Towheeblog

When the truth is laid out, the fact that it is true, or lie, will become self-evident.

Theory: There is not enough essential work to keep a Capitalist population employed in meaningful work for a living wage for 40 hours a week. Human dignity is enhanced by being employed in meaningful work. We have been taught that more is better, so we create meaningless jobs.  We create gewgaws and temporary fads, or tons of useless paper work. Make-work is counter-productive, and often creates Eco-destruction. Unemployment benefits and welfare are acceptable to some, but others find them destructive of personal dignity.  Equal access to work for value and leisure for everyone would need a complete revision of our society. We would not have a “working class” and a “leisure class;” Everyone would share the work, everyone would share the output and the leisure.

We have created a world where oligarchs and politicians can excuse any of their own greed or Eco-destruction with the mantra “Jobs, jobs, jobs.” A current example is Jordan Cove.

IF we agree to allow Canada to send their dirty material through private and public USA land. a great swatch will be cut through states, under rivers, through pristine public, private and sovereign Indian land. Every inch of that land and every gallon of that river water will be in danger of leaks and spills. It is what pipelines do. Any promise to the contrary is simply a lie. Pembina is clearly well financed; they are flooding our lives with ads claiming the value to us all of the Jordan Cove project. Needless to say, that is not true.

Raw material will be processed into Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) in a great refinery in Coos Bay. First the refinery has to be built (creating jobs). Once that refinery is built on any parcel of land, the earth beneath and around it will be for ever polluted beyond any future use. This will become a Superfund site to be placed on a list by the EPA, to wait for the time when public funds are available to clean it up. (a nasty job for someone way in the future). Pembina will deny this, then, when it happens, they will walk away.

Then there will be some jobs to process the dirty material through the refinery. But, the refinery will emit poisons into the air, when it processes the raw product. Workers and the neighborhood will live (or die) with those emissions. The dirty part of the product will stay in Oregon, the clean part of the product will go to China, the profit will go to Canada.

The cleaned product will be loaded into great tankers for shipment to China, but, first, Coos Bay port access must be made deep enough for the tankers to get in and out. Blasting the ocean floor, to deepen it, creates jobs, but kills ocean life and habitat.

In the end, the workers will have produced more fossil fuel And, as we know, the use of that fuel will make new contribution to global Climate damage — the exact opposite result of the goal we should be seeking, renewable energy, as we see our world deteriorate.

We are being overwhelmed by ads for Jordan Cove. They give the appearance of protection of beautiful terrain being the primary target. Don’t let them fool you — they are looking to line their huge bank accounts at our expense. Thousands of Oregonians, the Canadian voters, Jackson County Commissioners, and every critical thinking human being are saying “No!” to Jordan Cove. Please join us.

As we keep insisting on economic growth so that profits and CEo salaries can continue to rise, we will eventually hit a wall.  The US has already reached peak stuff….look at the millions of square feet of private storage filled with crud nobody needs or wants.  To avoid violent populism many nations will have to move toward guaranteed income but that also will require social change so that somebody doing something that is not profitable is not considered a loser.  Growing milkweed to help monarchs [butterflies, not kings] survive should become as honorable as being a plumber or cop.  We already have way too many jobs that make only money but produce nothing–look at Wall Street, hedge funds, money launderers, advertising industry.