Ideologies are born, have a life of their own, and in the minds of their proponents can replicate the notions of a Dylan Thomas masterpiece: "raging, raging, against the dying of the light." But today's thinking conservatives have to be straddling a barbed fence: There is enough evidence before them that a disturbing conclusion must be stirring - they have been fundamentally and profoundly wrong.
Conservatism belongs on the scrap heap of isms. Proof, over the fold,
"With virtually no rules governing the safety of chemicals," says Richard Wiles of the nonprofit Environmental Working Group, "American babies are born pre-polluted, their bodies laced with as many as 300 industrial compounds, pollutants, plastics, pesticides and other substances that threaten public health." - April 16, 2010
It’s much worse than that. From birth to nursing and forever after, the chemical assault continues for every child. Conservative moms and grandmothers, along with everyone else, must surely be becoming very concerned about this. And irrefutably, the political push to deregulate and 'unshackle' industry - the central thrust of today's conservatism - is to blame.
When it comes to chemical poisons, children feed from the whole, wide, tainted world.
It is not something we like to think about - and few people realize just how saturated with toxins we have all become. Many still think of pollution as something they can avoid: a far-off spill, or something they can drive past in industrial areas - and then be glad to be away from.
But there is no 'away' anymore. Conservative babies are born pre-polluted today. All of them. Those hundreds of chemicals in all of us kill some, and make others very ill. Women's breast milk today contains hundreds of those same substances, and as each child lives on, the environment ensures more and more exposures. Tomorrow's mothers will deliver more thoroughly polluted babies, compounding the risks. And still, we continue to release larger volumes of toxins every year.
More than that, it is not just our flesh that is universally under assault from pollution.
The oceans - again, all of them - are absorbing CO2 emissions from fossil fuel use. Despite statements by George W. Bush and other promoters of the 'ownership society,' CO2 is a pollutant - when there is too much of it in the wrong place. Similarly, mercury is also a natural substance, but is a pollutant in your daughter's flesh and breast milk.
CO2 pollution in the oceans is making them more acidic, and that increased acidity affects the entire marine food chain, from microscopic forms of phytoplankton to fish and whales. To us. - Source - We are already seeing those effects.
And yes, our carbon emissions are a certain pollutant in the atmosphere, warming the planet dramatically, along with other greenhouse gasses.
Among those who should know, are there still naysayers about human-caused climate change? Yes, a very few scientists, virtually all linked to the free-market 'think tanks' and oil/coal industries.
But those who don't have time to study the science, and in whom the billion dollar coal/oil disinformation campaign has instilled any doubts at all, should read the climate lists. Here. Anyone who remains unsure should check that out. Every relevant and significant scientific body on the planet says in writing that we are warming the planet, much to our detriment.
Thinking conservatives must be realizing this as fact: Our chemical and carbon pollutants, natural and synthetics both, affect everything and everyone on the planet - irrefutably. Admittedly, there must be a better term out there than superpollution. So let's find it, because we absolutely do need a new way for humanity to think about this. It is saturation, it's universal, and increasingly and horribly damaging.
It's not your neighbor's grandpa's pollution - somewhere else and 'not your business.' It's in your unborn, newborn, your grown-up child and everything around her. She's soaking in it.
It should be clear and obvious too that deregulation of drilling activities, financial industries, health insurance and other industries has caused considerable damage to society.
It's also true that there is little sense pointing all of this out unless there is something we can do about it. And there is: Throw out every conservative politician, at every level of government, everywhere.
Throw out every corporate apologist, every deregulator, every spokesperson for the failed claim that government-for-business-first is good for you. That the wealth will trickle down and everything else will follow ... that all we need to do is unshackle the beleaguered corporations from the burden of red taped bureaucracy.
From the economic damages in the lives of the middle class, to the environmental damages in the lives of everyone, all of that is proved false. All of that is a con.
As an aside, it should be noted that social conservatism is a different subject. And social conservatives have been used and deceived by Wall Street conservatism in a different way - which they too must be realizing. But that is a topic for another day.
Humanity must once again govern capitalism, and not allow the reverse.
Wall Street conservatism and corporate influence over government – everywhere - is a deregulating, reckless, life-threatening assault on all human interests, and your children’s prospects for the future.
We need a push back, towards a future that affords the next-born a fighting chance:
An untainted beginning.
We need rage against the dying of a much broader light than Dylan Thomas imagined.
The governing ideology of recent decades - today's conservatism - belongs on the scrap heap of 'isms,' with feudalism, communism and fascism: On the pile of ideas that conclusively cannot work. It's fair to say, it’s it or us.
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crossposted at http://www.worldforallpeople.org