Slater

"Grab two beers and take the chute," went the lyrics of a humorous song on public radio this morning. Yet another blurb on Stephen Slater, pop-idol-of-the-moment.

What kind of culture looks to burned-out, angry service employees as heroes? The answer is simple: A culture which has allowed its rich to exploit its poor as cheap labor in unsatisfying service jobs with poor support and conditions. Wall Street profits are made off the backs of the Stephen Slaters of the U.S.. And, the American people have yet to connect the dots, since the American media have been bought and dominated by the likes of Ruppert Murdoch.

Sadly, most Americans don't seem to zoom out from the view on their TVs or iPhones. They are caught up in the trends of a fickle news machine which avoids the big issues. Dissent gets framed in terms of harmlessly quirky Tea Party rallies, where racism and guns are often mainstays, the vacant rantings of Sarah Palin and the equally bizarre Rand Paul. Thus the true Left is ignored and devalued entirely. Why? The answer again is simple: The corporations have decided to rule by manipulating existing elements of American society and government. They are playing Devil to the materialistic American Fausts on all levels of society.

As for Stephen Slater, is his behavior itself admirable and laudable? Of course not. It is the infantile, reactive tantrum of someone ill-suited for a particular career. As a retired nurse, I empathize with his frustration and anger at the rudeness of his passengers, but I think his reaction was worthy of arrest and repercussions. He was being paid. His passengers were paying a fee for his services. Tantrums will not change the conditions which caused his meltdown. Admiring tantrums in others is an indication of social illness and an avoidance of the hard work to address the bigger issues, which are very challenging.

Coal

The recent mining disasters in China and the U.S. reveal the underbelly of the petro-chemical economy, which drives the prosperity of the few at the expense of the many. Coal itself has no conscience. Nor is it necessarily a toxic material. It is a precious natural resource.

Coal mining, still carried on by poor, undereducated men and women from the underclasses at great personal health and safety risk, is currently an industry of profiteering and raping of the planet for financial gain by the owners of the industry. Mine disasters are caused primarily by faulty techniques and poor safety measures, even by the current low-technology standards of the industry. Mine operators try to ignore anything that interrupts profitable production. The miners pay the price with their bodies and their lives.

Coal could be extracted and burned for energy with minimal risk to human life and ecological damage. However, the vast number of consumers, who are just getting by in the uneven economy of most countries, would not bear the price without political protest. And, this political protest may just bring about more justice in elections, justice in the work place and justice in the tax codes. Profits for the exploiters would evaporate. Politicians would no longer get their cut.

West Virginia was one of the locales of the most ardent protests against health care reform. One might say the population deserves what it gets by bowing to the interests and propaganda of the mine owners. However, that population has been deprived of proper education and financial resources for nearly two centuries under the bully rule of the coal industry, aided and abetted by Washington, D.C..

Coal is indeed a fossil fuel, as its production is a fossil of a harsh and unequal age of human exploitation of mankind and the planet.