By JB on 01-06-09
There is absolutely no guarantee that CFAC would stay open, even if the court’s decision was overturned so that the BPA could renegotiate the electricity price agreement. This is a shot in the dark - and obviously a play by both senators to show they at least “tried” to do something.
By mtdon on 01-06-09
i think it’s time we returned to americans owning american companies….. globalization just guarantees that worldwide companies will play states and countries against each other to lower costs and continue the race to the bottom…... it’s time we realized that employee wages and the local community are more important than guaranteeing corporate profits for a bunch of economic royalists that could care less if they destroy a community in which a plant or factory is located. In The end the owners of CFAC could care less about Montana and the Flathead. Why is it that the good ole USA can’t own any of these companies anymore - because our government is now of, by and for the criminals!
By james on 01-06-09
CFAC needs to close it’s doors for good. I am far from being an environmentalist but I do think that the bad enviornmental impact of CFAC on CFalls and the surrounding valley far outways the the economic gain. Has anyone else noticed that plants and trees where starting to grow on Tea Kettle mtn again after the last CFAC shut down? If that stuff is toxic enough to kill off the plants and trees just think what it’s doing to your kids lungs during an inversion not to mention what is leaching into the water table from the toxic waste their burying back behind the plant. Also, I would hardly consider CFAC an anchor of the local economy, employment there has been so sporadic employees don’t know if they are going to have a job from one year to the next.
By JB on 01-06-09
“Sporadic employment” has been true of every major employer in Northwest Montana; lay them off in bad times, hire them back in good times. Good paying steady jobs are as scarce as honest politicians here, and always will be.
By Tox on 01-07-09
mtdon: I concur with you when you say that “globalization just guarantees that worldwide companies will play states and countries against each other to lower costs and continue the race to the bottom…... it’s time we realized that employee wages and the local community are more important than guaranteeing corporate profits for a bunch of economic royalists that could care less if they destroy a community in which a plant or factory is located.”—
But why should that come as news or a surprise to anyone? Isn’t this precisely the kind of “free market” world the Republican ideology has been propagating ever since Reagan’s “Reaganomics”, just taken to the global scale? ....A cutthroat, neo-darwinian market place, where workers and entire communities are exploited as expendable commodities, and the profitability of large corporations is heralded as the panacea to economic woes…..while these corporations are really just big piles of money out to make more money, yet are legally treated like individuals with “rights” and “freedoms”. This is supposed to be “good” and in America has come to be practically accepted as a feature of “human nature” and thus in some bizarre way as “healthy” and “natural”, in spite of all the evidence showing how this is squeezing out our middle class, bringing more and more people into poverty, and ever more widening the gap between the rich and the poor, so in the social and economic structure of our society we now resemble 3rd World nations as in say Latin America, more than other industrialized nations.
—
The irony is that those democratically run countries, particularly in Europe, who see governments’ duty to protect the working class are derided in our country as being so despicably “socialist”. Their ideals of broad worker protections for everybody akin to those of the UAW (Union of Automobile Workers), guaranteed health care for everybody, and outstanding free education for all children all the way through the university level, are treated here almost like a new evil enemy…..all of it being so terribly “socialist”. The thing is nobody there is going to lose their jobs, much less their homes, because of health care costs. Nobody has to worry about their children’s education, because of their own low incomes. Therefore, during the presidential elections last fall, the ongoing joke in the German speaking countries was: Question: What is the dumbest thing in America? Answer: A poor Republican.
—
The underlying feature in the European countries though, is the societal consensus for what the German-speaking countries call “soziale Verantwortung” (social responsibility), which is seen as the state’s and government’s duty to guarantee, so corporations can’t just hire and fire workers as they please, and to make sure wages are high enough to provide for a standard of living well above poverty levels, and not like in our country where we have legions of working poor….people working so hard and yet struggling to even survive and keep their homes.
—
During the holiday season we heard once again, about all those wonderful people and charities who try to help others in need, and praise their dedication and kind-heartedness, and also see it as part of the fundamental American spirit to help others in one’s community. I see it that way to, and have been blessed with personally experiencing it. But is that really how we want to function as a society? Let entire swaths of society fall through a flimsy safety net, and assume and hope there is going to be some generous (and rich enough) soul “out there” to help them out? I would hope we are a more generous, more caring and more compassionate society as a whole.
By mt don on 01-07-09
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Notice it doesn"t say “every may for himself” and the word “Corporation” isn’t in the constitution. BUT it does say “WE THE PEOPLE”. ANd it says the “General Welfare”. And it says “domestic Tranquility”.
How is the General welfare provided for if you get sick and are underinsured or not insured you can’t get access health care? How is “Domestic Tranquility” achieved if the wealthy get all the benefits and added wealth of the Society. THE USA now has a BIGGER split between the rich and the poor that we did during the Great Depression. The citizens of this Country used to understand these issues - which is why the REPUBLICAN PRESIDENT Eisenhauer raised the top tax rate up to 91% - and we enjoyed the longest economic growth period of our history.
If you showed the average American the Preamble to the Constitution a large percentage would like it is a socialist document. How far we have fallen!
By summit on 01-08-09
James, take a look at old pictures of the mountain before cfac, and tell me that it had trees on it. It did not you idiot.
By James on 01-09-09
summit, yes there has always been a treeless area where the rocks are, but that’s not what I’m talking about, and you know it. Anyone who has lived in CF any amount of time has seen the dramatic change in new vegetation on the west facing slope, is it coincidence that it occurred during CFAC’s latest shut down, I don’t think so. Calling me an idiot won’t change the facts.
By gobbles on 01-09-09
you are both idiots. there are plenty of trees to go around, while jobs are a different story.
By RecentRumor? on 01-11-09
Great post Tox!
So, it’s just hearsay at this point, or rumor if you will…but I heard that there is a study underway which shows that the children of Hungry Horse, Martin City, and Coram areas have the highest rates of autism anywhere within the U.S.
My source was a friend of a friend within the school system of the aforementioned areas. Lord I hope it’s not true, but when I heard this I realized that these communities are downwind of CFAC.
The views expressed in the comments section do not reflect those of the Beacon.