Conveyor Quotes
Some employees in slaughterhouses, she notes, rapidly develop a protective hardness and start killing animals in a purely mechanical way: "The person doing the killing approaches his job as if he was stapling boxes moving along a conveyor belt. He has no emotions about his act.” Others, she reveals, "start to enjoy killing and... torment the animals on purpose.” Speaking of these attitudes turned Temple's mind to a parallel: "I find a very high correlation,” she said, "between the way animals are treated and the handicapped.... Georgia is a snake pit-they treat [handicapped people] worse than animals.... Capital-punishment states are the worst animal states and the worst for the handicapped.” All this makes Temple passionately angry, and passionately concerned for humane reform: she wants to reform the treatment of the handicapped, especially the autistic, as she wants to reform the treatment of cattle in the meat industry.
Oliver Sacks
Whether it's watching a $4,000 laptop fall off the conveyor belt at airport security, contending with a software conflict that corrupted your file management system, or begging your family to stop opening those virus-carrying 'greeting cards' attached to emails, all computer owners are highly leveraged and highly vulnerable technology investors.
Douglas Rushkoff
Our government now routinely invades the privacy of its own citizens, then pulls the cloak of national security over its operations to hide its deceptions and blunders from public view. The economy has been trashed, inequality is now at levels not seen since the Great Depression, and at least 5 million more Americans live in poverty than did at the start of the Bush presidency. Many eminent historians and economists are concluding that George W. Bush has earned the distinction of being the "worst president ever." Where is the outrage? The U.S. corporate media and the Democrats complain politely, and then resume their deferential posture to enable the next disaster. The media, so helpful in launching the Iraq War by acting as a conveyor belt for Bush administration lies, has shifted targets and now passes along White House propaganda about Iran.
Amy Goodman