tumbled by sol chrom

Workers of the world, exfoliate!

Let’s imagine that instead of sending a handful of investigators from the ATF and the Chemical Safety Board to West, Texas, we marshaled every local, state and federal resource available to discover the exact sequence of events that led to the explosion. Let’s imagine that the question—Why?—became so urgent that the nation simply could not rest until it had overdetermined the answers. We’d discover that OSHA hadn’t inspected the plant in 28 years—did this play a role in the disaster? If it’s found that the company that owns the plant, Adair Grain, violated safety regulations, as it had last year at another facility, we might call it criminal negligence and attribute culpability. But would we ascribe ideology? And which ideology would we indict? Deregulation? Austerity? Capitalism? Would we write headlines that say—Officials Seek Motive in Texas Fertilizer Explosion?

Boston, West, Newtown: For Whom the Bells Toll, For Whom the Alarms Ring | The Nation

Source: thenation.com

Rather than attacking the Conservatives to demonstrate their political might, the NDP has chosen to attack Socialists. They’ve framed this discussion by arguing that the current language is outdated, as if socialism is a relic of the past best suited for TV docudramas of Tommy Douglas and history classes. To do this, socialism has been posited in such a way that reinforces the lie that it isn’t democratic unless the adjective “democratic” modifies it.

The NDP stumbles over the ‘S’ word: Strategy | rabble.ca

Via Nora Loreto. (@NoLore)

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Source: rabble.ca

I guess what’s really infuriating is that while we socialists are forced to trumpet our democratic bona fides and loudly signal our distaste for grey coveralls, our ideological opposite numbers in the capitalist camp are barely even pretending to be democratic anymore: bond markets lose their shit if voters choose the wrong dudes; elected governments cross their fingers that their policies won’t run afoul of any free trade deals they’ve signed onto, or of the more powerful, German-speaking members of the monetary unions of which they’re members; China by and large continues to be everyone’s favourite economic miracle; and I’d continue this list but it’s just been prorogued by Stephen Harper (that’s if you haven’t received a robocall informing you that this article has been moved).

Of ‘illegal immigrants’ and ‘democratic socialism’ | rabble.ca

H/t Erika Shaker and Nora Loreto.

Source: rabble.ca