America is
at a critical time in its long storied history.
Today we have a President who says publicly he supports policies which
will benefit the people of this nation while signing Executive Orders which
decimate those very same policies and others.
He smiles and declares he is in charge and everything will be amazing but the Congress of his same party passes bills to reduce access to healthcare and other social services this poor nation needs. They pass bills for revolutionary change and this President is sure to sign them into law without much fanfare.
He has set
this nation on a path to degradation and loss which may not be survivable. The
government of the United State was instituted to protect people from harm both
foreign and domestic. The foreign threats were armies which never came. The
foreign threats were ideologies which are counter to the life, liberty and
happiness of citizens. The foreign threats were the economic interests of
non-American corporations with designs on taking profits from Americans in
unequal trade balances.
The domestic
threats are the corporations which seek to exploit extractive resources
(minerals, gas, oil, lumber, coal) while leaving their sites barren and prone
to letting toxins and excessive rainfall
to run off into clean streams. Prior to the EPA clear-cut mountain slopes
experienced erosion of soils into waterways when the trees were gone. EPA
required remedial measures; reforestation and runoff controls.
Coal and
other mineral mining operations were required to contain their tailings.
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| Coal Ash Pit at Powerplant |
"Mine tailings are
the ore waste of mines, and are typically a mud-like material. Worldwide, the
storage and handling of tailings is a major environmental issue. Many tailings
are toxic and must be kept perpetually isolated from the environment." from
Wikipedia
Without
regulations the mining companies typically mix the tailing with a sufficient
quantity of water to make it flow through pipes and discharge it into the
nearest stream with impunity.
When this
President speaks of economic value to reducing government regulations, he
really is saying industrial enterprises will be once again allowed to freely
pollute the environment and poison humans who live nearby, downstream and
downwind of the operations. A number of jobs might be created or retained by
such reductions of operating costs but the damage done to the health of the
population now and in the future is far greater.
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| Joe Magarac hero of Steelworkers |
For example,
a coal miner may earn $50,000 per year (if his wage is not extremely curtailed
by the removal of collective bargaining regulations). The other side of the
Equals Sign is the cost of treating Black Lung Disease which most every
coal miner will eventually suffer can exceed the 10-year earning potential of
the miner. The only way to make coal mining "profitable" is if the
treatment of lung disease and other physical injuries is completely neglected.
The only way to completely neglect those costs is to NOT TREAT the miner. Otherwise
taxpayers pick up the bill anyway. It becomes a "hidden" cost of
using coal.
So when the
President declares the policies of the nation and the congress is complicit in
fashioning legislation which allows for the degradation of the air, land and
water; the reduction of public education; the reduction of healthcare access; Laissez-faire financial policy on the
banking empires, to whom can the people address their grievances? We have this
body called the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) that is supposed to
evaluate Executive, Legislative and other judicial actions in terms of the US Constitution.
When the
Chief Executive has the job to appoint Judges to this body and the Legislature
has the job of confirming or rejecting those appointment, when all parties
involved are of the same political party and partisan ideology what is the
remedy for people who are harmed by the actions and decisions? When all three
Branches are dominated by a single political position this is a recipe for a
steamroller takeover of what America has been.
If you are
person who wants everything made easy and profitable for corporations, you will
be happy about the course the nation is being driven. If you think people
should be able to live unencumbered lives free of extreme hardships you will
not like the direction the nation is going.
Here is the
bottom line concern. One elected man; his two dozen or so appointed cabinet
members that lead federal government departments and bureaus have the legal
authority to completely dismantle this nation's government and reset all the
regulations previously enacted to make this country great. They have the
authority to command bombs to be dropped on any country, send troops to any
theater and commit the full military assets for any real or imagined reason. If
Congress doesn't take action to stop him, we the people will have to pay the
bills and suffer the consequences. One party politics is a huge failure.
