Access of evil
What a foul ruthless disgusting privileged shameless contemptible bastard George Bush is. Not that this is a news flash…but new instances of it can still cause the jaw to drop with revulsion and loathing.
The Labor Department is racing to complete a new rule, strenuously opposed by President-elect Barack Obama, that would make it much harder for the government to regulate toxic substances and hazardous chemicals to which workers are exposed on the job. The rule, which has strong support from business groups, says that in assessing the risk from a particular substance, federal agencies should gather and analyze “industry-by-industry evidence” of employees’ exposure to it during their working lives. The proposal would, in many cases, add a step to the lengthy process of developing standards to protect workers’ health.
Bastard. Evil smirking selfish protected shameless little bastard. He’s never had to work around toxic substances and hazardous chemicals, his children will never have to work around toxic substances and hazardous chemicals, none of his friends and relations will ever have to work around toxic substances and hazardous chemicals – so what is it to him if other people do have to? So their lungs get seared – so their GI tracts get abraded – so they get cancer – so what? That’s their problem. They should have been born to rich parents if they wanted to work in safe conditions.
Scum. The man is scum. It’s not possible to despise him enough.
He probably has economic advisers preaching the free-market faith to him, telling him that regulations will only hurt workers more, and that if workers truly wanted to be free from toxic chemicals the invisible hand would make it happen.
Well, I’d put it a little differently. He’s surrounded by people who employ workers as opposed to being workers, so they all like rules that make it easier and cheaper for them to make their workers use hazardous chemicals, and the free-market faith provides cover for them to pretend to believe that workers are better off without safety regulations. I don’t think any of them actually believes that for a second.
FYI, your link is wrong – I assume you intended to link to Robert Pear’s NYT article.
antirealist is right.. The link is to the article linked on the B&W main page, here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/washington/30labor.html?_r=1&em
But Bush is a bastard, scum. A bit like his twin in Ottawa, Stephen Harper, whose economic update on Wednesday took away the right to strike (for public sector employees) and rolled back the clock on equal pay for women. They’re a strange bunch, these social conservatives. What is it that they really want to conserve? Not the environment, not good working conditions, not any reasonable sense of tradition. What is conservative about them? Shameless bastards, as OB says.
What I don’t quite understand – and Americans might be able to enlighten me – is how Bush’s changing the rules can stick. Can’t Obama just reverse the tide when he becomes president?
Oops, I’ll fix the link.
I know only what I read in the article (and previous articles on Bush’s mad dash), Eric – that the rules will be hard to reverse if Bush gets them done in the next few days. Obama will have to start over rather than just striking them out with one blow of the pen. If the employer class is very lucky they will have a few extra months to let workers be harmed by hazardous chemicals. Yippee.
(just shakes head in disgust and goes away, not bothering…)
Off topic, sorry, but I wanted to say hearty congrats on “Voices of Unbelief” going off to the publisher. What stellar company you’re keeping in that list of contributors! I can hardly wait until it’s available.
You can bet that when Obama reserves these rules, he’ll be accused of “class war.”
Would that be ‘reverses’ these rules Jakob?
(watches CP’s return with amusement & decides to stay, wondering whether an argument will be presented)
I don’t know all the ins and outs but as far as I can tell Bush is only attemmpting to add a mandatory public consultation phase to the process of establishing new health and safety regulations in the area of handling toxic chemicals. That’s right, isn’t it? I can see that that can be viewed as excessivley bureaucratic or even a deliberate delaying tactic but it might also, in some cases, lead to better, more rational legislation and the loss of fewer jobs (health and safety legislation does lead to job losses in some cases because it increases the costs of hiring – it doesn’t usually matter for skilled workers who can go elsewhere but it can hurt unskilled workers). Whichever, it is hard to see this as an act of evil, or to consider the people proposing it to be scum. It is surely too technical an issue for that sort of emotionalism.
John, why rush it then? why would it be a matter of such importance to Obama? I do not see what is so subjective in the hazard of chemicals requiring loops and loops of consultation. It would seem it would be more prudent to rush loops and loops of consultation in what banks are doing, wouldn’t it?
I guess it is being rushed for political reasons and I guess it is being opposed for political reasons too. I would, actually, like to see some substantial public consultation on any banking regulation, actually, if only to make them take notice of what Tyler Cowen has to say.
Sure it might lead to all sorts of things; it might lead to peace in the Middle East; but what it might do is not the same as what it’s likely to do or what it’s intended to do, so I’m not really all that mollified by what it might do. I think what it’s intended to do is the obvious: make it harder to protect workers from job hazards.
Oh and thanks, Josh – yeah it’s a fun crowd, isn’t it!
“I think what it’s intended to do is the obvious: make it harder to protect workers from job hazards.”
I don’t think that anyone could reasonably suppose that that was the intention of the piece of legislation. It is clearly designed to make it easier (less costly) for companies dealing in chemicals to trade. It might have the effect of making it harder to protect workers, and it might not.
Okay – no, you’re right in the sense that the intention is not to make it harder to protect workers for the sake of doing that, but the intention is to make it easier and less expensive for companies dealing in chemicals to trade by making regulation of worker hazards more difficult. That is of course always the issue. Labour costs are labour costs. But if the intention of a piece of legislation is to cut down on costs at the expense of worker safety, then that is what is going on.
I also think it’s bizarre to say the issue seems too technical for emotionalism. That seems like the same kind of insulated thinking that I attribute to Bush – the issue seems ‘technical’ only to people who will never have to work around hazardous chemicals. Crappy difficult dangerous working conditions are just that; what’s not to be emotional about?
“Labour costs are labour costs. But if the intention of a piece of legislation is to cut down on costs at the expense of worker safety, then that is what is going on.”
The legislation is unlikely to lower labour costs, but it will slow down the rise of labour costs and that will benefit some workers (typically the most vulnerable). As labour costs rise, employers will tend to replace employees with plant. The ones they replace will typically be the ones least able to find other work and that can be a bigger risk for those workers than the any slightly enlarged health risk mfrom a slightly more lax health and safety regime . That is why this is a technical issue that we should not get too emotional about. The issue should be, I think, what will best benefit the workers overall and it is not at all clear to me what that is in this case and I can’t see how anyone can be very sure in thei opinions, there are too many variables. This is just the sort of technical issue that we should be hedgy about. I think the strongest degree of conviction you could reasonably claim for a position on something like this is about 55%, but that is not the basis for a strong emotional response, just somehing like: ‘I believe that there is a slightly better than evens chance that this piece of legislation will result in more disbenefits for workers than benefits and so I cautiously oppose it’. It is not like there will be no legal protections for these workers after all.
No, that won’t fly. This isn’t just some isolated purely technical issue; it fits into a large context of economic interests and influences and a history of same. To put it more crudely, this is indeed class war. I think I can reasonably claim much more than 55% conviction that Bush and his cronies have zero interest in benefits for workers and a great deal of interest in benefits for employers. To be perfectly frank I don’t believe for a second that they are worrying about unskilled workers being displaced.
Jenavir, I take it back, you had it right. Sure enough, people do claim ‘that regulations will only hurt workers more.’
OB, do you seriously believe there can be no other story behind this than eeevil Darth Bush rebuilding the Death Star?
If I can quietly ask, how many here work in industries and workplaces that routinely deal with hazardous substances? There are a ton of regulations already stopping employers from wilfully letting “their lungs get seared – so their GI tracts get abraded – so they get cancer”. Even the general duty of care overwhelms any gaps in the thick and specific regulation.
I have been trained in managing workplace safety in an integrated mine and steelmaking business, and I call bullshit. The article you link is an opportunity to do honest reporting, wasted in playing a political one-string fiddle. And then you have taken it not just on its real face value, but perhaps even a teensy bit beyond.
I’ve worked in workplaces that dealt with hazardous substances in the past (it was in the past that I worked there, that is).
Have you trained in managing workplace safety in the US?
Nonsense about the Death Star aside – do you really believe there can be no other story behind this than Bush’s concern for the welfare of workers? Do you really believe that’s what this is about?
If so, do you know of any unions that favour this move? Do you know of anyone who favours it apart from ‘business interests’? (I don’t know the answer to that myself; I’d be very interested to know it if there are any.)
And what do you mean ‘opportunity to do honest reporting, wasted’? What, exactly, is not honest about the reporting? The article quotes the assistant secretary of labor for policy and a VP of the Chamber of Commerce. Where do we see the honesty deficit?
The NYT article is an act of politics, not reporting. It is framed as criticism of Bush, for going against Obama’s will in an administrative issue while (gasp) Bush is President. There is no information to allow anyone to decide if these rule changes are good, bad or neutral EXCEPT that Obama opposes them for unstated reasons. Honest reporting would have given some handle on the facts at issue, actual harms identified and/or the other viewpoint of the political discussion.
What is clear though is that the rule change is not about whether workers can legally be exposed to dangerous substances, but HOW the regulator is to obtain and treat evidence in framing the rules. I speculate it might be contentious because activists want to force data from badly-analogous situations to create rules to suit their pet causes in target industries.
Whatever the situation on the ground, your amazing torrent of invective sounds to me like something other than worker safety is driving it. The article makes it perfectly clear that if its a problem, it can be reversed by President Obama for the price of some minions to prepare the documentation.
One of the advantages of a Democrat President is the rest of the world will be spared the unedifying behaviour of really good and intelligent people acting crazed by hatred of their President.
“I think I can reasonably claim much more than 55% conviction that Bush and his cronies have zero interest in benefits for workers and a great deal of interest in benefits for employers.”
Leaving aside for the moment the question of whther these twothings are mutually exclusive (I am pretty sure that Bush tinks they are the same thing) I don’t see how you can be so convinced. Why is it obvious that Bush dosn’t care about the welfare of workers but the unions, for example, do? After all, we know that the piece of legislation will increae union power, why do we assume that that is not the main motive of the union? We would not be so generous with other organisations. Given that there is no data, isn’t it likely that confirmation bias is at work here? Nobody on this list can say with any degree of certaintly what the cost benefit outcome will be of passing this piece of legislation, so to reach an emotional pitch of denouncing people as ‘scum’ is amazingly disproportionate. ‘Scum’ fits people who throw chemicals in other peple’s faces, not those who disagree with us on the technical issue of how best to evaluate the precise degree of risk that is appropriate in handling chemicals for trade. After all, you do not yourself (I am assuming) believe that all risk should be removed from this business or others; would it be appropriate for someone who felt that all risk should be removed to describe you as, therefore, ‘evil’ and ‘scum’ (they probably do, by the way)?
Cutting through the ‘technical’ crap, there is a simple question here: why now? What was wrong with the situation before that had passed unnoticed for so many years, that it is now urgent to correct? Except, perhaps, that Capital fears its relation with Labour will not be quite so laxly supervised as they have been so far this century under a new administration? Else, frankly, why bother?
My guess, Dave, is that it is now because Bush has nothing left to lose and putting this measure through earlier would have been politically nightmarish because of the way it would have been spun by his political enemies. This is a traditional part of the American political round, isn’t it?
If you think that another politician will act any differently, I think you are being naive.
Well, let me be naïve then. First, you argue it’s a technicality; now you say it would be a political nightmare. So, what is it?
Personally, I think it’s indeed a very very low standard to rush legislations in place at the end of a term of which you shy away at the beginning. It will not be the first case of this but here it comes from somebody who didn’t just say he was on moral high ground, he is the one that claimed to own it!
The process, it seems, is a normal part of the US political cycle, though the content of the packages might not be, see this from December 2000:
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/dec2000/nf20001213_611.htm
Note how the author throws up his hands in horror at the negative effect on business of Clinton’s ‘favoring labor, environmental, and consumer groups’. Some of the quotes are juicy. Which leads me to remark that turnabout is fair play, and we can call GWB anything we dam’ well like.
“Well, let me be naïve then. First, you argue it’s a technicality; now you say it would be a political nightmare. So, what is it?”
It is both. It is a technical question the consequences of which it is very hard to accurately predict and at the same time, very difficult politically because of the way it will be (is being) played.
And I have no intention of defending Bush as a politician but he is hardly the first one to claim the moral high ground. I can think of one prominent US politician who has actually claimed to be god’s instrument on earth, but he gets an easier ride around here (probably because nobody really thinks he believes what he says he believes).
Dave, you can call Bush anything you like, but it makes you sound as deranged as those people who scream about Clinton being a Communist scumbag and absolutely in no way different from Stalin or Pol Pot.
And now, ChrisPer will lead us all in a round of weeping for the poor put-apon plutocrats who never seem to catch a break. Truly it is the working class who are the lucky duckies.
John, nobody used fascist, Hitler here. So it is you taking it to such a level. More later.
My point was just that it is reasonable to disagree with Clinton’s legislation on environmental protection, just as it is reasonable to diagree with Bush’s legislation on health and safety but to do it nin terms of ‘evil’ and ‘scum’ is cranky. This is so obvious when we look at our political enemies, that it should prompt us to re-examine our own biases.
You know, John, that sounds reasonable enough but it seems the combination of the rush and the content would merit a reaction that is a bit stronger than – oh, it’s just another opinion. For sure this type of things will have been done before but shouldn’t matter too much. I do believe it is a somewhat dirty trick to try to pass something without notice that has such unpredictable results (as you point out yourself).
What name you call a player of tricks – certainly somebody relapsing in it – is another matter.
But your point is probably we shouldn’t call political opponents scum as matter of principle. I sympathize but it would then also require them to come to us as political opponents which isn’t, quite, the case here. & somebody taking refuge under ‘political opponent’ while at the same time playing submarine – I tend to believe – is deservedly called scum. It is just not on to use such an important qualification for bastardly use. Why? – it tends to make those, like me, taking these things seriously seem naïve where they are simply right.
Of course it’s cranky. It was meant to be cranky. Jeez, is that not obvious? Of course it was an emotive explosion of disgust – I wasn’t pretending it was a dispassionate technical analysis. I think Bush’s bias is immoral, and I felt like saying so in strong terms.
ChrisPer –
“One of the advantages of a Democrat President is the rest of the world will be spared the unedifying behaviour of really good and intelligent people acting crazed by hatred of their President.”
The word is DemocratIC. Democratic president, not Democrat president – that’s pejorative Republican jargon, as I think you probably know.
And the rest is bullshit and you even know it’s bullshit, because you’ve admitted as much quite recently. I hate Bush for reasons that have nothing to do with his party; I hate him far more than I hate responsible grown-up well-informed Republicans. As I said just a couple of weeks or so ago (and you responded, so I know you read it), if Bush were a Democrat I would still loathe him, and if Obama were a Republican I would disagree with him on most things but I would still respect him enormously.
Your motto says: fighting fashionable nonsense. Is this comment a sample of the latter ?
Nah, this is zany madcap nonsense.
“OB in ‘Gets Cranky’ Shock”…
Have a cup of tea and a biscuit, or maybe a jaffa cake, they have that smashing orangey bit, you know, very soothing. And remember that GWB’s legacy will fade, slowly, maybe too slowly, but eventually.
Why is hatred of Bush, such as OB’s, “crazed”? How corrupt and inhumane does an administration have to get before hatred is merited?
OB, well, thats positive at least in the level of self-honesty.
On your point of terminology, I am happy to accede and say you will have a Democratic President. As you thought, I have come across that quibble, but didn’t intend to offend. For you I am happy to conjoin the Party name with the positive image of the principle underlying our several governments. A positive framing is a good thing.
As for ‘all the rest is nonsense’… up to you.
The rest of that sentence, I meant – the one I had just quoted. I think it is bullshit because I think you know (at least if you think about it, or read your old comments) I’m not a ‘my party right or wrong’ maniac. I’m far from being a loyal Democrat, so your suggestion that I hate Bush just because he’s a Republican and that any Democrat would get automatic admiration is based on nothing; hence it’s bullshit and also rude.
ChrisPer,
Are you saying that anything that looks crazed to some “non-participants” is in fact crazed? The corollary would be that all political opinions are to be considered crazed until it is established that there are no “non-participants” who think them crazed. That can’t be really what you mean, can it?
Excuse me? What have these ‘crazed’ people you’re raving about got to do with me? Presumably you were raving about me being ‘crazed’ in that comment earlier today, and that was what NB was questioning – so why are you now ranting about people who have nothing to do with me? Are you trying to smear me by association, or what?
You’re pompous and self-righteous as a matter of routine, but now you’re just descending into the muck.
And you’re anonymous, too; and no email address, too. I hate that. I get so sick of anonymous blow-hards parachuting in to throw up all over me. I’m at least accountable; I give my name, I’m easy to contact. You – you’re nobody, you’re hidden, yet you feel perfectly entitled to pitch a self-righteous fit at me – self-righteous and dishonest. The hell with that.
go spittle-flecked nuts over the ‘evil’ of someone trying to police murderers and prevent their certain continuing attacks on innocents.
Really?
Where and when has this happened?
By “police murders and prevent their certain continuing attacks on innocents,” do you mean torture, detain without trial, and spy without warrants? Are you equating criticism of Bush’s methods with saying that it is evil to fight terrorists?
Because that is the only way I can imagine to interpret what you’re saying. I hope I’m wrong.
I think that is what he’s saying – I didn’t realize that when I first read it but about an hour later the penny dropped.
Do correct me if I’m wrong, Chrisper.
Jenavir, what I mean by crazed, to equate the moral value of what I called the ‘policing action to prevent murder’, with the few illegal excesses that occur in the massive scope of its execution. I exclude the actual invasion of Iraq up to ‘misson accomplished’, its moral case is different from that for staying and trying to create peace there.
Torture is illegal and generally immoral, criticising it is generally good, but equating the whole action with the few crimes occurring incidentally to it, is not a rational and balanced viewpoint.
The American military have run perhaps the most scrutinised and cleanest war in human history, and the ethics of their behaviour have mostly been a high lesson to us all. Their few failures were significant, and those failures were investigated and subject to proper justice where there was enough evidence to convict. There is no restorative justice for the Marines of Haditha, defamed by the Democratic Senator Murtha before their trial found them innocent.
The framing of the war from the opposition point of view ranges from principled opposition to wildly delusional. Bush hatred resulted in several outcomes at the culpable level of giving aid and comfort to the enemy, especially in the media. Exposing the international wiretapping efforts and the financial tracing programs most likely extended the war and cost lives. Framing news stories neutrally between terrorist murderers and people trying to prevent them is not an act of moral rectitude, but of tacit cooperation with the enemy.
Principled opposition has always been good. Acting as a second enemy in the ideological struggle against terorism is not.
Why are you telling us all this? What the hell are you accusing me of? What kind of stupid aggressive flailing crap is this?
I think I’ve had enough of you, Mr Per.
I am not anonymous to you OB. You may have forgotten but I started off putting my email in my posts, then dropped it. Here it is. You may not recall but I emailed you directly on one occasion, you replied kindly, and the email contained a link to an article with not just my email but my real name and address.
As a regular here though not always posting over the last maybe 5 years I always use the same name and its the same name I use elsewhere. No, I don’t think anonymous or parachuted in is really fair.
I didn’t mean to get into an extended disagreement here. I just thought you let yourself and your strong position for secular rationality down in the originating post, thats all.
O.B Chris has posted his email address in the past in responce (I think) to Andy saying he was anonymous. Dave the day after Bush leaves office he will be forgotten, history will just remmember him as a run of the mill centre right president.
Cross post.
Exposing the international wiretapping efforts and the financial tracing programs most likely extended the war and cost lives.
…huh? How do you know this?
Principled opposition has always been good. Acting as a second enemy in the ideological struggle against terorism is not.
What actions would you consider to be “acting as a second enemy”? If I understand you, you’re suggesting that you think reporting on government spying during wartime would qualify.
That is an opinion I have frequently encountered, but I must say I’m surprised to see it in the comments to this website.
CP, You should have kept to your first hunch & stayed the …. away. Over the top as OB’s crankiness was, you were a sure thing to go overboarder & you did because here you are talking about the things nobody was here talking about – showing that your initial reaction was not shoulder-shrugging but grinding of teeth at poster boy being attacked.
John, I know my last to you was barely intelligible but still: plse honour me with an answer. A charitable dose of the principle of charity should suffice for you to get it.
The argument that ‘we can do anything, no matter if it’s legal, or moral, or neither, to win the war, as long as I don’t have to know about it’ is not the position of a sane person. It disregards everything that history has ever taught us about the escalating effect of atrocity. Did Hitler win on the eatstern front by deciding to wage Vernichtungskrieg? Did the French win in Algeria by torturing their prisoners? Did the Phoenix program help the US win in Vietnam?
If someone seriously believes that they are at war with a significant portion of humanity, rather than with a few thousand nutters, then I suppose there is an argument for guerre a outrance – but that is never the argument used. Rather than mobilise all national resources for war, such advocates prefer to keep the civilian population in a fog of uncertainty, while indulging in a license to cut the very ‘corners’ of civilised behaviour that would make the war worth winning. And in so doing, to drastically curtail democratic oversight and arrogate unaccountable powers to the executive. This is not an accusation, this is the plain and acknowledged fact of the matter, in hundreds of Buch ‘signing statements’ if not elsewhere.
I still think we should have had that cup of tea, mind.
ChrisPer, no, you’re right, I don’t remember. I take back the anonymity charge and apologize.
However – what do you mean ‘that’s all’? If ‘that’s all’ why are you raving about ‘acting as a second enemy in the ideological struggle against terorism’? You don’t get to fling extreme accusations around like rotting garbage and then say you only meant blah blah, that’s all.
Honest to christ. ‘I just accused you of or associated you with or implied you were somehow tainted with giving aid and comfort to the enemy, extending the war and costing lives,
tacit cooperation with the enemy, and acting as a second enemy in the ideological struggle against terorism, that’s all.’ ‘That’s all’!!
That’s more than enough.
Not you, the results of ideological created by bush hatred. But suit yourself. I will ban myself for a while.
Don’t.
Instead of banning yourself, CP, why not try putting a little more care and thought into what you say? That might help distinguish between your new favorite phrase – “Bush hatred” – and reality. You know, the well-warranted contempt and outrage directed at plutocrat warmongers who’ve proven to the US and the world for 8 years just exactly what they’re about.
I banned myself for months and no one listened to a word.
I trust you’ve lifted the (inexplicable) ban, Nick? I’ve missed you!
Take Josh’s advice, ChrisP. (The ‘not you’ thing doesn’t really work. It’s not obvious what the point is of raving about acting as a second enemy in reply to my post, unless it is in fact to suggest that I’m doing the same kind of thing. And you surely must be aware that that kind of language is very loaded – it’s close kin to accusations of treason at a time of war. It’s dirty stuff.)
My advise to ChrisPer is not to bugger off *anywhere* but stick in here and stick with the debates, and take your lumps… you have a long and illustrious history here, and I’ve even agreed with you sometimes. I like your posts normally too.
(My reasons for buggering off OB was in recognition that, under my recentish personal circumstances, I’d suddenly decided the world really, really sucked and my sole duty in it was to feel sorry for my self, and let people know that. That is, frankly, a very boring thing to do. Seems to have lifted now thank god, I can’t STAND myself when I’m like that. Sooo I’m back… thanks.)
By the way I thought this thread was a top rant followed by a top punch-up. It’s not all bad, this internet thing you know…
I’m sorry. The very use of the term “Bush Hatred” immediately makes rational debate useless. This term is a fiercely partisan one created and promulgated by some of the worst political media hacks and lickspittle apologists for this Administration.
And, I”m sorry, ChrisPer, you are verging very closely on the Michelle Malkin “To the camps with them” approach to your political enemies. That is worrisome. I am not an Obama supporter. I find many of his transition team extremely worrisome-more of the same. But if his election keeps the politicians supported by your Christian right wing a little further from power, ChrisPer, that makes me very, very happy.
Very good that it’s lifted, Nick. The world does suck of course, but it’s good when we can get out from under that and experience the other parts again. Good that you’re there.
Well said, Nick. The debate is always good, even if (and sometimes when) we want to throttle other commenters. Welcome back. May we all learn to shut ourselves up when our own problems make us into boors. . .if I’d learned that lesson. . .:)
OK then – I will ban myself,in a, maybe not too distant, future!
What does one have to do around here to get some attention ;-(
And, mind you, I will not even announce when the ban starts nor when it ends so nah!, take that!
Without meaning to drag things on interminably, I just wanted to add that by ‘cranky’ I didn’t mean ‘bad-tempered’, but ‘crank-like’. OB is often ‘cranky’ (and perfectly entitled to be, of course), but isn’t usually a crank. Which is why she is worth reading.
Yeah that’s what I took you to mean, John, and the meaning I had in mind when I said the post was obviously cranky. It was obviously highly partial, intemperate, assertive. I don’t think it was unfair though.
More examples here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/14/george-bush-midnight-regulations