Dean C. scribed:
While I know I could never convince Gary, here's my attempt to answer
his questions about the Twins Ballpark.
<<<<<
Gary H. replies:
Thanks for the attempt, Dean. We may not persuade each other to completely
change, but what might happen....?
Dean C. scribes RE: taxation priorities:
I agree there are more pressing issues, but where do we stop?
<<<<<
Funny question, Dean! My question in contrast is: "Where do we start?"
Let's be clear: we are not subsidizing economic development with the
stadium.
Rather, we are sloshing public money around to benefit a very privileged but
very
small minority of wealthy folks, while many people are then left without
important, essential, fundamental local government services -- education,
public safety, basic health care, sustainable transportation infrastructure,
and the like.
Dean C responds to my "corporate welfare" perscrutination:
I'm not sure I classify this as corporate welfare. The community does
get something in return, a new ballpark to watch Major League Baseball.
<<<<<
Gary H. replies:
Perhaps (?) this is the heart of it. I do not see the next 30 years as a
simple straight-line continuation of the past 30 years, with "Major League
Baseball" playing much of a role at all in our nation, state, or city. I
see public tax-dollar investment in the stadium as short-sighted. I see the
politics related to the stadium as simple local corruption married to the
local bottom-feeders of the "public relations" industry. As a taxpayer and
a responsible parent I find this disturbing at the very least.
I see no merit in adding taxation -- especially clearly regressive
taxation -- in order to subsidize an industry which does little more than
glorify obscene consumption for the benefit of a shrinking minority of
people make huge amounts of money with macho posturing for another shrinking
minority of people who are avid spectators.
We need to decide what we will keep and what we will let go of in terms of
our local commonwealth. I say we keep active, participatory
neighborhood-based and school-based sports. I say that we let go of the
huge subsidy of a bloated entertainment industry which is itself a monstrous
mutation of what we humans refer to as "sport."
Dean C. responds to my scrutiny of the role of professional sports
entertainment in extracting wealth from Minneapolis:
Of course no one can defend the economic structure of major league
sports. But why should the burden of fixing up the baseball's
economics be placed solely on the shoulder of the Minnesota Twins?
We start where we are and when we are. We start here and now. We do this
because both we and our children will regret the massive stupidity of
investing in a billionaire's bauble designed to extract money from our
community when we and our children need to invest intensively in....do you
recall the list beginning with "education, public safety..."? The stadium
tax is obviously the milking of the public cash cow for the benefit of a
shrinking class of the few.
Dean C. responds to my tireless diatribe against professional sports
entertainment thusly (in part):
Baseball is not entirely about the Twins or professional sports
entertainment but it is a big part.
<<<<<
And if this is true (which I doubt!) it is this we need to change first and
foremost, do we not? Sports do not need to be captive to those who choose
to use it to extract wealth from us in exchange for bobble-head trinkets.
Our children deserve to live in a clean and resource-rich environment with
the benefit of careful and caring education. How will we explain to them
that we have squandered the possibilities of industrial civilization on
billionaire's baubles when we needed to invest in our children's future?
Taxing all of us for this monument to hubris is at best stupid, is it not?
Wake up, Dean! Minneapolis does not exist in a vacuum. In the "real world"
we live in Major League Baseball is a distraction at best. The fact that we
waste time and energy on the "stadium tax" issue amounts to pissing away the
future, does it not?
The stadium tax is a desperate ploy to make Minneapolis a "Taxation Cash
Cow" by selling the lie of a fantasy city for a fictional world set in an
implausible future. The future we face is at once more challenging and more
inspiring than the commercialized reality of the "electronic cocaine" of
televised sports and the political opiate provided by those who want to
build dreamland monuments for a world that no longer exists.
-- still pedaling for peace and ecojustice from Lynhurst -- Gary Hoover
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