I’m just trying to wrap my head around the notion that ‘conservative leaning’ people tend to be hung up on the issue of whether or not the ‘objectors’ to capitalism are ‘successful’ or not…
Well, since there is no such thing as a ‘harmless’ form of capitalism, how the hell are these idiots defining ‘success’?
CG has been accused repeatedly of being a ‘jealous failure’ that couldn’t ‘make it’ in the ‘real world’. If he just had the sack to be an asshole to everyone he had contact with, he’d see just how ‘wonderful’ capitalism really is! Yes siree Bob, everybody ‘gets what they deserve’ under capitalism, that’s what makes it so ‘wonderful’!
Well good citizen, tonight’s offering is another sterling example of Capitalism at its finest, where the ignorance of the customer is exploited and the consequences of a broken eco-system becomes the problem of the community, not the profit chasing prick that created the hazard!
So, what are we supposedly ‘jealous’ of again?
[Hat tip: Cryptogon]
China’s ‘Cancer Villages’ Bear Witness to Economic Boom
September 19th, 2009
Becky runs a food-buying co-op. Both of the “organic” product wholesalers she deals with only sell products like beans, sunflower seeds and peanuts from China. The non-Chinese rice costs 3x to 4x more than the Chinese rice. Obviously, we consume no food from China, regardless of the fact that it’s certified organic.
Now, if this is what we’re dealing with, as batshit insane, lunatic fringe food extremists, what is the average person eating??? The New Zealand government’s lack of a country-of-origin requirement on products (especially food products) is a national disgrace. That the vast majority of people don’t care about this is a different matter. For the tiny fraction of kiwis who do, assume that “Packaged in Auckland” means “Product of China.”
Just be aware of the fact that A LOT of companies are using food products from China, including companies that purport to sell organic food. When buying food, we attempt to buy only whole, unprocessed foods and we don’t buy anything that doesn’t state the country of origin.
Via: Reuters:
One needs to look no further then the river that runs through Shangba to understand the extent of the heavy metals pollution that experts say has turned the hamlets in this region of southern China into cancer villages.
The river’s flow ranges from murky white to a bright shade of orange and the waters are so viscous that they barely ripple in the breeze. In Shangba, the river brings death, not sustenance.
“All the fish died, even chickens and ducks that drank from the river died. If you put your leg in the water, you’ll get rashes and a terrible itch,” said He Shuncai, a 34-year-old rice farmer who has lived in Shangba all his life.
“Last year alone, six people in our village died from cancer and they were in their 30s and 40s.”
Cancer casts a shadow over the villages in this region of China in southern Guangdong province, nestled among farmland contaminated by heavy metals used to make batteries, computer parts and other electronics devices.
Every year, an estimated 460,000 people die prematurely in China due to exposure to air and water pollution, according to a 2007 World Bank study.
Yun Yaoshun’s two granddaughters died at the ages of 12 and 18, succumbing to kidney and stomach cancer even though these types of cancers rarely affect children. The World Health Organization has suggested that the high rate of such digestive cancers are due to the ingestion of polluted water.
“It’s because of Daboshan and the dirty water,” said the 82-year-old grandmother. “The girls were always playing in the river, even our well water is contaminated,” Yun told Reuters during a visit to the village.
The river where the children played stretches from the bottom of the Daboshan mine, owned by state-owned Guangdong Dabaoshan Mining Co Ltd, past the ramshackle family home. Its waters are contaminated by cadmium, lead, indium and zinc and other metals. [Ah, notice how it is the ‘dirty commies’ that pollute the water at will, we can leave the issue of ‘chasing profits’ out of it (even though they are)]
The villagers use well water in Shangba for drinking but tests published by BioMed Central in July show that it contains excessive amounts of cadmium, a heavy metal that is a known carcinogen, as well as zinc which in large quantities can damage the liver and lead to cancer.
“China has many ‘cancer villages’ and it is very likely that these increased cases of cancer are due to water pollution,” said Edward Chan, an official with Greenpeace in southern China. [It’s not just ‘cheaper wages’ that drove US companies (and their peers) to Communist (Ha!) China.]
But it’s not just water, the carcinogenic heavy metals are also entering the food chain.
Mounds of tailings from mineral mining are discarded alongside paddy fields throughout the region.
“If you test this rice, it will be toxic but we eat it too, otherwise, we will starve,” said He, the farmer, as he shoveled freshly milled rice into a sack. “Yes, we sell this rice too.”
Now I want to ask my capitalist readers if this is just a case of Commies being Commies…why aren’t the capitalists being held responsible? Worse is the fact that you don’t need to travel to China to find such blatant violations of the health codes, you can find ‘em right here too!
Why can you find them here? For the EXACT SAME reason they occur there, it’s more ‘profitable’ than doing the ‘right thing/way’.
A pig is a pig and when it comes to profits the labels of communist and capitalist no longer apply. The only thing that matters is being high enough on the food chain to get away with such shameless stunts.
So, how are the idiot conservatives ‘measuring’ success? Naturally, their yardstick measures dollars and not the body bags that are connected to those dollars.
You know, there’s only one way to stop the rape/despoiling of the planet and that way is to remove the profit from it.
We literally have to stop paying dick head for wrecking the place but to do this we need to gain control over the money supply.
Regardless of what happens, we have to wrest the money supply away from the thieves, who are paying themselves for nothing because they can…
Anyway, thanks for letting me inside your head,
Gegner
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