbreak that was exacerbated by shoddy FDA oversight; tainted syringes from a company that went two years without a federal inspection; and a sudden increase in coal miner deaths while the U.S. House was rejecting a proposal for safety measures.

3. Inequality: Workers Demand a 76-Hour Week in the Era of a $300 Billion Man

***SNIP


A wage crisis exists today among fast food workers, who make about $18,000 a year. According to the Working Poor Families Project, the income required for basic needs for a family of four is about $45,000. A McDonalds worker would have to work 100 hours a week to reach that level.


4. The 14th Amendment: It Worked for Slaves 6% of the Time, and for Corporations 94% of the Time

***SNIP

Today the American people are again under attack by the Citizens United and Speechnow decisions, which allow unlimited corporate campaign financing through independent "Super PAC" organizations, and by the pending McCutcheon v. FEC case, which would allow unlimited individual contributions. Meanwhile, we have people like Mitt Romney assuring us that "Corporations are people, my friend."

[Martin Eden]

1. "allocated to the highest-value use."

Who gets to establish the values for guiding these decisions ... or does "value" automatically equate to money?

[HereSince1628]

2. Value in capitalism does seem to mean 'market value'

and although exchanges in trade may involve things other than money, valuations expressed in terms of units of money facilitate shared understanding.

Thus for the capitalists at Cato the value of 'unneeded public lands' is almost certainly in terms of that which can be extracted or exploited for use in the market.

Land held in the public domain with resources unavailable for generation of private profits is a sin in capitalism.

[fasttense]

10. And yet having 10 to 20 percent of the working age population idle and unproductive

is no problem for capitalism. The constant crashes or swings of capitalism always result in high unemployment sometimes for decades. Yet all this lost productive capacity is never bemoaned by capitalists.

Why is the unused potential of land a sore spot for capitalism but not the unused potential of people?

[HereSince1628]

16. Yes. But, I suppose it's rationalized because the cost of idle labor can be externalized

-IF- capital isn't shunted/wasted on unemployment benefits and/or wages that allow workers to 'bridge' idle times.

Capitalist ideology runs along the lines that more and more capital is good for everyone, and it would be if capital is put in the service of everyone. But, operationalized capitalism, evidenced by the day-to-day business practices at the level of individuals and corporations whose goal is to maximize ROI and accumulate material wealth demands minimizing every cost that drags on that process.

The unfortunate part of global capitalism is that the benefits of capitalism to a nation (such as the maintenance of standard of living, the presence of a 'middle class' etc. which are the avatars rolled out to suggest the superiority of national capitalistic economies) require reciprocal traffic among all components in a national economic web. Yet the material wealth in contemporary capitalism tends to create reservoirs of concentrated wealth which rather than re-entering the national economic web flow, are either sunk into internationalized derivative financial instruments, or via international investment in production outside the nation...which is to say into external 'sinks' which enable minimization of those nasty dragging costs.

The potential of unused land to capitalism is that it contains resources which have capital value if they can be introduced into private wealth via extraction and marketing.

This resource exploitation also has the value of creating supply, which lowers purchase price and thereby costs of products derived from those resources.

[fasttense]

17. Thanks for a very good explanation.

After the first RepubliCON Great Depression, Keynes wrote something to the effect that part of the problem was that the rich hoard money and wealth in a depression. Your description of how wealth gets stalled in an economy made that remark come alive.

Thanks.

[erronis]

26. Agree - an interesting explanation

I would also add that most of the plutocracy has less than a negative view of the rest of the human race. In their minds the "rest" are not even human and can be used/disposed as much as -ahem- wipes.

Allowing wide tranches of humanity to die because of starvation, illness, impoverishment is not a major blot on their enjoyment of life and wealth.

Sacrificing huge areas of world resources such as america's national parks is not going to upset them. They have huge (10,000+ acre) parcels of land that will never be mined, never be drilled, never be infested by the likes of you and me.

[Martin Eden]

18. Yes, of course "value" =profits for Ryan and the interests he represents.

That's a given.

My point is that public lands (such as wilderness areas) have value that cannot be measured monetarily. These lands have immeasurable value not only for resource exploitation or even human recreation, but for the inherent value of natural ecosystems and species that are rapidly disappearing from this beautiful planet of ours.

How we apply VALUES to public policy is the real heart of this matter, and it is a grave mistake not to challenge Paul Ryan on the fundamental premise of the policies he seeks to implement.

[HereSince1628]

20. I totally agree. But here is the rub...captialism is about material wealth.

It isn't about aesthetics which have value to many
It isn't about spiritual value which have value to many
It isn't even about ecological contribution to biogeochemical function that supports all life, which have value to many

It -IS- about exploiting resources at the lowest cost and turning them into private material wealth.

We must recognize that to fight it.

[ReRe]

3. K&R

I've been saying it for 20 years: "We're going backwards." "This isn't progress, it's regress." The first place I noticed the phenomenon was standing in a long line at the grocery store. It reminded me of the bread lines in the USSR (from the propaganda films we were shown during the Cold War.) Fourteen registers, but only one, or MAYBE two, open. Hell, I don't even recognize this country anymore. Everybody grab your history books and start reading up on the past, cause looks like we're headed back there.

[Bonobo]

4. I would add loss of access to safe abortions. nt

[GreenPartyVoter]

6. Agreed!

[The Wizard]

5. The term "equal protection"

As set forth by the 14th Amendment has been reduced to empty rhetoric by the Mediocre (formerly Supreme) Court.

[Kilgore]

7. Nevada

I have spent a considerable amount of time in Nevada where the government owns most of the state. I have always wondered why.

Setting aside the bombing ranges, parks, and the places where they store the aliens, would it not be a better to use the money the land represents for education or healthcare?

Not trying to start a flame war, just trying to understand.

Kilgore.

[Art_from_Ark]

12. A lot of Nevada land is leased by the BLM to ranchers

You probably wouldn't notice the cattle of a typical ranch like that because they are spread out over hundreds or even thousands of acres due to limited water and grazing fodder.

At any rate, this web site might help to provide answers about land in Nevada:

http://www.landinnevada.com/4401.html

[airplaneman]

21. anyone is welcome to travel on BLM land.

When this stuff becomes private you will be shot for trespassing.
I am a firm believer that public lands should remain public because they are an asset to be enjoyed by this generation and future generations.
Once sold BLM land is gone forever and often they are sold way too cheap unusually someone with money is buying so they can make a profit therefore the government gets little and the rich guy gets richer.
Occasionally BLM sell land near developing towns so that they can expand which is probably OK as long as it is not excessive.
Just some of my two cents.
-Airplane

[fleabiscuit]

22. A possible question back to you...

Why does a private entity have to own something before it has value?

[Kilgore]

29. Value, in the way I used the term,

means how much money a buyer is willing to pay for an item in exchange for its ownership or its temporary use (rent)

Contrast this to the value of air, which no one owns, but we value greatly since we can't live without it.

Kilgore

[fleabiscuit]

30. I assumed so, but I'm trying to kick the habit.

There were a lot of assumptions I used to make but no longer do.

'We should be seeking out forms of authority and domination, and challenging their legitimacy. Sometimes they are legitimate, that is they are needed for survival. Any form of coercion and control requires justification and most of them are completely unjustifiable.

One major system of domination that is not being seriously addressed that is really at the core of the system of domination is private control over resources. That means an attack on the fundamental structure of state capitalism. That is in order, it’s not something far off into the future.'
paraphrase ~ Noam Chomsky

I like that guy.

Edit: BTW, don't think anyone is trying to "own the air?" Think carbon tax, and cap and trade. Perhaps it's NOT your air.

[reformist2]

8. It's going to be a long, hard struggle to get back what we've lost.

[WillyT]

9. K & R !!!

[Laelth]

11. k&r for the truth, however depressing it may be. n/t

-Laelth

[Catherina]

13. Rec'd n/t

[niyad]

14. k and r (note to self: quit reading this depressing stuff before caffeine!)

[niyad]

15. that smug, arrogant, sneering visage makes me want to throw up. the utter contempt he feels

shows so clearly.

[Lizzie Poppet]

19. And we'll do nothing.

Well, okay...some of us will bitch about it. But nothing that would actually change anything will be done. This is the death spiral, my friends...we're circling the bowl. The free market fundamentalists, with the glassy-eyed insanity of all religious cults, are dragging us into oblivion.

Yeah, that's pretty negative. *shrug* I calls 'em as I sees 'em.

[wouldsman]

23. I would add Rape

I said to my wife several years ago, "you just watch, the right is trying to normalize rape". Seemed absurd to even say it, but sadly, here we are, as the years go by the Right makes comments like "legitimate rape", "she should have just relaxed and enjoyed it", "that's not really rape", and they refuse to allow our military to fully investigate it.
Oh so sad to live in a time of regression…..

[bvar22]

24. DURec for an excellent article.

The closing paragraph was superb.

Our great shame is that we forget the past, or perhaps simply refuse to learn from it. We have traveled this path before. We have seen the worst of times for our most vulnerable citizens, for people who fought for many years for modest gains, only to see the self-interest of a powerful few whisk those gains away.[/font]

We have already seen what happens when Corporations operate without regulation.

We have already seen what happens when Our Commons are privatized.

We have already seen what happens when the RICH are allowed to buy our government.

We have already seen what happens when the RICH do not carry their fair share.


We have already BEEN that and DONE that.
It worked just GREAT for the 1%.
It was horrible for everyone else,
Just. Like. NOW!

[Phlem]

25. K&R!

-p

[blkmusclmachine]

27. ,

,

[Spitfire of ATJ]

28. Actually, I've run into Conservatives who think we should dam the Grand Canyon....

It's all about growth and more and more and more with them and the idea of being told there isn't enough water to sustain it,....well...

They'll say, "Who cares about the Grand Canyon? Dam it. turn it into a massive lake and sell the water rights at an auction. We'll take pictures for future generations so they can see how it used to look. Make it a hydroelectric dam and WOW!!! More revenue! More power for more growth! What's wrong with that? What are you? A Tree hugging Communist?"

[FairWinds]

31. Hey Ms. Lizzie -

Nope, not gonna buy it.
You have to do more than "bitch".
You owe it to your kids, grandkids and community.
Find a kick-ass progressive group and lend a hand.
For me, it's Veterans for Peace
If not us, who?
If not now, when?