One down, countless more to go...

I don't want Tom DeLay to die some horrible death, or anything like that. I want him to live long enough to fully experience the wrath of the American public once they learn the true extent of his thuggery and corruption. I want DeLay to be mentioned in the same breath as Theodore Bilbo, Joe McCarthy, Bull Connor, and every other illustrious reactionary who ultimately revealed himself to be a wickedly insecure self-hating tightly-coiled pile on the lawn.

Don't get me started on the "dress for success" contingent of the Democratic Party. Though I do give props to DiFi for voting against John Roberts as Chief Justice. Someone had a half-joking, half-serious theory that the fascist coup has already happened, and that Democrats who step too far out of line could get "Wellstoned"-- hence the timidity of the minority party. Believe me, I want to hear current theories about what really happened to Mel Carnahan and Paul Wellstone-- two Democrats running for Senate, both in tight races with Republicans, both going down in fatal plane crashes right before their respective elections...perhaps they were indeed accidents, but I put NOTHING past the current administration. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

Like I said, the war is on, and it has BEEN on...I'm just glad that the Exterminator (DeLay) is one of the casualties. You're going to hear a lot more about "K" Street in Washington (another illustrious band of reprehensible thugs who are finally getting their collective comeuppance)...

The war is on...

...and it's been on for years. That is, the war on the public sector, a.k.a. the government, a.k.a. anything that can hold the owning class accountable for grand malfeasance (you know, economic fraud, overt environmental degradation, etc.)...

The pointlessly tragic debacle of New Orleans is, ultimately, a logical outcome of the war on the public sector. True, there's much debate about the efficacy of the levee system in the first place, but it's clear that there were concrete steps (if you will) that could have been taken to minimize the amount of destruction caused by a Category 5 hurricane. We've already seen the utter folly of "we didn't anticipate the failure of the levees" spin-- there have been articles for years about the threat posed to New Orleans by a major hurricane, and state, local and regional officials made appeals for several years for flood control funding for southeastern Louisiana. Not surprisingly, the Bush administration continually cut funding for this region, which included shoring up levees and pumps. And then, there were loosened regulations on development on barrier islands, which in the past served as a natural buffer against tropical storms.

We all know by now, of course, the sham of a federal agency called FEMA-- Clinton's appointee, James Witt, was actually experienced in disaster management and routinely received high marks for his work. Then Dubya brought in his old campaign manager Joe Allbaugh to run the FEMA show; after Allbaugh left to become a lobbyist for, among others, Kellogg, Brown and Root, the Halliburton subsidiary, we got his crony successor, Michael Brown, who faked his resume to make it look like he had actual disaster management experience. And we all know by now how great of a job ol' Brownie did. So, to sum it up: under Clinton (who has a decidedly mixed legacy in my book), FEMA was in the hands of a true professional; under Bush, two cronies. And to top it all off, the Allbaugh-represented Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) just got a fat, no-bid contract to rebuild NOLA. Crony capitalism in action.

For the last three decades or so, we've been told that government is always the problem. Certain corporate interests figured that the best way to get rid of public-interest laws that could cut into their profits was to wage a public relations battle. Make the "little guy" feel a common bond with GM, Union Carbide, et al by pointing out some bureaucratic snafu that hurt a small business owner. I'm not about to argue that there aren't some absurd regulations in various agencies and various locales. But it's clear that corporate interests and their public relations firms would piggyback on a wronged small business owner or landowner to push their own initiatives to reduce public oversight of their own activities. "You see, poor Harry Q. Shopkeep of Sterling, Colorado is just trying to feed his family. And the employees of Blankety-Blank Corporation are just trying to feed their families. Excessive government regulation hurt Mr. Shopkeep, just as emission control regulation will hurt the families of the Blankety-Blank Corporation..." You hear this sort of argument all the time, and the PR effort has worked wonders...

So what happens? Government is viewed as nothing more than an arm of the Kremlin, or as a means to steal money from hardworking Americans and to give it to shiftless welfare recipients who have 16 children and who drive Cadillacs-- without having to work an honest day in their lives! The racial subtext is so obvious that I'll just leave it alone.

With the public's increasing hostility toward the government, the process is easy: decry ALL non-military government as inefficient, oppressive, confiscatory, irresponsible, and then do two specific things: (1) Dramatically cut government funding, so agencies can't perform well; (2) Appoint agency heads who vehemently dislike the agencies they're appointed to head-- such as James Watt, a strip-miner, being appointed to head the Environmental Protection Agency. The results are predictable: the government agencies are stripped of their power and efficacy, and the defunded agencies perform poorly. Then, when the public is asked whether they support further public funding, the response is usually, "Are you kidding? Government can't do anything right! Giving them more money would only be throwing good money after bad!"

Of course, while the public sector takes the hit, the private sector is touted as a cure-all: efficient, always to the benefit of the consumer (once again, the "little guy"), free of politics and bureaucracy. Never mind the Enron Death Star price gouging of California energy consumers, or the multimillion-dollar insider stock dumping by Bill Frist, or skyrocketing health insurance premiums with no accountability or relief in sight. Hey, a man's gotta feed his family, right? Bill Frist is just taking care of his family, like anyone else who has to get up to go to work in the morning. See, we're just like you!

And when weakened and/or corrupt government agencies don't get the job done, what's the recommended solution? Privitization! Translation: well-placed cronies get to cash in.

Case in point: the federal government continually denies funding to local public-sector agencies to shore up safeguards that would protect the city of New Orleans from catastrophic storm damage. FEMA, a weakened, crony-infested agency, not surprisingly botches crucial recovery and rescue efforts (turning away three 18-wheelers of emergency supplies from Wal-Mart, for starters). But who gets the big reward: a no-bid contract to a crony-infested Halliburton subsidiary with a rap sheet full of corruption, mismanagement, and billions of dollars disappeared.

Just another reminder to pay attention: when you hear about prospective appointees in the news, take a moment if and when you have the time to do so. If you can exert pressure in any way to thwart yet another wink-wink nudge-nudge appointment, like writing a local representative or senator, all the better. True, it's an uphill battle, but far better than doing nothing. A great source of information, by the way, is the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights. HIGHLY recommended reading.