Let's Try to Offend Kwicko!

POSTED BY: Kwicko
UPDATED: Sunday, June 24, 2012 22:49
VIEWED: 12157
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BYTEMITE

Wednesday, June 20, 2012 5:54 AM

Quote:

Do either of you have ANY data to back up your claims about the military?

Let me put it this way: there is a 20 mile long perchlorate plume from weapons manufacturing and dumping on military owned land to the west of me, and cancer rates up in ogden from the hill air force base PCE plume. All of this is part of the public record and widely acknowledged. Dugway proving grounds have had die offs downwind, and a number of Utahans were downwind from the nuclear testing in the 1950s and have 500x the normal cancer rates. There are military owned and leased lands scattered all around salt lake valley that I've seen sampling data from and I know the soil there is toxic. I've seen EPA cleanup sites and look the other way when they don't clean up to national toxicity screening levels. I know places that people are unaware that they should never, ever grow a garden and eat their own crops due to the soil contamination.

If it is a FUD site, it is contaminated. There are FUD sites in every state, and most active military bases have a contamination plume associated with them - the only difference is for the active bases is that the military hasn't moved away yet.

Based on hazardous waste handling on military bases in the US, is it not a serious jump to think that our foreign bases might look similar. How many entities do you know of that can and do pollute globally, to the point of putting the local population at risk, and are practically immune to being held accountable for it?

But if you want me to confirm the information about the military owned lands, at least in Utah, please follow this elegant link.

http://mapserv.utah.gov/DEQ/

You may run a search on the FUD sites and pull up the sampling data if you don't believe me, a lot of environmental documents are available online. If that doesn't work, you can try www.corpsfuds.org and www.utahfuds.org, though their website can often be slow. In any case, sampling information is available from all three sources, and they're worth a look just to satisfy curiosity.

I also have read enough case studies about military bases in other states, east coast west cast, and in between, to know that this is a widespread problem with military bases in the US in general. Believe me when I say that you could throw a rock and find reports that corroborate my claims - I don't want to post specific studies and reports because there is an overwhelming amount of evidence to choose from. The above websites shall therefore serve in this capacity for me.

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Does the military pollute the ocean as severely as plastics, or worse, micro-plastics?

Do you think that our naval ships carry all their waste with them on board until they reach port? When they are sometimes at sea for months at a time? They also burn petroleum based fuel to operate. Naval ships are an obvious contributor to plastics waste, jet fuel, waste oils, chlorinated solvents, and petroleum products in the ocean.

Your example of corporate oil spills are some of the worst industrial disasters I've ever seen, and I concede that, but are you seriously going to defend the US military on, well, ANYTHING? They really are terrible polluters, and I'm amazed we're even arguing about this.

The US gov't does not have a clean environmental record, not by a long shot, and it's even comparable to industrial pollution. I don't really pick sides here, terrible is terrible no matter who's doing it.

1KIKI

Wednesday, June 20, 2012 6:24 AM

"... there is a 20 mile long perchlorate plume from weapons manufacturing and dumping on military owned land to the west of me ..."

I'll see your 20 and raise you an order of magnitude.

"In 1983, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) declared a 200-mile (322-km) stretch of the river, from Hudson Falls to New York City, to be a Superfund site requiring cleanup. (due to PCB dumping)"

"I know places that people are unaware that they should never, ever grow a garden and eat their own crops due to the soil contamination."

As do I - every major city, every neighborhood dating back before the 1970's, every thoroughfare, is laced with lead from paint and gasoline. You REALLY don't want to be growing a garden, or even breathing the dust. And this isn't just some isolated spots here or there, it's everywhere: towns, cities, roads across the US and the planet.

I don't want to be arguing this either, especially b/c it's late and I have to go to work tomorrow.

But I can't believe you're giving corporations a pass, on everything from pollution, to species destruction, to overuse, overfishing, overgrazing and overfarming, strip-mining and mountaintop removal and clear-cutting, to impoverishment of billions of people, and the deaths of untold others. More people die from poverty-related disease than from war.

BYTEMITE

Wednesday, June 20, 2012 6:27 AM

Quote:
But I can't believe you're giving corporations a pass, on everything from pollution, to species destruction, to overuse, overfishing, overgrazing and overfarming, strip-mining and mountaintop removal and clear-cutting, to impoverishment of billions of people, and the deaths of untold others.

This is a serious misinterpretation of my argument. I NEVER SAID CORPORATIONS DON'T POLLUTE.

I SAID THAT THE MILITARY POLLUTES ALL AROUND THE WORLD AND THE US AND IT'S PRETTY SERIOUS.

What I said exactly: "The US military and it's contractors are SOME of the biggest polluters in existence."

Not THE, not THE ONLY, but SOME of. And I said that because they ARE.

In fact, most of the worst sites I know of in my area are military. I can tell you that the fall out zone from the Nevada Nuclear Test Site killed and gave radioactive burns to sheep in the Cedar City and Parowan areas 171 and 194 miles away respectively, and had a wide dispersal area due to the aerial distribution, effecting places clear over in Colorado as well as parts of Arizona. The exposed population, as I said previously, has 500x the cancer risk that the regular population has. They set off NINETY of these tests. Ninety incidents over a thirty year period that extrapolating from dispersion distance and symptomology for concentration suggests each one was three times worse than chernobyl. And that wasn't even the only test site they had in the US, they had around fifty of them.

They've used nerve agents and other chemical weapons of war in combat, with such recklessness and so little precaution that our own soldiers have come down with serious illnesses, made worse when they come back to US military bases and lands that have been contaminated to cancer causing levels. They've tested chemicals and biological agents en mass on portions of the US population as well, releasing various pesticides, mosquitos infected with yellow fever, whooping cough, and the bacteria Serratia marcescens over major US cities.

No, the military didn't cause Three Mile Island. What they've done has been SO MUCH WORSE.

And if you want to talk about exploitation of people, what exactly do you think the military is doing with Haliburton in the middle east?

War often causes poverty, imperialism causes poverty, military and corporate power working together causes poverty. Neither side here is innocent.

Quote:
You REALLY don't want to be growing a garden, or even breathing the dust. And this isn't just some isolated spots here or there, it's everywhere: towns, cities, roads across the US and the planet.

The site I was referring to has it's residents thinking it was cleaned up and okayed by the EPA for residential use. But it wasn't cleaned up to residential screening levels, the risk assessment didn't factor in garden growth, children, or the elderly. It is unsafe and I anticipate a lot of problems in the future resulting from chronic exposure.

Do the sites you know of have this issue of false safety assurance as well?

BYTEMITE

Wednesday, June 20, 2012 6:39 AM

Oh Jack, jealousy does not become you. Start a new thread if you're feeling lonely.

KWICKO

Wednesday, June 20, 2012 12:05 PM

Kiki, I'm sorry; I didn't realize it was a competition. I had some hopes that we could agree that military AND corporations are both "end polluters", and that neither should be give a free pass.

As the "owners" of the military, we should be able to hold them accountable, at least in theory.

"I supported Bush in 2000 and 2004 and intellegence [sic] had very little to do with that decision." - Hero

"I've not watched the video either, or am incapable of intellectually dealing with the substance of this thread, so I'll instead act like a juvenile and claim victory..." - Rappy

KWICKO

Wednesday, June 20, 2012 12:07 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by ANTHONYT:
Quote:
Can I find a thing unpleasant without finding it torturous?

Hello,

Mr. Raptor may not be the best basis for making such a determination.

--Anthony

Touché. Well played, sir. Well played indeed.

"I supported Bush in 2000 and 2004 and intellegence [sic] had very little to do with that decision." - Hero

"I've not watched the video either, or am incapable of intellectually dealing with the substance of this thread, so I'll instead act like a juvenile and claim victory..." - Rappy

BYTEMITE

Wednesday, June 20, 2012 1:41 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
Kiki, I'm sorry; I didn't realize it was a competition. I had some hopes that we could agree that military AND corporations are both "end polluters", and that neither should be give a free pass.

As the "owners" of the military, we should be able to hold them accountable, at least in theory.

Yes. Getting actual litigation through and recovering damages from the US Government for this stuff is like pulling teeth though. :/

1KIKI

Wednesday, June 20, 2012 2:17 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
Kiki, I'm sorry; I didn't realize it was a competition. I had some hopes that we could agree that military AND corporations are both "end polluters", and that neither should be give a free pass.

As the "owners" of the military, we should be able to hold them accountable, at least in theory.

"I supported Bush in 2000 and 2004 and intellegence [sic] had very little to do with that decision." - Hero

"I've not watched the video either, or am incapable of intellectually dealing with the substance of this thread, so I'll instead act like a juvenile and claim victory..." - Rappy

As long as people claim THE problem is government I will disagree. The focus on government as THE source of everything bad is simply untrue. Corporations kill more people, pollute more, and create more misery and destruction around the globe than the military ever has.

BYTEMITE

Wednesday, June 20, 2012 4:12 PM

Quote:
As long as people claim THE problem is government I will disagree. The focus on government as THE source of everything bad is simply untrue. Corporations kill more people, pollute more, and create more misery and destruction around the globe than the military ever has.

If this is actually your attempt to try to offend Kwicko, I will congratulate you and say that I am impressed.

I don't believe I or Kwicko ever said that THE problem is government. I can speak for myself when I say that I think our government is A problem (specifically government corruption), and along with greed (both corporate and not), it is one of the two MAIN problems that we're up against. It seems to me they can not be disconnected from the other.

When you look at the Roman empire, which existed before corporations, what exactly do you see? Stratified society maybe? Slaves? Poverty? Immense gaps in the wealth between the classes? Where do you think the slaves came from, in the Roman times? Who was forcing them to work?

What is forcing people to work nowadays? What is the punishment for not working? Not being able to purchase food, yes, but what else? What principle drives the sweatshop worker in China and the cubicle dweller in America?

Now, regulation: what is the employment and turnover rate between the government and government regulators and corporations? Might there be a reason I don't trust our current standard of regulation whatsoever?

But no, apparently because I don't like how this socio-economic system works or how this form of government gets things done, I fully approve of the murders and exploitation that big corporations get away with, and because you disagree with me, apparently the murders and exploitation the military and government get away with are somehow less important.

WISHIMAY

Wednesday, June 20, 2012 4:37 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
Oh Jack, jealousy does not become you. Start a new thread if you're feeling lonely.

Yep, thinking he was drunk.... No one uses the word BALLS that many times in a post unless they are drunk

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