Saturday, June 13, 2009

The Israeli Solution, Or A Foot In The Door

Dozens of US cities may have entire neighbourhoods bulldozed as part of drastic "shrink to survive" proposals being considered by the Obama administration to tackle economic decline.

Sounds great, right? Bulldoze all those slums, all those abandoned factories and all those neighborhoods full of empty sub-prime homes. Turn them into beautiful park-like green belts full of natures wonderful creatures, with cobblestone paths leading from one idyllic viewpoint to the next. Blues skies, peppered with white, puffy, happy clouds, bluebirds singing everywhere. Happy, wooden-shod, ruddy-cheeked peasants dotting the landscape, watering, trimming, gathering flowers for your table.

No more rust belt industrial eyesores. No more barrios or hoods full of minorities peddling drugs to our blue-eyed and blond-haired innocent progeny. No more streets piled high with garbage and dog poo.

Once they start bulldozing, Where will they stop? In Israel, they bulldoze houses endlessly because the wrong people live in them.

The beautiful people, living in their walled-off neighborhoods; the Jews, living in their walled-off cities; the environmentalists, living in their green dream world; The college professors, living in their Ivory Towers; they must all love this idea.

Speaking of Ivory Towers, did you know we have a "Shrinking Cities in a Global Perspective programme" at the University of California, Berkeley?

Berkeley... Who would have guessed... The epicenter of America's crackpots.

This is Obama's solution for an economy torpedoed by a stupid federal government and it's insane trade theories and unworkable policies? Bulldoze until whatever left looks like progress and prosperity? What about all those less-than-totally beautiful Citizens living in those less-than-totally beautiful places that will lose their property and everything on it? Will they all be heading for Mexico for a place to work and live?

Bulldoze down the inevitable results of foolish, stupid and unworkable federal policies. "Shrink to survive" they say. More like "bury their mistakes".

This our government think-tank solution to an economy in decline? Bulldozers?

Good grief, what sort of monsters have we sent to Washington?

2 comments:

TheWayfarer said...

Here's a thought:
While were into this business of bulldozing everything unproductive and unpleasant to look at, let's line up about a hundred of those great, big, diesel-powered strip-mining dozers, and send Washington D.C. to the bottom of the Potomac?
I have it on good authority that some of the most corrupt, worthless bastards on Earth live there, so why not treat it like a slum, too!?

Bob said...

To sleep, perchance to dream...