Notes From Dystopia: Sept. 17, Sunday Fun-day! Wildfires, Suicide, Extinction, Endless War, Chickens, Debt, and Corporate Health-Care
It's been awhile since I published anything on here and that's mostly because every time I try to, something goes awry. Like just now. I'd been working on putting together a post for the last two or three hours and then my laptop died (when my plug is right beside me) and there's no auto-save feature on this machine, this medium which deducts $16 out of my bank account each month. What was I talking about? I was writing about the absence of god, the fairy tale that keeps the planet enmeshed in its own trivialities, its own fairy tale, and magical thinking, its own bullshit.
Nevertheless, shoving my own aside. I'd wanted to write about all the great political writing that's going down, and so much so that it's keeping me from doing my own work in copy editing and freelance journalism. I don't have any time to do any of this, really.
So here it goes. Again.
With god whooshing in from Saturn, dashing through the ozone hole above us, and hitting me squarely on the head.
I said I'd hit him on the nose with a good elbow. But the bastard flew back in, just in time to let me remember that it was my own stupid fault.
COUNTERPUNCH
"Wildfires: the Smoking Gun of Western Climate Change?"
This article's written by two professors and one scientist, discussing the current narrative on wildfires in the Western U.S. -- and the absence of any debate as to its connections with climate change.
"While it’s impossible to tie any one weather event or wildfire directly to climate change, what we can say with certainty is this: increases in temperature in the last decades have set the stage for drier conditions and more fires. In a given year, warmer weather and less precipitation dries out fuel loads and creates conditions for rapid fire spread. Fire records dating back decades to millennia show a clear link between warmer temperatures, lower precipitation and an increase in the number of fires and acres burned. This situation is precisely what we expect to see from climate change.
[...]
"These extreme weather events weren’t unforeseen and they are not without a systemic cause. As the buildup of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere intensifies, our overall climate and weather patterns will continue to change.
"The Montana Climate Assessment goes into great detail about our climate future, and with respect to wildfire, we can expect additional warming with less precipitation in the summer months. Over the next century, extreme heat days (above 90 degrees Fahrenheit) are projected to increase by an additional 5-35 days across the state. And as a result of greater drought, forest fires will likely increase in size, frequency, and possibly severity.
[...]
"The Montana Climate Assessment is a product of the Montana University System’s Montana Institute on Ecosystems, in collaboration with the Montana Climate Office, Montana Water Center and MSU Extension. It provides a thorough look at how Montana’s climate has changed and what we can expect in the coming years. This information is intended to help families and communities plan for and adapt to changing conditions. We invite everyone to consult the report, which will be available after Sept. 20 at www.montanaclimate.org, and join us in local discussions around the state in the coming year."
DO YOU HEAR ME NOW GOD? I'M COMING FOR YOU.
More articles to consider from Counterpunch's Weekend Edition Sept. 15, 2017 Friday-Sunday:
"The Afghan Quagmire" (brief analysis of the longest war in U.S. history, not including the recently-announced increase of over 6,000 troops to the region 'sometime' in 2018; because the Pentagon doesn't like to discuss the details of its 'missing' trillions in overhead, civilian casualties overseas, or any other meddling from humanists.)
"How Big Pharma Made Us Fat and Sick" (book excerpt from an investigative health reporter.)
And an additional piece from Ralph Nader (former U.S. presidential candidate) on stock buybacks courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer; plus there are pieces on the hollowing out of the middle class, schizophrenia and art, fascists, extinction, war profiteering from mercenaries, and Hillary Clinton.
And also an article on how the very technology that keeps us inter-connected to everything and everyone at every second of every day is also killing the planet.
What a time to be alive!
THE INTERCEPT
One story shot across my bow the other day.
"Whole Foods 'Free-Range' Chicken Supplier Said To Actually Run Factory Farm"
"When Amazon purchased Whole Foods last month, it didn’t just get the retail locations. It picked up Whole Foods’s baggage as well. Among the bigger issues inherited by Amazon appears to be a four-month investigation from the animal rights group Direct Action Everywhere that challenges Whole Foods’s core selling point of healthy and humane food.
"The group accused Pitman Family Farms, the maker of Mary’s Free Range Chicken and a supplier to Whole Foods in six Western states, of breaking its promises of free-range environments for its birds."
[...]
"Video of Direct Action Everywhere’s findings showed scattered fighting among the chickens and smaller birds with injuries, including one with its eye pecked out. They also alleged evidence of “debeaking,” a procedure involving severing the tip of a chicken’s beak with a laser to prevent pecking.
"'We saw things that even shocked us,' Wayne Hsiung, co-founder of the group, told The Intercept in an interview. Hsiung characterized the overcrowding as the worst he’s ever seen at a poultry farm, with investigators were nearly unable to walk through the flocks without stepping on birds.
The investigation took place from January to May at roughly a dozen Pitman farm locations in California’s San Joaquin Valley. Hsiung alleged no meaningful difference between the farms and reported no evidence of free-range activity. 'We couldn’t find a single bird outside,' he said.
Cockledoodledo!
"Pitman Family Farms sells poultry through high-end markets, such as Whole Foods in California, Washington, Oregon, Arizona, Nevada, and Hawaii, and employs a workforce of around 500 employees at over 80 different sites. Product quality and animal welfare is a hallmark of the Mary’s Free Range Chicken brand.
[...]
"Consumers have shown growing interest in more humanely raised food, including free-range chickens. But there is no recognized federal definition of 'free-range' or 'pasture-raised' goods in food labeling. The Food Safety Inspection Service allows these terms to be placed on poultry if agribusinesses 'provide a brief description of the birds’ housing conditions.' While the claims are supposed to be evaluated, there is virtually no on-site confirmation. The U.S. Department of Agriculture often relies on third-party verifications like GAP, including for Mary’s Free Range Chicken.
“'The industry is in bed with the government,' said Hsiung. 'I’m a former securities lawyer. It’s similar to the financial industry. The USDA’s mission statement is to promote agriculture. You can’t promote the industry and guard against the industry’s abuses. It’s like trying to be a lawyer for both sides of a litigation.'
Daddy, would you like some sausage? That John Denver's full-a shit.
Wait. There's more from The Intercept.
Israeli security forces training American cops, a Trump adviser using the street gang MS-13 to crack down on immigration via ICE (U.S. Customers and Immigration Enforcement), internal memos from U.S. embassies overseas regarding the 'devastated' lives of rejected refugees from Trump's travel ban, drug and insurance lobbyists in opposition to Medicare for all legislation, Hillary Clinton's book tour ignoring the major factor of endless war in the 2016 election, and an NFL boycott in response to a rise of white supremacy.
Holy shit, god. What've you got in store for us Homo sapiens?
REASON
Let's dive right in because who's got time to die?
An article from Reason.com's blog via editor Matt Welch, "Rand Paul: 'I Think President Trump's Instincts Are Still Leaning Against Major Involvement in Foreign War With Great Land Forces'".
"'We're at war in basically about seven different countries right now, none of them authorized by Congress,' Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) told me yesterday on Sirius XM Insight's Tell Me Everything with John Fugelsang, in the wake of Paul's losing attempt Wednesday to repeal the post-9/11 authorizations for use of military force. 'Senator McCain would have us in 30, 40, 50. He has never met a war he wasn't interested in getting the U.S. involved in.'
[...]
"Paul: It was an exciting time. We, for the first time in 15 years, had a debate and a full Senate vote on whether or not it is our constitutional duty and responsibility to vote on war. Ever since 9/11 happened we voted to go after those who attacked us, but that resolution has now been used to justify war in half a dozen countries, maybe a little bit more. In fact Obama bombed seven countries without any kind of approval from Congress, and I think that's wrong. It's bad for our country, but it's also a disservice to our soldiers to be at war in so many places, send them to so many misbegotten corners of the globe without really having a full spirited debate about whether or not the public supports the war.
[...]
"And it's like, well, if you want to leave 100,000 people in Afghanistan forever, have them patrol the streets and be the army and be the police and be the government, you could do that, but it's extraordinarily expensive and ultimately we have to make some decisions. Are we going to keep incurring a 20 trillion dollar debt that we incurred at about a trillion dollars a year? Is there some kind of end point at which it'll be devastating to the country to have so much debt?
[...]
"Now the danger is, is that it used to just be neocons, but now we have neoliberals as well. And the neoliberals would be people like Hillary Clinton, who actually was very, very gung-ho for war, and the leading advocate of getting involved in the Syrian war, which I think ultimately allowed weapons to float to some very bad people in that war, ultimately led to chaos, a vacuum in the [region], and the rise of ISIS. Hillary Clinton was also gung ho to get involved in Libya. They use their justification—less geopolitical reasons, although they use that some—they use as their justification mainly that they want to go in for humanitarian reasons, but they don't want [to] get permission. They just want to have a presidency strong enough to do it.
"The neocons go in more to try to spread their ideas of liberal democracy. They think that democracy can be spread through force, and that if we just top all these autocrats in the Middle East they're going to choose Western-style British Common Law and our Bill of Rights. I think that's a very naive worldview in the sense that if you don't have a tradition of freedom, finding it abruptly is the exception rather than the rule.
"We've been waiting a long time; people have had a long time to formulate this. And I do think if they were forced, they would be forced into making a decision. But I'm encouraged that we got the vote, encouraged that we got 36. This wasn't like a drubbing where you get three or five votes; [it's] 36, and we bring it to the public's attention. It's coming up in the House. We just have to fight harder and longer, and eventually people are going to get tired of war in the Middle East, and [begin] asking the question, 'Is it really making is any safer?'"
Babylon don't make the rules. Babylon don't make our rules.
So put up all your hands together and squeeze 'em real tight. Because if you pay an income tax then you're helping to build bombs.
What do you have to say about that?
A few more articles.
"20,000,000,000,000 in Debt and Rising" ("Our debt now exceeds the value of everything that America produces in a year.")
"Medicaid for All Would 'Bankrupt the Nation,' Warns Bernie Sanders--In 1987"
"Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) introduced new legislation yesterday to expand Medicare to everyone in the United States. The bill, which came with 15 Democratic co-sponsors, envisions universal coverage, paid for by tax increases, that would be far more generous than what is offered by any other first-world government-run health care system offers.
[...]
"An Urban Institute analysis of a previous version of Sanders' plan estimated that it would cost $32 trillion over a decade.
"Back in 1987, a much younger Bernie Sanders apparently had that sense too. He warned that expanding Medicaid, the jointly run federal-state health care program for the poor and disabled, to everyone in the country would 'bankrupt the nation.'
"'If we expanded Medicaid [to] everybody. Give everybody a Medicaid card—we would be spending such an astronomical sum of money that, you know, we would bankrupt the nation.'
[...]
"In the [video] clip, the young Sanders is at least making an attempt, however limited, to understand the economic and policy distinctions between the United States and other countries and why transitioning to single payer via America's existing government-run systems would be difficult.
"The most striking thing about the legislation Sanders introduced yesterday, in contrast, is that it effectively wishes those questions away. It promises huge overall savings along with coverage that would be far more expansive, and far more expensive, than Medicaid for all, with no clear way to pay for it, and no specific strategy for driving costs or spending down.
"In 30 years of political advocacy, Sanders has not solved any of the fundamental problems with single payer. He has merely opted to pretend they do not exist."
We building weapons while our children starve. When we gonna recognize?
Music in my ears.
I'd wanted to move on to the New Yorker, but I'm running out of time babies and gentlemen.
"An Expensive Experiment With Single-Payer Health Care"
"When lawmakers in the lower chamber of New York's General Assembly voted for a single-payer health care proposal in mid-May, they waved off concerns about how to pay for it. Lawmakers in the California Senate did the same, voting in early June for a single-payer plan without first conducting a full-fledged analysis of how much it would cost.
"As lawmakers in D.C struggle to make headway on federal health care policy, states are looking for their own solutions. In Democrat-controlled state capitols, that means taking a look at single-payer plans that would sweep aside private health insurance in favor of taxpayer-funded options.
"But try as they might, these lawmakers can't ignore the price tag. Most states operate under rules that require balanced budgets, so a massive new expense such as single-payer health care requires an equally massive increase in taxes. Thanks to the proposals in California, New York, and elsewhere, we're starting to get an idea of exactly how massive.
[...]
"Analyses of the New York Health Act say it would cost between $92 billion and $240 billion annually. Currently, New York's entire state budget totals a little less than $80 billion.
"Vermont's state legislature approved the creation of a single-payer health care plan in 2014, but funding the program would have required an extra $2.5 billion annually—double the state's current budget—and state lawmakers blanched at the 11.5 percent payroll tax increase and 9 percent income tax increase needed to fund it. In Colorado, voters last year soundly rejected a single-payer plan that came with the promise of a 10 percent hike in payroll taxes.
"California's single-payer plan would be even more expensive: about $400 billion annually. That state's particularly generous proposal would cover all medical expenses (no out-of-pocket payments or co-pays) for U.S. citizens, permanent residents, and undocumented immigrants.
[...]
"We don't know what the outcome of the Democrat-led experiments with single-payer will be, but keeping the issue in the media spotlight while trotting out state-level proposals will give the party some idea of what to do (or not to do) when it has another shot at setting the agenda in Congress and the White House. "
What does it all mean?
In our morally and economically bankrupt world, your guess is as good as mine.
