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TechnoratiThanks to 'E. coli conservatism,' weakened government watchdogs have put us all at risk.
Last week, consumers were worried about salmonella in their fresh tomatoes. Before that, it was E. coli in their spinach. Something is wrong. Eating a salad is not supposed to be a high-risk activity
But the problem isn't so much farmers. It's ideology. Historian Rick Perlstein, author of "Nixonland," calls it "E. coli conservatism" -- government shrinks and shrinks until people get sick.
"Government is not the solution to our problem," President Reagan famously declared in his inaugural address in 1981. "Government is the problem."
Many conservatives have gone far beyond that. Their traditional embrace of small government has been replaced with outright disdain for it. Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, doesn't just want to shrink government. To use his words, he wants government "down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."
Once in power, E. coli conservatives shrink government by hamstringing it. They weaken rules that protect people, slash the budgets of consumer agencies and appoint industry friends to oversight commissions. The result: Some government regulatory agencies that we trust to protect us have shrunk to insignificance or serve private industry rather than consumers.
The Food and Drug Administration's seeming ineptness in finding the source of a salmonella outbreak, which has poisoned more than 1,200 people in 42 states, is case in point. What's especially troubling is that even before this episode, the Government Accountability Office had officially designated "federal oversight of food safety as a high-risk area."
The FDA first thought that tomatoes -- either grown in Florida or imported from Mexico -- were the culprit. After weeks of trying to trace the source of the salmonella, with domestic farmers bulldozing crops they weren't allowed to sell and taking a $100-million hit, the agency on Thursday ruled out tomatoes. It's now on the trail of jalapeno peppers.
What's clear, though, is that imports of agricultural products have increased by 78% since 1973, but inspections of those products have decreased by 78% over the same period, according to the Coalition for a Stronger FDA, whose membership includes former chiefs of the Department of Health and Human Services, of which the FDA is a part.That's a problem because the FDA itself says pesticide violations or infectious disease occur three times more often in imported foods than in domestic foods. In 1991, there were 1.5 inspections for each $1 million worth of imported agriculture commodities; in 2006 there were only 0.4.
In a 2007 interview in USA Today, William Hubbard, a former FDA associate commissioner, admitted that food safety had become a crap shoot: "The FDA has so few resources, all it can do is target high-risk things, give a pass to everything else and hope it is OK. ... The public probably has the perception ... that they're more protected than they really are."
The agency's decline started when Reagan was president. FDA food inspections plummeted from 29,355 in 1980 to 7,668 in 1989. They stayed flat during Bill Clinton's years in the White House, then jumped past 11,000 after 9/11, amid fears that the nation's food was vulnerable to terrorist attack. Food inspections have now, however, fallen to levels below that number.
But E. coli conservatism is not limited to the food supply. Before the salmonella outbreak, there were major recalls of pet food (contaminated by melamine) and toys (lead paint). The agency that's supposed to protect us from toxic toys is the Consumer Product Safety Commission, a job made tougher because its resources have been cut. The commission's 2007 budget was half its 1974 budget in real dollars. Staffing is in free fall, dropping from 978 in 1980 to 420 in 2007. The testing labs have not been modernized since 1975, and the 2008 budget request removed the reduction of childhood drowning deaths as a strategic goal because of "resource limitations." The agency's entire toy-testing department last year consisted of one man who dropped toys on his office floor to see if they broke.
People cannot test toys for lead on their own. That's why Congress created the Consumer Product Safety Commission in 1972 "to protect the public against unreasonable risks of injury associated with consumer products" by giving the agency the authority to set safety standards, require labeling, order recalls, ban dangerous products and collect death and injury data. People count on it to do its job.
In the era of globalization, the job is more important than ever. When the commission was created, toys were primarily manufactured in the U.S. under American-set safety standards. Now they are mostly imported from low-wage producers in countries not subject to U.S. rules. The Toy Industry Assn. estimates that 80% of the toys that Americans buy are made in China. Last year, more than 20 million of them were recalled because of lead paint or other hazards. The U.S. banned the use of lead paint 30 years ago.
After the 2006 election, the new Democratic Congress recognized the dangers and offered additional resources. The commission chair, Nancy Nord, resisted. The appointee of President Bush, said fears about not protecting consumers were overstated and that modest oversight plus commercial self-interest were sufficient to achieve the agency's goals.
There are many other examples of E. coli conservatism at work. In 2000-2001, energy deregulation in California opened the door for Enron and similar companies to artificially limit the supply of electricity to the state, driving up prices and creating rolling blackouts. Financial deregulation helped create the housing bubble by allowing companies to sell mortgages to people who couldn't afford the payments. The surging commodities markets and the swooning stock markets are in part caused by rule changes, made in the name of deregulation, that make it easier to speculate on price swings. It was recently learned that the three main credit-rating agencies -- Standard & Poor's, Moody's Investors Service and Fitch Ratings -- failed to rein in conflicts of interest in their ratings practices. Among the problems: Companies issuing securities were paying the ratings agencies for their rating.
Enough. Instead of talking about the size of government, we should be debating how to make our government more effective. How many more people have to get sick before the government reclaims its mission to serve the people?
Eric Lotke is research director for the Campaign for America's Future, a research and policy organization.
Copyright 2008 Los Angeles Times
36 Comments so far
Show AllA lot of the problem lies (LIES!) in the words used by all greed riddled,anti government morons of various sociopathic tendencies...to wit.
"Tax Relief" is treating all taxes, very much including those that are necessary to fund civil society (including things like food inspection) like a DISEASE. Makes it easier to kick the shit out of Government when Government's funding is treated like some horrible boil on your ass (more like the horrible,horrible boils I presume are on the asses of all fine Republicans and Neo-Conservatives ).
Then we have the idea that a George Bush or a Stephen Harper run a Government. This is even worse. They disdain Government of the people, a civil arraingement that keeps things moderately fair in the face of so much human frailty.
They are, and all like them are, Vandals. Not Civil Servants, not Civil at all, in any way. They are Vandals.
What would happen if we called them Vandals every time we wrote about them, and called Tax Relief UTTER BULLSHIT evry time that phrase came out of any orfice of any Neo-CON...would that get anyone's attention. Would that help veer language away from supporting these bastards and maybe allow some more Civil discourse and Civil activity to re-establish itself? Might be an idea to use language accurately again, they'd have NO idea what hit them.
Tell Grover Norquist to go f#$% himself and while you are at it, give him some spinach and tomatoes with a pepper on the side. Let's see if we can find a steak with mad cow disease, cheese with salmonella and we'll give his poor kids some toys with lead paint. Also, let's give him Vioxx and Bextra for arthritis pain and see if he develops cardiac issues. What goes around, comes around; too bad it doesn't always affect those who advocate for increased risky behavior and less government oversight.
The "government" has downsized, they have reduced workers but added more middle managers. Though I ain't got a clue what they do for 8 hours a day.
Siouxrose,
I enjoy reading your metaphysical/astrological insights especially in conjunction with some of the better posters here.
However, as a Capricorn who once married a Scorpio whose sexuality was closer to laisse faire than languor, I must protest your evaluation Scorpio as "magnetic." While an interpretation may indicate magnetism on the surface, it is actually the charms of a cobra, without any human empathy, with cause or without. :)
Tranlations: there's something synergistic about Pluto in Leo and the attraction between the Pluto-ruled Scorpios AND Leos. Seems to work better when the male is the lion.
THOMAS MORE:
It's more the astrology that interests me... Carville is Leo and Matalin Scorpio, the same combination as Bill Clinton Leo and Hillary Scorpio, and Dr. Arnold (the Schwarz) is Leo and Maria Shriver a Scorpio. Technically the signs, fire and water, do not blend. But Leo thinks of himself as the zodiac's LOVER and Scorpio is the purported most sexual (certainly magnetic) sign. Therein must lie the rub; and... drum roll... Pluto rules Scorpio and transited Leo from l939-1956/7 so all of these characters have Pluto (the Scorpio planet) in their signs, creating something of a celestial equivalent of narcissism, or marrying one's mirror image perhaps.
Siouxrose July 20th, 2008 10:40 pm
What would you say about Carville? Great picture of MM.
LITTLE BROTHER: Your eloquent use of example and metaphor are sometimes spell binding. I'd love to see your work in newspaper editorials to wake up more citizens, but alas, I think much would go over their heads! (At least where I live, bubba ville, inc.)
The one slight difference I'd make with your well-articulated points above is that doing the right thing is not always profit-less. The best example is the reformation of American industry and architecture, the need for GREEN energy sources integrated with current and intended infrastructure. There's a lot of $ to made in that green revolution. The problem is that those who are already invested want to use up their inventory to secure profit from every penny. I believe this is the central reason why the US won't sign the anti-mine treaty. It would offend the weapons' producers who have so much of this "product" in their inventories! Just as big oil maggots (magnates) run our government and thus are preserving THEIR cubic centimeter of privilege at the expense of EVERYthing else. So it's not just the profit dance, it's about who determines WHERE and HOW profit can be gained (i.e. raped, pillaged, or plundered for).
The Democrats were given a chance with the 2006 election.
Not only did they not deliver on their campaign promises, they didn't even try. Yet some would have you believe that the answer is to elect yet more of the same party that failed to even attempt to deliver before.
Lobo Gris
OleManRiver here in sunny FL workmans comp has been privitized and the patient/client is given the worst treatment this ex health care worker has EVER seen. we have had to do the 1 thing I hate: talk to a lawyer
The child cate system here was severly wacked out and since it has been 'outsourced' it is far worse
If a child dies no report is made to the press; the agency that used to be in charge had to, by law, report deaths to the media.There are other problems to numerous to go into here. Suffice it to say that the "problem": bad press for the state is a thing of the past. And that is all Jeb Bush cared about. After all he wants his brothers job.
Maybe conservatives are practicing population control.
Siouxrose, believe it or not, I published that last screed and re-read it after attending to some other things. It instantly flashed upon me that I'd indeed omitted the "security" function of the Hollow State, which is the black hole you describe.
We see its obscene excesses in both domestic and foreign spheres. And, as you suggest, the event horizon of this black hole is a Bizarro World in which all of the tendentious doctrinaire parsimony directed against funding government social services is replaced by its opposite: no expenditure for military or law enforcement is unmerited, foolish, irresponsible, or excessive.
I certainly thought about this while I was writing, because I well recall the politicians striking their best Parental poses and informing us with varying degrees of regret and impatience that it just wasn't fiscally responsible, even POSSIBLE, to continue to fund the Compassionate State; entitlement programs in particular had become an iron albatross dragging our going concern to the bottom.
Instead, we get tax relief for the (obscenely) wealthy, and corporate welfare like revenue dams that reduce what should be a flood pouring into the Treasury to a mean trickle. And the "waste, fraud, and abuse" that is supposed to be zealously guarded against is instead positively celebrated in an orgy of profligacy in military and imperialist expenditures.
It's another putative "win-win" outcome-- instead of abusing their offices by passing laws to unceasingly trample personal liberty, and otherwise thrusting the cold finger of Law into the collective fundamental orifice of We the People, politicians could expend their characteristic energy and ambition into dividing up the spoils, and bringing home the pork. Now, THAT'S representative government at its finest: one hand washing the other!
How often do we learn in passing that millions have been spent here, or actually LOST there, and that billions and BILLIONS must be appropriated for this or that dubious new adventure? Yet it takes YEARS of shilly-shallying and tooth-pulling to appropriate a few million for extended unemployment benefits-- there just ain't no PROFIT in such measures. It's money down a rathole!
Apparently it is unthinkable to pour money into the smaller ratholes-- glorified mice holes, really-- especially when one needs all the spare cash one can lay hold of to shovel down the really BIG imperialist/military/law enforcement ratholes!
Here, too, both the Party of Cain and the Party of Judas make common cause against We the People. I realize that I've begun harping on this point, to unapologetically counter the foregone conclusion that the path to political salvation, if there IS one, must perforce lead through the Democratic Party.
But our Democratic candidates shamelessly recycle the truthless newspeak and doublespeak clichés created to market the mass hallucination of a "Global War on Terror", and stand tall and proud behind reprehensible opportunists like General Petraeus to reinforce their arguably unconditional support for our professional warmongers. The excuse is that We the People simply won't stand for a national leader who isn't first and foremost a Warlord, and candidates are powerless to play against this stereotype.
The alleged remedy is that We the People, recognizing that there will be deficiencies and shortcomings in even our best candidate, must get off our whiny butts and Constantly Pressure the president-elect to Do the Right Thing(s).
My objection is that though we scorch our fingers thrusting our elected leaders' lower limbs into the fire, we discover that those appendages on the end are, or have become, cloven hooves. Fire doesn't seem to bother them much.
Thanks for giving me an excuse to fill in the blank you astutely discovered in my comment. ;)
LITTLE BROTHER: You're on a roll! Great posting! The only thing that it lacks is relating the degree to which the "hollow state" becomes a financial black hole of UNLIMITED spending when it comes to the military and its thousands of make-war industries. No one seems to mind "welfare" to the thing that destroys so much and leads to more war, and thus pain/depravity for so many. Few ask for accountability of this behemoth even when how many BILLIONS now have been said to have gone missing, and/or become unaccounted for? That's a lot of lunch programs for impoverished kids...
Daniel David is right, elect all the Democrats we can this time around and we will see improvement shortly in our government doing the right things for the country instead of all the wrong things.
This talk of voting for people that do not have a snowballs chance in hell of getting elected is just another way to put in the same people again that have nearly ruined our country.
The Dems never had a chance ever since 2000, when our government was taken over by scoundrels, and 9-11 made it impossible for them to accomplish anything, as the fearmongers played that event to the max and still are using it for their advantage.
We have the most corrupt and stupid government in the history of our country and we had better get together and get them out while there is still something left to salvage.
This article is a good illustration of the pernicious effects of the Hollow State.
LBJ was the last president to unapologetically support the Compassionate State brought to fruition (however imperfectly) by FDR. In a nutshell, the Compassionate State views government as "part of the solution" to guaranteeing the COMMON weal by taking responsibility for regulating the depredations of capitalism vis-Ã -vis the quality of life.
The so-called entitlement programs providing direct financial assistance to the economically challenged, vulnerable and needy are one pillar of the Compassionate State. Regulatory agencies are another. While these approaches can be implemented and administered by states, federal partnership and oversight is necessary to guarantee uniformly fair and sufficient service delivery in a nation increasingly dominated by national and international business organizations.
During the economic convulsions in the Vietnam War era, the Compassionate State itself became identified as a bloated and parasitic monster; it was pejoratively rebranded the "Welfare State". The Reagan counter-revolution was a direct assault on the Compassionate State-- as Grover Norquist infamously described the process years later, the idea was to starve government down to a size where it could be drowned in a bathtub.
There were, and are, abundant examples of bureaucratic waste, fraud, and abuse to make plausible the superficial dictum that "government IS the problem"; the working-class and middle-class yahoo masses accepted the Hollow State, which resonated with ignorant, small-minded self-centeredness, racism, and xenophobia, and the traditional myths of self-determination and rugged individualism.
Who needed overpaid, pointy-headed gummint pencil-pushers in Dee Cee ordering around regular folks, and deciding how they should live their lives? All they were good for was legally stealing hard-earned money from ordinary folks in the form of taxation, and using their ill-gotten gains to keep the fat cats afloat in luxury and piss the rest away in boondoggles.
The Compassionate State recognized, at least tacitly, that unchecked capitalism is malignant and destructive, and that government itself was obliged to benevolently intercede to check and counter its destructive tendencies-- even if only to save capitalism from devouring itself.
The Hollow State reversed that formula, and pronounced government as the malignant party-- not only because it encouraged a shiftless underclass devoid of Personal Responsibility, but because it supposedly metastasized into a hydra of self-promoting, self-expanding bureaucracies to pre-empt and sabotage the self-corrective processes of benevolent capitalism.
From the capitalist's perspective, there was simply no NEED for the gummint to interfere in everyday activity. The "free" market would see to it that defective and toxic products were minimized and eliminated! No manufacturer WANTS to sell, say, children's toys using toxic lead paint! Dead customers are bad for business, and once they started popping up-- or laying down-- the manufacturer would feel it in the pocketbook and do the right thing.
And in the present maladministration, one of the Hollow State's favorite strategies was raised to a new level: deliberately ensuring that gummint agencies are inadequate and incompetent. This approach both reinforces the popular meme that government is unduly intrusive and hopelessly incompetent, and also frees up more revenue to be poured into the insatiable maw of the military-corporate complex.
One of the shabbiest canards proffered by defenders of the Hollow State is that political leaders finally "wised up" during the Reagan years, and realized that gummint simply couldn't AFFORD the massive expenditures of entitlement and regulatory programs. Thus, these programs were detached and flung away as if they were so many leeches clinging to Uncle Sam's tender parts, and turned over to capitalists to provide "privatized" services.
As with "faith-based initiatives", this is advertised as a win-win outcome.
Tragically, as with Amerikan military imperialism, the Hollow State is a bipartisan creation. The present generation of our political aristocracy has forsaken the Compassionate State en masse. Bill Clinton's initiatives in deregulation and reducing entitlements, e.g. repealing the Glass-Steagall Act, cutting welfare programs and substituting cosmetically-pleasing "welfare to work initiatives", are echoed by the present presumptive candidate.
And Hillary Clinton, prospective vice-presidential candidate, proposed that the likes of Alan Greenspan, Paul Volcker, and Robert Rubin head a group to deal with the present foreclosure debacle-- another scandal rife with corporate misfeasors and criminals who will never be brought to light, much less brought to justice.
Our elite political class is doing very nicely in the Hollow State, thank you, since the Hollow State confines itself to enforcing its version of the "rule of law" and protecting financial interests. If it's possible to somehow return to a Compassionate State from our present-day moribund imperium, it isn't going to happen from within the duopoly.
TREE FITZ: When I went for my degree in education (English major), there was a glut of teachers in New York State and a very competitive program was facilitated. I would be evaluated by a supervisor who would walk in without any warning. Thanks to a certain inborn dramatic flare, I was very good at using motivational devices to get the attention of students. (This impressed the supervisor). With that as prelude, here's the anecdotal motivational device I wish to use in providing a response to your (rhetorical?) question on conservatives.
Have you ever watched Mary Matalin speak? Those pursed lips in my mind are indicative of a heart that long ago closed off to feeling any meaningful association with any other human being, apart from those a station or two up from her perceived status. There are many walking around who truly do NOT give a damn about others, and I suspect they see in their Calvinist nod from God as evidenced in the car they drive, the clothes they wear, the home they've "purchased," and the church they attend, a sense of Divine right of privilege that will mean no bad tomatoes, or a similar fate based on a dearth of regulatory agencies.
OLE MAN RIVER said, " I have spent more than an hour talking to an anthropomorhized Verizon robot to no avail." Boy, that's a great description! I hate those things so much I like to hurl 4 letter words just to see if any reaction ensues.
How about deregulation and banks! I had an offer for one of those no-interest credit cards. I knew I would be traveling in June, so sent the bill in EARLY (it was posted June 2). I get back around the 15th, and find the bill demanding a payment, and realizing they counted the June 2 for the "May bill" I rush yet another payment. Open my July bill and they have eviscerated the free interest, charge me $15 interest, atop a $39 late fee when I made TWO payments this month. I call and speak to an AWFUL account rep who will NOT let me speak to a supervisor. She said she will not credit me the $39 even though it's obvious I made TWO payments because, get this, the payment was not listed in the appropriate "CYCLE."
This what the authoritarians want... rules not respect for people, the OPPOSITE of what their beloved Jesus said as per to NOT worship the LETTER of, but rather the SPIRIT of the law.
RUTH K: I would not put that past them. They are trying to regulate vitamins, all the dye & additives in food, the chemicals to enhance "shelf life," the biogenetic twisting of ancient codes tested by the Great Mother for many moons before they were chosen for further elaboration, and so many other sins passing for "business is business and business must grow." (That line comes from Dr. Seuss.)
When some kids die from lead paint and others don't; when some adults die from eating shit and others don't, it used to be a theological question.
Is this what they mean by letting the market decide?
Conservatives kill.
Welcomw to Soylent Green. We were warned but are still in denual, just ask any US Govt Food Inspector. Oh yeah, we don't have any.
Relax, you can protest the foxes watching the hen house but even when offered the money for overseeing their resposibilities the Governments said "no thanks", so my friends it's the corporation our government wants to protect not the citizens. I think the Republicans call it "taking responsibility for your actions"-like eating a salad, eating a piece of non-infected meat in your home or at a restaurant, the tires you put on your car, the toys you buy for your kids, ad infinitum -not the government's problem.
OleManRiver, I don't know exactly why but your post has grabbed my attention. Several things you wrote are working me but especially your story about being overbilled by the water company. You state that your tenants used the water, which means someone is owed the water. Is it your position that since the water company made a billing mistake, now that they have corrected the mistake, they, not you, should have to cover the cost of the mistake. . . this even though, as you acknowledge, your tenants (you are their agent with the water compoany) used the water.
You say you can't go after your tenants. Well, I am a lawyer and guess what, you could go after them. Sometimes in life, the costs of making something right, unfortunately, outweigh the cost of the mistake. I am certain that taking legal action against your now-departed tenants to get them to pay for the water bill would cost more than the water bill. Lawyers don't tend to work for free. It would easily take a lawyer a few hours (drafting the initial paperwork, following up, going to court. . . .
Another thing, OleManRiver, you tell us that you had to pay a lawyer $130 already plus the CPA must have charged you, right?. . . $130 might buy you half an hour of a lawyer's time. You know that a lawyer has a lot of overhead, right? Office rental, furniture depreciation, technology depreciation, staff salaries, malpractice insurance, utility costs. When I was in law school back in the seventies, we learned that a lawyer's hourly overhead is usually at least half of the hourly rate s/he charges and often the overhead adds up to 2/3'ds of the hourly charge. Quite alot of people fail to understand how much it costs to be a lawyer. Oh, and another thing, lawyers have to spend a lot of money to subscribe to updates on the law. Publishing companies don't tribute laws and regulations for free.
And guess what else? No lawyer can know the answer to every question a client asks them. And no competent lawyer would give you an answer to your question about the law without first verifying that the answer s/he gives you is correct. You ascertain that the information you give clients is correct by doing research. No human being could be a competent lawyer without verifying the up-to-date accuracy of their advice. If you want someone popping off the top of their head when you have a legal problem and you don't want to pay a lawyer to give you the answer, you might just as well stop the next guy on the street and, for example, ask him which regulatory agency has legal oversight of your legal problem. And, btw, if you decide to solicit free advice from strangers, and decide to follow that free advice, keep in mind that any advice you get for free is worthy exactly what you paid for it.
OleManRiver, mistakes happen in life. You can't always pass the cost of the mistake on to someone else. This is called Life. L. I. F. E.
I feel sad for you, OleManRiver, imagining you using up some of your precious L.I.F.E. over that $300 waterbill.
I do believe that many large systems intentionally design advantages for themselves into systems, intentionally creating profit for themselves by passing off countless tiny mistakes that the average person is not going to bother to correct because, gee, a $1.50 mistake on my phone bill is not worth very much of my valuable life and the phone company knows it. I believe the answer to stopping this kind of chicanery is advocacy paid for by the larger whole, the community, the taxpayers . . . . Private nonprofit lawyers could also be advocates for the common good. And maybe everyone working to improve this country's regulatory systems don't have to be lawyers, just smart and able to learn and able to advocate. We need to pay people to do this work, work for the WHOLE. We need to have this kind of work as a very important value. And I don't think we can adopt such a value so long as we allow corporations to drive our values. And who is going to change that situation? Somethings tells me lawyers are going to lead this charge, lawyers are going to shove injustice down the dominator's throats. People need to remember that lawyers brought us consumer protection laws and product safety laws and civil rights.
What is the answer? Nobody wants to be nickel and dimed to death by the corporate dominator culture . . and, alas, most of us are.
We can't escape this intentional chiseling without a collective realignment of our values. I am 54, very well educated (in addition to a doctorate in jurisprudence, I have a couple of masters degrees and I read books every day so I am very well read and, gosh golly, I am very smart) and very smart. I have read at least one newspaper (mostly the NYTIMES) every day of my life since I was about seven years old. I read numerous news magazines weekly. I read and pay attention and I vote and I show up in my community and I do great work for change. I am about as erudite as one American is ever gonna get. . . . and STILL
STILL .... STILL ! ! ! I have never understood what motivates conservatism. By conservatism I refer to the belief that apparently first made great inroads into our society during the Reagan years, that it could be good for the collective, good for everyone, to have no government. As one post points out, if you want no government, head to Somalia, head to their hinterlands and experience the anarchy of no good government.
What is the endgame for such conservatives? What kind of world do they imagine they will be living in if their agenda becomes our standard (I know we are perilously close to their agenda, the Bush years have taken great tolls, it will take us years and years to restore any sembolance of food safety and product safety and protection from usury).
Could someone explain to me why conservatives think they want to live in a world with food insecurity, environmental degradation, corruption and devastation? Do such people seriously believe they and theirs can be happy living in some kind of insulated bubble where their food is safe, their air is clean but screw the little people? I know that since the dawn of human civilization, some people have tried to have the upper hand and tried to cosset themselves at the expense of the masses (the system of royalty is similar to conservatism, since when royalty really ran amuck in the world they got to skim the cream of everything for themselves and screw the peons, right?). . .
Do conservatives fantasize that somehow they and theirs will end up winners, that if their values become the norm everywhere, that somehow they will be perpetually insulated from the hawing, mawing suffering masses?
And, gosh, how can sentient beings be this shortsighted?
"Enough. Instead of talking about the size of government, we should be debating how to make our government more effective." So says the author.
So why isn't he? Is he (are we) clueless how that process is started? Do we not know the "E.Coli conservatism" (or any other kind) is fostered by a loosely affiliated group of corporate people calling themselves "conservatives"?
Did you know that a "liberal" president generally appoints people who are not "conservatives"? Did you know that a liberal Congress does not usually defund the agencies headed by liberals?
You have a chance to get Dems on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue for a change. No, it's not the be-all, end-all solution to everything. But, if you don't do it, the conservative neglect and defunding pretty much is the end-all of anyone to listen to our complaints.
OleManRiver,
I do not know if you or any other posters here have heard of this phone company, but I signed up with Credo. They have better rates than all other carriers, they donate 2% of your phone bill to honorable organizations that support local communities and organizations that combat corporate corruption and environmental pollution (you get to select the charity), and they are not part of the illegal spying/eavesdropping program. They will buy out the remainder of your contract with other phone carriers (up to $200), and you can purchase books (academic, advocacy, environmental, etc.). Since, I have become a member, I have been far happier with this phone company than any of the others and appreciate that they really are trying to help people and the planet. 99.99% of the time I am strongly anticorporation, but this one seems to be legitimate.
To pick up on Frederick Johnson's post, teh government has primarily grown in both "defense" related expenditures and "privitization" of prior government services that wer handled by existing agencies. EG. Blackwater being the security contractor for all State Department officials abroad (used to be done by the Marines), private prisons, private customer service operations, etc.
This privatization is sold as being cheaper than agencies but lost in the accountant approach to governance is the unaccountable and lousey "service" provided by such private contractors(to pick up on Wilmoor's point above).
Columbus sailed. The Pilgrims landed. The Native Tribes ended up on their Rez's. This is the world the Europeans built.
OleManRiver - I sure know how you're feeling. I chose not to have a long distance carrier, so my phone company said they'd only charge then if I made a long distance call. I don't make any. So they "had to" charge me 99 cents a month for letting me use them, if I ever did for long distance. That charge is now up to $1.11, and I figure in time it'll be over $5.
I recently sent off my power bill and my garbage bill. One was close to $100, the other under $10. When I checked my bank statement, the company names had been switched, and they credited me with the amount meant for the other company. Then I got a notice from the one who'd ended up with the under $10 check, saying I owed nearly $200 and if I didn't pay by a certain date, my account, as it was set up, would revert to the normal setup.
I learned, when that company's rep called me to apologize, that they are a huge corporation hired by many companies, to take care of billing and payment. This kind of "accident" is becoming quite common.
I've called a utility company for a request, and got someone in India I couldn't understand, so I rudely, I suppose, asked to speak to an American whom I could understand. They transferred me over.
There's little left in this country except for top dressing, that even resembles what used to be.
Support a progressive Independent for Congress.
For peace, social and economic justice and human rights.
www.carolmillercongress.com
Government of, by and for corporations can be corrected without bloodshed:
www.nationalinitiative.us
I would love to offer one-way plane tickets to Mogadishu Somalia to government haters. There Noquist and co can experience the future with no government. It is called anarchy.
Eric is spot on with this article. A smart guy that does real analysis and has legitimate suggestions.
RuthK -- nothing insane that the government might be thinking of doing -- like irradiating all food -- is too far out of it. Quite the contrary. An idea that seems crazy to a reasonable person probably seems eminently reasonable to the crazy idiots who infest our government. After all, what could be easier than to pass a law mandating all food be irradiated then ditch the department(s) of FDA responsible for watching out for food safety? Cheaper, easier for the government, and who gives a crap about the people anyway?
Everything said in this excellent article about federal regulatory agencies applies equally if not more so to state regulatory agencies. Utility regulation by the states has become a sick joke. The utility companies upon which virtually everyone depends KNOW IT and in some cases are intentionally overbilling and expecting you not to fight it. Arguably, most people's daily lives are more directly impacted by state regulatory agencies than by federal ones. (Example: states regulate most insurance companies, including homeowners.)
Example: I opened my phone bill last week and noticed an additional charge of $1.50 for a "local toll charge" I not only would not have made but could not have made because I was at work at the time (and live alone). I have spent more than an hour talking to an anthropomorhized Verizon robot to no avail. Everytime I say "agent" to talk to a real person because no robot can correct this billing "error" I get switched to a dead line and have to start over. They are nickel-and-diming us, but the collective bilking can be in the millions. I am now late paying this bill because I want it corrected. Will they now charge me a late fee?
Another example: I had to hire a CPA to demonstrate that my local water company retroactively overbilled me by $300 for sewer and water because their electronic meter-reader underbilled me below the minimum consumption rate for well over a year. I didn't use the water, my tenants did. They are gone and I cannot collect from them! I have been in correspondence with the director of the water company, since October, and every time I make a point he intentionally misinterprets it, causing another round of letter-writing. I paid a lawyer over $130 for an initial consult. The water company HQ is in Ohio. I live in Indiana. The lawyer could not even tell me which state's Public Utility Commission would have jurisdiction in the case. That would require research.
Most people would not fight this stuff and would instead let them get away with this crap, and they know it. They are wearing us down, hoping we will tuck our tails between our legs.
Just Before Reagan I was Chair of a municipal utility commission and discovered that the local natural gas company had cooked the books and was ripping off the citizenry for hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. The company was subject to the state's Public Utility Commission authority through its "tariff." We appealed to the PUC and won. Today it is everyone for himself (or herself or itself). One of the primary purposes of FDR-style government regulation was to equalize the playing field and free up the time of people for productive work.
With a nod to Barbara Erhenreich...
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After the last eight years, I have become paranoid. What I wonder is if this is the first step to force all produce to be irradiated. The reason given would be that it would kill e coli and salmonella. Unfortunately, it would also destroy the phytonutrients that make the produce good for us. It would be a boom for big pharma since more people would be prone to illness. It this idea too far out of it?
The FDA did a great job protecting industrial meat production. Mountains of fecal waste from the animal farms was never widely mentioned this summer.
It's difficult to post after such a lame article, the scam has been well written , researched, debated, glorified and after 30 years, still worshipped. The intention is to expand industry profit.
How was the Reich's creation of Homelund Security a move to downsize anything, sure, they gave it to Northrup and got rid of the union, is this what Lotke is trying to say with that $100 word, "conservatism?"
The government has actually grown bigger since RAYGUN in case the author didn't pay attention for the last 28 years. He is correct though that we do need a more effective and efficient government rather than a size change.