Kayden
Banned
I came across this while bored at work. I'm just wondering if anyone has read the book or how the likes of PAD and Scrub will defend this.
[quote name='http://squidi.net/']
[size=+2]America, The Fascism [/size]There was this moment of epiphany that came to me the first time I played Civilization 2. It's a good game, but the Aha! moment came when I discovered that America, despite the doctrine I was bread into, is not a Democracy at all. It's a Republic. We elect representatives to work on behalf of the will of the people, not actually giving very much power to the people themselves. Think of it this way. You don't get to change the lightbulb, you get to choose who changes it for you. There are obvious problems with this. After you select the guy to change the lightbulb, he could just go sit on the couch and drink your beer instead.
Of course, the basic idea behind representation is that the average person is too busy with their own lives to spend the time and energy looking up all the details of government needed to make informed decisions. Hell, there's still plenty of Americans who can't read or can't tell the difference between good science and junk "science", so maybe it is truly in the interest of all people that those incapable of making good decisions aren't the ones controlling the destinies of others. A republic is, in theory,
During the time I spent in the hospital with Retz and Lilith, I read a book called "Crimes Against Nature", and I had a second Aha! moment. I realized, once and for all, that this is neither a democracy nor a republic. It is a fascist government. Not the kind of fascist government where you hold up signs and yell "fascists" while protesting global warming - I'm talking fascism in definition and deed. This is not a label, but an accurate description... to the point where maybe we should stop pretending that Democracy is so grand when we stopped practicing it a while ago.
This book is fascinating. Though it's purpose is to present evidence that Bush has been the worst thing to happen to, not just America, but literally the entire world due entirely to environmental reasons, it isn't a defense of global warming or an explanation of gas emissions or anything else. What it is, it is a definitive indepth look into how the Bush administration manipulates politics. That it deals with environmental issues seems almost secondary. I know nothing about global warming, and after reading the book, I still know nothing about it. What I do know is that Bush appointed a head of the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) that was a lobbyist for oil companies.
This book is terrifying. I mean, absolutely terrifying. Not just because of the near endless examples of the administration selling things like clean air and water in favor of companies that literally want nothing more than to pollute it, but also because of the way they have stealthily maneuvered around the law, democracy, the public good, and just about everything you could possibly imagine that somehow involve integrity or decency. But let's start with the environment. I'll pick a story that hits particularly close to home.
The White House Office of Science and Technology sat on a report for nine months which found that 1 in 12 American women have enough mercury in their blood to cause permanent brain damage in their unborn children. A more recent study said 1 in 6 women. Then the EPA covered up the true extent of mercury contamination in tuna to help the tuna industry. They release a report that states that albacore tuna has more mercury than canned light tuna, "but does not discuss the frightening results of recent tests by the FDA that found canned albacore tuna to have about three times the mercury of canned light tuna, which itself is too contaminated for children or fertile women to eat frequently". There is an autism epidemic in this country which scientists have suggested is due to mercury poisoning - so they are taking mercury out of their shots to infants and the like. But for the last eight months, I've been hearing Retz tell me that it is okay for her to eat tuna once a week, and before she got pregnant, ate enough sushi to probably ensure our child has permanent IQ damage. If this turn out to be the case, there will be no shortage to the wrath I will bring to the doorstep of each and every person involved in this cover up.
Do we want an EPA that would rather protect the tuna industry than the people? Do we want a government like that? This is but one example in a book with literally hundreds of terrifying examples of "compromises" which has resulted in corporations walking over, sometimes literally, our graves. Bush's administration has completely destroyed such fundamental and important things such as the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act, allowing companies to dump pig shit into our stream - pig shit, I should point out, contaminated with the virus Pfiesteria Piscicida, which "kill millions unpon millions of fish and causes pustulating lesions that won't heal, severe respiratory illness, and brain damage in humans who handle fish or swim in the water". Not only that, but the Bush administration has single handedly removed nearly every recourse that people like you or I have to fight these outrages.
From purely this point of view, I think the information found in this book should be known by every single American out there. I thought the Monsanto bovine hormone that we in Florida drink daily that has been outlawed by nearly every other industrialized country was bad, but compared to some of the stuff in this book - you literally cannot trust even the EPA. Read this book. If you can't afford it, steal it. Download it. Whatever. But you have to know what is in this book. It's terrifying, and what's worse, it's completely intentional. We have literally destroyed every single environmental law made in the past century in the time span of one short administration, and every move and detail is documented in this book in great detail - the author may come off as a Bush hater, but the book is filled with enough facts that it is justified.
In addition to enough true horrors to guarrantee that I spend the first few years of Lilith's existence in sheer, abject terror, this book is exactly the sort of documentation needed to show why we currently live in a fascist government. It is concerned only with environmental rules and doesn't touch things like terrorism or the war in Iraq (except to point out that there is a nuclear power plant 11 miles out of New York that has absolutely no security to speak of, and a bill meant to increase security at chemical plants was shot down over profit motives and not safety). They weren't quite as careful to cover their tracks with this low priority stuff, but it would be absurd to see the kind of manipulations that occur here and not draw the obvious conclusions to foreign policy. At the recent G8 Summit, Bush stood against the Kyoto Accord, and this book explains why - it even explains why Tony Blair referred to it as "climate change" instead of "global warming" (it's less immediate and threatening).
There stuff in this book about how jobs are doled out to supporters of a specific ideology. There's a story about the head of the EPA who actually worked towards something on global warming, only to be shot down (WAY down) by Bush due to some letters written by Dick Cheney under someone else's name. This lady thought she was doing what the administration wanted, but her initiative was against the corporate owner philosophy of this administration, and she was crushed and destroyed. To make it up, she tried to push through some changed to EPA regulations that would've cleared her name - one of which was a reduction on the amount of arsenic in drinking water. The arsenic is a byproduct of mining, which of course was a big spender to the Republican party. Screw the health of the people, they wanted MORE arsenic in water. MORE!
This got out, was very unpopular - even becoming jokes on night time tv. It made the President look very stupid, so they did a study. What this study found was that the regulations imposed under Clinton's regime was actually too little and that if news got out, they'd actually have to INCREASE regulation to meet safety. However, 9/11 happen which completely distracted the news (
ing "news" channels). A few months later, they quietly announced that they would not be changing Clinton's regulations. They didn't reduce it like they wanted, but sitting on evidence which clearly presented the health risks, they didn't increase it either. Mother ers. The fundamental question is, does the government exist to serve the people, or do the people exist to give the government somebody to govern. This administration has consistently and clearly made it quite clear that they believe the latter. I had one guy email me over this flag burning situation and he said, presumably with a straight face, that ... hold on, let me quote it exactly... "The strength of this nation isn't in our rights and freedoms, but in our respect for the structure of the government which provides us with those freedoms" - he truly believes that. Dumb mother er. I guess I should point out that even in the rule of Hitler and Mussolini, there were plenty of people that bought into their crap too. It's the innate quality of nationalism. This is a fascist government, and I'd like to go into more detail as to what that means, but I'm out of time right now. But find this book and read it, especially if you voted Republican. You may find some justification to defend taking away state rights by making gay marriage constitutionally illegal, but if you can find any justification for arsenic in the drinking water, mercury in the fish, or pig shit in local rivers and streams - then you are the dumbest asshole that has ever walked the planet... but something tells me that it doesn't matter what walk of life you hail from, you'll be just as outraged at the material in this book as any tree hugging hippy ever was.
[/QUOTE]
[quote name='http://squidi.net/']
[size=+2]America, The Fascism [/size]There was this moment of epiphany that came to me the first time I played Civilization 2. It's a good game, but the Aha! moment came when I discovered that America, despite the doctrine I was bread into, is not a Democracy at all. It's a Republic. We elect representatives to work on behalf of the will of the people, not actually giving very much power to the people themselves. Think of it this way. You don't get to change the lightbulb, you get to choose who changes it for you. There are obvious problems with this. After you select the guy to change the lightbulb, he could just go sit on the couch and drink your beer instead.
Of course, the basic idea behind representation is that the average person is too busy with their own lives to spend the time and energy looking up all the details of government needed to make informed decisions. Hell, there's still plenty of Americans who can't read or can't tell the difference between good science and junk "science", so maybe it is truly in the interest of all people that those incapable of making good decisions aren't the ones controlling the destinies of others. A republic is, in theory,
During the time I spent in the hospital with Retz and Lilith, I read a book called "Crimes Against Nature", and I had a second Aha! moment. I realized, once and for all, that this is neither a democracy nor a republic. It is a fascist government. Not the kind of fascist government where you hold up signs and yell "fascists" while protesting global warming - I'm talking fascism in definition and deed. This is not a label, but an accurate description... to the point where maybe we should stop pretending that Democracy is so grand when we stopped practicing it a while ago.
This book is fascinating. Though it's purpose is to present evidence that Bush has been the worst thing to happen to, not just America, but literally the entire world due entirely to environmental reasons, it isn't a defense of global warming or an explanation of gas emissions or anything else. What it is, it is a definitive indepth look into how the Bush administration manipulates politics. That it deals with environmental issues seems almost secondary. I know nothing about global warming, and after reading the book, I still know nothing about it. What I do know is that Bush appointed a head of the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) that was a lobbyist for oil companies.
This book is terrifying. I mean, absolutely terrifying. Not just because of the near endless examples of the administration selling things like clean air and water in favor of companies that literally want nothing more than to pollute it, but also because of the way they have stealthily maneuvered around the law, democracy, the public good, and just about everything you could possibly imagine that somehow involve integrity or decency. But let's start with the environment. I'll pick a story that hits particularly close to home.
The White House Office of Science and Technology sat on a report for nine months which found that 1 in 12 American women have enough mercury in their blood to cause permanent brain damage in their unborn children. A more recent study said 1 in 6 women. Then the EPA covered up the true extent of mercury contamination in tuna to help the tuna industry. They release a report that states that albacore tuna has more mercury than canned light tuna, "but does not discuss the frightening results of recent tests by the FDA that found canned albacore tuna to have about three times the mercury of canned light tuna, which itself is too contaminated for children or fertile women to eat frequently". There is an autism epidemic in this country which scientists have suggested is due to mercury poisoning - so they are taking mercury out of their shots to infants and the like. But for the last eight months, I've been hearing Retz tell me that it is okay for her to eat tuna once a week, and before she got pregnant, ate enough sushi to probably ensure our child has permanent IQ damage. If this turn out to be the case, there will be no shortage to the wrath I will bring to the doorstep of each and every person involved in this cover up.
Do we want an EPA that would rather protect the tuna industry than the people? Do we want a government like that? This is but one example in a book with literally hundreds of terrifying examples of "compromises" which has resulted in corporations walking over, sometimes literally, our graves. Bush's administration has completely destroyed such fundamental and important things such as the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act, allowing companies to dump pig shit into our stream - pig shit, I should point out, contaminated with the virus Pfiesteria Piscicida, which "kill millions unpon millions of fish and causes pustulating lesions that won't heal, severe respiratory illness, and brain damage in humans who handle fish or swim in the water". Not only that, but the Bush administration has single handedly removed nearly every recourse that people like you or I have to fight these outrages.
From purely this point of view, I think the information found in this book should be known by every single American out there. I thought the Monsanto bovine hormone that we in Florida drink daily that has been outlawed by nearly every other industrialized country was bad, but compared to some of the stuff in this book - you literally cannot trust even the EPA. Read this book. If you can't afford it, steal it. Download it. Whatever. But you have to know what is in this book. It's terrifying, and what's worse, it's completely intentional. We have literally destroyed every single environmental law made in the past century in the time span of one short administration, and every move and detail is documented in this book in great detail - the author may come off as a Bush hater, but the book is filled with enough facts that it is justified.
In addition to enough true horrors to guarrantee that I spend the first few years of Lilith's existence in sheer, abject terror, this book is exactly the sort of documentation needed to show why we currently live in a fascist government. It is concerned only with environmental rules and doesn't touch things like terrorism or the war in Iraq (except to point out that there is a nuclear power plant 11 miles out of New York that has absolutely no security to speak of, and a bill meant to increase security at chemical plants was shot down over profit motives and not safety). They weren't quite as careful to cover their tracks with this low priority stuff, but it would be absurd to see the kind of manipulations that occur here and not draw the obvious conclusions to foreign policy. At the recent G8 Summit, Bush stood against the Kyoto Accord, and this book explains why - it even explains why Tony Blair referred to it as "climate change" instead of "global warming" (it's less immediate and threatening).
There stuff in this book about how jobs are doled out to supporters of a specific ideology. There's a story about the head of the EPA who actually worked towards something on global warming, only to be shot down (WAY down) by Bush due to some letters written by Dick Cheney under someone else's name. This lady thought she was doing what the administration wanted, but her initiative was against the corporate owner philosophy of this administration, and she was crushed and destroyed. To make it up, she tried to push through some changed to EPA regulations that would've cleared her name - one of which was a reduction on the amount of arsenic in drinking water. The arsenic is a byproduct of mining, which of course was a big spender to the Republican party. Screw the health of the people, they wanted MORE arsenic in water. MORE!
This got out, was very unpopular - even becoming jokes on night time tv. It made the President look very stupid, so they did a study. What this study found was that the regulations imposed under Clinton's regime was actually too little and that if news got out, they'd actually have to INCREASE regulation to meet safety. However, 9/11 happen which completely distracted the news (
ing "news" channels). A few months later, they quietly announced that they would not be changing Clinton's regulations. They didn't reduce it like they wanted, but sitting on evidence which clearly presented the health risks, they didn't increase it either. Mother ers. The fundamental question is, does the government exist to serve the people, or do the people exist to give the government somebody to govern. This administration has consistently and clearly made it quite clear that they believe the latter. I had one guy email me over this flag burning situation and he said, presumably with a straight face, that ... hold on, let me quote it exactly... "The strength of this nation isn't in our rights and freedoms, but in our respect for the structure of the government which provides us with those freedoms" - he truly believes that. Dumb mother er. I guess I should point out that even in the rule of Hitler and Mussolini, there were plenty of people that bought into their crap too. It's the innate quality of nationalism. This is a fascist government, and I'd like to go into more detail as to what that means, but I'm out of time right now. But find this book and read it, especially if you voted Republican. You may find some justification to defend taking away state rights by making gay marriage constitutionally illegal, but if you can find any justification for arsenic in the drinking water, mercury in the fish, or pig shit in local rivers and streams - then you are the dumbest asshole that has ever walked the planet... but something tells me that it doesn't matter what walk of life you hail from, you'll be just as outraged at the material in this book as any tree hugging hippy ever was.[/QUOTE]
