Dawn Allen is a freelance writer and editor who is passionate about sustainability, political economy, gardening, traditional craftwork, and simple living. She and her husband are currently renovating a rural homestead in southeastern Michigan.
Why is it that so much of modern life, frankly, sucks? Sure, we have a few fun gadgets and some booze (and in some places, legal marijuana) to distract us and ease the weltschmerz, but why does it so often seem that this is the natural, unavoidable state of things? Can we hope for better? Life isn’t always easy or fun, and learning that is part of growing up. However, there really is more pain than there absolutely has to be, and that’s because misery is profitable.
Ever drive out in the country where livestock feedlots saturate the air with ammonia so thick that your nose hairs practically wither? Where I come from, that and the ever-present earthy smell of manure were euphemistically called “fresh country air.” These industrial feedlot exhalations aren’t just stinky, though: they are a potent source of pollution. Solving this problem seems like a good way for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to make itself useful, but in 2008, the EPA decided that CAFOs didn’t have to report their pollutants. Last week, though, the D.C. Court of Appeals vacated that rule, saying that Congress had not given the EPA the authority to create CERCLA exemptions as they pleased. Now, CAFOs and other massively polluting livestock operations will be required, like everyone else, to answer to all of us for their pollution problems.
Last month when the GOP got their first honest-to-God chance to repeal the Affordable Care Act (which they nicknamed “Obamacare”), their failure to follow through despite having majorities in both houses of Congress and a Republican president merely illuminated what most of us have suspected all along, which is that their years of bluster have been a steaming pile of politics and that there’s very little in the way of governing going on. The GOP healthcare zombie seems once again to be poking its withered fingers out of the legislative grave, though, this time with a new “conservative” solution to the problem of expensive premiums: high risk pools.
An upcoming Supreme Court case, Jesner v. Arab Bank, will decide whether corporations can be sued for human rights abuses under the Alien Tort Statute. This case, set to be argued during the term beginning in October 2017, will force some hard decisions for conservatives, including the newly minted justice Neil Gorsuch. For example, which decision will be the harder poison pill to swallow, a ruling upholding corporate liability that can be extrapolated to other cases, or giving an approving nod to a company that allegedly funneled payments to the families of suicide bombers?
When the man who bragged about grabbing women by the genitals won the highest office in the land, leading by 53% among white women in particular, it was abundantly clear that womens’ issues needed a front row seat in politics and pop culture over the next four years. The January Women’s March put forth the first steps in a resistance movement that may well galvanize the electorate and provide the mainstream-Left determination that severely lacked in the lead up to the Trump presidency. Later, the “Day Without a Woman” and Equal Pay Day provided additional soapboxes for women trying to be heard. However, just as “uppity” women have done for generations, they’ve drawn commentary, condemnation, and even capitalist efforts from all sides. Because, you know, the last thing society seems able to do (besides stop spewing carbon) is find its peace with women.
In response to my essay “Who Shall We Throw Under the Bus?”, a politically conservative friend wished that liberals would throw the gun control advocates under the bus in order to gain votes among disappointed Red Staters that supported Trump in the last election. Since Trump’s election empowered dangerous forces in our society, however, more and more liberals have been embracing a defense-based gun culture.
The Flint water crisis, precipitated by the Republican state government’s penny wise and pound foolish money “saving” strategy, has left behind years of damage not just to the city’s lead pipes, but to the lives of its residents. Now that a lawsuit brought by several organizations including the ACLU of Michigan, Concerned Pastors for Social Action, and the Natural Resources Defense Council, as well as Flint resident Melissa Mays, has been settled, there may be some progress towards making Flint whole again.
Internet privacy is important for so many reasons, and not just because nobody needs to know your kinks except you. This is why so many Americans came out against a serious blow to internet privacy last week, when Congress passed a repeal of Obama-era protections.
What drive through America’s rural heartland would be complete without catching a glimpse of the iconic green and yellow of a John Deere tractor tilling the soil or a combine harvesting rows of corn? Tractors are more complex than ever now, with Wi-Fi and GPS. John Deere is following the lead of other tech giants and preventing end users (like grandpa) from mucking around with the tractor software. Right-to-repair advocates are asking the usual question: if you buy a tractor, is it not yours to do with as you wish? A more important question might be: why are we tilling the soil at all?
Slavery, while illegal, is far from dead, especially since externalizing the cost of labor onto the laborers themselves is profitable, both for the slave owners and for people like us who enjoy the fruits of slavery from a safe distance. On the other hand, most of the jobs added to the American economy in the last decade were non-traditional. This means that a lot more people are relying on temporary jobs, part-time work, freelancing, and “gigs” – exactly the sort of marginal people who live one accident or illness away from the mainstream American version of debt slavery.