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The general capitalist framework sets up people and resources for exploitation. Without a strong social democratic counterweight to capitalist exploitation we necessarily get the tragic results as exemplified by the mine disaster in Soma, Turkey.
“Turkish police are investigating 18 people, including mining company executives and personnel, as part of the probe into the Soma mining disaster, local media had reported.
The arrests on Sunday came after the government promised a thorough investigation into the deaths of 301 miners last week. According to the private Dogan news agency, prosecutors are questioning five of those being held.”
Three hundred and one human lives are gone because safety standards are bad for the bottom line.
“Families and unions have criticised the government’s handling of the disaster, and said the private firm which runs the coal mine, Soma Holding, did nothing to enforce safety standards.
Critics say that the privatisation of previously state-controlled mines had turned them over to politically connected businessmen who have skimped on safety to maximise profit.”
The maggoty quest for privatization has the same results wherever it burrows into the fabric of civil society. People are thrown into the meat grinder in an attempt to sate the voracious hunger for profit. Good for business, bad for people.
“A preliminary expert report, obtained by the Milliyet newspaper, pointed to several safety violations in the mine, including a shortage of carbon monoxide detectors and ceilings made of wood instead of metal.”
Privatization of utilities and resource extraction is almost always a bad deal for the people of the society.
[Source]
As long as someone is making money it is win, right?
I think the trick is going to be finding a way to make vegetables cheaper than a McBurger. Then watch out people, the next vegetable uprising shall being!
Shut up you pinko bastards. Calling for the twinning of a perfectly fine road that will cost taxpayers millions of dollars. The nanny state can’t take care you and all of your damn problems. It’s a free country if you don’t like driving highway 63 to Fort McMurray then take an alternate route, or drive extra defensively, be responsible for yourself for once.
Now breathe, the above is only a hyperbolic example of the amazing thinking that goes on in liberturdian and conservative minds when it comes to many issues that face society. Replace twinning the road with funding health care, or housing for the poor and you can see how particularly despicable this line of thinking actually is, because it happens all the time. “Oh no”, sayeth our right-wing friends, “It isn’t like that at all, we just want smaller government and more freedom to pursue profits, we certainly do not want people dying on our account.”
Bullshite. Actually you do. The aptly named ‘Highway of Death‘ has been a concern for years and private industry has done nothing to alleviate the situation. Twinning the highways is strictly an externality for them, or the government’s problem. Certainly not a project worth the change on the bottom line of the ledger. One common tawdry verse I here from the right is how responsive private industry is to the ever changing needs of people and the market… what they don’t add is “as long as it profitable” to their sage pronouncements. Clearly, worker safety is of little concern to the oil companies otherwise the highway would been completed a long time ago.
The people of Alberta should be represented by the government, their interests should be protected first over the interests of private industry. Denying the government the money it needs to protect the people of Alberta is criminal. If we had anything even resembling reasonable royalty rates, Highway 63 would have been twinned years ago, heck we probably could have rail service by now. But, we here in Alberta seem to think that the freedom to plunder and profit comes ahead of the freedom to live safely and securely(most firmly in Southern Alberta where they heartily endorse the Wild Fascist Rose Party).
Smells great, can cause cancer. Awesome!
How safe is that fabric freshener, or that lovely shampoo that smells nice, or even the laundry detergent that adds a bit of zing to your towels and clothes? Possibly not very safe at all:
“U.S. researchers analyzed 25 commonly used scented products, and found that they emit an average of 17 chemicals each. Of the 133 chemicals detected in all the products, nearly one-quarter are classified as toxic or hazardous under at least one federal law.
More than one-third of the products emitted at least one chemical classified as a probable carcinogen by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.But only one of the 133 chemicals emitted by these items was listed on a product label, and only two of the chemicals were publicly disclosed elsewhere.”
How nice. That cinnamon vanilla sunrise you have been deeply inhaling because it smells so darn fresh could contain carcinogenic ingredients.
“Federal law doesn’t require companies to disclose ingredients used in fragrances, even though a single fragrance can be a mixture of several hundred ingredients, according to lead author Anne Steinemann, a professor of civil and environmental engineering and of public affairs at the University of Washington in Seattle.”
And, of course, if you are not aware of how companies ‘green-wash’ their products:
“We analyzed best-selling products, and about half of them made some claim about being green, organic or natural,” Steinemann said in a university news release. “Surprisingly, the green products’ emissions of hazardous chemicals were not significantly different from the other products.”
As usual, the profit motive comes far ahead of any human safety concerns. But hey, if you do not like it, do not buy it right?
When all is said and done in Haiti will things change? Or will the status quo remain? Media Lens has done a excellent job at giving a short historical primer about Haiti and Western intervention within the small island nation.
“In September 2008, Dan Beeton of the US-based Center for Economic and Policy Research told us:”Media coverage of floods and other natural disasters in Haiti consistently overlooks the human-made contribution to those disasters. In Haiti’s case, this is the endemic poverty, the lack of infrastructure, lack of adequate health care, and lack of social spending that has resulted in so many people living in shacks and make-shift housing, and most of the population in poverty. But Haiti’s poverty is a legacy of impoverishment, a result of centuries of economic looting of the country by France, the U.S., and of odious debt owed to creditors like the Inter-American Development Bank and World Bank. Haiti has never been allowed to pursue an economic development strategy of its own choosing, and recent decades of IMF-mandated policies have left the country more impoverished than ever.” (Email to Media Lens, September 9, 2008)”
The short form is that, we have chosen profit over people in Haiti. The results are obvious, endemic poverty, economic ruin, desperate people.
“Aristide’s balancing of the budget and “trimming of a bloated bureaucracy” led to a “stunning success” that made White House planners “extremely uncomfortable”. The view of a US official “with extensive experience of Haiti” summed up the reality beneath US rhetoric. Aristide, slum priest, grass-roots activist, exponent of Liberation Theology, “represents everything that CIA, DOD and FBI think they have been trying to protect this country against for the past 50 years“. (Quoted, Paul Quinn-Judge, ‘US reported to intercept Aristide calls,’ Boston Globe, September 8, 1994)”
Yet another grim legacy written in unnecessary human suffering. When we are blind to history, when our media institutions promote, rather than banish, lies and approved truth we lose an important part of our character; our empathy and compassion. Our motivations to help others are not activated because the suffering is cloaked in the twin grey falsehoods of nationalistic myth and self-serving rationalizations.
We owe Haiti much more than emergency aid. We owe them their country and their right to self-determination.
bleatmop
Mystro
The Arbourist
Dead Wild Roses 
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