'What's Wrong with America?'

[chefmike]

'What's Wrong with America?'
John Sweeney

Earlier this month, Steve Skvara, a disabled, retired steel worker who can't afford his wife's health care, shook the AFL-CIO's Presidential Candidates Forum by asking tearfully, "What's wrong with America?"

We should all be asking that question today.

We've got six coal miners trapped beneath more than 1,500 feet of Utah coal and rock, three brave men who struggled to rescue them are dead and six more are injured.

And it's not because of an act of God. It's because of the acts of man.

The disaster still unfolding at the Crandall Canyon mine did not have to happen. It was preventable--as were the deaths of 12 coal miners last year in the Sago Mine in West Virginia. As have been many, many more deaths of workers in America's coal mines and factories, fishing vessels, offices and construction sites.

Safety concerns about the Crandall Canyon mine surfaced months ago, and safety experts warned of particular dangers in the "retreat mining" technique used there after it was approved by the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration. In retreat mining, coalminers essentially pull out roof-supporting pillars of coal as they work their way out of the mine. The retreat mining plan at Crandall Canyon, says United Mine Workers of America President Cecil Roberts, "appears to have been flawed, to say the least. In our opinion, that plan should never have been approved."

No one should be surprised it was approved, though. The Bush administration has been systematically dismantling and cutting funding for workplace safety rules and oversight since it came into office.

Every day in 2005 (the most recent data available), 16 workers died on the job and 12,000 were made sick--and that doesn't include the occupational diseases that kill 50,000 to 60,000 more workers each year. In many if not most of these cases, one of two things occurred: An employer disregarded the law, or the law wasn't strong enough to protect workers.

Something is deeply wrong with America today. Working men and women have lost their value to the people who have been running this country for too long. Ruthless CEOs wring working people dry and the neocon ideologues in the White House help them.

Our wages are stagnant, our benefits are disappearing, the middle class is shrinking and, for the first time, there's a good chance our children will not be better off than our generation. We're the most productive workers in the world but we have to work more hours, more jobs and send more family members into the workforce just to keep up.

The heroes who rushed to Ground Zero to save lives and who dug and sweated and struggled for months after Sept. 11, 2001, are suffering today from neglect and indifference. Neglect and indifference left thousands stranded on rooftops and in a dark convention center after Hurricane Katrina. Neglect and indifference meant deplorable conditions for veterans recovering at Walter Reed. Neglect and indifference kill far too many of us on the job.

There's a reason so many people who never will step foot in a coal mine are riveted by the story of the trapped, dead and injured miners. There's a reason Steve Skvara's comment at our presidential forum moved so many people. There's a reason candidates committed to improving the well-being of working men and women took back Congress last year and will take back the White House next year.

Working men and women--the great majority in this country--want to fix what's wrong with America.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-sweeney/whats-wrong-with-americ_b_60935.html

[chefmike]

Why Are the New York Times and So Much of the Traditional* Media Neglecting a Vital Part of the Utah Mine Collapse Story?
Arianna Huffington

Yesterday, while speaking at the Aspen Institute's Forum on Communications and Society, I commented on how the mainstream media have, with a few exceptions, been focusing on only one aspect of the Crandall Canyon Mine tragedy -- the desperate attempt to rescue the trapped miners -- while paying scant attention to investigating the reasons why these miners were trapped in the first place.

I specifically mentioned Sunday's New York Times piece by Martin Stolz, who had been dispatched to Huntington to cover the story. Stolz's report was filled with details about the progress rescuers had made through the collapsed mine (650 ft), and the capabilities of the hi-res camera being lowered into the mine (can pick up images from 100 ft away) -- but not one word about what led to the collapse, including the role retreat mining might have played in it, or the 324 safety violations federal inspectors have issued for the mine since 2004.

The story, like most of the TV coverage, featured Bob Murray, the colorful co-owner of the mine. Stolz painted a picture of Murray emerging from the mine "with a coal-blackened face and in miner's coveralls to discuss the latest finding with the families of the missing miners."

Cue the swelling music and start the casting session. Your mind reflexively begins to wonder who would play Murray in the Crandall Canyon TV movie. Wilfred Brimley? Robert Duvall? Paul Newman?

Of course, Murray's role in all this is much darker than that of the compassionate boss given to delivering script-ready lines like, "Conditions are the most difficult I have seen in my 50 years of mining" and "There are many reasons to have hope still" (as he has been quoted saying in two other Times stories).

He is a politically-connected Big Energy player whose company, Murray Energy Corp., has 19 mines in five states, which have incurred millions of dollars in fines for safety violations over the last 18 months.

Probably won't see that in the TV movie.

Murray has also continued to insist that the mine collapse was the result of an earthquake -- a claim disputed by seismologists.

So why has so much of the coverage focused on folksy Bob Murray, the stalwart and kindly mine owner, instead of mining mogul Robert Murray, who may have been at least partly responsible for decisions that led to the disaster?

It's because, as Jon Stewart has put it, one of the best ways to deal with members of the media is show them a shiny object over here, which distracts them from investigating the real story over there. And the hopeful, coal-covered, and always camera-ready Murray has been very shiny indeed. Especially when his face is blackened from a recent PR stint down the mine.

Back in Aspen, at a party for conference participants last night, Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr., who had been in the room during my panel, came up to me and told me -- more than a little defensively -- that the Times had in fact reported on the safety violations last Wednesday.

Yes, I replied, but that was a few paragraphs in a single story five days ago. But while the Times has continued to cover the rescue, there was no follow up on the possible causes on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, or Monday.

During that time, the Times has been thoroughly scooped by the Salt Lake Tribune, which uncovered a memo revealing that there had been serious structural problems at the Crandall Canyon Mine in March -- in an area just 900 feet from the section of the mine that collapsed last week. And even AP did much better than the paper of record. AP reporter Chris Kahn wrote about the role retreat mining -- "a sometimes dangerous mining technique that involves pulling out leftover sections and pillars of coal that hold up the roof of a mine" -- might have played in the collapse.

Despite so many questions left unanswered about the mine's safety and the decisions the mine's owners made, the Times did no follow up. Indeed, New York Times readers -- and shareholders -- would have been better (much better) served if Times editors had spared the expense of sending reporters to Huntington and had just republished the reports from the Salt Lake Tribune and AP.

Instead, last night, Sulzberbger preferred to rationalize away his paper's choices. "I'm told that 324 violations are not a lot," he said to me.

Maybe not if you work in an office on West 43rd Street; but if you make a living by going underground to excavate coal, even one serious safety violation is one too many. And of the 324 violations, 107 were considered, in the words of a federal mine safety agency spokesman, "significant and substantial."

And if, as Sulzberger claimed, 324 violations are not a lot, why not do a story on that -- questioning whether we should be wasting taxpayer money looking for insignificant and insubstantial transgressions?

Let me stress that I am only focusing on the Times because of my exchange with Sulzberger; in fact, most of the MSM's coverage of the tragedy has tilted towards the shiny objects causing them to neglect the issues that might help prevent yet another story about the desperate attempt to rescue yet another group of trapped miners.

So we continue to get cloying coverage like the segment on AC360 last night. This is how Anderson Cooper introduced Murray: "He's really been the public face of this ordeal, keeping the families up to date -- he meets with them once or twice a day -- trying to explain the latest rescue efforts." So Murray got to go all aw shucks: "Mr. Cooper, I appreciate you having me on your program. And I appreciate the interest of all Americans in our tragedy."

But we get precious little on the Murray who had enough political muscle to get a Mine Safety and Health Administration district manager who had cracked down on safety issues at one of Murray's mines reassigned (clearly, contributing $213,000 to Republican candidates over the last ten years, as well as another $724,500 to Republican candidates and causes through political action committees connected to Murray's businesses, has its benefits). The Murray who rails against the United Mine Workers Association, claiming it wants "to damage Murray Energy, Utah American and the United States coal industry for their own motives." The Murray who called Hillary Clinton "anti-American" for saying America needs a president who will fight for workers' rights, and telling a Senate committee this summer that Al Gore and Congressional Democrats are bent on "the destruction of American lives and more death as a result of his hysterical global goofiness with no environmental benefit."

So many angles for the media to pursue -- and that's before we even get to the miners' families. A couple of family members have already spoken out about the fears for the mine's safety circulating in the community prior to the collapse.

If these stories and preliminary reports are right and it is proved that the tragic collapse at Crandall Canyon was caused by the owners' decision to proceed with retreat mining despite concerns about structural safety at the mine, then Mr. Murray should be spending less time talking to reporters, and a lot more time talking to his lawyers.

For more on this topic read It Shouldn't Have Taken the Deaths of Three Miners to Get the Media to Focus on Mine Safety.

HuffPost's Max Follmer has more on Bob Murray here.

* I got an email last night from Markos making the case that adopting the term "mainstream media" (MSM) by definition marginalizes those of us working in the blogosphere. It's a point he expands on here. I found his argument very convincing, which is why I changed the title of this post, replacing "MSM" with "Traditional Media." Markos' argument is in line with my reasoning for not accepting the tired right vs. left framing the mainstream -- uh, traditional -- media so often use, and which automatically marginalizes progressive positions and leaves the impression that wisdom resides in the middle of the road (home to the DLC, triangulation, and splitting the difference). Thanks, Markos.


article and it's many links that I'm not going to put into BBCode-
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/why-are-the-new-york-t_b_60412.html

[chefmike]

Coal Mining As Seen By George Orwell

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-feldman/coal-mining-as-seen-by-ge_b_60957.html

[ezed]

A complex problem which is the history of the world. Humans desire the accumulation of wealth, then preservation of that wealth. Be they the Romans, the ancient Greeks, the English, the French, Spain, the Germans, the Russians, the Catholic Church, the Islamic religion, comunists, evangelists, Chinese, Japanese, Hutus, Tutsi's etc etc..join a cause ...reap the rewards.

It is the fault of one race and one race only.... the human race. Can we change that. We haven't. Despite some noble revolutions...the resulting society ultimately falls into the same mold.

So what do we do..........

We go to the internet, and type (our soma pill) and wait for "This Perfect Day". And when it comes we will revolt and destroy it and begin the cycle again.

Is there an answer? I don't have it....yet.

[tsmandy]

A complex problem which is the history of the world. Humans desire the accumulation of wealth, then preservation of that wealth. Be they the Romans, the ancient Greeks, the English, the French, Spain, the Germans, the Russians, the Catholic Church, the Islamic religion, comunists, evangelists, Chinese, Japanese, Hutus, Tutsi's etc etc..join a cause ...reap the rewards.

It is the fault of one race and one race only.... the human race. Can we change that. We haven't. Despite some noble revolutions...the resulting society ultimately falls into the same mold.

So what do we do..........

We go to the internet, and type (our soma pill) and wait for "This Perfect Day". And when it comes we will revolt and destroy it and begin the cycle again.

Is there an answer? I don't have it....yet.

I take issue with this line of thinking, which seems to posit Capitalist excess as a sad outgrowth of human nature. Sorry, just because some people, even many people, desire something, doesn't mean its hardwired into all our brains from birth. I firmly believe that Capitalisms triumph was not due to evolution, but instead owes its dominance to violence. Thus I think it is a way of escaping responsibility for atrocities committed, to claim said atrocities as human nature.

I agree that simply writing an article on the internet does nothing in and of itself, however, because of the appalling state of the mass media, I think it very important to share knowledge.

xoxo
Mandy
http://mandytgirl.com

[chefmike]

Here's a funny op-ed about the current state of capitalism in the US-

Smashing Capitalism

Somewhere in the Hamptons a high-roller is cursing his cleaning lady and shaking his fists at the lawn guys. The American poor, who are usually tactful enough to remain invisible to the multi-millionaire class, suddenly leaped onto the scene and started smashing the global financial system. Incredibly enough, this may be the first case in history in which the downtrodden manage to bring down an unfair economic system without going to the trouble of a revolution.

First they stopped paying their mortgages, a move in which they were joined by many financially stretched middle class folks, though the poor definitely led the way. All right, these were trick mortgages, many of them designed to be unaffordable within two years of signing the contract. There were "NINJA" loans, for example, awarded to people with "no income, no job or assets." Conservative columnist Niall Fergusen laments the low levels of "economic literacy" that allowed people to be exploited by sub-prime loans. Why didn't these low-income folks get lawyers to go over the fine print? And don't they have personal financial advisors anyway?

Then, in a diabolically clever move, the poor - a category which now roughly coincides with the working class -- stopped shopping. Both Wal-Mart and Home Depot announced disappointing second quarter performances, plunging the market into another Arctic-style meltdown. H. Lee Scott, CEO of the low-wage Wal-Mart empire, admitted with admirable sensitivity, that "it's no secret that many customers are running out of money at the end of the month."

I wish I could report that the current attack on capitalism represents a deliberate strategy on the part of the poor, that there have been secret meetings in break rooms and parking lots around the country, where cell leaders issued instructions like, "You, Vinny -- don't make any mortgage payment this month. And Caroline, forget that back-to-school shopping, OK?" But all the evidence suggests that the current crisis is something the high-rollers brought down on themselves.

When, for example, the largest private employer in America, which is Wal-Mart, starts experiencing a shortage of customers, it needs to take a long, hard look in the mirror. About a century ago, Henry Ford realized that his company would only prosper if his own workers earned enough to buy Fords. Wal-Mart, on the other hand, never seemed to figure out that its cruelly low wages would eventually curtail its own growth, even at the company's famously discounted prices.

The sad truth is that people earning Wal-Mart-level wages tend to favor the fashions available at the Salvation Army. Nor do they have much use for Wal-Mart's other departments, such as Electronics, Lawn and Garden, and Pharmacy.

It gets worse though. While with one hand the high-rollers, H. Lee Scott among them, squeezed the American worker's wages, the other hand was reaching out with the tempting offer of credit. In fact, easy credit became the American substitute for decent wages. Once you worked for your money, but now you were supposed to pay for it. Once you could count on earning enough to save for a home. Now you'll never earn that much, but, as the lenders were saying -- heh, heh -- do we have a mortgage for you!

Pay day loans, rent-to-buy furniture and exorbitant credit card interest rates for the poor were just the beginning. In its May 21st cover story on "The Poverty Business," BusinessWeek documented the stampede, in the just the last few years, to lend money to the people who could least afford to pay the interest: Buy your dream home! Refinance your house! Take on a car loan even if your credit rating sucks! Financiamos a Todos! Somehow, no one bothered to figure out where the poor were going to get the money to pay for all the money they were being offered.

Personally, I prefer my revolutions to be a little more pro-active. There should be marches and rallies, banners and sit-ins, possibly a nice color theme like red or orange. Certainly, there should be a vision of what you intend to replace the bad old system with -- European-style social democracy, Latin American-style socialism, or how about just American capitalism with some regulation thrown in?

Global capitalism will survive the current credit crisis; already, the government has rushed in to soothe the feverish markets. But in the long term, a system that depends on extracting every last cent from the poor cannot hope for a healthy prognosis. Who would have thought that foreclosures in Stockton and Cleveland would roil the markets of London and Shanghai? The poor have risen up and spoken; only it sounds less like a shout of protest than a low, strangled, cry of pain.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/barbara-ehrenreich/smashing-capitalism_b_61144.html

[ezed]

I take issue with this line of thinking, which seems to posit Capitalist excess as a sad outgrowth of human nature. Sorry, just because some people, even many people, desire something, doesn't mean its hardwired into all our brains from birth. I firmly believe that Capitalisms triumph was not due to evolution, but instead owes its dominance to violence. Thus I think it is a way of escaping responsibility for atrocities committed, to claim said atrocities as human nature.

I agree that simply writing an article on the internet does nothing in and of itself, however, because of the appalling state of the mass media, I think it very important to share knowledge.

xoxo
Mandy
http://mandytgirl.com

I agree with you completely. But forget the term "capitalist". It's like a team name ie yankees, giants, senators etc. There is no differnce in the motives of the leaders of capitalists, communists, sepratists, evangalists, catholics, islamics, tyrants etc. Different marketing pitches to acquire power and convert it to wealth.

Pick your team and buy a ball cap and donate to the cause. The mass media is also one of the expansion teams due to the acceleration of technology.

We can share knowledge all we want, until it results in action, it is meaningless. And when it does result in sigifigant action, in time, history has proven, the action takers will revert to the sins of their fathers. And new teams (with new names) will arise, again seeking the accumulation of wealth.

Can this change? It doesn't look good does it? :cry:

[chefmike]

I'm beginning to suspect that you're a cynic, ezed.

[qeuqheeg222]

dont forget the 100bill the fed pumped into the "market"to keep that shit afloat...i love these business fucks always complaining bout regulation and big govt but when they need a bailout to save their asses..."borrow and spend republicans"...remember it..."borrow and spend republicans".............

[ezed]

I'm beginning to suspect that you're a cynic, ezed.

Me a cynic??????? Fuck no. What makes you say that? :wink:

[chefmike]

I KNEW IT!

YOU LIVE IN A VAN DOWN BY THE RIVER!

[loki]

What is REALLY wrong with this country is political correctness and the worrying of votes. We as a people are to afraid to tell the truth lest it offend someone. And most of us are unwilling to make sacrifices(heaven forbid we endure a little discomfort for the common good). It has become quite apparrent that althought i grew up in the USA i will be growing old in the USSA. And it not because of Bush it is the entire american system that has become corrupt and weak.We have all been sold out or turned into sheeple(sheep people).

[trish]

could you elaborate, loki, on what you mean by "worrying of votes", i'm not sure i follow.

[ezed]

I KNEW IT!

YOU LIVE IN A VAN DOWN BY THE RIVER!

WELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL! I'VE MOVED THE VAN UP THE HILL!!!
IF YOU FLOOD ME ONCE.....GOOD FOR YOU. IF YOU FLOOD ME TWICE......ERRRRRRRRRR ....I FORGET.

[hippifried]

I'm thinking that "worrying of votes" refers to the continuous struggle for political power.

I don't buy the whine about political correctness. It doesn't & has never gotten in the way of the truth. Baseless accusations, name calling, & stereotypes aren't "the truth". We're taught to try to be politically correct from birth. It's just a matter of making a point without going out of one's way to be vile & offensive. remember the old saw: "think twice before you speak."

I'm thinking that what's wrong with America is just the opposite. The dominant mindset among the loudest voices is to be rude & intolerant. We don't seem to want any actual solutions to problems. All we want to do is fight over the approach. We're too damn busy spending all our time looking for "who's to blame", that we forget about the actual problem & don't even bother looking for solutions. We've turned into a nation of finger pointers that can't get out of scapegoat mode. We've divided ourselves along artificial regional, religious, ideological, racial, economic, & class lines. We've concentrated on trivial differences instead of our vast similarities that make us a nation. That's allowed the crooks & fools to gain power.

[dreamer]

what's WRONG ---what's wrong with America???? ---not enough Tgirls ---BAM --I just answered all questions ---

[mofungo]

"What's wrong with America?"

Without reading any responses to this question (and I haven't), I can give you a fuggen huge list of 'wrongness'. For example, the U.S. is *not* America. The U.S. is a dysfunctional component of a larger continent.

The U.S. is a parasite, fucking over every nation it encounters, even its own people, to further its stranglehold on the developing/majority world.

I could go on... ;-)

[ezed]

"What's wrong with America?"

Without reading any responses to this question (and I haven't), I can give you a fuggen huge list of 'wrongness'. For example, the U.S. is *not* America. The U.S. is a dysfunctional component of a larger continent.

The U.S. is a parasite, fucking over every nation it encounters, even its own people, to further its stranglehold on the developing/majority world.

I could go on... ;-)

To quote a Jack Bruce song "We're going wrong..." But to answer your post my aussie pal, were not the only ones. Things change, they always do. Please read my posts in this forum. (I'm an attention whore.) We're all in the same boat. Be it now, in the future, or in the past.

:cry:

[mofungo]

... to answer your post my aussie pal, were not the only ones ...

Hi Ezed, the U.S. may not be the only ones, but the U.S. is the leading offender in all things tyrannical and horrid.

If the 'war on terror' (which we should all know is a crock of shit) was just and true, the U.S. would no longer exist. There is no nation in the modern world responsible for so much death and hatred.

... I'm getting started... ;-)

[qeuqheeg222]

america is great place for a few rich men to do business...

[ezed]

... to answer your post my aussie pal, were not the only ones ...

Hi Ezed, the U.S. may not be the only ones, but the U.S. is the leading offender in all things tyrannical and horrid.

If the 'war on terror' (which we should all know is a crock of shit) was just and true, the U.S. would no longer exist. There is no nation in the modern world responsible for so much death and hatred.

... I'm getting started... ;-)

Did you read my previous posts in this thread? "Money...it's a crime," (Pink Floyd). When you got a lot of money, you're better than the up and comers at being a tyrant. But they'll get better as they acquire more wealth. And they are studying this case like business majors in graduate school.

The Texas pimps got very very rich in the last two terms. The payday comes for them when they're voted out of office. Then they'll reap the rewards from Halliburton, the oil companies, the saudis and the defense contractors and the investors there in. Follow the money trail and there you will find were the underlying evil lies.

I don't disagree with you man, it's not the US. 90% of us are good people, but ten percent are bad, very very bad and hold the money and the power. With situations like this revolutions occur. In the sixties, it happened quick on alot of fronts ... racism, war, women's lib.

Now, the country is fat. The kids are fat. They don't play unorganized sports. They where helmets to take a shit. They're driven to organized games where they waddle around like jello molds waiting to get back to their cavern of electronic gadgets. They have wicked strong thumbs punching their electronic gadgets and they are excellent typists from spending so much time on the internet. They have hundreds of channels on TV, we had maybe five on a good day. But we got involved because the distractions were limited.

We're following the path of the Roman Empire. But at least they went down fucking their brains out in continous orgies instead of eating whoopers and slurpies and perfecting their my space site so people will talk to them.

Now see ya bastard.... ya got me started. :)

[qeuqheeg222]

yea the man got them kids hooked on constant consumption.....remember ketchup is a vegetable...

[mofungo]

Now see ya bastard.... ya got me started. :)

Yeah. Sorry ezed... I had a bad day.

:(