The Cult of Privatization

While the insane right has taken the cult of the individual and run screaming with it out the door and indeed to the far reaches of the highest peaks, the cult itself curls within all of us Americans, sleeping unnoticed for the most part, eating just a little of our nourishment, taking just a little of our energy, being mostly a silent and enjoyable companion. The cult of privatization is the automobile. It drives how we've built the country, and the world is following. And only every now and then is the darker truth of privatization illuminated:

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/01/atlanta-snow-storm-102839.html#.Uup71bRtYrM

Read the whole damn thing. It's the truth. For many decades we've elected people who don't believe at all in government, in seeing the larger, longer picture. Instead, everything has been built and catered to the automobile and all that way of being implies. What the auto implies is Atlanta, as described in the politico article. And Raleigh, and Charlotte, and Chicago, and Los Angeles.

Putting people in government who believe that private industry can do everything better than government sits atop (logically) the almost entirely accepted idea that getting around solo is the best way to get around. We all want to live out somewheres, in the woods or on a quiet street, mostly apart, mostly alone. There's not enough traffic to each cul-de-sac to warrant a light rail system, and anyways, you have to wait for the next train. Cars is Freedom. Or at least bourgeois freedom. If those million Atlanteans had all been riding motorcycles, there would have been no gridlock (although as I've ridden a motorcycle I can attest that two wheels on ice is a receipt for quick disaster).

The idea of a city presumes organization. The insane right wing disdains organization, is in fact anarchic, and presumes that order derives from some ideal "natural" state of pure individualism. What is ignored is the obvious fact that in some circumstances facts dictate rational individual decisions which when made by everyone at the same time create the opposite of the desired outcome.

Yesterday, the snow having at last melted here in NC, I decided to drive home via the car wash and get the salt off the truck. Too bad. Everyone else had the same idea. Maybe this morning, or tomorrow.

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How is it that Mr. Christie and/or HUD privatized the administration of Hurricane Sandy relief funds in New Jersey to a company in Louisiana, and that Mr. Christie fired said company some months ago. Where did the responsibility evaporate? Same place as the pallets of currency that landed in Iraq perhaps?

After the Super Bowl comes Daytona, and the great wheel of the seasons turns yet again.

Humans can easily hold contradictory ideas at the same moment, it is only reality which cannot abide a contradiction.

The Hudahenians are frustrated at the fact that squirrels have returned to our kitchen ceiling. If their eyes were lasers they'd get up there and deal with the problem. Below, Mokey at work:

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The Tom Perkins whine has attracted a terrific rebuttal from a person in the know. Give the following a read:

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2014/02/even-top-1-is-disgusted-by-tom-perkins.html

The ways in which money equals power, political and otherwise, are myriad. Citizens United continues to be a great tragedy for American government.