Legacy.

          Sunny Florida, still in the grip of covid19 has now been hit with another emergency. It appears that a 77 acre reservoir holding millions of gallons of water containing phosphorous and nitrogen from an old phosphate plant is leaking into the surrounding neighbourhood, mainly agricultural land. A state of emergency has been declared, more than 300 homes have been evacuated and a highway closed.
         The Governor's statement saying that it was mainly salt water, mixed with "legacy process water and storm water run off", was I suppose meant to calm the residents. However, that is only part of the truth, The area where the leak was found is in a stack of phosphate-gypsum, a radioactive waste from the manufacture of fertiliser. That to me is not just salt water. Once again the mass corporate production leaves behind it a legacy of destruction, pollution and poison and little regard to the consequences of their profit seeking process.

The leak was discovered at the reservoir at Piney Point.  Reuters photo.                               
 

         This capitalist system seems to be excellent at coming up with processes that are supposed to enhance our lives but leave a trail of pollution and poisons that will destroy the life of the planet. Our world is awash with chemical dumps, arms dumps, nuclear dumps and other waste dumps, all growing by the day, and all in the name of profit. The corporate bodies reap the rewards, the public reap the whirlwind of ever occurring disasters. To clean up these "waiting in the wings" disasters, we need to clean up our economic system.
          We need to move away from the profit motive for everything, to a mode of production that is controlled by the people and for the needs of all the people in a sustainable manner. We need to remember that capitalism is just a man made economic system, that fails to meet the needs of all our people and can easily be replaced with another man made economic system that puts fairness and the needs of all our people as its aim, but based on the fact the planet is our only home and we must preserve and nurture it for our survival and that of the coming generations. 

 

Tomorrow’s World!

See the fat cat’s grinning smile
as Corporate Capitalism runs amok,
chasing profit as it goes
firing millions of ordinary folk.
Raping and polluting land after land,
starting bloody wars.
Toxic waste, sweat shop wages
and oil covered sea shores.
Where have all the flowers gone
beneath this ozone free sky?
To join the birds, to join the fox
on yonder plutonium field to die.
Mercury fish, strontium lamb
trees that never show a leaf,
radio active beaches, toxic streams
good lean BSE-antibiotic beef.
In a world of epidemic, plague and famine
it’s bottled water and chemical food.
Of course, it’s all tested on rats and mice
so you know its got to be good.
Beneath a sky that’s always black,
hurricane winds and endless drought,
its oxygen masks for the toxic air,
corporate profit’s what its all about.

 

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk   

A Reminder From The Not So Distant Past.

      Five years ago I wrote up the following piece, that's another five years of slow painful death to the people who live around the River Citarum, the world's most polluted river. There is a sort of attempt to clean this long channel of death and disease, but it will not put a stop to the polluters, there is too much money and profit involved. Western consumerism must still be fed, no matter the price to humanity, no matter the slow and painful deaths of the innocent who never see those luxury goods that poison their lives.

Friday 2nd May 2014,

Murder Withe Intent:

       "You walk through the air conditioned shopping mall and are surrounded by an array of colourful shiny shops, all displaying a kaleidescope of goods. They are all there, H&M, Gap, Adidas, and others, it all looks so innocent. However, a lot of the merchandise of these companies is manufacture in Indonesia, along the banks of the once beautiful River Citarum. A river that for centuries was the survival line for millions of people. They fished the river, they drank the water, it slaked the thirst of their animals, and it watered their fields of crops.

        Now thanks to the manufacturers of cheap goods for Western corporate names like the three mentioned above, the River Citarum is now a running sewer, as factories along its banks pour in a cocktail of toxic chemicals such as Mercury and other noxious poisons and waste. In spite of this the River Citarum, now among the dirtiest rivers in the world, is still drinking water to approximately 35 million people. Now the local trade has changed, instead of fishing, the local villages along its banks try to salvage rubbish from the river to sell, it's a living.

      Why should these people have to endure a range of horrific illness and the destruction of their way of life and livelihood, because corporations want to maximise their profits in the West? This is a form of slow mass murder, people will die from avoidable illnesses, others will live a life of poor and deteriorating health, all in the name of corporate profit. You kill somebody and steal their belongings, that's murder. You slowly kill thousands of people and steal their way of life, that's mass murder. It is not done through ignorance, these corporations are fully aware of the damage they are doing, fully aware of the consequences on the lives of those caught up in their greed driven quest for ever more profit. Not an impassioned murder, but cold blooded murder with intent."

       How long will it take us to accept we are complicit in this mass murder, our choices set the stage for the death of others, we can't continue with our capitalist dominated greed system and shrug our shoulders at the consequences to others. As we shape our lives, we shape the lives of those less fortunate. Under the present system our comfort and variety of choices, is dependent on the misery and death of others.. We can no longer say, we didn't know. We have to destroy the capitalist illusion that it brings prosperity to all, we know it doesn't and we know the results, unless we do something, we are complicit in this mass murder.

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

Capitalism Is Exploitation And Destruction.

 

       Every now and then our babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, spout an amazing disclosure, of a large company exploiting its workers. Of course this dreadful revelation implies that all the other companies and corporations are behaving impeccably, regards their treatment of their employees. The latest one for the UK is ASOS, facts are revealed about how shockingly the workers are treated. The nice little scheme devised by the firm who runs their warehouse, called "flexing", means being asked, at times at very short notice, to work overtime, and the extra hours will be paid to you away in the future. Of course refusing to "flex up", can see your job in jeopardy. Not so long ago it was Sports Direct and its policies of zero hours contracts, penalties and intimidation.

        Of course we all know, or should know, the entire capitalist system is based on exploitation. As far as these two greedy arsehole companies are concerned, they are small fry. It is their immediate employees that they try to screw. However, the big boys in the capitalist game, well, they go for anybody and everybody. The general public, employees, the environment, all fair game to be polluted, exploited, plundered and left to stew the mess the corporate greed machine leave behind. Remember Bhopal?

       The entire list of large corporations can all be stood in the court of decent human behaviour and be found guilt. The ravishes inflicted on our planet, the destruction of the entire world environment, causing unpredictable climate change, the pollution being spread across the earth, causing illnesses and suffering, and the extinction of thousands of the planet's species. All this is not a natural phenomenon, it can all be laid at the feet of the greed driven corporate world and the system of capitalism on which it is based.

This from Labour Rights:

Coca-Cola

       Coca-Cola Company is perhaps the most widely recognized corporate symbol on the planet. The company also leads in the abuse of workers' rights, assassinations, water privatization, and worker discrimination. Between 1989 and 2002, eight union leaders from Coca-Cola bottling plants in Colombia were killed after protesting the company's labor practices. Hundreds of other Coca-Cola workers who have joined or considered joining the Colombian union SINALTRAINAL have been kidnapped, tortured, and detained by paramilitaries who are hired to intimidate workers to prevent them from unionizing.
        In India, Coca-Cola destroys local agriculture by privatizing the country's water resources. In Plachimada, Kerala, Coca-Cola extracted 1.5 million liters of deep well water, which they bottled and sold under the names Dasani and BonAqua. The groundwater was severely depleted, affecting thousands of communities with water shortages and destroying agricultural activity. As a result, the remaining water became contaminated with high chloride and bacteria levels, leading to scabs, eye problems, and stomach aches in the local population.
         Coca-Cola is also one of the most discriminatory employers in the world. In the year 2000, 2,000 African-American employees in the U.S. sued the company for race-based disparities in pay and promotions.

       For more on the companies that make up the world's 14 worst corporate, people and planet destroyers, well known names such as, Nestles USA, Monsanto, Dow Chemical, Pfizer, Kellogs group, and see the true face of the capitalist cancer that is killing the population and destroying the planet, 

Read HERE:

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk