‘What Have You Got to Lose’ —
that was one of Trump’s plaintive campaign lines pitched at black voters last year — but repeated over and over again and heard by all of us ad nauseum. Although Mr T didn’t win many black votes, carnival barker slogans like that helped to carry the current occupant on to victory and 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, where he currently resides and pretends to the presidency, for a few days each week.
In the months since the election, in addition to losing our minds, it has become clear at we all have great deal else to lose. Affordable health insurance, public education, justice for all, a safe and secure banking system, fair and free elections, meaningful environmental protection, public lands, social justice, the safety net of unemployment compensation, medicare, medicaid and social security, access to effective birth control and safe abortion, online privacy, a free press, protection for endangered species, whistleblower protection from retaliation, equal pay for equal work. All of that is now in the wind.
Everywhere you look, the answer is quickly becoming evident. We stand to lose just about everything progressives have struggled to accomplish over the last century. Every hard won gain is now at risk, including perhaps your life and health at work, as workplace health and safety regulations may be among the many government regulations rolled back, ‘streamlined’ or simply not enforced in Trump’s America.
While posing as a friend of working folks— it is crystal clear that Trump is no Roosevelt — the latest rollback of environmental and occupational protections includes axing a new rule developed during the Obama administration aimed a lowering workplace exposure to beryllium dust. This is a small thing, but is a telling symptom of the awful and dangerous direction we’re headed.
Beryllium is a rare metal, mostly used in aluminum and copper alloys, primarily in the aerospace industry. Beryllium dust is toxic if inhaled, even in tiny amounts - and is linked to a lung disease that is estimated to kill about 100 people each year.www.nytimes.com/... en.wikipedia.org/...
The nation’s largest beryllium producer had agreed to comply with the new efforts to minimize workplace exposure and protect workers health. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) was proud of the new standards, which were many years in the making.
“Once we finish, these workers will be protected and we will end the epidemic of beryllium exposure in the United States,” David Michaels, the OSHA chief, said in 2015.
But, just as the new rule was set to go into effect, Trump’s OSHA suddenly proposed changes aimed at exempting major industries from the tougher new standard. That is just one of several instances in which policies designed to protect the health and safety of workers have been revisited in the early months of the Trump administration. www.nytimes.com/...
During the last century American workers have benefited from a wide range of government backed health and safety protections and some reassurance that egregious violations of those protections would lead to court appearances by executives who could be held accountable for violations that led to the death or injury of workers. Take for example the conviction of Don Blankenship, the owner of the Upper Big Branch Mine, for violation of safety practices that led to the deaths of 29 West Virginia coal miners in 2010. Blankenship, was convicted in 2015 of conspiring to willfully violate safety standards that led to those deaths and served one year in prison. The sentence did not fit the crime, but it was something. Hard to believe that similar charges would be brought by Trump’s DOJ or that executive jail time for safety violations could ever happen again in Trump’s America. en.wikipedia.org/..
So beware workers — In Trump’s America many of us will be bringing home more than a paycheck.
Next up. let’s take a quick look at the Trial of the Century in South Dakota — a 5.7 billion dollar libel case involving Beef Products, Inc. or BPI against ABC News, over ‘finely textured beef product’ otherwise known as Pink Slime. en.wikipedia.org/...
Like Hormel and Armour before them, who famously got everything from the pig but the squeal en.wikipedia.org/...www.motherjones.com/..., some years ago BPI came up with an innovation, a way to process fatty beef trimmings and return some of the protein back into ground beef. Finely chop the fatty trimmings that were otherwise waste, then centrifuge them at high speed to remove most of the fat and then mix the remainder back into the ground beef. BPI euphemistically called their gooey invention ‘finely textured beef product.” Thanks in large part to an ABC News story, that product became better known as ‘Pink Slime’ — which by most accounts is a perfectly apt description. Once ABC News reports became widely known, the market for BPI’s revolting and unappetizing goo disappeared, forcing BPI to close plants and stop making it.
In the wake of the ABC News reports, fast-food chains severed ties with BPI, and hundreds of thousands of people signed petitions to keep pink slime" out of school lunches. In 2012, Beef Products, Inc. brought the suit now at trial. Finely Textured Beef — aka Pink Slime had been unfairly defamed by ABC News, because no matter how disgusting it looks or how it was made. it is perfectly safe to eat.
111 years after Upton Sinclair’s The jungle — we now find ourselves facing yet another new challenge to public health in the meat industry. Since 1906, Sinclair’s vivid description of processors using diseased, rotten, and contaminated meat have shocked the public, leading to federal food safety laws that have benefited generations of american consumers. If BPI wins their 5.7 billion dollar Pink Slime lawsuit — it will not only stifle investigative reporting, perhaps permanently, but we’ll be back on the 100 year old road to who knows what is in the food we eat.
I can hear Trump clear as day singing to himself over and over again in his little 8yr old voice - ‘Mystery meat is good to eat” while thinking, Trust Me America, You're Gonna Love It!!
Be vigilant, Eat healthy and stay Safe my friends, we have so much work to do.