This week we explore just how far the corporate-owned-and-operated state will go to put profits over people's lives. The propaganda machine to push a controversial taxpayer-funded bailout in Ohio is fired up--but will it be the taxpayers who are burned before all this is through? Our guest blogger Coast Watcher investigates.
Chinese Take Out?
by Coast Watcher
The
controversial House Bill 6 that passed through Ohio’s state house recently
has drawn flack from all quarters, some of them unexpected. What else
would ally the Sierra Club with billionaire Charles Koch, both of
whom decried the bill as a corporate bailout?
HB6,
enacted in July, gives $150 million annually for the private energy
company First Energy Solutions. The company, which recently declared
Chapter 11 bankruptcy, stated that without this publicly funded
bailout they would have to close the decrepit and increasingly
dangerous Davis-Besse and the Perry nuclear power plants.
Decommissioning the plants is a process that will take anything up to
or beyond sixty years. What makes the bill unprecedented in national
history is the fact that the State of Ohio will fund the bailout not
only with public tax money but by also cutting funding for renewable
energy strategies.
Naturally
such a move has drawn a lot of protest, not least from environmental
action groups. A petition currently circulating calls upon the state
government to overturn HB6 and restore renewable energy programs.
This
is where China supposedly comes in.
Supporters
of the bailout who call themselves Ohioans for Energy Security have
commissioned a series of attack ads aimed at crippling the petition.
An ominous voice-over intones “The
Chinese government is quietly invading our American electric grid.
Now they’re coming for our energy jobs.”
Images of marching soldiers of the
Chinese army and Chinese President Xi Jinping appear on the screen.
The commercial ends with the warning “Don’t
sign the petition allowing China to control Ohio’s power.”
The
TV ad is backed by a flyer mailer like the one shown above. The Chinese flag
is prominently displayed. There's no doubt “Red Scare” tactics are being employed.
So
where does this fear of China stem from? A
spokesman for Ohioans for Energy
Security, Carlo LoParo, said loans
made to natural gas plants in Ohio by state-controlled Industrial and
Commercial Bank of China Ltd. give Beijing local influence. “If
reactors close and gas plants sell more power in the region, Chinese
banks will have significant control over Ohio’s energy grid,”
LoParo said in a statement. “It’s
fair to point out that they’re heavily financed not just by foreign
lenders, but by a foreign government,”
LoParo
said in the interview. He
declined to say who funded the ads
and flyers.
Accusations
that the group is funded by dark money have been leveled at the
group by Gene Pierce, a spokesman
for Ohioans Against Corporate Bailouts, the organization gathering
signatures to repeal the law. The notion that the financing of gas
plants is tantamount to taking over the power grid is far-fetched, he
said. “Lending money is not
the same thing as having a controlling interest,”
Pierce said.
For
those who remember the attack ads and mailers run by corporate polluters against
the Lake Erie Bill of Rights (LEBOR) will find the current program of
propaganda eerily familiar. In that campaign of misinformation Big
Business in the shape of oil giant BP tried to convince the people of
Toledo that having clean water was not in their best interests and that the activists trying to save Lake Erie were “out-of-state extremists” who wanted to hurt people rather than help keep the city's drinking water supply safe.
That
campaign, of course, failed, costing British Petroleum-North America a tidy $307,000.
When
the Davis-Besse nuclear power plant opened in the 1970s there were numerous
concerns about safety. Those concerns still apply, especially as the
plant has suffered a number of close calls, any one of which would
have laid waste to the entire western basin of Lake Erie, including
all the communities along its shores and deep inland. One of the
tactics used by the bankrupt First Energy
Solutions to keep politicians in
line is to tout the fact that the company employs more than 600 workers and
supplies about 90% of Ohio’s power. Plant officials insist that
Davis-Besse can run for at least 20 more years if it continues to get
funding.
However, this short video from four years ago demonstrates how the 2019 taxpayers' bailout was in the making all along and proves that the aging nuke has serious--and possibly catastrophic--problems:
https://youtu.be/yefKEDF0uuM
The
fact that workers can only spend a maximum of fifteen minutes per day
within the confines of the reactor building through the dangers of
prolonged exposure to radiation is conveniently omitted. The company
and their tame politicians continue to say that the energy produced
by the plant is “clean.”
Common
sense would call for the nuclear plants to be decommissioned
immediately, and full funding for renewable energy solutions restored
and expanded. Renewables can more than take up the slack in power
demand, and will do so with far less impact on the environment. Far
more than 600 workers will be required to expand the clean energy
program of wind turbines and solar panels. Only the corporate
money-grubbers and their political lackeys continue to resist the
push of history.
As
the punch and counter-punch between supporters of HB6 and its
detractors continues, I can only hope the public will ignore the
blatant propaganda aimed at preventing them exercising their
democratic right to decide where their tax dollars are spent and sign
the petition.
Related article:
BIO: Coast Watcher is keeping an eye out on the aging nuke plants First Energy wants bailed out. There are no evacuation plans in place to protect the millions who live within a hundred mile radius of the two plants should they melt down. There's no plan on what would happen to all the radioactive fallout that would land in Lake Erie, either. China? We don't need to worry about China--we need to worry about the lobbyists who threaten our very existence with a possible China Syndrome!
***
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Trouble reading this email? Click here to view it online.
There’s no time left for business-as-usual. The climate crisis is here.
On
September 20, people of all ages in hundreds of countries are walking
out of their jobs, homes, and classes to demand real climate action from
our elected officials.
The following week, as the UN meets in New York City, we'll escalate by bringing tens of thousands of people into the streets and shutting down major US cities and key fossil fuel infrastructure.
Can you join us ?
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Quick
update: The global, youth-led, leader-full climate strike movement has
announced new demands for the Climate Strike week of action. And we are
PUMPED!
Check out the list of demands, and then find, host or join a global climate strike action near you!
Know somebody who needs to hear about the climate strikes? Share this blog link with them!
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On Friday, September 20th, we’re following the lead of youth around the world to join the global climate strikes.
The
following week, September 23-27, as the UN meets in New York City,
we’ll escalate by bringing thousands of people into the streets and
shutting down major US cities and key fossil fuel infrastructure until
our leaders take action commensurate with the scale of the crisis.
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For
the last 12 months, youth around the world have been walking out of
class and demanding accountability from our elected officials. Many of
them were inspired by the actions and words of Swedish student Greta
Thunberg. Now, they’re calling on people of all ages to join them in the
streets on September 20th.
It’s
urgent you answer this call – in person, in the streets, with action.
There’s no time left for business-as-usual; the climate crisis is here.
Indigenous peoples, as well as Black and Brown communities on the
frontlines have been leading the climate movement and building a
regenerative future while bearing the brunt of climate impacts. Young
people are joining them in calling for action to protect a livable
future for all of us.
We can’t fix this with another petition. This isn’t about polling and politics. If
you care about our climate and common home, we need you to skip work or
school on September 20, and to show up for action the following week.
Are you ready to take action?
The
following week, we’ll escalate the strikes by blocking key
infrastructure and stopping business-as-usual. I’m working with the team
that will bring Washington, D.C. to a gridlocked standstill. Others are
planning actions at Coal plants in new Hampshire, targeting banks and
key financiers of climate chaos, or walking to protect & restore the
Salish Sea in Seattle.
People
around the world are experiencing superstorms, floods, droughts, and
wildfires at unprecedented rates, with low-income communities and
communities of color hit first and worst. Cruelly, communities and
regions being devastated by the worst effects of climate change tend to
be the least responsible for its onset. It is not a coincidence that
climate impacts strike along the lines of race and class so starkly;
climate change itself is a product of the same processes which cement
racism and wealth inequality in our country and our world.
This
is the mass uprising that everyone with climate anxiety has been
waiting for. This is an uprising for life itself, fighting back against
the forces of destruction. This is your chance to take action to save
the people, plants, and animals you love. Let’s rise up like the waters next month and be the change our climate and communities need!
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Sources
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| It's time for Congress to take action on gun control | ||
| The petition to Congress reads:
"Enough is enough. We need real gun control now."
Add your name:
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Trump's white supremacy fuels far too much of this violence, but we can't blame it all on Trump when we have a Congress full of politicians too afraid to act. Congress comes back into session next week after a recess filled with mass shootings and daily acts of gun violence. Every single member needs to get the message loud and clear that their constituents expect them to act. Tell Congress: Thoughts and prayers are not enough. It's time to pass laws to help stop gun violence. Click here to sign the petition. Tragic mass shootings have become all too common – and they're getting deadlier. Since the fall of 2017, we have had four of the 10 deadliest mass shootings in modern U.S. history.2 And while these mass shootings receive more media attention, we cannot forget the gun violence that strikes people, families and communities across the country on a daily basis. Earlier this year, after a gunman shot and killed 50 people at two New Zealand mosques, it took lawmakers just three days to pass legislation banning assault weapons and high capacity magazines. Republicans are mainly to blame for keeping gun control from becoming law and exacerbating the growing crisis of white supremacist terror, but we cannot let either party off the hook. In August, 48 House Democrats sent a letter to Speaker Pelosi demanding that she bring them back into session to address the gun violence crisis and pass a ban on assault weapons and high capacity magazines.3 She did not listen. Speaker Pelosi has a responsibility to show that Democrats are willing to take bold action to keep us safe while Republicans hide in fear of the racist NRA. We have to demand she lead and make sure every Democrat in Congress knows what we expect. And we have to keep putting Republicans on notice too. Every Republican, and especially #MassacreMitch McConnell, needs to hear from constituents demanding an end to politics as usual when it comes to gun violence. We'll deliver your petitions to every member of Congress when they get back to Washington this week. The more people who sign, the greater our pressure will be. Can you add your name? https://act.credoaction.com/ Thanks for everything you do, Heidi Hess, Co-Director CREDO Action from Working Assets
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