Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Wednesday Links / Open Thread

Horror in Bangladesh: a substandard building that housed several clothing factories supplying American retailers has collapsed, killing at least 70, injuring hundreds and trapping hundreds more. Employees had noticed a crack in the building, but were forced by bosses to enter and start working anyway. A fire in another Bangladeshi clothing factory killed more than 100 people only five months ago. Walmart, of course, sees no evil, hears no evil, speaks no evil and knows nothing, nada, zilch about its outsourced slave labor camps.

The devastated tiny town of West, TX is already being forgotten as the Boston bombing continues to hog all the mainstream news coverage (although that may change tomorrow when POtus and FLOtus, a.k.a. the Obamas, fit in yet another memorial service. But only after first licking the designer cowboy boots of George W. Bush at his lie-berry extravaganza and attending a DLC fundraiser stuffed with unregulated and unrestrained Texas tycoons.) Labor journalist Mike Elk has written an excellent piece on the West disaster and the dearth of workplace safety reporting since Walter Cronkite shamed the nation with coverage of the 1968 West Virginia mine explosion. 

Oh, and speaking of fund-raising: I got an email from Elizabeth Warren last night, seeking donations for the Boston One charity for victims of the Marathon bombing. The catch? You need to go through Organizing for Action, the Obama slush fund, so that they can grab your email address and personal info before sending your money on to the actual recipients. I just scratched Warren off my ever-dwindling list of tolerable politicians. But to be fair, she's only helping the Obama outfit catch up with Debbie Wasserman Shultz's DNC data-mining email blitz that smarmily urges recipients to thank everybody in Boston -- and then allowing a respectable interval to elapse before hitting them up for campaign cash. 

The Senate finally held a hearing on drones yesterday, with Majority Whip Dick Durbin actually chastizing the Obama administration for failing to show up. An Air Force colonel warned that we should not even be uttering the D word, because saying it will only help Al Qaeda. The certifiable GOPer Lindsey Graham continued in his whole-world-is-a-battlefield mode, praising Obama for using his drone killing program in a "a very commander-in-chief-like way." If you think the Duopolists are going crazy with role reversal, not to worry. Like the earth's magnetic poles, they're flipping all the time. And nobody even notices, because in the end, money holds the whole shebang together.

4 comments:

James F Traynor said...

This country has been so guilty in its crimes against the people of Guatemala for so long I thought the essential ending of the judicial procedures against Rios-Mont deserved mentioning. Democracy Now has some very good interviews on the subject.

Denis Neville said...

“Out from the door of the farmhouse came a long file of pigs, all walking on their hind legs...out came Napoleon himself, majestically upright, casting haughty glances from side to side, and with his dogs gambolling round him. He carried a whip in his trotter.

“There was a deadly silence. Amazed, terrified, huddling together, the animals watched the long line of pigs march slowly round the yard. It was as though the world had turned upside-down. Then there came a moment when the first shock had worn off and when, in spite of everything, in spite of their terror of the dogs, and of the habit, developed through long years, of never complaining, never criticizing, no matter what happened, they might have uttered some word of protest. But just at that moment, as though at a signal, all the sheep burst out into a tremendous bleating of -

'Four legs good, two legs better! Four legs good, two legs better! Four legs good, two legs better!’

“It went on for five minutes without stopping. And by the time the sheep had quieted down, the chance to utter any protest had passed, for the pigs had marched back into the farmhouse.” - George Orwell, Animal Farm

Congress Scheming to Avoid Eating its Own Cooking on Obamacare, Yves Smith:

“From Politico: ‘Congressional leaders in both parties are engaged in high-level, confidential talks about exempting lawmakers and Capitol Hill aides from the insurance exchanges they are mandated to join as part of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul…The talks — which involve Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), the Obama administration and other top lawmakers — are extraordinarily sensitive, with both sides acutely aware of the potential for political fallout from giving carve-outs from the hugely controversial law to 535 lawmakers and thousands of their aides.’

“And what’s the reason? Oh, the policies might cost too much!”

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/04/congress-scheming-to-avoid-eating-its-own-cooking-on-obamacare.html

The Doktor said...

Oh God how I hope the congresscritters exempt themselves! Please, Please, PLEASE let this happen! And maybe, just maybe.... the sleeping beast that is the American electorate will rise from it's slumber just long enough to finally throw those bums out on their asses....
@Denis; Love the Orwell excerpt!

My e-mail to Mr. Goodhair;
"Dear Mr. Stephanopoulos, please do no allow some kind of white-wash of the George W. Bush Presidency, his own party ran away from it during the 2012 election. The decision to unilaterally invade Iraq empowered Iran, allowed North Korea the time to develop nukes, allowed the Taliban to survive and gave them reason and time to proliferate again in Afghan society, crippled our economy, killed untold tens or hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians, allowed Al-Queda to infiltrate Iraq, injured tens of thousands of Americans, and crippled our military readiness the world over. Is it Liberal Bias to tell the truth?"
I Miss everybody, but I'm much too busy trying to keep a roof over my head....

Zee said...

As The Doktor says "Please, please, let our so-called leaders exempt themselves from Obamacare!"

Then, it's "Up the revolution!"

Good to hear from you, Dok!