“Accusing everyone who disagrees with you of being stupid is
sophomoric, at best, ranging from there down to totalitarian.”
@capital F

My response related with the two ideas poignantly provided
by Mark E. Smith. My response was based on the opinions of
engineers in the field of nuke power, who are not owned by
the nuke power cartels. Nor are they profiteering from stocks.

Your nuke-power-shill-type response reminds me of an
outburst by a former good friend on the Mosel River, in
Germany, 1977.  Drunk as a skunk, but still logical,
Friedrich stood up and said loudly, “All normal people have
two things in common.”  He sat quietly and continued,
” an asshole and an opinion.”

In my over thirty years of practice, I have found that his
idea applies to very stupid persons, also, normal or not.

The profit motive is at the core of capitalist rationale. From a utopian perspective I’ll ask, why should a person who contributes good to society be the recipient of excessive, ultimately unrewarding, wealth and riches? With the exception of a few rare individuals, capitalism, with its profit motive, is the de facto religion of profiteers. Accumulation of wealth is their measurement of self worth and they are never satisfied with the amounts of their accumulations. It’s always more, and more, they are driven by a desire for more, accompanied by the deluded rationale that they are doing good. Woe unto the infidels that challenge their religion and their accumulation of wealth, whether it be government, competitors, or their perceived underlings, all are to be vanquished in the name of their religious aspirations.  Metaphorically, broken eggs are a necessity for the concoction of their great capitalist omelet, and the broken eggs are not given a second thought, after all, broken eggs are necessities in order preserve their righteous religion.

Philosophizing about the evils of capitalism is seemingly futile, capitalism has a strangle hold on the world’s economies and developing a new anti-capitalist paradigm could only be achieved incrementally through prolonged struggle, or through universally catastrophic economic catastrophe. If mankind is truly facing an existential threat, its name would be capitalism, or more specifically, the decadence that is the product of capitalism. It’s my belief that giving any credence to the profit motive is counter productive, and a detriment to the struggle to achieve a new paradigm.

I have great respect for Amy Goodman and her network of 900 broadcast affiliates, and I would like to see that network grow in power and influence. It is my belief that personal monetary profit has little to do with Amy and her affiliates, except in respect to criticism. I have no knowledge of Amy Goodman’s personal financial net worth, but her net worth in respect to other issues is evident to me. I’ll proffer that Amy Goodman, as an example, produces little that is tangible in respect to current economic prosperity, but that her intangibles are productive in respect to advancing economic justice, and a more fair universal economic prosperity. 

I will be surprised if this missive and my person are not the subject for reactionary philosophical criticism and attack, from all the more traditional, and more acceptable, political perspectives, or as a result of more personal egocentric defense mechanisms, and I would expect that these criticisms would include accusations of egocentricity, and/or irrationality on my part. Certainly I am not omniscient, but I will stand by this missive and all that it asserts, until it is shown to be errant in its philosophy, and or, assertions.

In respect to capitalists, it’s an imperative to judge them by what they do, and not by what they say.

Exactly, Sasquatch, good reply.

My local co-op makes a nice profit by providing
healthy organic non-GMO foods, and uses that money to
reinvest in the co-op, provide great pay and benefits
to the workers, and support green projects in the
community. I don’t know of anyone who thinks there’s
anything bad about that sort of profits.

The Nazis, on the other hand, made profits by killing
innocent people, removing the gold from their teeth,
melting it down, and selling it. Big pharma has made
enormous profits by selling drugs that, when taken
exactly as prescribed, are now a bigger cause of
death than the diseases they were supposed to cure.
One of the nuke plants downriver in Nebraska hasn’t
been completed flooded yet but despite warnings and
weather predictions, is endangering everyone by
refusing to shut down safely while there is still
time, because it would interfere with their profits.
I don’t know of anyone, other than those who enjoy
such profits, who thinks they’re a good thing.

Profits gained by making the world a better place are
good. Profits gained by harming people and polluting
the planet are bad. Simple.

to Capital F, nobody is talking about profit being bad,
only that profit doesn’t justify bad. When someone
turns a profit from something that makes the world
better and the human experience more full filling then
that is good but if you are destroying the planet we
share and/or creating scenarios that cause human
suffering then profit doesn’t justify this. Why is this
concept so hard to understand.

There seems to be a theme here of ‘profits are bad’.  You may be right.  I tend to think it is a little more complicated than that.  Have you noticed the advertisements on this page?  By posting here, or even by just visiting this page, you are contributing to Truthdig’s profits.

@drbhelthi
Accusing everyone who disagrees with you of being stupid is sophomoric, at best, ranging from there down to totalitarian.

Also, blanket claims that “we” don’t have any plans or ideas about the future of nuclear waste might put you in one of your own categories.  Just because you and other posters here are ignorant (willfully?) of the facts doesn’t give you license to attack those who aren’t.  Please, lets base our opinions on fact and not base our facts on opinion.

“ALL nuclear power plants are a flawed design, as they ALL
produce radioactive waste that we don’t know how to dispose
of.” @Mark E. Smith

Two very accurate ideas.

Only three groups of persons disagree.
1. Those who are profiteering from the industry.
2. Those who are exceedingly stupid.
3. Those who are a combination of the 2 above.

A realist, Tony Wilson, would understand that making
parts of the planet totally and permanently
uninhabitable while polluting the rest for short term
gain, is impractical, not to mention immoral.

Maybe you enjoy economic security, but I do not. I
live in a capitalist society hell bent on its own
destruction, engaged in wars it has to borrow money
to support, and with an unstable currency declining
in value. If you call that economic security, you’re
not a realist.

There are no “right answers” to the wrong questions.  The evidence is already overwhelming, for example, that the artificially stimulated ‘appetite’ for degenerate “energy,” in the virtual subspecies homo domesticus, is effectively insatiable.  Just on the available ‘record,’ the more it is catered-to the bigger it gets….and exponentially, at-that.

So arguing (however eloquently, passionately, “knowledge”-ably) about the “best” methods for essaying such an inherently futile exercise, is already at a DEAD END before it even gets going.  Such “self”-referential feedback-loops inevitably devolve into just the kind of heterodyne whine we see developing already here. 

When some living component of a Human birthday-suit, or some separate organism inhabiting one, runs amok and tries to take-over, for its own exclusive use and benefit, the entirety of that particular micro-Living Arrangement, most here will quickly recognize and respond to that (at-least-statistically) anomalous condition as some sort of disease process….an illness.  When it is the trying-its-damnedest-to-get-away-with-being-parasitical subspecies homo domesticus, however, infecting in just that manner The Whole Living Arrangement that IS The Body, the birthday-suit, of our Mother Earth’s Kind, no such recognition and response is forthcoming at-all, from the “self”-obsessed “individual”-ized CONstituents of that run-amok race theirown"self,” at any rate.

Having been set-up by the “SELF” to believe they are just “The Hottest Brand Going” here, our tame Sisters and Brothers are quite blind to the plain biological fact that that they are, “individual”-ly and in their muddled masses, behaving toward the ‘rest’ of US exactly like some kind of innate or invasive sickness-generating ‘agent’ behaves toward their own bodies….and to the same anti-salubrious end, absent the application of some specifically effective therapeutic regimen.

Factor-into this already potentially lethal (to ALL-concerned) syndrome the additional biological fact that this same errant subspecies is supposed to be functioning organically as a component in Her immune system, and suddenly you have a condition several orders-of-magnitude more threatening than merely that of some common ‘infection’ normally addressed to mutually beneficial effect by the adequately functional immune system of any healthy Organism in its Day-to-Day living.  You have something much more virulent even (compared to “the common cold”) than the presently most deadly strain of Ebola….or the latest permutation of HIV-AIDS.

So all this agonizing on the part of the domesticated peoples, over how to go-on feeding their bottomless “energy” addiction, looks to us surviving Free Wild Native Peoples in various ‘parts’ of Indian Country all-around this Living World like just so-much “self”-possessed pissing-into-The-Whirlwind.  Maybe, if they were really even half as smart as they seem to think they are, these ‘carriers’/sufferers of the “civilization” disease would be asking not what they can do to keep heating-up their hair-dryers, but rather what kind of Medicine they need to take to get well.

‘Cause us surviving Savages are here to tell ‘em there’s absolutely nothing for what ails their Kind except a big ‘dose’ of The Living Virtue of Organic Functional Integrity. 

HokaHey!

There have been 3 rather serious accidents since 3 mile island. Approximately 20 since 1961, depending on how you classify ‘serious’. The recent tsunami was not a 100 year event. Regionally, of course, there was an even more destructive quake / tsunami event on Boxing Day 2004. Pan Pacific there have been over 10,000 since Boxing Day 2004 including the devastating Chilean and New Zealand quakes.

There have not been containment improvements since 3 mile island and, most significantly, there is no way to accommodate, store, neutralize or recycle nuclear waste which must be transported from origin over land routes. Based on this alone,it is not prudent to consider more nuclear plants until such time as these formative considerations are overcome. It is foolish to do otherwise.

Now, I am not going to take a radical green stance firmly refusing to consider any view of a nuclear future. I am going to state that plants such as the ones the TVA are proposing are the easy capital fix to a very complex energy problem, just as is opening up the Arctic to expanded drilling or letting new leases in the Gulf of Mexico or California Coast. There are better solutions offering less risk and grander long term results. These require paradigmatic shifts in the current tenor of our capitalist mode of energy production. China, India, Brazil, Germany are all moving surplus capital towards such methods in the form of wind, solar and geothermal. There grids are being updated as are there transportation networks.

Last year, China spent more than any other major country on clean energy, including wind and solar, toppling the U.S. from the top spot for the first time in five years, 2010 Pew report says. The U.S. is also on the verge of losing the top spot in terms of installed renewable energy to China. Now consider that U.S. climate change budget has more than doubled—from $7 billion to $18 billion—since 2008. Military spending in that same time period has risen from $696 billion to $739 billion. For every dollar spent on climate in 2008, the U.S. spent $94 on the military. That will drop to a $41: $1 ratio this year.

Like in education, America is being left behind. I posit that while there are several factors at play here, many more than can be considered in this forum, two that are paramount are the cultural inertia associated with our outdated mode of capitalism / corporate capital mode of production for return profit to shareholders over return to the public domain, and lack of cultural concision brought on by diluted focus of the lobby system. Remember, the TVA was not born of capitalism. It was a social program later semi- privatized.

The realist realities posted by our ‘Tony Wilson’are the realities of Capital not the realities of a long term energy policy. As such, they represent the limited thinking of the myopic.

No doubt that America can catch up in energy and education. But, we need an approach shift away from what has become common and towards the inventive.

So nuclear apologists are saying the same thing about
Fukushima that they said about Chernobyl, that it was
a flawed design. ALL nuclear power plants are a
flawed design, as they ALL produce radioactive waste
that we don’t know how to dispose of. How long could
you live in a house or apartment if you had no way to
get rid of your garbage?

People like Leuren Moret, Ace Hoffman, and keith
harmon snow who warned about and predicted Fukushima
years ago, are disregarded in favor of big corporate
campaign donors who can’t afford to shut their
nuclear plants down because then they wouldn’t have
billions of dollars in profits to spend helping get
out the vote for the corporate puppets that the
Democrats and Republicans nominate on the basis of
who can raise the most money.

Thanks to capitalism, what should be a no-brainer is
a no-starter. Even after the US has several
Fukushima-type catastrophes due to aging and
dangerous nuclear power plants, they still won’t be
shut down because the cancers don’t show up for ten
or twenty years in adults. Not only is it expensive
to decommission aging reactors, there’s still no
place to store their waste. And thanks to Bill
Clinton, the owners have no liability—the burden
falls on taxpayers as usual. The duty of the
corporations is to their shareholders and the duty of
elected officials is to their campaign donors, so
we’re all just collateral damage.

I posted this on another thread but it certainly fits here:

Interesting mishegoss this nuclear business. Good morning to us all. How ya doing this fine American morning? Little squishy feeling under the toes when you first stepped out of bed, eh? Almost as if something sprung a leak overnight, carpet soaked with puddles forming over at the opposing corners of our ideological nation, where the entrenched sit trying to put their elbows in their ears to show us all that they are actually doing something when really they are busy considering which way the political wind blows.

Here we have this soon-come article just a few days after reports of leakage at the flooded nuke in Nebraska and the TVA ‘mini’ me plant proposal raucously disputed by the right(eous) suave set in the ‘Six Nuclear Reactors’ thread. Channelling Johnny Cash this morning. ‘ I hear the train a comin’, it’s rolling ‘round the bend’. But, that train ain’t a-rolin’ on down to San Antone, it is bringing the usual suspect response that all this nuke titter is some left conspiracy designed to do something they dreamed up while sitting in their damp corner.

Interesting thing about Folsom. It is not too far as the crow flies, 300 miles or so, from the Diablo Canyon nuke that has been in operation since 1984. This devil of a plant rests near several geological faults in that once Golden State, now showing a wee patina thanks to our lovely fiscal crisis. Despite this unfortunate geography it has about a 1 in 24,000 chance of core damage from an earthquake according to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Down in Tennessee, eastern TN, not far from Johnny’s last home, and down the regional block from the TVA plot, the Sequoyah Plant towers the hills. It has been controlling rods, heating water and making waste since 1980 and according to the same US agency has a 1 in 19,000 chase of core damage from a quake. What is that? More of a quake damage chance in the land of the Grand Ole Opry than in that of the Golden Bear Grateful Dead? Yep. In fact, oops, the last quake in the ‘Eastern TN’ region was on 21 June 2011 at 08:56:44. A tiny roller. No worries for mortals of the ‘let’s keep doing the same shite and expect different results’, capitalist mode of production, lineage unless your concerns are congruent with the USGS who look to Eastern TN as a harbinger area for the rather massive New Madrid Seismic Region just to the west along the mighty Miss.

By all means, let’s build more. Don’t worry that containment technology has not changed since 1972. The tried and true technique, currently in use in Japan, of flooding to cool then concrete entombment seems to be working well. Look at Chernobyl where I hear property values are rising steadily despite the gloopy, glowing, squishy carpets left from the last time one of our toilets overflowed.

Obama’s lack of commitment to alternative energy is
highlighted by the fact that he has failed to follow
through with his promise to return solar collectors
to the roof of the White House. I realize this is
symbolic but we need some real initiative to get the
ball rolling and what better place to start than the
White House. During his campaign he talked the talk
about upgrading the grid and improving our efficiency
but he hasn’t been walking the walk, which would also
stimulate the economy and lower our dependence on
fossil fuels more effectively than anything being
talked about. President Obama has a year and a half
to show he is the man we thought we elected, but he
has fallen short in many respects. I understand the
difficulty of getting legislation through Congress,
but that doesn’t explain appointing someone from
Monsanto to run the FDA, appointing Vilsack to run
the Department of Agriculture and then not firing him
during the Shirley Sherrod fiasco. Barrack Obama
needs some real Americans that can think outside the
box and are not part of the inner circle if he wants
to show he really is the President we thought we
elected instead of the Puppet of Big Business he
appears to be.

Yes, it’s bad, and getting worse each day,and there is nothing anyone can do about it
except lie. People in Seattle and Oregon inhaled some hot particles, that will stay in
their lungs and emit radiation. The radiation is entering the ground water in Japan.

And then while we were watching wiener gate, our oceans went extinct.

Bad news for us, without the oceans we are all going to die a slow painful death.

The plutocracy will be just fine in their bunkers, for a while anyway.

We would need to concentrate on replacing all of our present energy sources. Impose a carbon tax to help fund it and make it mandatory to change over as soon as possible. Including wind turbine farms and solar farms (both kinds) and other technology to fill the gaps. We can keep natural gas for awhile but with definite plans to get off of it too as quickly as possible.

We need also to dismantle our growing external empire and turn our resources and technology to finding answers to our present (and future) problems from our last 200 years of carbon heavy consumption and release of so much previously sequestered carbon aka coal and oil.