The Pondering Pig Fights Global Warming
I watched the Live Earth concert Saturday night. It was great to see all those big names taking a stand against global warming. Madonna sang a song called "I'm Gonna Hang Right Up On You, Mr. CO2 Emitter!" and it was really good. I just didn't understand why her dancers all wanted to have cunnilingus with her right then. It was probably symbolic. Then all these other big stars I never heard of started cranking up their Marshall amplifier stacks and I could see how mad they were about people using so much electricity and all the stage lights started flashing on and off! It was exciting and probably saved even more energy.The Live Earth announcers had a lot of great tips too. Like be sure to unplug your battery charger when you're not using it. And change all the light bulbs in your house to fluorescent energy-saving ones cause the mercury in them really doesn't amount to much and the EPA is going to figure out how to recycle them very soon.
So I've already started. I want to feel good about myself, don't you? Like yesterday at the drug store I told the clerk, "Hey, don't put that aspirin in a plastic bag! I'll just stick it in my pocket here! I'm going green!" Man, he was impressed. And besides, I've been feeling a little funny about driving up and down the freeway all day in my giant SUV with the air-conditioner blasting away. But can I help it if I'm a really big pig? And to know I was fighting global warming when I stuck that aspirin in my pocket made me feel a lot better. Next I'm going to try printing on both sides of my computer paper!
Oh, here's another thing that will help you feel better if you fly a lot. A lot of people say you should cut back because jets emit about a zillion times more CO2 every time they take off than a giant SUV does in a year. So take the bus. But you know what I figured out? Say a jet takes off with only ten people in it. You divide the total emission by ten and you find that each passenger just raised the temperature of Utah by three degrees. Just one passenger and there's ten of them! But say that DC-10 is full! 380 passengers! Now you divide the CO2 emission by 380 and look - these guys probably actually reduced CO2 emission by flying. Or pretty close anyway. So I figure we need to fill up those planes! Stop global warming! Fly more often!
Stay tuned for more great energy-saving tips from the Pondering Pig.
Labels: Global Warming, Just For Grins
posted by Christopher Newton at 7:31 AM
28 Comments:
I had me a good ponder over the live earth phenomenon too, by golly. See, I've been in Wisconsin for the past 10 days and there's not a lot going on up there besides livestock and corn growing. Which leads me to my ponder.
Get this. People are getting real gung-ho over ethanol as an alternative to petro-fuels. Burns cleaner and, generally speaking, renewable. Problems surface almost immedately, unfortunately...
1. It takes energy to distill the ethanol. Most common? Fossil fuel. Next, wood. Finally, electricity.
2. If ethanol was to take the place of petroleum products, every vacant piece of real estate in the old U.S. woukldn't be enough to grow it all. Top that with the fact that even if there was enough land, the land would be unusable after a growing season or two because the nutrients would be depleted. Corn, it would seem, is a high expense mistress.
Ok. No easy answers. Responsible use of resources makes the best sense, but us Umurricuns aren't, in general, quite up for that one yet.
Don't it always seem to go, you don't know what you got 'til it's gone?
Wish I could find the statistics on how much the war in Irag is contributing to global warming...one day of military action surely contributes more CO2 to the atmosphere than a million years of regular folks leaving their battery rechargers on...
And does anyone really believe that if we citizens sign "The Pledge" our government will DO anything meaningful as "demanded" in Point 1??? Okay, MAYBE the U.S. will finally sign a treaty and join with other countries (ha ha) to work for a 90% cut in pollution, but will it comply with the terms? Just like it honors it's pledge to work for the United Nations Millennium Development Goals?
Yeah, I'll unplug my cell phone charger and change my light bulbs. But what do I do with them when they finally burn out? (I won't be able to dispose of them, with all that mercury in them...shall I put them in a box in my basement, with a skull and cross bones painted on the lid?) I'll try to keep my tires properly inflated and continue to walk more than drive just like I always do anyway, and I'll "demand" (or sometimes ask nicely, depending on whom I'm addressing.)But somehow, I'll feel like someone's pulling the wool over my eyes and everyone else's too.
When Canadian lakes were dying from acid rain from sulphur dioxide that originated from her neighbours to the south, the American Government (the people) responded, and President Bush (senior) signed into law the Clean Air Act of 1990.
I saw the effect of this in 1992-96, when I lived in Gibson County, Indiana, the home of North America's fourth-largest coal-fired power plant. Because of the Clean Air Act, that plant had installed "scrubbers" onto its smokestacks, effectively removing massive quantities of sulphur dioxide from the smoke.
Ethanol, along with other renewable-energy tactics, can play a role in a comprehensive national energy strategy. Corn is one material that works. Using sugar cane, the Brazilians have converted 10 million vehicles to alcohol-burners. There are other sources, as well, such as biomass. "Corn" has simply become a synonym for ethanol, but it's a far deeper opportunity than that.
Closed-loop ethanol plants, though less efficient, provide one answer to Leo's concern about the energy required to distill the ethanol. Another solution could also use vast solar stills in sunny Arizona. There are other ideas, as well.
There are many pragmatic national energy solutions that should be implemented (and are being pursued now by the current Administration).
Unfortunately, entertainers such as Madonna get involved with causes célèbre such as Global Warming because they are vogue.
Politicians such as Al Gore will preach Global Warming Gloom & Doom until our eyes glaze over from his scientific lectures on the subject.
Ironically, Al Gore's core-Democratic principles of jobs, food and healthcare for The People will be severely curtailed if his vision for Global Warming is enacted: Factories will be shuttered, transportation arteries will be hampered, and the bread lines are next. But it will be organic bread!
Also, one more irony: Many years ago, I heard someone say that global warming will result in the accidental expansion of arable lands in the world; i.e. formerly un-farmable country in near-Arctic zones will be able to sustain crops for the first time. Will the starving children of Africa approve? Are they wiser than Al Gore?
But, no, some people would rather think negatively. Henny Penny, the sky's falling down. The oceans are gonna rise. Doom and gloom. I hate America because she's fat and rich. Islamo-fascists want to rule the Middle East and the World, but we're the bad guys, and shame shame shame and guilt on us for trying to promote security for ouselves and our allies.
Cunnilingus? Oh Mr.Pig...YOU'RE a cunning-linguist to be sure! How 'bout less talk-talk on the part of the uber-rich...more walk-walk.
SuperBono burns tons of jet fuel running around "helping" people!
See, maybe the problem might lie in the fact that we look for solutions in knee-jerk kind of ways rather than being more contemplative in our responses. Add to that the idea that we absolutely have to have cars. It's alomost silly when you think of a 1 or 2 ton (you know what you drive)vehicle burning copious amounts of energy to get one or two people at a time from point a to point b. Don't lie. I know you don't carpool, not even at $3.25/gallon.
Don't get me wrong. I love the ability to move myself anywhere I please at my own leisure. I ain't selling my car. I don't see America giving up her love of the open road. But, somehow, there has to be another way. It's really not so much what energy we use but how we use it.
I read some a while back on converting to hydrogen run vehicles, an easy transition as most cars we drive can cheaply be retrofitted. Electrolysis is an ancient and simple process. Burning hydrogen creates steam which, in turn, can be converted back to hydrogen. Solar and wind power could supply the necessary electricity in many parts of the U.S. People could make their own cheaply and safely, ostensibly putting gas stations out of business or making them local affairs rather than multi-national.
Turns out the oil companies hold the patents on the hydrogen technology and they sit on it. Gee. I'm not surprised.
Then there's the oil/shale scam floating around recently. Outfits looking for "investors" to get in on the "ground floor" of this new petro-technology. Sounds like a Ponzi scheme to me. Turns out it takes something like the amount of power from a nuclear warhead to generate the energy to convert shale to a daily supply of usable oil. Get it? 10 billion dollars to make 8 billion dollars worth of oil.
There are no new refineries being built in the U.S. and for many the first response is to blame the environmental lobby. Turns out the oil companies aren't even seeking EPA consideration to build new refineries. No plans on the table. Think they know something? Have we gone past peak oil and the available sources are depleting? Are we on the downward side of production and is that why the prices are so high even when the price per barrel for crude is no higher, even lower, than in past years?
Planes, trains, automobiles were all invented by people that thought in new ways to address an old problem. Maybe that is where our solution lies. We are a clever and inventive people, but for some reason we keep addressing this problem with the same old answer, make more or make different fuels, like we'll get different results. Again, it's not what we use but how we use it.
We are generally a people that puts out fires rather than a people that prevents the fire in the first place, know what I mean? Seems like we're most times responding to crisis, real or perceived, rather than working to avoid crisis in the first place.
As for me, I'm still waiting for those flying cars they promised us back in the '60's.
The reason there are no new refineries planned is because Congress and the White House have pledged to shift away from dependency on petroleum. It is not wise for a company to invest in something whose future earnings do not project a return on investment.
On Jan. 23, 2007, President Bush in his State of the Union Address called for Americans to cut their consumption of all gasoline by 20 percent over the next 10 years.
As we learned with JFK, when presidents express a measurable goal (e.g. Let's land a man on the moon before the end of this decade), then the American People demonstrate their amazing ability to carry out that goal.
As for this statement:
''Turns out the oil companies hold the patents on the hydrogen technology'' ... Ummm, I don't think so. I'd like to see some evidence on that one.
Furthermore, I don't buy into this notion that Big Oil is some malevolent entity that stays up late at night figuring out how to cause pain and suffering to the masses.
The fact is, oil companies, like so many other businesses in an open economy, have for many years merely provided a product and service according to the laws of supply and demand. Why don't they just charge $1000 per gallon? Because then they would not be able to find enough customers to buy the product, which in turn generates a profit for the companies.
And, as my dad said to me so long ago when I ignorantly in my youth pursued a romantic, marxist philosophy (and his question stunned me, because I could not answer it): What is wrong with making a profit?
As for the fires and the proactive thing ... we Americans are fire-starters. We are known for igniting and spreading the fire of liberty. This is our legacy, and I am not ashamed of it.
Flying cars are here. They're called airplanes. I marveled at how easily I traveled to the Midwest and back this summer.
Be positive. We're the luckiest generation that has ever lived. We need to get over our self-loathing and guilt.
"What is wrong with making a profit?" Nothing.
But, is there something wrong with making a profit at the expense of everything else? Making a profit while exploiting workers, depleting natural resources at the fastest possible rate, wrecking the environment, making the air virtually unbreathable, gobbling up every last inch of open space?
If it were up to people like the.chronicler and his father, employees in this country would still be in the same situation as the workers in Andrew Carnegie's blast furnaces following the defeat of the union in the 1892 Homestead Strike: Working seven twelve-hour shifts a week, with a 24(!!) hour shift every other Sunday, while getting paid virtually nothing. All this while working in an environment with an insanely high accident rate. But, hey, Carnegie was ONLY maximizng his PROFITS.
What about the guys selling those "blood diamonds" from Africa? They're simply making a profit. And the people running the whorehouses full of young girls. Just making a profit. They're all just selling what people want to buy.
At some point, the profit motive needs to be regulated, usually by government, because businesses have no reason to do so themselves (look it up; they have a very poor record of doing what's right at the expense of profits). And if that's "Marxist", so be it.
And, just to throw in something about "scrubbers", I grew up in Pittsburgh. Granted, I came around after the "Smokey City" days, but my parents still remember the days when you couldn't hang your laundry outside and if you wore a white shirt to work you would have to change it at lunch time. The laundry and the shirts would turn black because of all the coal dust and soot in the air. So, do I think scrubbers are a good idea, even if they hurt profits? You better believe it. If the air's turning my shirt black, I certainly don't want to be breathing it! For a small example of the damage that long-gone air is still doing, check out this story from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07176/796927-53.stm
To "oob":
You can cry and fuss about all the injustices that have happened in the world, but in the end the simple truth stands: There is nothing wrong with profit.
There have been many good agreements between the worker and the owner, in which both earn a satisfactory profit according to their investment.
Your marxist model has failed miserably where it has been tested, most notably in the USSR, one of the most polluted places on the planet. I want freedom, not more government power.
Hey Chronicler, old friend and enemy, surely you can do better than this! 'Cry and fuss'? 'Marxist model'? This is just name-calling.
Why not some examples of corporations that are run properly - with fair profits shared by all (owners, management and labor) yet with no iron-tight union representing labor, and those profits not gained by, to quote Oob, 'exploiting workers, depleting natural resources at the fastest possible rate, wrecking the environment, making the air virtually unbreathable, gobbling up every last inch of open space'
I believe most people believe that corporations function best in an atmosphere where they'll go to jail if they do things like that. Do you disagree? Oob's examples go back to a time of a much more laissez-faire capitalism. Do you feel that's a better model for the future than the regulation of today? If so, why?
Pigs want to know.
"Old friend and enemy"?
Uh, Chris, isn't that name-calling?
Or we can both just say that we are calling a spade in the due course of reasoning here. In any case, thanks for letting me know your true feelings about me. And, yes, I will be canceling out your Nov. 08 vote. ;-)
There is nothing wrong with making a profit.
That is one thing.
Breaking the law is another. Lawbreakers will be punished. Enron. WorldCom. Tyco. Conrad Black was convicted just yesterday. The list goes on and on. "Look it up," as people like to say.
I will not assume that all corporations are bad. I believe that most are good and law-abiding. Corporations are run by people, who will be held accountable for their behavior according to profits and the law.
So, let's review the issues.
Profit = GOOD
Lawbreaking = BAD
Go back to my original post. Canadian lakes were dying. The American Government (The People) made a law to correct this problem, and President Bush signed it into law.
And, by the way, before he died, Andrew Carnegie gave all his money back to society in the form of hundreds of libraries across the nation.
What are you guys leaving behind? I hope it's not a bunch of bellyaching about how "I was exploited!"
Andrew Carnegie left LIBRARIES!?! And that makes up for all the steel workers who literally worked themselves to death in his factories or were permanently disabled or disfigured and all those who could barely put food on the table? (Carnegie left THEM behind, too.) Don't get me wrong, I've used and appreciated his libraries for years, but I don't think it alleviates his culpability in those "injustices", as the.chronicler himself called them. In fact, I believe that's WHY he left libraries behind. To try to erase the pangs of guilt from his exploitative and destructive "profit-making". Wouldn't it have been better to share more of his profits with the workers at the time and give them a better life and food on the table, than to wait until he's in his last years and give them libraries?
By the way, I read an excerpt from the latest Carnegie biography, and it states that all his philanthropy barely ate up the interest on his wealth. He never even touched the principal.
And to get to the point about "lawbreakers". They're only lawbreakers because progressive reformers passed laws to prevent companies from bilking and taking advantage of customers and/or the government. One hundred+ years ago, what Enron did would have been perfectly legal.
Therefore, yes most companies ARE law-abiding. But so were those 100 years ago, who were using all kinds of business practices that are now considered "unfair" and illegal.
To go back to the.chronicler's original response: So he agrees that all those things I listed are bad ("injustices"). He just figures they're ok because someone somewhere is making a profit on them.
As The Pig alluded to most, if not all, of those "good agreements" between companies and workers came about because the companies were FORCED into them by unions, which the companies were FORCED by government to allow.
I don't have a "marxist model", but I really don't know where this pie-in-sky, "the-free-market-can-solve-all-the-world's-ills" religion comes from in this country. The truth is no one economic system is perfect or fits every situation. I do know that two of the countries with some of the highest quality of life in the world are Norway and Sweden. They both incorporate a fusion of free-enterprise and socialism. (One could probably also make a point that the USSR wasn't really Marxist at all. It was a totalitarian state.)
The.chronicler wants "freedom, not more government power"? So, I guess it would be ok with him if I came down and bought all the property around his house for my industrial hog farm (no offense, Pig) and just washed all the excrement through the fence into his yard and all the drainages around. Or would he head up to Capital Hill to try get a law passed to stop me?
Hey Pig, speaking of making a profit, have you checked Kiva lately? I just looked today for the first time in awhile, and wow, there sure are a variety of countries represented. Tajikistan, Cote d'Ivoire, Iraq, Dominican Republic, Vietnam... plus all the usual ones of Azerbijian, etc. And the lady in Vietnam even raises pigs.
Hannah
Oob, you sound like somewhat of an angry, cynical person. I'm not sure where that comes from. Please search yourself. Perhaps there is resentment and envy toward those who have achieved wealth in life. Is that fair?
My ancestors suffered incredible hardships during the 1800s. From the stories my grandfather told, some of our people definitely had it worse than what you claim happened to the average Carnegie employee.
In any case, nobody forced these people to make the choices they made; they just knew they had to work hard to survive.
Truthfully, I'm probably the least angry, least cynical person you'd ever have the pleasure to meet. Ask The Pig and/or Patrushka.
I'm just realistic and open-minded enough to realize that there's a greater good than making a profit and screw-everyone-else and that the free-enterprise system was not ordained by God. That people are very short-sighted, especially when they see $$, and can't see past their newest home theater system or next Hummer. If left to their own devices most businesses (and most people for that matter) are only out for themselves. And that doesn't necessarily include their employees. Just ask the business owners who would rather pay illegal immigrants a pittance under the table than employee American citizens (or the illegals) at the minimum wage. All it takes to see this is a quick walk through the history of mankind.
And I doubt your ancestors really had it much harder than working with several-thousand-degree molten iron and steel for 12 hours a day, seven days a week (24 hours every other Sunday). Maybe equally hard, but harder? I doubt it.
No, I don't envy those who have achieved wealth, because I don't desire it. I do, however, get angry when people achieve wealth at the expense of others. And I don't mean by taking their money in a legal business transaction. I mean by working to keep wages as low as possible, by refusing to make workplaces safe, polluting the air and water...
And just for the record, my ancestors were coal miners and steelworkers (at least in this country, I don't know what they did in the Old Country; they were probably peasants), so they weren't exactly livin' on Easy Street.
Oh, I forgot to add: I may not be angry or cynical, but I'm not naive, either.
You don't know about my ancestors. Therefore, you are not qualified to comment on them. I know what they went through, and I know that their challenges were equal to or greater than the ones you have claimed here.
Also, a curious statement: " ... the free-enterprise system was not ordained by God."
God is very much about freedom.
I thank God that I live in a free country where I can choose to learn (at libraries, etc.) and choose whether to work, and choose where to work because jobs are plentiful here compared to other places in the world.
The workplace is not a slave camp, where we are forced to accept working conditions at the point of a gun.
If I offer you a job, and you agree to work for a wage, and then you grumble later that it is too low, then that is your problem. You already agreed to work for that wage. There is no exploitation. Only disillusionment, bitterness and anger. It's negative energy that would be better spent in a library.
So, I'm an Italian (or any other) immigrant at the tail end of the 19th Century. I come to America. I speak very little English, probably read less. I have few "job skills". I look for a job; most employers turn me down. Finally, I'm offered a job: I can become a coal miner for 5 cents (or whatever) an hour in a highly dangerous workplace, where I probably won't live to see 30 and if I do, I'll probably die not long after from Black Lung disease.
What should I do? Should I take the job for the little money it will bring my family (I can at least afford bread) or should I say "No way, man! That wage is entirely too low!" and continue to be unemployed while searching vainly for someone who will hire an unskilled laborer? There may not be a literal gun to my head, but it sure feels like it.
Now, is this the situation in America today? No, not for most Americans. But, still, not everyone can pick and choose between five different high-paying jobs. Some people have to choose between working the graveyard shift at the Qik-E-Mart or not working at all. But you seem to believe that anyone who isn't working at a well-paying job has chosen not to. (Or that everyone who works at Wal-Mart decided from day one, "I want to work at Wal-Mart!")
And how many employers do you know who will hire an employee who puts on their resume under "Education", "Self-taught at local library"? It's actually getting to the point where, in a lot of cases, even a Bachelor's Degree isn't enough. As I'm sure you know, college takes money and lots of it. Which means many intelligent, hard-working students never get the chance to attend.
Is America better than most of the world? Definitely. Can it be even better than it is? Most certainly.
About God and freedom: Did you know that most early Christians, and even some 19th Century American Christians, practiced a form of communism? Except they gave all their property and income to the Church, not the government. The Church then dispersed the goods and money based on need.
I didn't mean to slight your ancestors, but I believe you are diminishing a line of work where one is in danger of being seriously burned (quite possibly fatally) or crushed at any moment. Especially when working on so little sleep (did I mention the 24 hour shift every other Sunday?). Or in a coal mine, where a cave in or explosion can happen at any time, not to mention breathing poison methane. As we saw a couple years ago in WV, coal mining is STILL an incredibly dangerous job. And how many of those miners do you think would jump at the opportunity to take a different job?
So, I'm that Italian immigrant ... now why did I come to America in the first place???
I came here because I know there is work. It doesn't matter what I put on my resume. I am happy to be employed, for long hours, dangerous conditions, it doesn't matter. It is a price that I chose to pay when I voted with my feet to come over here.
Having a Wal-Mart job option is better than no option at all.
I know about the dangers of steel mills. My people have worked in them. Willingly. You are telling me nothing new.
Yes, I know about the cultish groups of Christians who threw in together. There are still groups like that. It's sad when people yield their individuality to a 'higher authority' ... whether it's a politician or a church leader ... because that individual cannot think for himself and make the charitable decision on his own.
But the fact is, America, for all her wealth, is the most generous country on Earth. Her charitable contributions outweigh all other nations combined.
Ironic, isn't it?
So, yeah, let's kill the Golden Goose America and get her eggs and give them to the needy, because we (the central Govt Committee or Pharisee Leader) can decide what's best. You the individual man cannot be trusted. We won't even let you own stock in a corporation, because corporations, even though chartered through law and accountable to legal process, are evil.
So...wait. "Your people" worked in steel mills, but had it harder than people who worked in steel mills? You say they worked there "willingly". Was this before or after unionization?
The followers of Peter and Paul were "cultish"? And the whole thing about "yield[ing]...to a 'higher authority'"; isn't that the definition of religion?
Corporations aren't evil, I never said that. They're simply single-minded.
"Having a Wal-Mart job option is better than no option at all." Yes, and being paralyzed is better than being dead. Doesn't mean it's a favorable situation.
What do charitable contributions have to do with this discussion? You seem to think it's wonderful to give privately to starving Africans (I agree), but anathema to give higher wages to poor Americans (I disagree). In fact, if companies the world over paid higher wages, a lot of charitable contributions wouldn't be needed.
I don't know where you've gotten this idea that I want the U.S. to become a communist state. I just want corporations to be required to not pollute, pay a fair wage (i.e. keep up, percentage-wise, with inflation and CEO wages), not leave almost half of Americans uninsured (or under-insured), not use sleazy business practices... In other words, to be good citizens, not monoliths taking advantage of the "little guy" in the name of profits, just because they have the power, influence and money to do so. And if there are things in there they cannot or will not do, then we try something else.
You make a good point about the reasons immigrants came (and come) to America. That doesn't mean employers didn't (and don't) take advantage of them and "lowball" them when it came to wages. And most companies still have to be forced into making sure their workplaces are safe.
My people have worked in steel mills and other challenging working conditions. Never heard a hint of complaint about any of it. When I say "willingly," I mean with a smile on their faces.
Yes, some of the professed followers of Peter and Paul were cultish. Besides, I am a follower of Jesus, not Peter and Paul.
So you think being paralyzed is better than being dead? I pity you. More to the point: I have worked in jobs similar to Wal-Mart. Low wage. No insurance. But, what is so bad about working in retail?
Where am I against higher wages? Ridiculous point. The fact is that any person who earns $10,000 a year is among the top 1 percent of wage-earners in the world. That's why people are clawing their way, willing to die, just to get to America. If you want to earn more, you've got to learn more. And if necessary vote with your feet.
Pollution by corporations is controlled and restricted by myriad laws and regulations. The problem is overzealous environmental restrictions will lead to shuttered factories and idled workers.
I have been one of those uninsured Americans, and so I bought health insurance. It was not a big deal. Catastrophic illness sucks; so does getting struck by lightning. Massachussetts and California are leading the reform movement, in which every American should be required by law to have health insurance.
It's not necessarily a case of employers who "take advantage" of workers. Usually, employers must make a competitive bid for employees, because they know that they can lose good employees who will vote with their feet and go to a rival company.
Historically, companies that take care of their workers tend to get better work out of them, and those are the successful companies. But people will still hate them, because they are jealous of things like the successful CEO's fat compensation, because they envy people who have wealth. There's a lot of sour grapes against successful people; not surprisingly it often comes from people who have not achieved.
Because company owners often know that taking care of employees is good policy, companies do not always have to be "forced" to make improvements to workplace conditions. It's just common sense. The golden rule exists in more places than just in your fantasy first-century commune.
I have worked in hardhat jobs in which it was often the stubborn, ignorant employee's fault for not practicing safe work habits. There is often a malcontent in the group who bellyaches that the company is not taking care of his every need and wiping his nose for him.
I'm not against collective bargaining. However, I think you're a bit too enamored with unionization. These are the folks who have led to bloated GM and Ford payrolls and subsequent failure in that competitive marketplace.
I drive a Toyota because it was cheaper, higher quality and burns less gasoline. I know people who work for Toyota who absolutely love their jobs. They're not rich, and they work very hard, and they are very happy.
Chronicler, Please read about the Homestead Strike of 1892 between the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers and the Carnegie Steel Company , where Carnegie had sniper towers and water canons that poured boiling water installed against the union strikers and tell me if it sounds like the town was full of happy workers thrilled to be working in terrible conditions every day. And tell me that Carnegie Steel was happily and willingly improving conditions without being forced to.
Please read about the girls who worked in the Chicopee, Massachusetts Cotton/Wool Mill who constantly were striking between 1843 to 1848 to try and reduce their working day from 15 hours. In the end they had to storm the gates armed with sticks and stones, break the gates, and silence the looms to get the company officers to even listen to them. Tell me that those were happy workers, and that employers were happily willing to improve working conditions.
Please read about the Lowell Factory girls who were required to live in boarding houses that slept them six to a room, two to a bed, fed them one meal of bread and gravy a day,and had to work 13.5 hours a day, where in a room of 150 workers, daily 30 would be sick from the fumes. Tell me that the girls were "bellyaching" when the management then tried to increase the workload from three to four looms, simultaneously decreasing pay.
Please read about the conditions that led to the Triangle Shirtwaist Company Fire in 1911 that killed 146 workers. From Wikipedia: "The company employed approximately 500 workers, mostly young immigrant women from Italy and Eastern Europe. Some of the women were as young as twelve or thirteen and worked fourteen-hour shifts during a 60-hour to 72-hour workweek, sewing clothes for a wage of $1.50 per week. After the fire Rose Schneiderman, a prominent union activist had this to say:
..."This is not the first time girls have been burned alive in the city. Every week I must learn of the untimely death of one of my sister workers. Every year thousands of us are maimed. The life of men and women is so cheap and property is so sacred. There are so many of us for one job it matters little if 146 of us are burned to death.
We have tried you citizens; we are trying you now, and you have a couple of dollars for the sorrowing mothers, brothers and sisters by way of a charity gift. But every time the workers come out in the only way they know to protest against conditions which are unbearable the strong hand of the law is allowed to press down heavily upon us.
Public officials have only words of warning to us – warning that we must be intensely peaceable, and they have the workhouse just back of all their warnings. The strong hand of the law beats us back, when we rise, into the conditions that make life unbearable..."
Sort of hard to "vote with your feet" in these conditions. Not much incentive for the employers to change the workplace condtions, and the workers can't pick up and take another job.
Each of the above mentioned situations is representative of the workplace conditions of the respective industries at the time, they were not isolated events unique to one bad-apple employer. What they all have in common is that what the companies were doing was legal at the time, it took incredible struggle on the part of the workers to change the conditions, the improvement in workplace conditions did not come willingly or easily from the employers. The conditions we have in the workplace of 40-hour workweeks, where OSHA oversees dangerous activities, where there are laws to protect the employees, only came about because so many employees gave their lives for it in the past. It did not come about because employers thought it was the right thing to do.
Unfortunately,today, while much has changed for the better, much has also stayed the same. Huge, powerful companies are still trying to get away with whatever they can- damn the rights of anyone who doesn't have the money and power to resist them.
According to Wikipedia, in a 1994 report, "the United States Government Accountability Office found that there were still thousands of sweatshops in the United States, using a definition of a sweatshop as any "employer that violates more than one federal or state labor law governing minimum wage and overtime, child labor, industrial homework, occupational safety and health, workers’ compensation, or industry registration"".
Or think about mountaintop removal mining in the Appalachian Mountains. Although thousands of families live in the area, living in homes that they worked long and hard to own, the mining companies are setting off thousands of blasts a day, the shock waves of which are ruining the foundations of nearby houses and destroying their wells. The town of McRoberts, Kentucky recently had three 100-year floods in a 10 day period destroying multiple homes and vehicles due to the mining companies' practices of blasting off mountaintops and dumping the debris in the valley's below, allowing rainwater to wash unimpeded through the lowlands. According to the EPA, more than 700 miles of streams have been buried by valley fills, and thousands of additional miles have been contaminated with heavy metals and acid mine drainage. "In Letcher County, Kentucky, children suffer from extremely high rates of diarrhea, vomiting, nausea, and shortness of breath, all of which can be tied to dissolved minerals in nearby streams." All of which is legal, due to a change in wording the Bush administration made to the Clean Water Act due to the appointment of coal lobbyist Steven Griles to deputy secretary of the Department of the Interior. So is what they are doing legal? Yes, they made it legal. But is it right? Is it being a good steward of the environment? Is it infringing on the rights of all the homeowners with cracked foundations and flooded homes? Is it acceptable what they've done to the health of all those children? I would say no to all of the above. Does not changing their practices involve their bottom line? I would say yes, but you be the judge.
Or how about today's article (July 15, 2007) in the Chicago Tribune "BP Gets Break On Dumping In Lake" where BP managed to get a first ever exemption to the regulations of the Clean Water Act in order to increase their dumping into Lake Michigan by 54 percent more ammonia and 35 percent more sludge, bringing their total to 1,584 pounds of ammonia and 4,925 pounds of sludge, DAILY. THe law would be too difficult and costly to work within, so they got an exemption to it. A clever way to stay within the law, yes. Voluntarily doing what is right within the intent of the existing law created to protect people and the environment, but which would hurt their profits,no.
Are there companies and corporations our there who do care and do what is right? Quite probably. Is profit bad, in and of itself? Not at all. Does commercial enterprise need oversight to make sure it's not trampling on the health and wellbeing of its employees, the environment, and the neighbors who live nearby, in their quest for profits? Is it going to be a struggle to stay on top of their wily ways? You betcha.
Thanks for all the reading material.
I have already learned about these things. In the Homestead Strike, you make it sound like the violence only went one way. It didn't.
I have worked in towns in Ohio and Indiana where union thugs employed a great number of vicious, violent, criminal acts -- while the company in every case that I witnessed obeyed the law while enduring incredible slander, and destruction of private property. Mob rule's a scary thing, and emotions (as we are seeing here) often run out of control.
In those cases that I witnessed, bellyaching, overpaid workers in every case acted like that private property was their property, and they acted as if they could dictate wages. Funny thing is, there were qualified replacement workers very eager to step in and do the work for lower wages. Unfortunately, they too became targets of violence.
You raise a lot of issues of sweatshops, Kentucky coal miners and lake dumping. I don't think one blog is going to accurately or adequately address these problems.
Certainly problems exist. I never denied that. That's why we have laws. If you don't like the laws, change the politicians or become one yourself. If you don't like where you live, move. That's why the immigrants keep coming to USA, because even when we're bad we're better than they had.
I don't think it's as simplistic to personify a company as having "wily ways," but rather there are delicate balances of clashing interests that mainly include the environment and economics (a large component of which is jobs for working people).
I never went for the love it or leave it philospohy. That solves nothing. Why not fix it so we can love it all the more.
Much of what I've been reading here makes it all sound like human beings only respond to extrinsic stimuli, like some sort of nervous system/beast of the field that only reacts when it hurts or has a full belly.
I thought we were much more than that? I read where we were wonderfully made in the image of our creator. We can recognize the intrinsic and, indeed, we do choose it. We can make choices because of the value of the choice and not just because of the "what's in it for me". mentality.
Of course we screw up and greed and self-serving motivations take occasional charge, but we can recognize greed and selfishness. That's half the battle. From there we can make choices to reject the greed and selfish. Not that we always do, but we can.
What ever happened to global warming?
The best ministry seeks first to fill a hungry belly. People cannot hear the Gospel over the sound of their growling stomachs.
Thus, I maintain, we are first and foremost physical creatures with physical needs. What's In It For Me, therefore, is a valid issue.
I never said "love it or leave it." What I said essentially is: Endure it or leave it. That's the classic fight-or-flight response to stress.
It's like the Serenity Prayer:
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
If I have to move across the continent to feed my family, then I will do it. In fact, I have done it.
Yes, Leo, we are more than the beast in the field. It is when we rise to the spiritual plane and think beyond ourselves that we can see great visions and carry them out, by building hospitals, companies that provide jobs and food on the table, and libraries.
So, the millions of folks (including single mothers, or simply those with families) living in all the ghettos and barrios in every major U.S. city and working for minimum wage or less (if they're working at all) should just pick up and move. Where to, do you suppose? And with what? It costs money to move across the continent.
"Pull yourself up by your bootstraps" assumes you have bootstraps (and boots) to begin with.
I also find the insinuation that all strikers are "mobs" led astray by one or two bellyaching malcontents hilarious (and a little offensive). That's been management's story for the last 150 years. Wal-Mart still uses that excuse when refusing union organizers access to its workforce.
Were there situations where that was the case? Probably, especially in the latter half of the 20th Century, when many unions were corrupted and some were even infiltrated by organized crime. But in the early days of unionization? Not so much. People had to have a pretty good reason to sacrifice their paychecks and risk their jobs (if not life and limb) to jump on board and strike.
I believe Hannah's point was not that these were simple, one-sided issues, rather, she was pointing out that these were not happy people, going to work with "smiles on their faces". There were serious workplace issues which led to serious, and understandable, worker discontent.
Finally, I would posit that workers in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries **lived** the "Serenity Prayer". They didn't give in and just accept that they had to work incredibly long hours in hellish conditions for little pay. They had the wisdom to know what they could change and the courage to do so.
Don't put words in my mouth.
As I said, in recognition of the dilemma of life's hardships: "Endure it or leave it."
I never suggested that everybody get up and go somewhere else. And it's really sad how one will occasionally hear the hopeless cynical ridiculing of a time-proven all-American "bootstrap" method, even though this phenomenon is still happening every single day with millions of courageous working men and women who are enduring and very often do move.
But why the vilification of an enterprise system that has created the greatest economic miracle in history? A place where people are willing to die in the ocean or the desert just to have a chance to work in this productive economy. The fact stands: A $10,000 annual income puts a person in the top 1 percent of wage-earners of the world. Why do you ignore that point?
I gave you irrefutable facts from worker disputes in Ohio and Indiana, which I witnessed, in which union thugs alone spread vicious slanders and caused violence and damage. It's not an "insinuation." I witnessed it. They are facts. On the record. They were reported every day in the police logs and media outlets in 1993, 1994 and 1999 in two huge labor disputes that I witnessed (coal and steel). Incidentally, Toyota eventually built a truck factory in that coal region where I worked (Southern Indiana). Here was a nonunion factory landing in a union hotbed, and yet everybody was overjoyed to see them come in ... because there are a lot of people there who were very eager to work and were tired of senseless, protracted labor disagreements.
Right now, in central Arizona the same thing is happening with an effort to force unionization of a private grocery chain that has been owned for more than 80 years by the Basha family. Absolute lies from the union organizers (including exaggerated numbers of interested workers) were being told, but those were exposed in newspaper articles last week.
Regarding the 1800s worker strife, nobody has refuted (nor can anybody refute) my assertion that the violence went both ways. The unionists' hands were certainly bloody, and they are not exempt from blame in those conflicts.
I have already said this: Collective bargaining is not a bad thing. It can help negotiations. At the end of a good negotiation, usually both sides will have made good-faith concessions, and a compromise will be achieved. It's not just someone "forcing" the other side. When unreasonable demands are made from either side, then the whole program is in jeopardy, and everybody loses in the end.
A case in point is General Motors and Ford and Chrysler, who are going down the crapper (and taking their employees with them), because certain union leaders could not yield their pride and make enough concessions.
My brother worked for GM, and I saw certain privileged workers who carved wooden ducks all day because their contract provided for this ridiculous waste of manpower.
Not surprisingly, Toyota has become the No. 1 automobile seller in a competitive marketplace.
I was re-reading these posts and, Chronicler, you did say, "If you don't like where you live, move". In that statement I read "love it or leave it". If that's not what you meant, sorry, but it sure sounded like it.
Occasionally I do not like the house I live in, but I stay there. I know situations will change and that I can affect the changes. I can trim the trees, mow the lawn or knock out walls. If I have the money, I can remodel. So, when I'm unhappy with things or see what's wrong, the first response isn't to move, but to do something about it.
So too with being an American. While I don't have the same distain for our economic system as some have, I do see ( as do some of the commentators here) the weaknesses and failings of our system. That doesn't mean I have to move. That means I have to do something about it. Recognizing problems makes for solutions, my friend, and isn't always a lot of breast-beating and self-deprecating pap.
See, I can't look at a problem and with a clear conscience ignore it, reveling instead in the notion that we live in the most economically successful generation. Success is wonderful, don't get me wrong. But gaining the world at the expense of my soul is just plain wrong. There is no denying that many, no not all, but many companies and individuals do just that. To gripe about that and to try and affect change is certainly a most patriotic pursuit.
I would disagree too that we live in an "open" economy. Maybe freer than most but real capitalism? Adam Smith/Wealth of Nations type capitalism? Federal Reserve sets artifical interest rates and cash is backed by what? We have fiat currency, the only thing that gives the money value is its relative scarcity and the faith placed in it by the people that use it. Great. Makes me feel financially secure.
Then what about free trade?
While the so called “free trade” policies that have been imposed by the corporate lobbyists have increased the short-term multinational corporate profits, these reckless policies have deindustrialized the USA; they have resulted in the an explosion of slave labor conditions abroad, which has encouraged the private sector to outsource jobs; they have imported millions of illegal immigrants who have driven down the wages for American citizens; and transformed China into an economic and military superpower.
While it's true that the cream does rise to the top, scum also rises. We've seen that historically and even had our own civil war over economics. Let's work to overcome problems and not just be proud of success. Lets solve problems before we repeat our history.
The full context of what I said was: If you don't like the laws, change the politicians or become one yourself. If you don't like where you live, move.
That's consistent with my 'endure or move' statements. Fight or flight. Stress.
It's a dilemma, and nobody here, certainly not me, is denying there are any problems. There are many people out with a conscience, and it is foolhardy to assume that the successful/achiever types are problem-ignorers. The fact is that successful/achiever types are typically problem-solvers. They are the ones who are creating jobs, infrastructure, hospitals and libraries. Yeah, there are some bad apples, and that's for the civil and criminal courts to deal with.
Deep down, everybody knows that having a choice in the marketplace is preferable to having no choice. If I want to buy Brand X instead of Brand Y, but some Committee is forcing me to buy Brand Y, then that is contrary to the spirit of G-d and human nature. This is why black markets exists. That's not naive. It's real.
So if you want to prop up a fantasy and close off American markets, and jack up the minimum wage, while people outside our gates then have even less chance to offer a lower bid for a superior product, then that is going to only create a more chaotic and hungry world. But oh we'll be happy in America because we solved our problems.
I heard a report on National Public Radio about a village of artisans who used to export their wonderful products to the USA, but then some anti-free-trade types caused stiff tariffs to get slapped on those products, so the little cottage industry just died. All because some jealous person found out there was an 'evil exploitive corporation' involved in the transaction. Sad thing is, the story ended with those Peruvian artisans migrating to America.
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