In Wake Of Strikes, Lisbon Airport Out Of Fuel, Spanish Factories Close, Supermarkets Running Low

[hatrack]

Strike action by thousands of Spanish and Portuguese truckers produced ominous knock-on effects on food supplies, aviation and industry yesterday, as Lisbon airport ran out of fuel, car factories shut down and petrol stations and supermarkets reported shortages.

In a worrying sign for other European countries that face rising discontent at the spiralling cost of diesel, a third day of strikes generated widespread mayhem and the mood turned ugly after the first casualties of the standoff: two strikers died in clashes on picket lines.

Tourists flying to Lisbon faced delays after the airport ran out of fuel. Some flights were diverted to Porto. Only emergency, military or state flights were allowed out of Portela airport, a spokesman said. Only emergency fuel stocks saved Spanish airlines from similar disruption.

Supermarkets, meanwhile, reported dwindling supplies. Authorities at Spain's two biggest wholesale markets, Mercamadrid, in Madrid, and Mercabarna in Barcelona, reported deliveries of meat, fish and fruit were almost at a standstill. In Barcelona, at a branch of Caprabo supermarket, there was no fresh fish or meat on the shelves. Shopper María Luz Martínez, 38, said: "The lorry drivers are looking after themselves while we are all suffering. But the government doesn't appear to be that interested."

EDIT

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/jun/12/oil.spain

[Lost4words]

1. This needs to happen here, GENERAL STRIKE!

8643

[Zachstar]

3. Are you insane?

[Lost4words]

4. No Zackstar I am not insane, what do you propose?

what will it take to wake the sheeple up?

[Zachstar]

5. What you are suggesting is widespread suffering EDIT: In my view

BTW it is Zachstar


We are NOT the Uk the work distances are much larger the cars are not optimized. Simply put a massive strike will mean depression much faster than we have to endure.

You will have your strike. Except it wont be an organized strike. It will be the strike that occurs when thousands of ads appear for discount rigs.

No effective transportation = depression.

My god we are already going to have to endure years of depression why the hell do you want to make it happen faster.

BTW the "Sheep" are not going to be the ones suffering all that much. The rich will do QUITE well. The ones who are finally starting to care are the ones that are going to be slammed by this.

[Lost4words]

7. Where do you see relief coming from, you are not suffering now?

if not you are one of the lucky ones, I am 53 years old and Have seen allot. in the last 28 + years our country has become 3rd world, with leadership favoring corporate giants more and more.

We have have become a resource to be exploited.

Reagan 8 years
Bush H.W. 4 years
Clinton 8 years
Bush the lesser 8 years

Thats 28 years of selling out the working classes in the country.

Our education is at a 3rd world level, our health care exists only for the wealthy or employed.

Our Food Supply, ask the South Koreans about USA Beef!

Have a Tomatoe!

Count the number of family farms in your area, you wont find many, when I was young they were all over the place and their products were produced with pride and the animals were not mistreated.

Yea I would love to see a General Strike, those who are not suffering now need to wake up, we do not live in a vacumm.



Whats getting better?? Tell Me!

Ok so you are out of high school got a job and for you things might be looking better, thats your perspective, but its incomplete.

[tom_paine]

9. You forgot about our 3rd World media, our 3rd World voting systems, and our increasingly 3rd world

judiciary.

Be happy about this 8643. For the first time (at least in what was once the United states of America) it is preferable to be old than young.

To my "western civilization sensibilities" and my Old American Republic sensibilities, this is anathema, a horror to be resolutely resisted (and isn't that what the anti-Bushies/McBush/Bushpublicans movement is all about?).

But the facts are the facts. The older a person is at this point, the better off they are. And I can think of two major reasons why:

1) Those of us who are older actually spent a portion of our adult lives in freedom. Anyone under 25 cannot say they have ever lived a day in their adult lives in anything remotely resembling freedom. They know nothing but Inverted Totalitarianism, which is a tragedy for them.

Then can only relate to actual freedom the way you and I relate to the age of horse and buggy, as a strange time now passed, with no relevance to the present.

2) The older a person is, the less of the horrors that are coming (unless some major miracle pulls the rabbit out of the old hat, and it will take much more than just Obama getting elected) that person will live to see.

Given what is most likely now coming within 25 years or sooner (let lone the long-term realities of Peak Oil and Climate Change), this is a blessing of amazing proportions to us oldsters, those 40 and above.

It is a good time to be old, and an awful time to be young, like it was in Germany 1936 and a similar darkness was spreading over the world.

[Lost4words]

11. I wish I had your eloquence, my good friend you are so correct!

I agree with your comments completely, I am sad and discouraged for the younger ones among us.

Cheers my friend :toast: 8643

[tom_paine]

20. Thank you for the kind words, my friend. I am truly saddened by your situation.

I had no idea until I read it how tough things were going for you.

I remember the first time I met someone in your situation. It was in the late 80s (what a coinkydink!). I was a janitor in a dept. store in Montana, on night shift.

I used to chat with the day janitor as I went off and he went on. Nice fella. I had him pegged for an old cowboy or manual laborer, easing into a working class "working retirement".

Eventually we got to chatting about his background, and he told me he was a Chemical Engineer in his early 60s, and that because of his age he had not been able to find a job in the CE field for a half dozen years. Thuis he worked at gas stations, or as a janitor, side by side with starving college students one-third his age.

I was flabbergasted. My father, rest his soul, and all his friends, all our family of that generation, were gainfully employed in their chosen field up until retirement.

Little did I realize that gent was surfing the leading edge of a goddamned tragic tsunami.

It is implied among my generation that we won't be able to get jobs in our chosen fields for the last 10 years prior to retirement. Hell, after Bushler is done looting the economy and "loosening the safeties" of the cruelty that the Superiors visit upon we Inferiors (as that Uber Bushie Leo Strauss used to call us before his soul was reclaimed by Hell), it may be worse than that.

I had no idea of your situation, 8643, and I will hope and pray that things get better for you and yours.

:hug:

[Lost4words]

13. Oh I didnt forget, just not a great typist, the list goes on and on doesn't it.

:hi: 8643

[tom_paine]

19. Sorry. Don't take it personally. I was just being glib.

I know you didn't forget. Who among us that is "One-Eyed" in the Kingdom of the Blind can EVER forget?

The fucking Sword of Damocles.

[Lost4words]

8. I appologize Zachstar, unitentail misspelling.

I have been slammed by NAFTA, I was an engineer for Bell Atlantic and witnessed carloads of Indains with CISCO certifications brought in for BAs contracts while we who built the figging internet were let go. I havent had a real job in 7 years, no insurance. my wife and sister are in the same boat. We have lost every thing we worked so hard for. No retirement, no health care, no real future, yea I am f*cked. Most folks I know are in the exact same boat and its taking water very fast.


Did you kbnow health care has risen 91% since 2000?

the price of food has risen 40% since LAST FRIGGING YEAR!!!


And fuel,,,, come on

8643

[Zachstar]

2. Get ready folks we are almost at that point.

That situation is only a tiny demo of what is going to happen at the next stage as many truckers continue to park their rigs as diesel climbs and climbs.

[The2ndWheel]

6. But they've got "free" healthcare

I guess the Europeans who are protesting don't know how good they have it.

Taxes in Europe, tax breaks in America, subsidies in Asia, oil exporters in the global south(Middle East, Africa, South America) wanting to actually use oil, global commodity, speculation, nationalization, privatization, geology, 6.5+ billion people on the world, individual nations, multi-national corporations, environmental laws here and there, no environmental laws here and there, wealth, poverty, children, elderly, middle class, lower class, upper class, baby boomers, developed countries, developing countries, countries with large populations, countries with small populations, large land masses, small land masses, countries with aging populations, countries with younger populations, longer life spans, more money needed, lower wages, personal bankruptcy, government bankruptcy, taxes, profits, globalization, green capitalism, green socialism...

Take a deep breath...

ecology, environmental limits, technological breakthroughs, harnessing more energy, extracting more energy, conservation, efficiency, mass production, overconsumption, paradoxes, peaks, growth, sustainable economic growth, unsustainable economic growth, equal access to resources, resources off limits, complexity, simplicity, progress, regression, steady states, diversity, evolution, extinction...


...it's all too diverse and inefficient.

[Lost4words]

10. If its always darkest before dawn, bring on the DARK

I dont believe its going to get better until bottom is reached. It seems to me that in our country If you yourself are not hurting you wont/dont worry about all those other people.

Zachstar, I dont want anything other than a level playing field. But its already bad and has been for some time for many of our countrymen and women.

there needs to be some kind of National Wake Up Call, thats what I would REALLY love to see.
I dont want to increase the suffering, I want relief.

8643

[The2ndWheel]

14. "I dont want to increase the suffering, I want relief."

I think you have to find that yourself. I'm not going to tell you how since it would be different for different people in their particular circumstance, but if you want relief, you have to find some way to do that yourself. I'm not saying you have to do it alone, it's much easier if you have people you know and love doing it with you. It's not going to come from the corporations or the government, two institutions that only want to increase the control they have over you. Both of those institutions require you to become a resource to be exploited.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jun/06/ethicalliving.food

"Why bother? That really is the big question facing us as individuals hoping to do something about climate change, and it's not an easy one to answer. I don't know about you, but for me the most upsetting moment in An Inconvenient Truth came long after Al Gore scared the hell out of me, constructing an utterly convincing case that the very survival of life on earth as we know it is threatened by climate change. No, the really dark moment came during the closing credits, when we are asked to ... change our lightbulbs. That's when it got really depressing. The immense disproportion between the magnitude of the problem Gore had described and the puniness of what he was asking us to do about it was enough to sink your heart.

But the drop-in-the-bucket issue is not the only problem lurking behind the "Why bother?" question. Let's say I do bother, big time. I turn my life upside-down, start biking to work, plant a big garden, turn down the thermostat so low I need the Jimmy Carter signature cardigan, forsake the clothes dryer for a laundry line across the yard, trade in the SUV for a hybrid, get off the beef, go completely local. I could theoretically do all that, but what would be the point when I know full well that halfway around the world there lives my evil twin, some carbon-footprint doppelgänger in Shanghai or Chongqing who has just bought his first car (Chinese car ownership is where America's was back in 1918), is eager to swallow every bite of meat I forswear and who is positively itching to replace every last pound of CO2 I'm struggling no longer to emit. So what exactly would I have to show for all my trouble?

A sense of personal virtue, you might suggest, somewhat sheepishly. But what good is that when virtue itself is quickly becoming a term of derision? And not just on the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal or on the lips of the American vice-president, Dick Cheney, who famously dismissed energy conservation as a "sign of personal virtue". No, it seems the epithet "virtuous", when applied to an act of personal environmental responsibility, may be used only ironically. Tell me: how did it come to pass that virtue - a quality that for most of history has generally been deemed, well, a virtue - became a mark of liberal softheadedness? How peculiar, that doing the right thing by the environment - buying the hybrid, eating like a locavore - should now set you up for ridicule."

[Lost4words]

17. ?

huh?

[Nihil]

18. That's a good article in your link ... worth reading all the way through ...

I may not agree with all he says but it made me think (and that's
always a good thing!).

Thanks for posting it. :hi:

[tom_paine]

21. Excellent article. Well worth reading. It deserves it's own thread, really.

I wish I could recommned a post.

[Zachstar]

15. Well speaking for myself I am not ready for the dark times yet.

I'm weak and without survival education. I have no experience living in depression like conditions.

And I actually care.

I can only imagine the horrors communities will go through as swarms of people that used to be employed in tech jobs and building things try to get gardens going to be able to eat. While streets are lined with the homeless.

We need TIME dammit! EMC2 fusion needs 5 years http://www.emc2fusion.org/ to complete phase 2. If we go now it will be 5 years before we can exit the dark times.

Common man! At current rates we atleast have until mid to late 2009 before the bottom falls out. Why urge it to happen now? Why make it go longer?

[Lost4words]

16. You make a good point, I'll check the link,

I guess I I dont look at a general strike as the END.

And common man!
I thought it was going to get better in 1988

I thought it was going to get better in 1992

I thought it was going to get better in 2000

I thought it was going to get better in 2004

I thought it was going to get better in 2006

I hope it is going to get better in 2008, But I am not holding my breath.

Thanks for the link I'll check out the site and I look forward to checking in with you later!

:headbang: :toast: :hi: 8643

[tom_paine]

22. Zach, I am also a big believer that fusion is the ONLY way out of this mess

that doesn't involve massive lifestyle changes or "powering down", though practically speaking it may mean that, just less of it.

However, knowing that we are in agreement on the necessity of bringing clean fusion on line, a couple pieces of food for thought:

1) Consider the 8000 years of recorded human history. Hell, consider the last seven years at home here in the Empire. Is there not the danger that putting limitless energies in human hands is the equivalent of giving chimpanzees flamethrowers and locking them in a paper mill?

I mean, our fossil fuel technologies can render the planet unihabitable by human, but can it "kill" the planet? I seriously doubt it.

If we set off most or all of our fission bombs at once, we may be able to "kill" the planet, or at least render it habitable to nothing more than microbes and roaches for a few million years, but even then I wonder if given the vastness of cosmic time, it still wouldn't come back.

But fusion? I think if we discover it as you and I think we should, it may well deliver into our hands the ability to literally kill the planet, either straight up like dentonating all our fission bombs, or long-term from some unintended side-effect (it won't be pollution, but I am postualting here, so I can't really guess at what the details of such a thing would look like) the way oil is doing to us throughthe unintended side-effect of climate change.

2) I haven't read the papers on the site, but unless I am mistaken, this is a charitable organization for doing fusion work. Not exactly Manhattan Project-level funding.

How can they meet their deadlines, or anything close to it, by soliciting $20 Paypal donations? Maybe I am missing something, and I am certainly NOT criticizing the effort. ALL efforts at clean fusion are worthy, IMO, the problem is that even at this late date, it simply is not a priority.

Oh, we primates and our shortsightedness!

[Zachstar]

23. EMC2 fusion is a US NAVY project. DOE is a joke...

The point of it being nonprofit is it not being some hidden away tech that only big guys with cigars have access to. Tho this is a navy project. It WILL come to the aid of humanity.

As for fusion bombs this is a completely different concept. Fusion bombs already exist for many years now. They aint gonna suddenly grow in power because we get fusion power.

And remember big nukes suck these days. The Militaries of the super powers MUCH prefer tactical nukes. IE ones that can only destroy parts of a city but can fit on F-16s and cannon shells.

Fusion is going to reverse the damage not create more.

Don't drink the bong water!

[tom_paine]

24. Yes, I'm well aware of fusion bombs. When I said "fission bombs" naturally I also meant

the fusion bombs we also have on hand.

I never expected something ridiculous like fusion bombs growing in power. You got a little too hung up on the whole bombs thing, but that was not the point, only an ancillary example of the "what ifs" involved.

I have absolutely no idea what point you are making when you mention the "preferences" for tactical nukes.

As IF, once the first nuke goes off, Pandora's Box isn't opened. Tactical nukes, my ass. Makes no difference ultimately. Once we strike first with them, all bets are off and let us not forget the terrorists with their suitcase nukes.

I tend to agree with you that fusion has the potential to reverse the damage, yet you did not reply to my points, other than to go off on a non sequitur on the difference between fusion and fission bombs, which I already know.

But I have to ask, the Amerikan Empire is as corrupt as we have ever seen in our lives by a good bit, Third World corrupt. There can be no question that, thanks to Bushie Purges, the armed services are a reflection of the nation, and undoubtedly are corrupted, as well. What else would you expect with the Bushies forcing retirements for all the Loyal American Generals and replacing them with Loyal Bushies?

Anyway my question is what makes you so sure that, simply because it is a US navy Project (which makes it a Bushie project) that it WILL come to the service of humanity?

I have to laugh at your naivete here...apologies. It sounds like you were in the Navy. Were you? Don't tell me you bought that basic Training bullshit (ex-USAF here) that EVERYONE in the military has the utmost integrity?

Here's a hint if you weren't watching closely during your time in service: IT ISN'T TRUE. Not even close.

And seven years of Bushie rule and Purges of the honest leadership while rewarding the criminal and incompetent Bushie officers likely means it is even less true now than it was when I was in, and it wasn't even close to being true then, just some crap they tell naive Basic Trainees because it sounds good.

Although, if you have that kind of a naive view of the USN and the rest of our armed services, that somehow they are above the laws of statistics and human nature, then I suppose you don't believe that fusion can be misused in the hands of humanity, who have misused EVERY OTHER form of power, energetic, chemical, physical, we have ever laid our hands on.

Why would this time be different from every single other time?

(again, I am playing Devil's Advocate here, as I believe in fusion...but it is a relevant question)

[Zachstar]

25. Oh my god I am not even going to continue talking about this.

I left that Alex Jones like crap years ago. Its pointless.

Lets keep its simple.

Fusion is Coming.

Its everyone responsibility to use it wisely.


And that's that. There is no pandora's box there is no black government stealing of fusion there is nothing outside of supply and demand.

[tom_paine]

27. That's a shame. When you left it, years ago, it WAS pointless.

Unfortunately, that was before what is essentially a criminal organization, the Bush Wing of the Republican Party, stole three elections, abused power, shredded the Constitution, eliminated (or tried to eliminate, the jury is still out, as it were) habeus corpus and all the rest.

Here's a handy guide: The less free a nation is, the more of the "Alex Jones crap" is relevant.

Sorry if reality sucks. I, too would like to live in a strong, healthy Republic with a strong system of checks and balances, as well as a strong and vibrant Free Press. But we don't have any of that at this moment, and thus speculation replaces the investigations that never were, etc.

But I digress. In reality, the last three paragraphs aside, your vitriol for Alex Jones (never listened to him, myself, though I have once or twice looked at the website) has apparently blidned you as to my meanings.

When discussing military corruption, I was making a point about human corruption, and that the military is no different from the rest of society in it's mix of corrupt and non-corrupt people.

I don't know where you inferred "black government stealing of fusion" from what I said. I was making a point about human corruption, and I was also asking if you were ex-military (are you?) and if so, did you buy the Basic Training bullshit about EVERYBODY in the military being incorruptible, which is a statistical impossibility.

Also, you COMPLETELY misunderstood my comment about Pandora's Box. Do you know what Pandora's Box is, for god's sake? Do you know what the analogy means in the way I used it? Did you understand what I was trying to say?

Or maybe it would just be easier to ask what you thought I meant by my Pandora's Box comment.

I'm sorry, I have to ask this question but exactly how old are you? I only ask because the amazing level of misunderstanding of my comments suggests a certain immature reading comprehension skill.

I have been on DU seven years now, and I have had everything from "shouting matches" to long, civilized debates from which I learned a lot. But there is something strange about our exchange that I'm not sure I've seen before.

How old are you? Have you taken the SATs yet?

There really is no point in further discussion if you can't even grasp a Pandora's Box analogy.

Once again I apologize if my age question offends you, but does it ever need to be answered.

In either case, take a deep breath, relax, and think "reading comprehension".

[Name removed]

28. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

29. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[ensho]

12. kick

nt

[ramapo]

26. Hard to imagine the reaction here

Somehow life just seems to be continuing here in the US without much disruption. People are making subtle adjustments and I am sure there is much angst. I don't see how the truckers are surviving. Diesel fuel is closing in on $5/gal.

If (when?) the truckers have enough, and pull a strike like in Spain, the disruption will be nearly instantaneous. I don't see that people could deal with it. We are all used to having what we want, when we want it. And if we can't afford it, it goes on the credit card. No problem.

At Age 53, I've been watching and waiting for this time to be upon us. Even having long expected this turn of events, I find it difficult to accept that the life that we've known might very well get much more difficult.

Those younger, and/or less aware, will not adjust easily. We have panic buying if there's a hint of a winter snow that might keep you in the house for half a day. I shudder to think what true shortages will bring.