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The current Amtrak debate, which essentially privatizes each stretch of track, depending on whether a state is blue or red or perhaps purple, underscores the pervasiveness of favors that has racked NJ and the the Nation's capital. The Bush Model & Motto for Federalism: Reward my friends, crush my enemeies, the People mean nothing - let the bad states die in their own stink.
The problem here is that of punishment for any kind of dissent, no matter how First Ammendment and decent that dissent might be. Bush publicly states that "disagreement is good", but the reality is that the Bush machine eviscerates (whether with good facts or not) any dissenting voice. Much energy, attention and money is aimed at the total destruction of anyone who has the balls to stand up and defend a dissenting opinion.
This is certainly something that Pataki has been studying for his foray into national politics, and we can all be sure that he will use this machine to silence his NY-based opponents. We should all be prepared for that. In the meantime, private companies who contribute to right-wing PACs will be the ones to get whatever profits Amtrak might make, and the states will have to carry the debt. It's the classic set up that states are now feeling with Medicaid and Medicare. Witness the Katrina fiasco and the recent scandal regarding the privatised pieces of the farmers insurance business.
Woodward, in an inglorious apology that no one from the Watergate era could have imagined, ate his own words, and what words they were. Must have tasted good. The word play and the lies passed around and around and around are really mind-boggling. Again, the evisceration of Pflame and her husband was indeed a strategy designed to silence anyone who messed with Cheney's long-time plan to take back oil reserves nationalized after much western investment. He must have been so happy to have insinuated himself into the whole Iraq invasion scheme, and to hand out contracts like candy to all of his supporters.
What this means to us is either more taxes or inflation. The right doesn't want higher taxes because Haliburton and friends won't make money off taxes. Inflation on the other hand will.
Tags:
amtrak, inflation, pataki, pork belly futures, woodward
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Posted on 11/17/2005
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