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News & ArtsFriday, March 22, 2013
Enviro Alaska Is On a Teabaggy Roll
Posted by Charles Mudede on Fri, Mar 22, 2013 at 2:30 PM
Right after Alaska approved a "Stand Your Ground" bill, the state decided to throw tons of money at the oil industry. Anchorage Daily News reports:
What's next? Creationism replacing evolution in science classes?The Senate voted Wednesday night by the barest of margins to approve a massive tax cut for the oil industry in the hope that it would lead to more oil production in Alaska.
The vote on Senate Bill 21 was 11-9, with only Republicans supporting the measure.
5
Imagine, for a moment, Mitt Romney saying:
The oil industry only votes for teabaggers because teabaggers give things to the oil people things. I can't even persuade the oil industry to take responsibility for itself.
The oil industry only votes for teabaggers because teabaggers give things to the oil people things. I can't even persuade the oil industry to take responsibility for itself.
6
Well, they've still got a lot of trees to cut down and wild animals to shoot and native peoples to subjugate and exploit, so...
8
As if oil companies need an incentive to produce more oil in Alaska beyond "there's oil in the ground here". Everyone knows there's no money to be made in oil; good on them for giving those struggling multinationals a hand up.
9
So, state that generates almost every dime of it's revenue from resource extraction cuts tax deal for it's #1 industry?
I'm shocked, cue the outrage!
This is how WA used to pay for it's schools, until we cut down all the trees.
I'm shocked, cue the outrage!
This is how WA used to pay for it's schools, until we cut down all the trees.
11
The governor ran on a platform of one issue, and one issue alone, and that was cutting taxes for oil companies. He was elected in a landslide. Ironically, it was Sarah Palin that almost single-handedly restored the state to fiscal sanity by finally taxing the oil companies at reasonable rates. I wonder what she's thinking now. It's incredible to watch an entire state commit mass economic suicide.
13
Gosh. Alaska cutting a deal with the oil industry? Why, that's almost as stupid as Washington cutting a deal with Boeing, Microsoft and Amazon combined!
How silly!
BTW, I was fortunate enough to be a part of the finest public school system in the world. Where, you ask?
Why, Alaska! In Anchorage! In the 70's and 80's!
Why, you ask? Because of oil revenue.
It's what Alaska does. And why they don't have a budget crisis.
How silly!
BTW, I was fortunate enough to be a part of the finest public school system in the world. Where, you ask?
Why, Alaska! In Anchorage! In the 70's and 80's!
Why, you ask? Because of oil revenue.
It's what Alaska does. And why they don't have a budget crisis.
14
Oh, to add:
In high school I learned wilderness survival, orienteering, rappelling and calculus.
And we had a rifle range in the school underneath the gymnasium and I learned competitive target shooting.
In high school. In Alaska.
Too bad they brainwashed me to become a slack-jawed, knuckle-dragging, uneducated illiterate gun-nut with no concept of critical thinking.
In high school I learned wilderness survival, orienteering, rappelling and calculus.
And we had a rifle range in the school underneath the gymnasium and I learned competitive target shooting.
In high school. In Alaska.
Too bad they brainwashed me to become a slack-jawed, knuckle-dragging, uneducated illiterate gun-nut with no concept of critical thinking.
15
@CPN, can it. Taxing the oil revenue is what keeps the tea baggers from having to pay income or sales taxes. Cutting those taxes will lead to budget problems in the future. No, there's no budget problems now, because the taxes are there now! That doesn't stop Republicans in charge of the legislature from cutting education in the name of cutting the budget. It's a give away by current and former oil company employees now in the legislature and governor's mansion, plain and simple.
16
@14: I learned rock climbing, field first aid, canoeing, archery, and knot-tying, not to mention calculus (single- and multi-variable) in high school. In suburban Chicago. Keep with the times, man.
17
Hey #16
Sounds like you went to a great school in Chicago.
"Keep with the times, man."? What the fuck is your point?
We're on the same side here. Better schools means better everything. For everybody.
Education is the silver bullet to cure whatever humanity is capable of curing itself of. Without the best education humanity can provide, humanity is doomed.
Lighten the hell up. We're on the same side... at least hopefully on education.
Sounds like you went to a great school in Chicago.
"Keep with the times, man."? What the fuck is your point?
We're on the same side here. Better schools means better everything. For everybody.
Education is the silver bullet to cure whatever humanity is capable of curing itself of. Without the best education humanity can provide, humanity is doomed.
Lighten the hell up. We're on the same side... at least hopefully on education.
18
@CPN: The point is that LOWERING the taxes on the oil companies will lead to LESS revenue for the public schools. Apparently you studied calculus but never figured out basic math.
And BTW, where are the best public schools TODAY? Not in Alaska. In fact, the
And BTW, where are the best public schools TODAY? Not in Alaska. In fact, the
19
Nobody ever said that human farming was easy.
Keeping the tax livestock securely in the compounds of the ruling classes is a three phase process.
The first is to indoctrinate the young through government "education." As the wealth of democratic countries grew, government schools were universally inflicted in order to control the thoughts and souls of the livestock.
The second is to turn citizens against each other through the creation of dependent livestock. It is very difficult to rule human beings directly through force -- and where it can be achieved, it remains cripplingly underproductive, as can be seen in North Korea. Human beings do not breed well or produce efficiently in direct captivity. If human beings believe that they are free, then they will produce much more for their farmers. The best way to maintain this illusion of freedom is to put some of the livestock on the payroll of the farmer. Those cows that become dependent on the existing hierarchy will then attack any other cows who point out the violence, hypocrisy and immorality of human ownership. Freedom is slavery, and slavery is freedom. If you can get the cows to attack each other whenever anybody brings up the reality of their situation, then you don't have to spend nearly as much controlling them directly. Those cows who become dependent upon the stolen largess of the farmer will violently oppose any questioning of the virtue of human ownership -- and the intellectual and artistic classes, always and forever dependent upon the farmers -- will say, to anyone who demands freedom from ownership: "You will harm your fellow cows." The livestock are kept enclosed by shifting the moral responsibility for the destructiveness of a violent system to those who demand real freedom.
The third phase is to invent continual external threats, so that the frightened livestock cling to the "protection" of the farmers.
More...
Keeping the tax livestock securely in the compounds of the ruling classes is a three phase process.
The first is to indoctrinate the young through government "education." As the wealth of democratic countries grew, government schools were universally inflicted in order to control the thoughts and souls of the livestock.
The second is to turn citizens against each other through the creation of dependent livestock. It is very difficult to rule human beings directly through force -- and where it can be achieved, it remains cripplingly underproductive, as can be seen in North Korea. Human beings do not breed well or produce efficiently in direct captivity. If human beings believe that they are free, then they will produce much more for their farmers. The best way to maintain this illusion of freedom is to put some of the livestock on the payroll of the farmer. Those cows that become dependent on the existing hierarchy will then attack any other cows who point out the violence, hypocrisy and immorality of human ownership. Freedom is slavery, and slavery is freedom. If you can get the cows to attack each other whenever anybody brings up the reality of their situation, then you don't have to spend nearly as much controlling them directly. Those cows who become dependent upon the stolen largess of the farmer will violently oppose any questioning of the virtue of human ownership -- and the intellectual and artistic classes, always and forever dependent upon the farmers -- will say, to anyone who demands freedom from ownership: "You will harm your fellow cows." The livestock are kept enclosed by shifting the moral responsibility for the destructiveness of a violent system to those who demand real freedom.
The third phase is to invent continual external threats, so that the frightened livestock cling to the "protection" of the farmers.
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