From Pine View Farm

Nothin’ from Nothin’ Leaves Nothin’ 5

Der Spiegel examines what happens when citizens aren’t willing to pay the price for living in a civilized society.

San Bernardino, California, has gone from being the birthplace of McDonald’s, one of the world’s most successful companies, to a mound of unpaid debts. It’s a sad example of what a lack of infrastructure investment and an almost religious aversion to higher taxes have done to cities across the United States.

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5 comments

  1. George Smith

    January 4, 2013 at 11:42 am

    This is a preview of what happens to the rest of the country of the Obama administration doesn’t figure out how to deal with GOP extremist minority threats to cripple the economy. For years, the inland empire — SB — voted lockstep red. A decade and a half of GOP-imposed paralysis wrecked a lot of California infrastructure and public spending and it is only now that the numbers turned and destroyed the party here. The fate is clear. A lot of San Berdoo’s await if the Obama administration continues to be weak, the Democrats spineless, and the people afflicted with apathy and lassitude. Our system of government was set up assuming a political party would not want to destroy the place. That’s not the case now and the only way clear is the complete removal of the GOP from the reins of power. Until …

     
  2. Frank

    January 4, 2013 at 5:07 pm

    “Our system of government was set up assuming a political party would not want to destroy the place.”

     

    Well said.

     
  3. George Smith

    January 4, 2013 at 6:58 pm

    I was looking at the roll call of GOP reps who voted “no” on the latest paltry aid bill for Sandy recovery. One from California, Tom McClintock, who represents the 4th district. For a laugh, check where it is. He has a seat in the US government because of a part of a California where hardly anyone lives compared to the rest of the state. You’d laugh except you know what they’re capable of. It’s particularly psychopathic and churlish since California can often require federal disaster recovery, fires and earthquakes, ya know.

     
  4. Frank

    January 5, 2013 at 12:06 am

    Fires and earthquakes, I know.  

     

    Some years ago, I was in Burbank teaching a class.  We would come out on breaks and watch the hills burn.  And I was in an 4.6 earthquake in San Francisco–felt for all the world like a sleeping car going over rough switches.  In fact, when it woke me up, I thought I was back on the choo-choo.  The desk clerk in the hotel, the next morning, told me that guests had checked out.  I wondered. “Where the hell were they going to go at three o’clock in the morning?  Another hotel in downtown San Francisco?”

     

    And, yes, I know what rubes are capable of.  

     
  5. From Pine View Farm » Blog's archive » Comment Rescue: the Problem with Republicanism

    January 5, 2013 at 9:22 am

    […] Read the rest of his comment here. […]