Uncategorized

Frothing at the Mouth
about the incredibly bad working conditions at
Tyler
Pipe:

Aghast and furious curse words spill from my lips as I read the article. Amputations,
burns, scars; broken backs, crushed heads; sixteen-hour shifts; no breaks for
biological functions; grossly inadequate safety equipment. This is a story from the
19th century, surely, not the 21st?

Articles like this must be an embarrassment to anti-union advocates and pro-
deregulation forces, because this demonstrates clearly and precisely that in the
absence of effective restraints, some businesses do not restrain themselves.

Yes, most companies will operate so as not to kill or injure their workers even
without OSHA, but some will, and so we need an effective OSHA. Yes, most companies
will treat their workers well even without unions, but some won’t, and so we need
effective unions.

Top Stories Wednesday 08 Jan

The Sideshow on the Bush tax plan:

It’s really hard for me to believe that anyone is stupid enough to buy the whole “taxed twice” argument that somehow only seems to be applied to money in the hands of the extraordinarily rich. If you work at Wal-Mart, the money that goes into your paycheck was taxed at the till, then is taxed again as your income (payroll taxes, income tax, state and local taxes, etc.), and again when you spend it. Any transfer of money in or out of your hands gets taxed at least once at any point of exchange. In theory, the recipient is the one who is paying the taxes in most cases, although it’s you, not the recipient, who pays the sales tax at the counter. Can the Republicans who spew this line really be so oblivious that they do not know this already?

[…]

If the Republicans really believed that taxes are bad, or that income shouldn’t be “taxed twice”, or any of that other crap, they’d be trying to reduce the tax burden on all of us, not just the very wealthy. What they’re really trying to do is make sure that we give them our money. They want to make ordinary working people into the only taxpayers, and then make sure that money does not benefit us, but is funnelled into their hands in the form of “government” programs that allow them to give our money to themselves and their friends.

New to the Left

Each day I list the blogs new to the linklist. Want to be added? Use the form, Luke. Entry does not guarantee winning. No purchase necessary. Offer void where prohibited. You must either be a fiery liberal spirit or be in the vanguard of the workers revolution to participate. At a pinch we’ll take dedicated left anarchists and the like as well. No wishy washy centrists need apply. The decision of the judges is final.

Hullabaloo

Digby, frequent and eloquent commentor at various blogs finally has his own.

Top Stories Tuesday 31 Dec

Body and Soul talks about a little health crisis underway in Africa:

In less than twenty years, 70 million Africans will die of AIDS.

That number — 70 million people — ought to trigger the same kind of response a looming genocide invokes: the knowledge that we won’t be able to live with ourselves in the future if we don’t do something to stop it now, that in a few years we’ll be asking ourselves the same question we ask now about Rwanda — how in God’s name did we manage to sit by and watch that happen?

Fifty-eight percent of AIDS victims in Africa are women. That isn’t significant because women’s lives are in any way more valuable than men’s lives, but because it extends the reach of the disease far beyond the victim. Seventy to eighty percent of food in Africa is produced by women. In times of famine, women have traditionally been the ones to set up networks to distribute food. But sick and weakened women inevitably devote less time to planting and harvesting crops, and to helping with food distribution. When the people who produce the food die, the entire community suffers. And of course it’s a vicious cycle: malnutrition takes a toll on the immune system and speeds up the development of AIDS in people who are HIV-positive.

New to the Left

Each day I list the blogs new to the linklist. Want to be added? Use the form, Luke. Entry does not guarantee winning. No purchase necessary. Offer void where prohibited. You must either be a fiery liberal spirit or be in the vanguard of the workers revolution to participate. At a pinch we’ll take dedicated left anarchists and the like as well. No wishy washy centrists need apply. The decision of the judges is final.

Slacktivist

Hopeful outrage, politics, culture and religion from a progressive Christian perspective.

Left in the West

Written by a Montanan who writes on local issues and national issues and how they correspond to Montana and the west.

Mark . R. Kleiman

Political, policy, and other thoughts from a policy analysis professor at UCLA.

Selfmade Pundit

Just the guy that can’t stand cant.