Gravel and Grovel

Paul Krugman, in the NYT, had this to say about the deteriorating infrastructure in this country.

This is what happens after having Ronniebaby's infamous tagline, "Government isn't the solution to our problems. Government is the problem", drummed into our collective consciousness for thirty years.   That, and having the word "TAX" turned into a reflexive dog-whistle word for about the same time period.   

I think it's generally accepted that none of this was an accident - the right wing knows their propaganda and the techniques needed to catapult it, and they've had the machine to do it for a looooong time.    I'm not just talking about TV/Radio/Internet - remember William Randolph Hearst - "Remember The Maine!"?   
The use of the media for propaganda purposes, especially as it's practice by Foxy Noise, is but a means to an end.    We know the means all too well, but what's the endgame, especially as it relates to regraveling roads, turning off street lights, selling off police helicopters, etc.?

Here's where Naomi Klein's classic The Shock Doctrine comes in. (You will be seeing me referring to this book often in the coming weeks and months.    I highly recommend that you read it, and then read it again, even with it's 600 page length.)  What she describes in that book, is being played out right now in the scenarios Krugman describes:   Let the present, government-built-and-supported infrastructure crumble so it can be sold off into private hands at fire-sale prices.  Shrink the government to bathtub-size, and the vacuum left over will be magically filled by opportunity-seeking entrepreneurs.    Imagine - private police force, private fire, private street cleaners and park workers, private...everything.    And private enterprise will always do a better job than government in administering the commons - or so say the Friedmanists.  

This "private is better than government" philosophy would make sense if you believe everybody is motivated by the same thing - "enlightened self-interest", or as I would call it, greed.    And this is one area where Friedmanism falls apart, in my opinion.   The idea of people being motivated by a sense of public service, of something other than the self-centered pursuit of wealth, does not compute with the economic models created by Milton and the Boys at the University of Chicago all those many years ago, and that the Repubs and "centrist" Dems (BTW, I think Obama has been imbibing this spiked Kool-Aid lately) are trying to impose on the country now.     

What does it say about our society that we would allow our roads, bridges, and such to fall into such disrepair, all because we were unwilling to put up the cash necessary to pay for them?   That we were so mesmerized by the big, stinking pile of "rugged individualist" guano that we failed to see that we are also parts of a larger whole, and need to contribute to that whole if we are to survive individually?   

What gets me, though, is that this was not mere negligence.   This was intentional.   And we need to wake up to that fact - these are our roads, our bridges, our waterways, etc.   WE THE PEOPLE own them  - and WE should own them, not the profiteers.   

I've got more on this, to be posted later.