Watching events in Niagara County is like watching someone slowly die of cancer. And many more of us may well be doing that given recent revelations. Yes, the State sneaks tons of toxic waste into BWM under the cover of darkness. But it wouldn’t matter if they did do it in the light of day preceded by a mariachi band. Most people in Niagara County still wouldn’t know about it, especially the politicians and the press. The secret is out. Niagara county doesn’t have the guts or will or leadership to stop it.
As I wrote a few weeks back nothing was going to stop the further vile and slimily surreptitious abuse of Niagara County short of street demonstrations blocking the path of those trucks crossing the state and our county. But the press was asleep. The politicians were asleep or as all too often working with their heads in the sand if not up their asses. The representatives of these two institutions are a joke if not cowardly, stupid or actually complicit in the sacrifice of our area to “waste management.” After all, lest anyone forget we are also “managing” tons of nuclear waste which isn’t going anywhere soon, except maybe to pave more roads in the county. Besides, I hear glowing roads at night reduce accidents.
Niagara County politicians are cowards, deeply in denial, playing at politics but not willing to take the risks to get anything meaningful done for our people. The Niagara press and politicians are impotent chumps, pretenders at leading and informing the public. Buffoons, clowns, poseurs. Ludicrous bumbling fools. Things would be no different here if they didn’t exist at all. In fact things would probably be much better. We would have more money. We might take responsibility for finding out what is happening to us. We might begin to form social organizations that actually inform, protect and represent us. We might grow the balls necessary to start thinking though secession from the vampires and parasites that run the state of NY.
So there it is. Now we all know Niagara County will do nothing to live with self-respect and integrity. Anyone can dump on us from Hillary Clinton with her false promises, to the state DEC with its thousands of tons of waste with nowhere to go, to the downstate elitists such as Senator Kevin Parker who believe they should get all the Homeland Security money since there is nothing in upstate worth securing.
But even the Niagara County Legislature seems to agree with Parker. The Legislature has yet to answer my questions, presented a few months back during a formal session of that august body, as to why the Lewiston-Queenston bridge which could obviously be blown up by a deaf, dumb and blind terrorist in a mini-van, still remains by all obvious appearances unprotected. The Legislator too does not really believe we are worth saving. They seem to implicity agree with Parker. They accept the crumbs from the table of the State. And Maziarz’s long food chain of supporters seem to act as if those crumbs taste like steaks.
And the cheerleaders over at Niagara Times, some of which feel that after all somebody has to be the waste dump of the Eastern seaboard, falsely bemoan our fate as the dump trucks keep on coming. They in the end seem to shrug their shoulders in a comfortable victim mentality, and say “why not us?” But that profound think tank concludes that “The county needs to let it go” even though they say that what the state has done is absolutely wrong. Then they go on to argue that since the dumping doesn’t incur additional costs we should shut up, worry about the state deficit and not try to levy any selfish fees just to try to stop further shipments. The crowd at Niagara Times is despicably stupid and dangerous. With that kind of cheap pop-psychological reasoning (and I use that term oh so very loosely), which undoubtedly now in fact reflects the “thinking” of our supposed state leadership, we are doomed.
Our state representatives are de facto paid collaborators in securing and reducing Niagara County to the World Class Toxic Toilet of the Eastern Seaboard. And Hobbes, mouthpiece for the Republican “crumbs off the table” machine, certainly knows who butters his white bread. After all he lives in radioactive Lockport and trusts that the PCB’s won’t touch his community. And if it did the radioactivity might dissolve the PCB’s anyhow. So he’s safe.
So when driving in the area anywhere between the Whirlpool Bridge to Wheatfield to Wilson to the hallowed cess pool that is BWM, watch out for fast moving trucks and hold your breath. Otherwise, begin planning to move as far away as possible.
The good news here is that when you’ve reached rock bottom, there is no where to go but up, assuming you choose to live like human beings. But the county just doesn’t seem to know how to act like human beings in a unifed political manner. The eastern crowd would prefer to think that the western crowd doesn’t exist with their failing city and waste management dump. Apparently they don’t like the smell and probably the color of that area. The rest of the divisions are too painfully numerous to detail and also to embarrassingly provincial.
So tonight as I write this I have little hope for Niagara County. And of course why should I then have any hope I’ll ever hear from Greg Lewis or any of the other Legislators as to what it is that prevents the Lewiston bridge and the power plant from being easily blown up other than the fact that the terrorists just have chosen not to do it. Why should they condescend to take me seriously? They are small-town, small minded elitists coveting their own little piece of a pitifully small pie. And why should I expect news coverage to be competent and legislators to be informed let alone real leaders? This is a crisis of competence, conscience, courage, integrity and self-respect. Not just a political crisis, but a human, cultural, educational and communicative crisis.
So call me pessimistic if you like. The accurate appellation is ‘realistic’ at this stage of the game. Any fool could see as much. Pretend if you like but, face it, we are in the shitter, literally and figuratively. And most around here have accepted this seemingly as normal and they maybe even kind of like it. Hopefully the bus loads of Japanese won’t find out.
16 comments:
It took 10 day's but that was a great post! No one even reads the idiot hobbes rants anymore, just look at the comments. Many times is either 0 or just the same person writing 3 comments. Lori Caso's cooking show should have the dump as a back drop, but LCTV is bought and paid for by BFI, no wonder Christy never had a chance. Ross and his gang knew about the truckloads and the dropped the classic line "I am shocked and appalled that the trucks are dumping here"
What's going on with RRG? What happened to their website? What about the meeting this Sept. 29th at Lew-Port auditorium regarding the cancer study for the area? Is there a media blackout?
Army Corp has stated the RAB is not trully representing the public and that's why they have been made RAB inconsequential. Everyone in the group should have a voice and not politicized by small group of individuals. The issue should not be partisan.
If you squash voices of people, you can't get the support you need for a common cause.
Democracy is not controlled by dictatorship.
I remember a time when I was part of RRG we had mobalized over 1700 people in the auditorium on the missguided siting plan by the DEC several years ago.
Where is the advocacy to inform the public? Isn't that the purpose of RRG and inform the public and mobalize the public to voice their questions to the Niagara County DOH?
You can't make choices for the public in secret and expect cooperation by the public if they don't know what's going on!
Is it all the fault of the Niagara County representatives, local politicians or is it their fault for dealing with couple of people thinking they are the voice of the people?
What happened to petions from the public on the issue? Remember what we did in the past? Why is this not going on now?
Where was RRG during the primary asking publically where the canidates stand on the issue? Don't be afraid to make waves. Making waves is the only way to get the politicians be on record for their choices and get support for your cause. This is non-partisan issue!
What happened to direct action and public involvement?
CWM is there because the State is not willing to address the critical issue about landfiling of toxic waste since the 1980's. There is a public comment period which will end in November and the public must be engaged to voice what we want as part of the siting plan that was released several months ago!
Homeland security? My husband and I have been voicing this for several years for security of the area around NFSS.
What is absolutely troubling is there is NO real time monitoring there.
Larry -- I'm curious...really, I am...as to why you think the Niagara County legislature is somehow responsible for the security of either the Lewiston-Queenston bridge (shared ownership between the federal govts. of the US and Canada), and the Niagara Power Project (solely owned by the state of NY under a joint water-use agreement between the US & Canada). And why your concern does not seem to extend to the Whirpool or Rainbow bridges just several miles down the road. Does your reasoning mean that the Peace Bridge should be protected by Erie County or perhaps the city of Buffalo, because that's where it lands specifically? And, do you really believe they are unprotected? Simply because you can't see it? What qualifications do you have to ascertain whether or not a facility is secure? At best, Niagara County law enforcement is one piece of a complicated puzzle of law enforcement that starts at the federal level -- Border Patrol, FBI, Coast Guard, and so on.
Frankly, I might have ignored you as well, because uninformed questions will never be answered to the questioner's satisfaction.
Your efforts at humor and snark to make your point lose credibility when you start throwing things against the wall to see what sticks. A valid point quickly descends into a rant, which makes it oh-so-easy to dismiss by those who would prefer to avoid the issue. You do yourself a disservice. Shame, really, because I believe somewhere in there was a good point buried under a pile of "everybody else sucks, especially Republicans."
Hobbes' site has become less relevent for the very same reasons, it's just that he/she sits on the other side of the aisle. But at least with his site, the reader knows that going in.
Pirate,
I think your Republicanism is showing and because of that you’re not listening. I’m not saying that the NC Leg is responsible for security. I simply asked them, Greg Lewis and Jason Murgia who was willing to talk to me about this, to help me understand why I should believe this is taken care of, given it’s the Republican watch that gave us 9/11 in the first place. I never got anything remotely close to any convincing or comforting answer. I’m perfectly willing to include the Rainbow and Whirlpool in the question. It’s just that the plant and Lewiston-Queenston seem so obviously, painfully more vulnerable given their place and value, the plant obviously power and the Lewiston obviously heavy truck traffic.
Personally I’m quite done trusting government, especially one degenerated into bureaucracy, irrationality and a legitimation mechanism for business. Yes, I do believe they are unprotected. Just as I believe the Mexican border is unprotected. And you ask what qualifications I have to act as a concerned citizen? Wow, that really smells of the kind of elitism that insists I or any citizen have to have some sort of credentialed specialization (in WHAT?) to respond to what common sense, a little deduction and healthy suspicion and historical perspecdtive tells me. And what would it mean for me to be informed such that you might take me seriously? Would I have to agree with you and an unresponsive condescending patronizing Legislature that doesn’t know any more than I do. But they won’t talk to me or try to find out because they probably don’t know how. Jason Murgia is trying. The rest are poseurs.
What’s “sticking” is 75,000 tons of toxic waste not what you accuse me of throwing on the wall “to see what sticks.” You really need to give up this defensiveness with respect to the poor Republicans. I don’t care, I say again, what they are. They don’t really stand for anything politically substantive, innovative or promising anyhow. They are pragmatists who can’t see much further down the road than apparently John McCain can. Even a conservative like George Will has dumped McCain’s sorry and quite pathetic ass. And you really need to give up the notion that I’m some kind of Democratic operative. The Repubs are in power and they don’t really care about anything that isn’t measureable in tax breaks. The Dems would undoubtedly do no better. I have no confidence in these two parties. Check out the collusion in the national bailout. Two names one party and purpose. They always in the end seem to complement one another’s pro-big business/Wall street/Empire agenda.
Why didn’t anyone know these trucks were coming into Niagara? If they did know and didn’t say anything let alone do anything about it, its even worse. They are infinitely more pathetic than McCain. Surely if you’re a conservative you’ve got to be a little upset about them being asleep at the wheel over the BWM fiasco? Don’t you care about the environment in NC?
Hobbes is an apologist and obviously a paid publicist of sorts. I’m looking for some way of thinking about things that might open up some new thinking. But when I smell bullshit I have to call it what I see it to be.
Maziarz could do so much more with his power and popularity than pussyfoot around with the brain dead bureacrats who have had their mind long since made up about the waste deal. He is impotent and even more pathetic than the rest of them. It is insulting to suggest I should give them the benefit of the doubt especially given their whole history.
Sorry but I can’t be more cordial about this. I’m pissed, disgusted and have no confidence in our political establishment, local and national. …. But it’s always good to hear from you.
Pirate,
I think your Republicanism is showing and because of that you’re not listening. I’m not saying that the NC Leg is responsible for security. I simply asked them, Greg Lewis and Jason Murgia who was willing to talk to me about this, to help me understand why I should believe this is taken care of, given it’s the Republican watch that gave us 9/11 in the first place. I never got anything remotely close to any convincing or comforting answer. I’m perfectly willing to include the Rainbow and Whirlpool in the question. It’s just that the plant and Lewiston-Queenston seem so obviously, painfully more vulnerable given their place and value, the plant obviously power and the Lewiston obviously heavy truck traffic.
Personally I’m quite done trusting government, especially one degenerated into bureaucracy, irrationality and a legitimation mechanism for business. Yes, I do believe they are unprotected. Just as I believe the Mexican border is unprotected. And you ask what qualifications I have to act as a concerned citizen? Wow, that really smells of the kind of elitism that insists I or any citizen have to have some sort of credentialed specialization (in WHAT?) to respond to what common sense, a little deduction and healthy suspicion and historical perspecdtive tells me. And what would it mean for me to be informed such that you might take me seriously? Would I have to agree with you and an unresponsive condescending patronizing Legislature that doesn’t know any more than I do. But they won’t talk to me or try to find out because they probably don’t know how. Jason Murgia is trying. The rest are poseurs.
What’s “sticking” is 75,000 tons of toxic waste not what you accuse me of throwing on the wall “to see what sticks.” You really need to give up this defensiveness with respect to the poor Republicans. I don’t care, I say again, what they are. They don’t really stand for anything politically substantive, innovative or promising anyhow. They are pragmatists who can’t see much further down the road than apparently John McCain can. Even a conservative like George Will has dumped McCain’s sorry and quite pathetic ass. And you really need to give up the notion that I’m some kind of Democratic operative. The Repubs are in power and they don’t really care about anything that isn’t measureable in tax breaks. The Dems would undoubtedly do no better. I have no confidence in these two parties. Check out the collusion in the national bailout. Two names one party and purpose. They always in the end seem to complement one another’s pro-big business/Wall street/Empire agenda.
Why didn’t anyone know these trucks were coming into Niagara? If they did know and didn’t say anything let alone do anything about it, its even worse. They are infinitely more pathetic than McCain. Surely if you’re a conservative you’ve got to be a little upset about them being asleep at the wheel over the BWM fiasco? Don’t you care about the environment in NC?
Hobbes is an apologist and obviously a paid publicist of sorts. I’m looking for some way of thinking about things that might open up some new thinking. But when I smell bullshit I have to call it what I see it to be.
Maziarz could do so much more with his power and popularity than pussyfoot around with the brain dead bureacrats who have had their mind long since made up about the waste deal. He is impotent and even more pathetic than the rest of them. It is insulting to suggest I should give them the benefit of the doubt especially given their whole history.
Sorry but I can’t be more cordial about this. I’m pissed, disgusted and have no confidence in our political establishment, local and national. …. But it’s always good to hear from you.
Joe n,
That's really funny about Caso's show having the dump as a backdrop. She probably wouldn't even know the difference. .... I wouldn't be surpised that Ross & Co. knew about the dumping this summer. But do you have any evidence of that? If Maziarz really knew nothing about it, that could only mean he really doesn't have the clout we think. Or he is collaborating in this and is just making himself look good by pretending he's fighting it. I'm not buying it in the least.
Very sorry about the double post. I don't know what the hell I'm doing. I must be double clicking or something. I really don't love my posts that much. I'm just at times technologically challenged.
Well, Larry, in your hyperbolic rage you apparently missed my point...or, giving you the benefit of the doubt, maybe I didn't make it very well.
I agree with you on the toxic issue. Really, I do. It's just that it would be so much easier to comprehend and discuss if you didn't ladle so much other "stuff" in the specific discussion. It has zip to do with my Republicanism. Rather, it has everything to do with my experience and belief that such scattershot, broadside, throw-it-all-into-the-mix rants (sorry, can't think of a better word right now) diminishes your primary point. Doing so makes it extremely easy for the devious and the lazy to ignore you.
And my asking about your qualifications to judge the security of anything is hardly elitism. You state, rather pointedly at times, that those facilities are unprotected. And, in doing so, you seem to want to place blame for that lack of security. So I ask, how do you know? Do you have some inside knowledge that there is inadequate security? And on what basis do you believe it to be inadequate? What, in your mind, constitutes adequate security? By the way, I am not suggesting your questions are without merit, but you might be more persuasive if you backed it up with something more substantive than "they are not secure because I say so." That, professor, is elitism at its worst.
Further, asking the Niagara County legislature about security at an international crossing is a bit like asking your auto mechanic about the mole on back.
I will take you at your word that your current outrage is non-partisan. However, your rhetoric doesn't match that. For instance, you seem to want to blame 9/11 on the GOP because they were in charge at the time. Your reasoning is, in my belief, flawed in that it views terrorism as a snapshot in time, but what the heck.
Using that same standard, then, would you agree that the Democrats should be held solely and completely responsible for the toxic waste issue here because the trucks began rolling to Lewiston under the watch of a Dem governor and a Dem assembly, with the assistance of beaurocrats appointed by the Dems? By that measure, shouldn't it be Assemblywoman Francine Delmonte with the bullseye? After all, she's a Dem, allegedly tight with both the Governor and Sheldon Silver. Really, Francine is so powerful and entrenched that the GOP can't seem to find a viable candidate to challenge her. So, why do you not hold her to the same standard you want to hold Maziarz? After all, while Maziarz is in the majority within the Senate, the GOP is clearly in the minority when it comes to the totality of state government.
Free advice is worth what you pay for it, professor, but please consider this in the spirit of open and honest discussion.
If you "don't buy it in the least" -- whatever "it" is -- fine, go with it. I would offer, however, that making thinly veiled accusations of collusion disguised as a question is no better, and perhaps worse, than much of what you seem so angry about. Such hyperbole may rile up the fanatics, but it tends to lose steam quickly with the rest of us.
By the way, don't worry about cordiality with me...I have a pretty thick skin (and, some might say, an equally thick skull). If the worst that is said about me in any given day is the my Republicanism is showing, well, that's not so awful. My personal politics are more firmly rooted in the middle of the road than you might expect.
You could argue that that makes me wishy-washy, but I've learned over the years that being in the middle of the road makes it easier to see what's on either side. If you spend all your time on one extreme edge, you never get to see the other side.
I have to agree with Joe N on this one. The Caso comment was pretty good.
Pirate,
Thanks for the calm and dispassionate analysis. Honestly. Still I think we are in basic disagreement. I don’t apologize for my anger except for the apparent fact that it’s throwing more heat than light if your analysis is right. From my corner of the world right now anger if not rage seems appropriate if not the normal or even healthy response.
If my “rant” could possibly shake up the powers that be whether Maziarz, Delmonte, the Leg, Lewis or whomever such that they would grow the “balls” to do something non-bureaucratic, then it is justified. Do you really expect me to believe that our so-called leadership is going to respond to any rational discourse when I haven’t been able to experience anything close to that with anybody but you since I decided to try to comprehend what goes on in Niagara County. I see a quite removed condescending bunch of entrenched bureaucrats and their wannabee understudies, drifting further out of touch with people, having an excuse for this being the best of all possible worlds and promising that it will definitely be better in a future that never comes.
My questions regarding homeland security is based on my being able to drive up the Robert Moses, stop my car over the power plant or under the L-Q bridge long enough to blow it up if I were a terrorist. Nothing would stop me as far as common sense can tell.
But you require that I be some sort of “expert” to ask a common sense question. Do all citizens have to be experts in all things in order to have the justification to inquire and question and expect a respectable response?
So it seems that my anger isn’t acceptable; rational discourse and reasonable argumentation gets no response and now my common sense doesn’t count either. Gee it seems that this is the way the Leg treats citizens also. What would count or work for you? That I be one of the bureacrats who are dragging the country, the state and the county into the gutter? And if I were one of those “in the know,” then I couldn’t talk anyhow for reasons of security. That's bullshit at best but a very nice catch-22. No, I’m not buying these elitist power plays. These people who are so smoothly composed and “reasonably” going about solving our problems in the “right channels and venues” according to protocol and propriety are impotent, myopic failures who don’t even know they are poseurs.
And your analogy that asking the Leg about an international crossing is like asking my mechanic about a mole on my back also misses the point. I’m not asking the Leg to be Homeland Security. I’m asking them to give some semblance of evidence that would assure the citizens-- other than the “true believers” of course who faithfully need no assurance, reason nor evidence-- that we in fact do have preventative mechanisms in place. But since the Leg also know people like me have no power and that they can count on most of our citizenry to consider someone such as myself to be a crackpot anyhow, they arrogantly scoff, smirk and ignore me.
Maybe I do call out Maziarz more than I do Delmonte, but if you don’t get that I’m non-partisan by now, I give up. And regarding your deduction about who’s responsible for the toxic waste build-up, please don’t try to drag me into that meaningless morass of party self-justification and partisan puffing up and putting down. It’s useless and to me irrelevant. It seems to me that the parties always manage to complement one another enough that the same problems remain, the same people stay in power and in the money and each has enough semblance of reason to always blame the other as the real source of our problems. Both parties are simultaneously both good guys and bad guys. It's a nice effective racket and I don't buy that either.
Moreover I do accuse our representatives of collusion with the state. Not in the sense of consciously participating in the planning and execution of turning NC into a wasteland, but in continuing to do what doesn’t work and telling the people they will try it again. What is it they call someone who continues to do the same ineffective actions over and over and yet still expects different results? Ummm crazy? Stupid? Or blindly collusive in what they really know is as such a losing cause. But they are comfortable and basking in self-importance and keeping their friends and family fat and happy. So who cares if a chunk of the county is the Eastern Seaboard’s cess pool. Let’s just “let it go” as the hopelessly pathetic Hobbes said. He, like Smolinski tonight on Access to Government, rationalize the state’s actions because it would cost the poor beleagered State too much to ship the shit elsewhere. Meanwhile Smolinski totally forgets the fact that for a few bucks more the State could have processed the waste on site. But it’s cheaper to ship it to the hapless Niagara Countians. They are gutless and prideless enough to take it, rationalize it and then just “let it go” sticking our heads back in the sand and pretending it’s not there or won’t really hurt us, especially if you happen to live far enough away form the actual dump site, like Maziarz.
This is time for radical action. Even a massive petition drive maybe, led by the politicians. But I prefer taking to the streets. I think Maziarz did do some halfhearted mailing but what did it get us.
The real reason the politicians didn’t want anyone to know that they knew about the dumping here back in July is that they feared that the people would maybe actually take action without them and get something done. Maziarz and Delmonte could take such action to the streets and enough would follow that something might happen. As I said before I’d be happy to go to jail for this cause with Maziarz and Delmonte. But, no, I’m not foolish enough to think that anybody would follow the crackpot professor. So I won't be leading any marches in the near future. But I would participate one led by our respectable fearless leaders. As Lao Tzu said, “Fight no battles you’re not sure you can win beforehand.”
In brief, we need mass action by the people. We need to attract attention. I give our leaders credit that they could do it if they had the guts and could step outside their blinders and complacency long enough to see the possibility. But apparently they are smugly above what it will now take to be in integrity and salvage our environment. Apparently they aren’t inspired by King nor Gandhi.
You seem to think this is fanaticism. Fanaticism is suppressing your own self-respect so long that allowing others to shit on you is normal. Fanaticism is expecting self-abuse to be seen as justifiable for fiscal reasons, and state neglect as inevitable or acceptable. Fanaticism is trying to use bureaucratic promises to cover up political impotence.
E.E. Cummings once said, “A salesman is an ‘it’ that stinks excuse.” I suspect we could substitute ‘politician’ or 'bureaucrat' for salesman and not compromise the insight.
Couple of quick hits while I try to earn a living...
@larry -- "Maybe I do call out Maziarz more than I do Delmonte, but if you don’t get that I’m non-partisan by now, I give up. And regarding your deduction about who’s responsible for the toxic waste build-up, please don’t try to drag me into that meaningless morass of party self-justification and partisan puffing up and putting down. It’s useless and to me irrelevant."
I didn't drag you into that, you took a full swan dive into it with your not-so-subtle suggestion that the GOP was responsible for 9/11 because it was on their watch. I was only applying the same rationale to the toxic shipments issue. Don't like it? OK, then don't do it.
@larry -- "My questions regarding homeland security is based on my being able to drive up the Robert Moses, stop my car over the power plant or under the L-Q bridge long enough to blow it up if I were a terrorist. Nothing would stop me as far as common sense can tell."
When you are on the Moses, you are not over the plant. You are over the forebay. If you are heading north, to your right is the pumped storage facility, which makes energy only at peak periods. The "plant" is on the face of and below the gorge. Unfortunately, this is one of those areas where common sense doesn't tell the whole story. I have some experience with securing very large, critical facilities and I can tell you that sometimes the best security is that which you and I can't readily see. That said, the pragmatist in me says that, short of an invisible force field around such facilities, no one can ever guarantee absolute security. In today's world, that just doesn't exist.
@larry -- "So it seems that my anger isn’t acceptable; ..."
I don't believe I ever said that. Anger is allowed and, sometimes, encouraged. Focused anger, in my experience, tends to be far more effective in accomplishing something. At least, it works better for me.
Now, where did I put my Xanax...?
Pirate/Other interested participants:
To assume that the Bush Repubs were responsible for 9/11 is in no way to draw all the implications and alignments of “party-sanism” that you want to make it appear that I draw. It is not unfair or inaccurate to make that judgement without my judgement being made to mean that I’m trying to score democratic points. That’s merely manipulative rhetoric if not just bad logic. Why?...
…. Because, my first assumption is that the two parties are functionally one party that use the ruse of “conflict” and “disagreement” to keep people falsely preoccupied with national unity, America first, cooperation for the good of the people and all that kind of ideological fearmongering. The “parties” are like two lovers fighting over one having more orgasms than the other. The are both primarily the legitimating arm of Wall Street, the Militarists and the Corporatists. They function to control the masses in a variety of ways and to manage laws that facilitate uncompetitive pseudo-capitalism. We, the people, have been reduced to the status of a child who is so afraid that his parents will get divorced that he feels responsible for keeping them from fighting.
The problem is that you can’t help but assume I took “a full swan dive into” partisanism, because any mention of what one or the other does immediately implies inevitable partisanism to anyone such as yourself, “middle-of-the-roader” or not, who refuses to see the world in terms of any other political paradigm, model or theory. So the consequence logically is that one must either not participate or be interpreted by you as taking a position for one of the only two metaphysical possibilities that you allow. It’s like a dogmatic, fundamentalist Christianist saying you are either a Christian-like-me or you are going to hell. So by analogy I either talk like the “party-sans” or I am relegated to the hell of being merely academic, too intellectual or practically irrelevant. Conventional politics annihilates or de-politicizes any discussion that doesn’t talk in their language and terms.
Consequently, people like Ralph Nader are labeled spoilers because they don’t play the language and logic game that the corporate financiers want him to play. They want him to talk the talk of the “Republi-crats” such that the real issues affecting popular America never get discussed and consequently the language and concepts that could deal with our issues and problems never get created. They don’t want Nader and other real thinkers to spoil the illusion that real creative problem solving is taking place, when it’s not. They don’t want Nader to “spoil” the game which is comfortably fixed just like a casino is ‘fixed.’ American capitalism is reduced to politically protected gamblers making money from money without any ethical let alone political concern for the destruction of real economic value that is taking place.
Back to the power plant. So are you saying that if the kind of bomb that was used to blow up the hotel in Pakistan recently, a new kind of explosive, was blown up on that part of the parkway that power production would continue unscathed? Unless you tell me what you know further about that layout, because I don’t understand what you just described, I continue to doubt that significant damage would not be done.
I suspect you then agree however that the L-Q bridge over the parkway would be badly damaged. But it’s revealing that what I hear you say is that in effect both facilities are for all practical purposes unprotected and unprotectable. Is that not the case?
And you accuse me of rhetorical manipulation...? Larry, sometimes you are so full of shit that I don't know where to begin.
I wrote..."That said, the pragmatist in me says that, short of an invisible force field around such facilities, no one can ever guarantee absolute security. In today's world, that just doesn't exist."
You replied..."But it’s revealing that what I hear you say is that in effect both facilities are for all practical purposes unprotected and unprotectable. Is that not the case?"
How did you get from one to the other? There are protections at both facilities...some you can see, some you can't. Are they 100 percent, money-refunded, lifetime guaranteed? Of course not. Nothing in life is, and you know it.
You seem to want to hold me to a higher standard of absolute truth than you are willing to be held yourself.
You said..."I simply asked them, Greg Lewis and Jason Murgia who was willing to talk to me about this, to help me understand why I should believe this is taken care of, given it’s the Republican watch that gave us 9/11 in the first place."
Not that it happened on the GOP watch. No, you wrote that the Republicans "gave us 9/11." Yet, that is somehow not partisan, or party-san, as you prefer? Horseshit.
Other quick hits...?
--- Ralph Nader gets no traction not because he refuses to kowtow to corporate financiers, but because ...for decades... he has refused to have a conversation with you and me. He preaches. He condescends. He belittles. Which is all too bad, because he's wicked smart. I believe Ralph connects better with with those you accuse of holding him back because he does speak their language.
---It is not my fault that you don't understand the construction and operation of the facility you seem so direly concerned about. Look it up. NYPA has plenty of info on how the place works publicly available.
---And, no, I never said a massive explosion would not cause damage. I'm suggesting it may not be quite as catastrophic as you seem to imagine, based in part on past experience. If you'll recall (or look up), we all went through a version of what you fear when the Schoellkopf hydro plant was destroyed in a rock slide back in, I think, 1956. Were there hardships from that? Yes. Did our socio/economic structure collapse as a result? Hardly.
---And, finally...Yes, I completely agree that a very large bomb detonated on the parkway under the bridge could and probably would cause structural damage.
Would you agree that if my full coffee mug fell to the floor, the carpet might suffer damage? (I'll assume you said yes.) Should I then assume you believe that I have taken no precautions to prevent that from happening, at least to the degree I can control it?
If the only answer that will satisfy you is such an absolute, I am amazed you get through day-to-day life. What guarantee do you have that you won't be hit by a car? Have a heart attack? Be stung by roving horde of killer bees? Have you...can you...really plan for every possibile outcome?
Hello all:
Ah yes, Lori's Landfill Luncheonette located high-a-top the beautiful vista of the Chemical Waste Management (CWM) Lewiston Porter site. What an image...
I remember a very romantic and lovely restaurant high-up on top of a mountain in Phoenix. Not quite the same smells though.
.. Anyway..
Just as an FYI--ALL of the hubbub about these PCBs coming here is simply another false flag and "look over there" red herring being perpetrated upon the Niagara County public by false-flagging 'Astro-turfers,' at least one front organization and colusion-al/delusional local politicians.
Allow me to go on.
Am I happy that these materials are being brought here? No. Not at all or one bit. Was this a completely legal and contracted-for deal with the state DEC? Yes it was. Is there any reason that anyone would need to be "notified" that these legally contracted-for disposal materials were on their way--coming here? No. Was there any more danger from these loads being brought here than any other load at any other time? The short answer is no and probably a whole lot less dangerous than A. what's been brought there in the recent past--anyone remember Tom Brokaw's desk being buried there too just a few years back? And B., what's been buried there in the ground now for more than 60 years...and that's the huge amount of radioactivity in numerous forms, elements/compounds, states, etc including some extremely exotic and highly radioactive elements recently detected on private property (NOT controlled by US gov).
Anyone want to do a "further study" about why childhood and other cancer rates are so high around Lewiston Porter Youngstown Ransomville?
Wonder why cancer rates are so high?
While posing as a bedroom community and historic treasure, the area around the Lewiston landfill in specific, and in some other cases several parts of Niagara County, have become National Sacrifice Areas. That's an area so horribly contaminated as to not likely to be able to ever be cleaned up, rehabilitated or reinhabited by humans. That's the case for this land/landfill currently surrounded by residences, schools, farms, etc.
This situation has everything to do with both sides of the political isle and neither will do a thing other than posture and give pony rides. Bread and Circuses and Rodeo Clowns. All meant to distract, amuse and cause "contentment."
There's just no room for any political agendas when two categories of childhood cancer alone (not counting other diseases--yet statistically to us, unknown) are at double the rate expected by state health officials.
I would love for people to put down the polling-place boxing gloves and find the time to start looking for remedy.
There are NO FUTURE wastes that could have ALREADY caused increased disease rates TODAY.
Love Canal? Pffft! (Sorry Lois)
You haven't seen anything yet.
I don't want any more wastes brought here and even more importantly to me, would be for what's already here to be contained--as it is not currently and is likely to be having this direct deliterious health impact on each and every one of us, TODAY.
Best to all,
Lou Ricciuti-Nuclearlou
Hi Lou,
I certainly don't have any argument with the facts as you present them, as you well know. My feeling however was that you never know if making the latest insult to our environmental and hygienic integrity well known that it could begin the action or discussion that we want. Maybe I'm deluded to think that our political "leaders" might still launch some real social protest, but I can hope and dream, can't I. ... It seems to me that it's not merely another political agenda with ulterior motives to assert the necessity of social action other than that provided by conventional government. Such action, to my way of thinking, means that we've got to create some sense of community identity that believes it is entitled to health and well-being. But right now all we have is a bunch of isolated pockets of self-interested towns and groups that seem to care less about what is happening only a few miles away. Apparently all the information in the world and maybe even the highest disease rate in the country won't move people to unity and action. .... But what's your solution? .... By the way, great article in the ArtVoice.
Here's an idea : Change the name of Niagara Falls to Viagara Falls. The new logo could be "Come here to get it up the glow never goes down...."
D'ya think that Merck might just have a hissy fit and throw say 1 cent of every sale to prevent Viagara Falls from co-opting their co-op of Niagara's formerly proud and powerful name?
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