Let's Make It Official: Your Life Isn't Worth Chicken Shit

Like a vulturous auction during a death watch, fat-cat lobbyists for stinking-rich corporations that lock in good things for your life -- like malignant air and inhumane working hours -- have descended en masse on the Bush administration's racketeering regulators, pleading for a final push of even grosser, antisocial malevolence.

Both sides -- the lobbyists and the Bushies -- have rung the gong, because both are fairly convinced that in 2008 Democrats will sweep elective offices, from the White House to the lower House, and will then actually start catering to the electoral inmates, rather than the plutocratic wardens who have profited so handsomely from seven years of Bush's corporate piñata.

Where these lobbyists got the idea that elected Democrats aren't as amenable to legal bribery as their Heyakian counterparts is beyond every thinking soul; at any rate, that's the prevailing theory, so it's serious crunch time -- wipe off the books any remaining, regulatory protections that menace the sustained flow of fat into already fattened corporate pocketbooks.

The laissez-faire cesspool envisioned by lobbyists on behalf of their corporate capo regimes is delineated this morning by the New York Times, and said delineation of the "wide range of health, safety, labor and economic rules" they seek to overturn -- "in the belief that they can get better deals from the Bush administration than from its successor" -- will gag you.

Or, perhaps you'll just yawn. I don't know. It all depends on how familiar one is with the capitalist shell game of promising the American Dream through your utter submission and resignation.

Prepare for that gag- or yawn-reflex to this quick survey of deregulatory shenanigans in the last-minute works:

"Businesses are lobbying the Bush administration to roll back rules that let employees take time off [that would be unpaid leave] for family needs and medical problems." It seems too many of you out there, or your loved ones, are getting inconveniently sick or croaking at inopportune moments.

"Electric power companies are pushing the government to relax pollution-control requirements." But they have no choice, you see. Their every fiber is devoted only to meeting your growing demand for "safe, reliable and affordable electricity," albeit at unregulated or bribed utility-commissioned rates.

"Trucking companies are trying to get final approval for a rule increasing the maximum number of hours commercial truck drivers can work." And if you find the thought of a sleepless roadster on crank barreling up behind you with a 40-ton payload prohibitively disturbing, then your empathy level for harried trucking executives is woefully, capitalistically and, yes, unpatriotically low.

"Coal companies are lobbying for a regulation that would allow them to dump rock and dirt from mountaintop mining operations into nearby streams and valleys." The tree-huggers are characteristically incensed, saying that would only hasten "the destruction of mountains, forests and streams throughout Appalachia," but they say such silly things only because they haven't yet achieved Larry Kudlow's penthouse lifestyle made possible by the destruction of mountains, forests and streams -- the 40-ton products of which are then raced to Larry by a sleepless maniac on crank.

But my favorite? This one is absolutely priceless.

"Poultry farmers are seeking an exemption for the smelly fumes produced by tons of chicken manure" -- from, that is, "laws and rules that require them to report emissions of ammonia exceeding 100 pounds a day. They argue that 'emissions from poultry houses pose little or no risk to public health' because the ammonia disperses quickly in the air.

"But environmental groups ... noted [that] a federal judge in Kentucky has found that farmers discharge ammonia from their barns, into the environment, so it will not sicken or kill the chickens."

What could I possibly say that could top that?

Comments

[Don Robertson, The American Philosopher]

Very uplifting, very Midwest, very encouraging.

Now on to the problem:

Lincoln was re-elected.

And it seems no matter who is Oh-eighted, it's going to look like Lincoln was re-elected yet again.

None have yet fathomed how deep and widespread the cesspool.

Most in fact, still cling to the terd of their own choice.

What a way to go, drowning in shit, eh?

Don Robertson, The American Philosopher

[Mooser]

Don, are you sure Lincoln is the guy you wanna refer to in you comment? From what I've heard, he couldn't stay awake through a play.

[Hotrod]

PM,
Disgusting, but not surprising in the least. The robber barons have always ruled, except for brief respites when the serfs would no longer take it and rose up. Here is, unfortunately, what needs to happen: in the farming financial crisis of 1983-1986 when many farmers were in debt up to their eyeballs and then had their land values plummet (sound familiar?)they found themselves upside down in equity positions and lenders were unsympathetic to say the least. A close friend of mine worked for the Farm Credit System and was told to show no mercy and offer no negotiation to people who had simply "overextended themselves". This continued until one day a distraught farmer in Iowa went to a local bank and shot two loan officers. My close friend said the next day he was called in and told to be "understanding" and "flexible" in his dealings with his clients.

Has everyone forgotten that our grandparents faced machine guns in order to form unions?

Chris Matthews tried to make fun of Mike Huckabee this morning for saying that Americans keep guns mostly for protection from their own government. Black Helicopters were mentioned I believe. Andrew Sullivan, of all people, defended that notion but was quickly ignored. Blackwater come to mind? Tasering people at traffic stops? John Kerry standing slack jawed while a person asking legitimate questions is dragged out and tasered. Fascism is here folks and the only way to stop it is to kill it. The coming Depression will ignite the fuse.

[Don Robertson, The American Philosopher]

Mooser-

Yeh. Lincoln is the right metaphor. I'm reading Sandburg's "The Prairie Years - The War Years" right now.

Exactly like Iraq, there was no good reason for the Civil War, and there were plenty who knew it then too.

But, the reason I'm back here though, is because I just read how Hotrod characterized John Kerry as slack jawed.

Hotrod, I don't care what else you do in life, you just made my day.

I'm as old as slack jawed John Kerry and a lot of these weasels in government, and they're all a bunch of slack jawed misfits.

And you can add to that group just about anyone teaching in any of these colleges and universities today too.

They are all slack jawed misfits, idiots who climbed the moron ladder into their pimping-puppet intellectual-ships based upon selling out the world.

Everyone talks revolution but no one has a clue.

You have to start by shutting down the economy. Stop paying your mortgage. And stop buying all that other crap too.

And then you shift it into high gear by driving a stake through as of the many hearts of these slack jawed vampires as you can find sleeping, black-cloaked during the sunny daytime.

Today though, everyone wants to simply blame Bush and greedy corporate America. Jesus Christ! That Bolshevik-Marxist nonsense was made up to cause revolutionaries to lose interest and fail.

It is education, science and government that are the enemy, from the kindergarten teacher to the university professor. All these elitist, slack jawed, purveyors of the roaming status quo are the ones who are destroying the world.

And these environmentalist professors are some of the worst.

The environmentalist scientists are busy building an empirical knowledge set that WILL BE USED to create environmental weapons, and they know it. The topic of their science is the destruction of the earth. And they are leading the way toward teaching the future world exactly how to do it too.

Respecting anyone's education is like saluting a NAZI general, worse!

These slack jawed liars have no special license on truth. They are simply the certified bull-shitters who have led the world to hell in a handbasket.

So if you want a revolution, you've got to knock some heads, and, they've got to be the heads of those who are lying us into a continuation of the roaming status quo.

Everyone thinks the world is so much smarter today. Horse-SHIT! You're not smart enough to stop this bogus war! And there is a list of things you have to do a half mile long just to piss today. Everyone in our society spends half the day pinching their knees together because they cannot find a place to piss! What, that's smarter than when an Indian pissed where ever he wanted to?

The first thing that would help would be if every student in the country went into class tomorrow and took a big dump right on the desks all those who are teaching all the crap that allows the continuation of all these lies.

Don Robertson, The American Philosopher

[beamer]

american philosopher? sounds like someone didn't get tenure and can't find his meds..Schools?.i wish they taught "the people's history of amerca" by howard zinn ,not so sure about the radical nonuse of toilets.sounds like a mess for custodial staff

[Dan]

Don, that has to be the biggest load of misguided crap I've managed to trawl through in at least a week. You seem to think you're onto some form of radical truth, how cruel of the world to not see things as you do!
Let's start with your assault on educators. Fair enough if you don't agree with them. The idea behind any decent education system is that you'll come out of it equipped to see where and why you disagree with anything you've been taught, or will be presented as truth in future. To claim that it is the teachers who are to blame for the state of the world today is like blaming a steel foundry for a high- school shooting. Yes, without the foundry, the gun and ammunition would not have been made. Neither would a lot of beneficial products, such as engine parts, tools, surgical instruments, farming equipment etc.. The foundry, like the faculty, are there to provide the materials with which to create; to what end is largely out of their control. Ooohh, my mother was killed by a drunk- driver! All drinkers are out to make orphans of the citizens of this country! Revolution! Death to Duff! Mrs. Smith never called on me in the second grade! Teachers are all stupid!
Environmental scientists seeking to destroy the earth? Oh, get your hand off it. Virtually any scientific advance can be used for creation or destruction. Rejection of knowledge to make things "safer" for everyone leads to, oh, I don't know, maybe backwards crap like the Middle Ages? So, they weren't destroying the world back then, but little things like disease tended to wipe out half of the population. You're right- finding a cure for that kind of thing might just lead to a stronger bug, so what's the point? The Earth is flat, and is the centre of the universe, disagreement causes death. Knowing that this is not the case brings no perceivable benefit to anyone, just a bunch of smarties lording their round- earth theories above the heads of us common folk. How dare they monopolise this truth. Wanker.
The fact is, we ARE smart enough to "stop this bogus war", whichever war you're referring to- you didn't make that quite clear. We just like our little comforts too much. It's hard to fight when your balls are being tickled.
You want to change things? Start a revolution? Do it. Don't be so gutless as to suggest that every teacher should "have their heads knocked," or even funnier- that "respecting someone's education is like saluting a Nazi general- worse!" You knob. The Nazis had a similar attitude to education as you seem to. There was knowledge, and then there was Aryan knowledge. As Goering once (in)famously declared: "2 and 2 equal 5 if the Fuehrer says it is so!"
I think the best step would be for everyone to go into school tomorrow and ASK AN INTELLIGENT QUESTION. Think about the answer you receive. Read 3 books on the topic, from a range of stances. Evaluate all you have heard and read, and compare it to how you feel. Reconcile it in your own mind. Then ask another question.
Just how you blame the state of the world today on politicians AND teachers escapes me. Your philosophy seems to transcend "Ignorance is bliss," and goes straight to "ignorance is strength!"
If you're "The American Philosopher," I can tell you one thing: The world isn't fucked- just America.

[Don Robertson, The American Philosopher]

Dan-

The sort of buckshot-bullshit logic you simply estimated is enough to get your feeble point across, is typical. You prove my point.

Just be thankful Ted Kaczynski was not an environmental scientist at Harvard.

It only takes one madman (there have always been madmen) to bring on the apocalyptic dream so many find appealing. Oh sure, you may not be awaiting with rapture on your hot breath, but it's the same thing when you go through life thinking you're just going to flip up your cell phone and say, "Beam me up, Scotty!" to escape the bad end that becomes increasingly likely with every dollar spent on education.

After the students of the world shit on the desk of every educator everywhere, they should shove their faces into it too.

Empirical science is witchcraft on steroids.

Don Robertson, The American Philosopher

[martin weiss]

I sure enjoy reading you two arguing. Enlightening. Get a room.

Carpenter's article is accurate, and correctly depicts the mugging of the other passengers in a lifeboat in stormy seas.

Humanity is an organism that is poisoning it's own womb. Rocket fuel and petroleum are obsolete technologies that will not suffice to get us off the planet we are making non-viable.

Yet vested interests think it's more important to "ignore the man behind the curtain.." Carpenter is right. Corporate polluters and labor exploiters, like health insurance companies, are about profits, not people. It's that simple. If you 'Un-american Philosophers' have a grudge against the Enlightenment, tell it to Galileo. And take your subject-changing outside.

The people set up a government-- not the corporations, who, if they had their way, would rule markets through hit-squads, like the Hudson's Bay Co. did. Robbing the other people on the lifeboat is just plain dumb. In Vietnam they said: "We had to destroy it to save it." Now, Bush is saying it should be illegal to even plan to do anything counter to his interests. Make the Constitution illegal. That'll work.

[Don Robertson, The American Philosopher]

Martin Weiss, who notably and actually quite impressively is not anonymous, still embodies the ubiquitous StarTrek vision of some empirical messiah coming to save humanity from the empirical barbarity that is destroying us all: "Rocket fuel and petroleum are obsolete technologies that will not suffice to get us off the planet we are making non-viable."

No one is going to get off the planet, Martin, no one.

Science, Martin, is the most fundamentalist and radical religion practiced on the planet.

These scientists think they have a god-given (read "amoral" if you so choose) right to develop empirical knowledge sets with which someone else will develop the end of the world for the apocalypse now crowd.

Science is not amoral. Science is witchcraft.

Don't come here a lay this clap trap about getting off the planet, like it's truth, enlightened or scientifically proven to be the future of humanity.

Take your Asimov books as burn them. They have made you an imbecile.

You haven't a clue. You do not understand truth. You do not even understand the nature of the world you perceive as the thing in itself.

That world you perceive? You made it all up, every bit of it, in your head, between your ears, all of it since the time you were born, ad hoc.

It will all disappear with you when you die.

Don Robertson, The American Philosopher

[Paula]

I thought about commenting on the cynical sophistry of the American Philospher but I fear it would be futile. If he wants to get that crap on the desk, he'll have to blow it out his nose since it's obviously fermenting between his ears.