Erratic WSJ Screed Against Socialism Merely Indicts The Author (Roger Kimball) And His Irrelevant Arguments

There's no avoiding the fact the debased Neoliberal media goes to extreme lengths to try to deform public perceptions of both socialism and capitalism.  Hence, for the latter they try to tie in "freedom" and "wealth" for all whereas the truth is more how Chris Hedges has described it.  I myself  had little conception of  corporatist capitalism  until writing  'The Elements of the Corporatocracy' - later converted into a book.  My motivation was to expose the many lies that attempted to instill in citizens a false consciousness that twisted socialism into a terrifying caricature while extolling capitalism.

One of the hallmarks of a religion is that its dogmas and tenets are accepted without question, or challenge. These arrive from 'on high' so are presumed beyond experimental test, or testing via personal experience in the real world.  On account of the absence of reality testing even its myths are thereby integrated into a person's belief matrix and become unquestioned tropes.  In this sense, Bill Maher's  June 2, 2016 comparison of capitalism to religion in the final segment of his Real Time was spot on.  

For those seeking an in depth exposure of capitalism's multitude of defects there is Chris Hedges' book, 'The Empire of Illusion'.  Hedges pulls no punches in showing how  - when it comes to being "incurious"  - the corporate media gets medals, i.e. in demeaning democratic socialism while blindly elevating capitalism to preposterous heights. 

 Enter now a recent(Sept. 3rd) WSJ essay by Roger Kimball, entitled 'Socialism is for the Incurious' (p. A17).  The piece trots out assorted quotes from Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Joseph Stalin, and Sir Roger Scruton - to end up with this nonsense:

"Human reality is drained of dignity and becomes material to be shaped and formed according to the scheme of utopian power."

But socialism is hardly utopian!  It is the practical means by which capitalism is inhibited from becoming a metastatic malignancy to the detriment of public welfare.   A sober essay  perspective is offered by Robert Freeman:

"Anybody here ever used the Internet? That was created by a government agency, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The technology itself was invented during the Nixon administration. Nixon was a Republican president. It was turned on by the same agency in 1983, under Ronald Reagan, another Republican president. That is socialism.

Anybody here ever been made safer by the military, or felt safer knowing that police or fire or first-responder services were there? That’s people coming together to solve problems that none of us could solve on our own. Socialism.

Anybody here ever fly on an airplane? Guess what, your safety was guaranteed by thousands of standards set by the FAA, and by air traffic control, run by the same agency. Socialism. Anybody here ever used prescription drugs, or drunk water or breathed air or eaten food that was made cleaner or safer by government rules and standards? Guess what? That’s socialism.

You get the idea. The truth is that without some elements of socialism, capitalism doesn’t work. It literally collapses of its own predatory greed. Don’t take my word for it.

That’s what happened in the 1930s. Capitalism, left to its own devices, destroyed itself. That’s what we call the Great Depression. It was the greatest economic event of the past century. And you know how it was solved? It was solved by socialism.  Roosevelt created Social Security (notice the word “social” in the name), unemployment insurance, regulations so that bank deposits would be safe, public service employment programs, and more. All socialist to the core."

For the take of a Danish woman, which echoes the above points, in answer to a fearful question on socialism by Oprah,  see e.g.

• Danish woman's perfect response to Oprah on their social ...

https://egbertowillies.com › oprah-danish-woman-democratic-socialism

By contrast, with so many citations of different actors from different epochs, it's no wonder that Kimball - at the end of his erratic screed- ends up with a miasma of disjointed,  incoherent rants.  For example:

"The cruel and suffocating intrusiveness of those dystopian experiments against reality are not so seamlessly or thoroughly implemented in American society as elsewhere."

What "cruel experiments"?  Kimball doesn't specify but because he earlier refers to "revolutionaries trading only in masses not individuals" we can infer he means any 'experiment' that attempted to right inequality - economic or other. So include Jacobo Arbenz'  nationalization of  Guatemala's resources in 1954 - which caused the CIA to overthrow him.  Or Premier Mohammed Mossadegh's efforts to nationalize Iran's oil fields in 1953 - which got him assassinated and paved the way for theocracy.   "Dystopian" experiments?  That's hardly the way Arbenz or Mossadegh saw it. They rather saw their mission as providing a more equitable distribution of resources for their own people - as opposed to fodder for capitalist profits.

But by mounting this warped jeremiad against "socialism" - or indeed any national effort ("experiment") to strive for civil betterment- it's no surprise Kimball also can write at the end of his previous remark:

"But anyone who looks around at the vast, unaccountable, self-engorging bureaucracy of the so-called administrative  state ... cannot help but mark the parallels with the remorseless incuriosity that stood behind the totalitarian juggernaut as it systematically discounted truth for the sake of the accumulation of power."

Seriously?   After reading this fulsome codswallop one wonders if Kimball was on an MJ  high maybe mixed with Oxy.  Maybe he vaped both, who knows?  Let's clarify by first asking what he's railing against when he cites the "so-called administrative state".

Far from being "so-called" this is the system of taxes, regulations and agency oversight the current structure of government supports. In other words, all those elements of the federal "bureaucracy" that ensure your milk is free of fecal matter, your burgers not infected with  E Coli., your drinking water not fouled by cow manure, perchlorates or lead.  Oh and your canned tuna free of botulism. Also that medical devices are properly manufactured and sterilized to acceptable standards (FDA regs), i.e. so when you get your colonoscopy the colonoscope didn't just come directly from insertion into another patient.

Taken literally, Kimball is conflating this protective bureaucracy-  recall that as economist George Lakoff has pointed out, e.g.

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/george-lakoff/71462/the-public-s-viewpoint-regulations-are-protections

Regulations are protections.

With some kind of ersatz Stalinism or some skewed, warped view of socialism  Worse, he's renouncing the Preamble of the Constitution wherein the central clause (general welfare) is an effective working government that has the general welfare as a primary role.  

So one can rightly say on this basis that any "remorseless incuriosity" - and even palpable ignorance-   is wholly on Kimball's side.  In effect, what started as a scattershot attack on statism and socialism ends up a hollow screed that is self-indicting and I'd add, self -refuting. 

Charles Reich poignantly notes in his book, Opposing the System, Crown Books, p. 103:

"When society itself comes to be modeled on economic and organizational principles, all of the forces that bind people together are torn apart in the struggle for survival. Community is destroyed because we are no longer 'in this together' because everyone is a threat to everyone else. "

This is the de facto model Kmiball would have us embrace, assuming we took his gibberish seriously..

See also:

• Corporate Media Pushes Socialism Bogey To Scare Vo...

Make Drinking Water Dirty Again - Trump's Plan To Propel The Economy While Increasing Cancers

The Trump's administration's revocation of clean water  rules (often  mistakenly cited as "Obama era" by the corporo-media)  has to be one of the most destructive actions in decades.   All in a claimed move to further weaken the "administrative state" but in this case making it easier to foul our water supply. This despite the fact that - from 9 years ago - the EPA established that 20 percent of the nation's 50,000 fresh water lakes surveyed had been affected by phosphorus and nitrogen pollution.  The latter form causing algal blooms and many serious health problems.

So now the reckless Trump cabal wants to make it much worse, and sicken millions more Americans.

One of the most insidious chemical carcinogens permeating our water and air is arsenic - chemical symbol: As.  (Check your periodic table.) Arsenic in food deserves some special concern, and yet there are no regulations limiting it. In addition to arsenic used in industry that finds its way onto farms, there is arsenic used in agriculture that the farmers themselves bring to their farms, a practice almost dating back to the Civil War. So no surprise farmers were jubilant when Trump rolled back Obama's rules on it.

How so? One of Trump's attacks on the regulatory state was to allow power plants to dump more arsenic, lead, as well as mercury, into the water.  We already know the risks of the last two in terms of retarding intellectual development, as the horrific case of lead pollution Flint's water showed.


As for arsenic, once in the environment, it doesn't break down and go away as do some toxins. So much arsenic has already been sprayed on farms over decades that it got into the environment for good, massively infiltrating our food and water. U.S. limits on arsenic in drinking water were set at 50 ppb in 1942, before arsenic was classified as a carcinogen. But a 1999 report by the National Academy of Sciences showed that this level failed to protect Americans from an unacceptably high risk of cancer.  

As long ago as October, 2012,  ABC News and other outlets exposed the fact of the unacceptably high arsenic content in rice. This despite the fact that (according to the Dartmouth Toxic Metals Superfund Research Program): "It is considered the number one environmental chemical of concern for human health effects both in the U.S. and worldwide".   Note, however, that even if one avoided eating all rice or other arsenic content foods, he'd still face unacceptably high risks from drinking water- which Trump and his gang have now made worse.

Chemically, arsenic  can be divided into two categories: organic and inorganic. While organic arsenic is itself a probable human carcinogen, inorganic arsenic is a definite human carcinogen that is linked to liver, lung, kidney, bladder, and skin cancer as well as “increased risk of vascular and heart disease, type 2 diabetes, reproductive and developmental disorders, low birth weights in babies, neurological and cognitive problems, immunodeficiencies, metabolic disorders, and a growing list of other serious outcomes.”

 In terms of H2O, the EPA in 2000 proposed lowering the limit for arsenic from 50 ppb to just 5 ppb. But aw shit, the toxic....errrr, chemical industry complained, and the Clinton-era EPA settled upon a "compromise":  lowering the limit to just 10 ppb instead. Once George W. Bush took office, he initially attempted to block the change, thus keeping the World War II-era limit of 50 ppb. (Hint: Repukes love cancer because if they can increase the death rate of citizens they can have more die off earlier, so the rich won't have to cough up more taxes for new benefits.)

Thanks to Trump and his deregulatory gangsters, we can also expect many more cancers from increased perflourinated chemicals in our water.  Interestingly, at the time cancer (pancreatic, liver, kidney) hot spots began to show up around Fountain, south of the Springs, several years ago, few made connections.

But soon after a Denver Post story appeared, noting:   "These perflourinated chemicals rank among the worst in an expanding multitude of unregulated chemicals that federal scientists are detecting in city water supplies, including hormones, pesticides, antibiotics and anti-depressants."

And as further observed, as in the case of arsenic: "Perflourinated chemicals don't break down"

In Colorado now, as in  many other states and cities, it has reached the critical crisis mark as the water in all 32 wells of the Security, CO water district has been found contaminated by - you guessed it - PFCs.  In every case the contamination levels have exceeded 70 ppt and in one case hit 1,367 ppt - nearly 20 times higher than the putative limit (and hence inimical for the consumption of pregnant women and small children).

While PFC ingestion might not lead to retardation as does lead, it can lead to a whole raft of cancers, including the one I am currently fighting (prostate).  It has also been linked to "kidney and testicular cancer as well as "developmental damage to fetuses, low birth weight, accelerated puberty, distorted bones and liver tissue damage". 

But, of course, it doesn't stop with PFCs since as I've noted in previous posts.  The fact is our watersheds are literally awash with other toxins too, virtually none of which are regulated, including antibiotics, atrazine-laden weedicides and pesticides and other industrial byproducts - all carcinogenic crap for which the cancers generated will likely need painful, invasive biopsies as well as treatments later.   And we won't even get into the health care costs which are bound to run into the hundreds of millions.

Is the estimate of a million more cancer diagnoses in the coming year scare mongering or exaggeration?  Not really.  The reason is too many Americans aren't even aware of the cancers they're already harboring because they haven't been screened for them - for whatever reason.

Consider that back in 2011 - according to a TIME essay on  medical costs-   an estimated 16 million "accidentoplasms" had been found each year for nearly a decade.  These are cancers (neoplasms) found only accidentally - say as part of  a totally unrelated test - say a CT scan to check for something else (like my cholesteotoma).

 If the medical establishment had been forced to treat all of them the health system would go broke  just treating cancers.   Maybe it's just as well we go through our lives, most of us, not knowing what we don't know!    The problem is that the array of cancers likely to be unleashed by Trump's revoking clean water rules will be much more aggressive, and hence not ignorable.

But the fact is, water borne carcinogens - as well as pathogens - are among the worst at making us sick. Despite that, Trump and his cabal have now opened the door to them all and in the process,  undermining Americans' health.  Incredibly this ruthless move is touted as an "economic win" just like the earlier attacks on the regulatory state, e.g.

The Bannon Deregulatory "Juggernaut" Wreaks Havoc ...

 Indeed, the implication of this misplaced change - basically a plan to create dirty water- will be to add millions more cancer diagnoses to the American populace. This despite the fact we already have nearly 28  million uninsured, who'd go bankrupt if they had to get treatments for an aggressive cancer.

In the words of Bart Johnson-Harris of Environment America, quoted in The Denver Post ('Clean Water Rules Revoked', p. 1 A, Sept. 15):

"By repealing the clean water rules, this administration is opening our iconic waterways to a flood of pollution. The EPA is abdicating its mission to protect our environment and our health."

How did the Trumpies manage to accomplish (and justify)  this outrage? They used a cost - benefit analysis and applied it to what are called "the waters of the United States".  These include streams and wetlands that feed larger waterways, including those used for drinking water.  And what, pray tell, did the Trumpies' cost-benefit analysis find? Well, that the existing Clean Water Act rules did not provide any net economic benefits.  One imagines these crass boneheads never factored in the billions of added health care costs - from biopsies, cancer treatments.

Anyway, the basis for the finding of  "no net economic benefit" actually was traced to the ancillary finding that the clean water rules "could not be quantified."  Hence, these geniuses assigned a value of zero, so therefore the clean water rule had to go. It was holding back economic progress.

Hmmm....maybe these myopic birdbrains ought to have gone to Flint, Michigan or other cities affected by lead in their water supplies.  They'd have seen first hand the economic burdens imposed by lax water supply rules and conditions, e.g.

Mark Ruffalo & Bill Maher Expose Degraded State Of...

As the  example of Flint has shown, it is generally much less costly to refrain from polluting a water system in the first place than to try to clean it up once it's contaminated.  But this ought to be a basic economic proposition grasped by even an average IQ person.

Again, let's recall that as economist George Lakoff has pointed out, e.g.

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/george-lakoff/71462/the-public-s-viewpoint-regulations-are-protections

Regulations are protections. Protections of the public health provided by a government that puts citizens' interests above corporate profits, or any imagined economic benefits.  Deregulation then, means the abolition or elimination of those same protections. 

What Trump's revocation of clean water rules has done is to attack our basic protections, which include the right to drink clean water - as opposed to fouled water. In so doing he's mounted an attack on our health and collective well being, as well as national security.  A sick nation cannot be a secure or functional nation, after all.

See also:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/12/climate/trump-administration-rolls-back-clean-water-protections.html

Now Trumpies Want To Cut Nuclear Reactor Inspections To Reduce "Regulatory State"

Leave it to Trump and his swamp cronies and grifters to now pressure the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)  to  seek to reduce or "cut" inspections at nuclear facilities.  This according to a Denver Post article five days ago ('NRC Looking At Reducing Inspections At Reactors', by Ellen Knickmeyer.)   Janice's first reaction on seeing the news was to almost blow a gasket, given she'd worked in nuclear medicine almost 30 years before we moved to the U.S.  (where she became a beta tester for brachytherapy software.)

"What are they, mad?" she yelped.

Well, maybe.  But then we know all the Trumpies - the nest of vipers currently infesting all agencies of the government - are not about protecting citizens' welfare but rather their fat,  monied pockets.

While some might cheer the sound of the word "deregulation" or mentally conjure up images of freedom and personal liberty, they are more brainwashed than accurate. Actually,  as economist George Lakoff has pointed out, e.g.

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/george-lakoff/71462/the-public-s-viewpoint-regulations-are-protections

Regulations are protections. Protections of the public health provided by a government that puts citizens' interests above corporate profits.  Deregulation then, means the abolition or elimination of those same protections. 

What gives then with this new impetus to cut inspections at nuclear plants, reactors?  Well, this misbegotten push is consistent with Trumps' theme to "reduce regulatory requirements for all industries".   The fewer regulations, the more "freedom" the industries have to operate and the more profits they can rake in.  The ones who lose are citizens, whether those who ingest pork tapeworms e.g.

Because  FDA or USDA inspectors didn't do their oversight job, or those who get brain or pancreatic cancers from drinking water laden with perchlorates, because the EPA loosened regulations of water quality.  In this case, with the nuclear reactors proposed cuts in inspections we learn from author Knickmeyer we learn it originated with the nuclear power industry as a "cost cutting promotion"

Hmmm....as Janice put it, maybe they never saw the excellent HBO series Chernobyl.  Especially when the nuclear reactor's core exploded in that forlorn Ukrainian town.

Chernobyl (2019) - Reactor Explosion Scene - YouTube

Okay, 'Chernobyl' was somewhat dramatic and hyped, but still many lesser calamities are possible when reactors are given short shrift in inspections. Look no further the Three Mile Island which set back nuclear power for a generation in the U.S.  And let's please be clear that without nuclear power as a "bridge" energy source there is simply no way to significantly cut back on fossil fuels or aspire to any Green New Deal.

Why the desire for cost cutting via inspections at nuclear installations?  Well, because nuclear power is currently struggling in market competition against cheaper natural gas and ascendant renewable energy. But two things are forgotten by market mavens: 1)  Natural gas has methane as a spinoff, a greenhouse gas 25 times more potent than CO2, and 2) no combination of renewables (solar, wind, geothermal) can match nuclear energy in 'bang for the buck' and what we call energy intensity. In regard to (1) let's also bear in mind the incredible attendant  waste. I.e. in the last quarter 740 million cubic feet was "flared off" into the atmosphere each day, according to energy analytics firm Rystad Energy (WSJ, p. B6, July 18).  The reason?  It is "too unprofitable"  to transport the gas to distant locations for use.

In one interview in Esquire, from May, 2016, climate scientist James Hansen is blunt in dispatching  green and environmentalist "happy talk" over alternative energy.   As he points out (ibid.):

"If we are to avert catastrophic climate change we have to build nuclear power plants on a massive scale and crank them out fast enough to stop all fossil fuel emissions by 2050."

What is the basis for this? According to The Physicist's Desk Reference (Table C, p. 187, Energy Generation by Type) the projections for the most energy-intense uses  (aggressive consumption category, I) for all forms of solar, geothermal and wind add up to only 6 exajoules (EJ) by 2020. This compares to 24 EJ for oil (including kerogen), 16 for coal, 9 for natural gas and 6 for nuclear. Thus, ALL the usual "green" alternatives" are projected to barely add up to what nuclear will deliver on its own. Hence, to phase out fossil fuels we need to not only restrict and curb their use but also enter nuclear into the "bridge" source mix - preferably enough to eventually trump natural gas as well.

Fortunately, according to The Denver Post AP article, the recommendations made public Tuesday met with "considerable disagreement among the nuclear agency's staff."   Specifically, commission member Jeff Baran courageously criticized the proposed changes, asserting that reduce oversight "would take us in the wrong direction".

Which is an understatement, given we now - more than ever - need vastly more trust in nuclear energy and reactors as a bridge energy source. We simply cannot do without them, as James Hansen notes, if we are to reduce fossil fuel consumption.  As Baran added:

"NRC shouldn't perform fewer inspections or weaken its safety oversight to save money."

Even more blunt was the comment of Rep. Frank Pallone (D- NJ) , chair of the House Energy and and Commerce Subcommittee:

"Cutting corners on such critical safety measures may eventually lead to a disaster that could be detrimental to the future of the domestic nuclear industry."

Which even a certified loser, grifter and con man like Dotard ought to be able to understand. But see, it's not a question of understanding but retaining the corporate power leg of his coalition to sustain any bid for re-election. Especially as he's doubled down on his racist racists rants showing himself to be completely unfit for the highest office.

Among the most head-spinning arguments employed by the Triumpies and their clones is the claim that "trimming overall inspections will improve effectiveness because inspectors will be focused on issues of greater safety significance."

Which is about like claiming that FDA, and USDA inspectors can go easy on their restaurant inspections in the interest of "greater safety significance" as if  they were to ask:

Do we really need to check restaurants for sanitary standards?

Can't we tolerate a little bit of roach feces and fly larvae in the pantries and on the fruits, and some norovirus in the salads?

Can we not allow just a bit more food poisoning - like at Chipotle  - to get higher profits?  (If all restaurants have the same lower standards we all win, no?)

You get the idea!  As Edwin Lyman, a nuclear power expert at the Union of Concerned Scientists, put it (ibid.):

"That (reasoning) completely ignores the cause-and-effect relationship between inspections and good performance."

In other words, if you don't inspect or don't do it as often, you will miss critical defects that can give rise to a calamity. One that ultimately whacks your bottom line even more. 

Ask Boeing and how its ignoring of the defects of the MCAS software system on its now grounded MAX 8 planes worked out!

Boeing 737 MAX 8 Black Boxes Going To France? Well, Maybe To Avoid A U.S. Whitewash

Comparison of vertical speed flight profiles of Ethiopian and Lion Air flights which helped lead aviation authorities to ground the MAX 8.  (From NY Times, p. A1)

"Boeing has imported the defense contractor ethic to commercial aviation. Cutting corners is a way of life. Engineering decisions are made for bureaucratic, not safety reasons. It's all good if you spread your manufacturing and political contributions around to enough congressional districts."  - Comment on lead story in NY Times  ('New Evidence In  Ethiopian 737 Crash Points To Connection To Earlier Disaster')

"Our Canadian press has a far more detailed explanation for the 737 MAX disasters.  The aircraft is fundamentally flawed, the whole centre of gravity of the aircraft was changed to accommodate larger engines with marginal fuel efficiency. The software to control stalls caused by the movement of the engines further forward was not explained in the release of new manuals and no pilot training was prescribed. In Canada this could be considered criminal negligence causing death given that Canadian citizens perished in the Ethiopian crash.."  - Comment from Canadian on NY Times lead story.

Finally, the U.S. came to its senses Wednesday, pressured after the rest of the world - and neighbor Canada - took to grounding the Boeing 737 MAX 8.  But oddly, this  was not done by the FAA but by Trump, aka the Dotard. (Hey, even a broken clock is right twice each day!)  But this anomaly has now drawn its own scrutiny over the value of the FAA.  As noted in yesterday's  Financial Times' lead story ('Boeing Safety Controversy Puts U.S. Regulator Under Harsh Spotlight'):

"The president’s announcement has only amplified criticism of the US regulator, which some experts allege is losing its grip over the world’s biggest aviation market.  According to Mark Slack, an aviation lawyer:

'The Federal Aviation Administration has always been slow to react as an agency. But now we have got to this strange situation where we don’t know who is in charge of aviation regulation in the U.S. Is it the White House or the FAA?'

Critics say the agency is understaffed and underfunded, and the state of the FAA has emerged as a focus of concern on Capitol Hill in recent days. Congressional hearings are being planned to examine airline safety and the response to the Ethiopian crash."

But there is more to it than that. In order to understand the FAA's stance and reluctance to act,  one must process the entire warp and woof of the Trumpian yen to eviscerate the "administrative state".  The entire impetus has been to kneecap all regulations and thereby expose citizens to more civil,  medical, political and other risks. As noted in a WSJ editorial from October, 2017:

"Executive branch agencies have issued 100 directives that either knock down regulations or begin a process to eliminate or shrink them."

 For example, gutting EPA regs to allow more mercury to be expelled from coal-fired plants, and also allowing more pollutants (such as perchlorates) in our water.  With the FDA,  we now know it allowed drug makers to change the labels to allow more frequent use of opiods, which was brought out in a recent 60 Minutes interview, e.g.

https://www.cbsnews.com › 60 Minutes › Newsmakers

The wrecking of regs for the USDA and related agencies has meanwhile allowed less oversight for meats such as pork, risking more infestations by Tania solum solex or the pork tapeworm e,g 

With the potential greater infestation of Americans' brains.  As if we needed more parasitism after the Trump political and propaganda infestation.  While some might cheer the sound of the word "deregulation" or mentally conjure up images of freedom and personal liberty, they are woefully misled. As economist George Lakoff has pointed out, e.g.

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/george-lakoff/71462/the-public-s-viewpoint-regulations-are-protections

Regulations are protections.  

Repeat that as a mantra 50 times each day so you won't forget it when you hear the word "deregulation is good".  Now, in the case of the FAA, it has become abundantly clear they are not proactive on behalf of regulation on air safety.   We saw this four years ago when they allowed the drone manufacturers to  fill the skies with the beasties,  now risking potentially calamitous drone- commercial aircraft collisions. 

We also saw the aversion to regulation reinforced with the appointment of Sen. Mitch McConnell's wife Elaine Chao - as head of the Dept. of Transportation  (DOT) -  which oversees the FAA.   That there is no incentive to protect the U.S. public on planes -  anymore than the FDA has incentive to protect against opioid abuse,  or the EPA to protect us from carcinogen-laden water,  is  self-evident.

As Scott McCartney summed the situation in his 'Middle Seat' column ('Muted Response To Bid For Air Travel Rules',  WSJ, March 13, p. A12):

"The DOT has been loath to issue new regulations."

Of course, the excuse usually trotted out by the Right's minions is there have not been the nominations or appointments needed to fill all the jobs available - hence not enough manpower. This is baloney given the Right only cares about whittling the gov't down ("So it can be sunk in a bathtub!" - in Grover Norquist's parlance),  i.e.  not boosting its manpower or purview. McCartney again (ibid.):

"Airlines and many travelers applaud the Trump administration's aversion to regulation and willingness to let consumer choices discipline unpopular business decisions."

Of course, that cavalier take has only worked to a point. Look how quickly many U.S. travelers deluged their reps after the second MAX 8 crash, and especially when they learned they'd have to get to point B on a MAX 8.   Panic, anyone?

Oh, and then having to pay for changing to a different plane! Hardly surprising when we learned (WSJ, yesterday, p. A1, 'Aerospace Giant Tries To Limit The Fallout'):

"The (Boeing) corporate engine runs on cash generated by orders from sales of its most popular plane, the 737 Max."

In other words, this dubious plane is its ATM, its cash cow, noting there are over 5,000 MAX orders in the pipeline. So why the hell would Boeing be proactive in halting its runs?  Why would the FAA cooperate when one of its mandates is to "promote the business of aviation" which has now taken precedence over protecting the flying public?  Especially 'why' if FAA employees anticipate subsequent lobbying for the aircraft industry. 

In the meantime, McCartney's graphs have conveyed all we need to know about the FAA's aversion to regs, including enforcement fines against airlines going down by nearly 90 percent even as domestic three hour delays on tarmacs went up more than 65% since 2016. 

Anyway, some things we've learned since Trump ordered the U.S. MAX 8 fleet grounded:  

-  Dozens of U.S.  Pilots complained of inadequate training on automation-assisted flying systems, unfamiliarity with the controls,  and anxiety that prompted them to engage the auto­pilot earlier than normal.  In at least two instances the plane pitched downward or maneuvered against pilots’ inputs.  Much of this was elaborated on in a Rachel Maddow segment Tuesday night, e.g.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUidpjr8Xzw

- The preliminary report on the Oct. 29 Lion Air Flight 610 
crash found that a device known as an “angle of attack” sensor had mistakenly indicated the plane’s nose was too high, prompting the plane’s automation software to push the plane downward. The Lion Air pilots fought to raise the plane’s nose but were unable to, sending the plane crashing into the Java Sea.  Experts say the Indonesian pilots lost their battle with M.C.A.S.  because of the MAX's  faulty sensor readings.  (WSJ, March 13, p. A13).  

Note here that the Lion Air pilots accepting any faulty sensor readings given as correct is not "pilot error".   It is instead aircraft sensor error to which  the pilots responded accordingly, i.e. to elevate the nose. (See the graphic on the cusp catastrophe from my post of March 12th)

-  A McLean, Va.-based aerospace firm, Aireon, used its plane-tracking technology to help investigators get a clearer idea of the way the Ethiopian Airlines plane was moving and how that compared to the Oct. 29 Lion Air flight. Aireon, with help from Boeing and the National Transportation Safety Board, were able to “refine the initial return of the satellites to create a description of the flight,”  This according to Acting FAA chief Daniel Elwell, who added: 

 “The track of the Ethiopian Airlines flight was very close — and behaved very similarly — to the Lion Air flight.”

Aviation experts said the two planes' noses underwent multiple up and down motions after takeoff.  This motion, called "porpoising" by Col. Stephen Ganyard (USMC, Ret.), meant there were changes in the vertical velocity - and these changes were picked up by Aireon's images.   Why were these important and critical to the U.S. (as well as Canada) changing their tune on grounding? Because (WSJ, March 14, p. A12) the method:

"Uses equipment on satellites to track data transmitted by a plane's transponder, including a flight's speed, altitude, heading and position.  Updates are provided at intervals of less than 8 seconds to offer a global, near real time picture of flights.  Such data can be used to reconstruct a flight path and spot occurrences where planes fly erratically."

Such occurrence is plainly visible in the graphs for each airline shown at the top.  This was enough to convince first Canada, then the U.S. to act.  This Aireon LLC data still saved the day, as we now learned  (ibid.): "even if the Canadian government opted to ground the aircraft the FAA planned to refrain from further action."  In other words, the FAA was dug in to support Boeing's preservation of profits.

At a Wednesday afternoon news conference,  the FAA's Elwell  said delays in getting the damaged flight-data recorders to a place where information could be retrieved contributed to the "agency’s decision" to ground the planes.   

A lie, since the FAA itself made no such decision, it was a Trump order that did it. The FAA basically acted like passive dummies.  As the same WSJ account detailed (ibid.): "FAA and industry officials said Mr. Trump's statements came as a shock to agency managers".   Adding that: "hurried conference calls had to be arranged with agency officials after the president's announcement."   In other words, the FAA's zombots were caught flat-footed.  What they demonstrated was gross incompetence at best or ....deliberate malfeasance out of misplaced loyalty (to Boeing and the airlines)  - at worst. Take your pick!  

When you do,  don't forget the FAA certified this ridiculous "workhorse" jet  that suddenly takes control from pilots . Also,  Boeing’s software fix indicates that the plane maker shipped the 737 Max with a single point of failure, a potentially dangerous anomaly in aviation. And the Federal Aviation Administration, the illustrious "gold standard" for aviation safety,  approved it.

As one pilot put it:  "The fact that this airplane requires such jury rigging to fly is a red flag."

Elwell did answer one question  ('Why isn't the U.S investigating the black boxes?) correctly when he said:  "Ethiopia is taking the lead — their soil, their aircraft, their airline.”  Well, no shit, Sherlock! Especially after we learned today (WSJ,  'FAA Faces Diminished Clout',  p. A8)  that, although "normal procedure would be for  black box recorders to be shipped to the U.S. to be downloaded"  (given Boeing made the aircraft):

 "The FAA's leadership failed to persuade Ethiopian government officials  that the U.S. would be an impartial arbiter of facts."   

Good  guess!

So you can't blame the Ethiopians  for wanting to ensure a neutral,  3rd party nation  with professional aviation analysts perform this critical job.  As opposed to a nation with conflicts of interest galore and a joke regulation agency.   Thus their sending the boxes to France,  as opposed to letting the U.S. agencies get into it and render conclusions that may not be faithful to the actual facts. This set up the immediate uproar on why U.S.  investigators didn't get first dibs.  Well, their whole performance in this fiasco spoke for itself.

Let's pause here  and let me say I also agree with the Ethiopians' decision. After all, what would they have thought after the FAA's unconscionable foot dragging on the grounding of the plane - when all other nations had done it?  So, pardon me for being a CT, but they didn't trust U.S. teams not to do a Warren Commission-style whitewash.  I.e. ending up with "no real data to prove systemic fault" so "all on pilot error".    

 This way, with the French, we're vastly more likely to get an objective analysis and conclusion, even if it strikes at Boeing's (and the U.S. carriers) bottom lines.  See e.g.

https://onemileatatime.com/faa-737-max/

Excerpt:

"Modern aviation is so incredibly safe, so to see two of the same types of new planes crash so close together should be concerning, if nothing else."

Meanwhile, Elwell's claim there is no systemic fault with the MAX 8 is bollocks, even given what we know thus far. Clearly, even his FAA admitted the automated system pushed the nose of the Lion Air plane down, oh, and the sensor displayed inaccurate readings at the outset.  The pilots repeatedly counteracted it and tried to pull the nose back up, only to be overridden by the system again. Each interval took about 15 to 20 seconds.

The knock on the Lion Air crew that they ought to have disengaged the MCAS is also irrelevant, given Boeing already admitted its flight manual was incomplete.  It didn't have all the information needed to do this or even let pilots know where the disconnect knob was located. As one furious pilot put it: "That part of the plane’s flight system is not described in our Flight Manual"   adding,  "It's inadequate and almost criminally insufficient.”

The public data for the Ethiopian flight is less clear and complete, but it appears (from the vertical speed graphs)  to show a similar signature — an interval where the plane was gaining altitude and then leveling out.  According to MIT aeronautics professor R. John Hansman:

“Even from the available data, there are similarities between the Lion Air case and this case in terms of this 15 second periodicity. That would point toward a similar phenomenon. We’ll know more when we get the flight data recorder,” Planes like the Boeing 737 oscillate naturally, he said, because of turbulence and and other effects. But those swings have different time spans: either between five and eight seconds, or a minute or longer. The variations in the intermediate range of 15 or so seconds have no other obvious explanation." 

Don Thoma, the chief executive of Aireon LLC, added that it “certainly showed something was wrong with the aircraft, and something they should take a hard look at.”

Oh, and "they" will.   

Not even mentioned up to now - but reported in today's WSJ (p. A8) is that the Pentagon and Air Force have "lost confidence in Boeing's ability to maintain quality control over a new aerial refueling tanker."   Boeing "delivered the first of the KC-46A Pegasus tankers over a year late, after a series of production and design problems left the company nursing $3.5 billion in losses.  The Air Force then suspended deliveries in February after finding tools and other debris left in some jets."

Charming, but alas that's not the end of Boeing's story.

 Another less known aspect (highlighted in a story in today's Financial Times)  is - in a rush to compete with Europe's Airbus -  Boeing chose to retain an older airframe and 'marry' it to a newer, marginally more fuel efficient engine.  That ploy - uniting old plus new-  was part of Boeing’s pitch to the F.A.A. and airlines: Because the plane's basic design was retained it could be handled like previous 737s, so pilots would not need to be retrained to fly it.

Cute,  but the  Boeing engineers then had to figure out a way to make the odd match fit properly.   So the engines were placed more forward on the wing,  altering the aircraft's lift characteristics, and placing more stress (at takeoff) on the horizontal stabilizers - oh and the jackscrews to control them.  

This in turn "led to the need for the introduction of the Maneuvering Chracteristics Augmentation System" (MCAS)"  - a combo  that at least one innominate aeronautics engineer (posting in a comment on a Monday WaPo piece),  claimed:  "rendered the airframe unstable, like putting a Rolls Royce engine into an old Edsel".

So this plane, from my perspective, needs a whole lot more than just a flight manual completion and re-do.  I look for it to be grounded at least 4-5 months, and maybe a lot longer if the black box analysis reveals what I believe it will: that the circumstances of the two MAX 8 crashes are systemic and directly (causally) related.  Also, that the aircraft's lift characteristics may have been adversely affected by the change in engine position to render it more prone to instability,  crashing. 

Boeing, to make it short, created a problem via pure expediency, then added a 2nd problem (the MCAS) to correct the first.  Thus, the Boeing bunch kept the old airframe but imparted bigger MAX engines and mounted them farther forward on the aircraft's wings.  Tests then showed a configuration that could push the nose upward toward a stall in certain circumstances. Then to compensate for that, Boeing installed the MCAS to automatically push the nose down to counteract those forces.   Trouble is,  you've now engendered two unnecessary complexities to an otherwise perfectly working (but less fuel efficient)  aircraft not there before, and made it potentially unstable.

So emphatically NO "pilot error".  But I warrant at least two design errors,  which I suspect an FAA, NTSB -led  investigation would have whitewashed to expedite the speedy return of the MAX.

SEE ALSO:

Corporate America

Boeing’s Doomed 737 MAX’s

by Eric Margolis | March 17, 2019 - 5:20am | permalink

AND:

How the FAA allows jetmakers to ‘self certify’ that planes meet U.S. safety requirements

Excerpt:

How much did the FAA actually know about the technology, especially given its history of delegating to industry?” The FAA’s publication of pilot training requirements for the Max 8 in the fall of 2017 was among the final steps in a multiyear approval process carried out under the agency’s now 10-year-old policy of entrusting Boeing and other aviation manufacturers to certify that their own systems comply with U.S. air safety regulations.


In practice, one Boeing engineer would conduct a test of a particular system on the Max 8, while another Boeing engineer would act as the FAA’s representative, signing on behalf of the U.S. government that the technology complied with federal safety regulations, people familiar with the process said....

The process was occurring during a period when the Transportation Department’s Office of Inspector General was warning the FAA that its oversight of manufacturers’ work was insufficient.

In the years between the time Boeing launched the Max 8 design in 2011 and the first plane rolled out of production in 2016, the inspector general criticized the FAA’s handling of the “self-certification” system in three successive reports. The federal watchdog said in 2011 that the FAA’s system for deciding which technologies carried the highest safety risks was not effective. Investigators also said the FAA had not adequately trained company employees to spot noncompliance with safety requirements.

And:

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/failed-certification-faa-missed-safety-issues-in-the-737-max-system-implicated-in-the-lion-air-crash/