Yes, yes, Stephen (or Bill)
but but but:
I recommend Salon.com & its various articles to people who want to
follow all this (they're good on popculture too). Today's has a good
article on Bush finding God to blame now. And this from their War Room
collection of short takes:
How to rebuild New Orleans? Pass more tax cuts.
You could be excused for imagining that September was a bad month for
the Grover Norquists of the world -- you know, those "starve the beast"
foes of big government who hold that nothing is more sacred than
cutting taxes. The damage wrought by Hurricane Katrina, and the ensuing
rush by Congress and President Bush to pull out the federal checkbook
and start firehosing cash into the Mississippi Delta, are pretty good
evidence, after all, that there is a role for government. By the
people, for the people, blah blah blah -- we need government to take
care of the people.
Such wishful thinking, however, would be a sad underestimation of the
determination of the hardcore to pursue their agenda in the face of any
setback, no matter how catastrophic. A "WebMemo" published Sept. 7 by
the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation makes it clear that
the best antidote to Katrina mayhem is even less government.
Titled "From Tragedy to Triumph: Principled Solutions for Rebuilding
Lives and Communities," the Heritage Foundation manifesto is a laundry
list that reiterates every fevered hope of a ruling class that has
suffered for far too long under the weight of onerous regulations and
IRS savagery. New Orleans and the neighboring regions should be
declared "Opportunity Zones" where the following recommendations can be
followed: Suspend the minimum wage! Suspend environmental regulations!
Repeal the death tax! Support school vouchers! "Repeal or waive" any
Clean Air Act regulations that might get in the way of refinery
building or highway repair. Allow more drilling in the Arctic National
Wildlife Reserve!
(No joke: The Heritage Foundation believes that necessary steps to
rebuilding New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are to allow drilling in
Alaska and support school vouchers. If nothing else, you have to give
these guys credit for chutzpah.)
Now, there's something to be said for mobilizing all available
resources to rebuild a ravaged region, and if that means getting a
little casual with bureaucratic red tape, that's probably not too high
a price to pay. But the Heritage Foundation's recommendations are so
insultingly self-serving that they put the immediate lie to any notion
that the actual well-being of the locals is the think tank's real
concern. Instead, its interest, which for all intents and purposes is
synonymous with the goals of the current administration, is the same as
it has always been, to serve the greed of the few at the expense of the
many.
And if the storm winds of Katrina weren't powerful enough to blow the
blinders off the eyes of anyone who still doesn't see that clearly,
then heck, bring on the Opportunity Zones! If you were shocked at the
"Third World" scenes of devastation post-Katrina, wait to see what the
region looks like after a couple of years with no rules whatsoever.
-- Andrew Leonard
It does make you wonder.
Doug
Douglas Barbour
11655 - 72 Avenue NW
Edmonton Ab T6G 0B9
(780) 436 3320
The temper is fragile
as apparently it wants to be,
wind on the ocean, trees
moving in wind and rain.
Robert Creeley
|