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"They exist SOLELY because Local Government is a Failure!"
Thanks for taking these "tirades" seriously, but we have some serious areas of disagreement. Many Americans have been manipulated on this very important privatization crisis facing this society!
First, addressing short comings in government with privatization-only solutions is like throwing the baby out with the bath water. The world history of privatization shows horrible outcomes for the delivery of necessary services, as well as horrible outcomes for the well being of citizens and the nation as a whole. Not sometimes, but everytime!
We don't need to just focus on recently privatized industries like kids for cash, privatized prisons, etc. to see the pattern. The private health system in America shows all the main truths. Costs after privatization are always at least double, even though people are led by fake statistical projections to believe that they will be lowered. Despite paying more than twice as much as any country in the world for health care, we have the worst health outcomes in the developed world, when looking at the entire population (including the underinsured middle class). Privatization of anything always yields worst outcomes at highly inflated costs/maximum profits. (The city could have put upscale lights on all of Baltimore Ave for the cost of the "grant" to UCD for a few blocks).
Secondly, there are more bankruptcies and corruption in private industry than in most governments! Proponents of privatization lie to people about this reality. And while our government has never lived up to its potential (even before the fascist shift of the past 30 years and especially the last 10) a review of Europe over the same period would show that government can indeed deliver the necessary government services to the people at reasonable cost.
Fact: France has one of the best public healthcare systems in the world and the french pay half as much for it as our PRIVATE/PROFIT system. If government is always inherintly evil, disfunctional, and unimprovable; how can the french government do so much better than our private industry??? How can all the governments of the developed world deliver better health outcomes with less than half the money charged by our corrupt private system???
"Government is always the probem" has brainwashed the American people, just as Goebels described repetition of the "Big Lie" Health care deniers and privatization proponents will now call me a liar and completely ignore facts screaming a bunch of made up nonsense.
Those are universal truths about privatization versus government, which brings us to your second point.
"Of course, one could take the position that Local Government chooses NOT to provide Police or Sanitation as a way to force the Privatization of those services. … But that could only be possible under Republican Administrations -- not Democratic ones"
Governmental policies and institutions have been sabotaged and privatization has been demanded as the only solution! So yes, privatization is being forced through decades of deliberately sabotaged public systems. But it's not been a choice of the people and government serves the proponents of privatization here.
If you review the attacks against public education or the sabotage of urban infrastructure during the period of whight flight, you will clearly see that the policy makers (corporate America) have indeed sabotaged the delivery of basic services with very comprehensive strategies. Starving public institutions for appropriate funds can indeed lead to cascading breakdowns (including increased corruption). We know that we need greater funds for schools in impoverished areas because of the added weight of poverty effecting educational outcomes. But for decades we've had completely opposite funding priorities to sabotage school systems in lower class communities . It's a fact, but lies deny the relevance of this daily!
All systems targeted for privatization are first sabotaged. Real evidence based policy improvements with appropriate funding are immediately called stalinist plots and privatization is bombarded on an increasingly illiterate public as the only solution. So yes, privatization is being forced and real reforms are never discussed in the powerful omnipresent corporate propaganda that people believe .
Republicans and democrats serve the same masters. Government does not "choose" the failings of public insitutions nor do the people. Powerful wealthy individuals and corporations choose the policies that deliberately cripple the institutions which serve the needs of the citizens!
Rome thrived when it made water and sanitation a government utility not because of imperial wars. If you look at the prosperous times of all societies, they coincide with improvments in the governments ability to deliver the necessities of the people through good beaurocracy! The US had its period of advancement when it made public education a government service to all its citizens. Did everyone forget that history???
Respectfully, we all need to stop believing the lies and myths delivered through the corporate propaganda machine which seeks to make us fools and slaves!
Glenn
PS: Sorry for such a brief overview of these serious issues, but my damned laptop is awful and frustrating.
-----Original Message-----
>From: "William H. Magill"
>Sent: Oct 3, 2011 2:51 PM
>To: Richard Conrad
>Cc: "[email protected]"
>Subject: Re: [UC] BID in DC, see the paradigm
>
>Rich, what you and Glenn fail to acknowledge in your tirades against such districts (CCD BID, whatever acronym you want) is one simple fact…
>
>They exist SOLELY because Local Government is a Failure!
>
>… be it Police or Sanitation, the only area where Local Government (let alone State of Federal) succeeds is with Fire protection.
>
>Of course, one could take the position that Local Government chooses NOT to provide Police or Sanitation as a way to force the Privatization of those services. … But that could only be possible under Republican Administrations -- not Democratic ones -- like Philadelphia has been for the past 59 years (Since Joe CLark in 1952.)
>
>
>On Oct 3, 2011, at 10:12 AM, Richard Conrad wrote:
>
>> "For years the DowntownDC BID has worked in cooperation with the Metropolitan, Metro Transit, and US Park Police to provide personal safety information to area employees and visitors at lunchtime Information Lobby Fairs. This August, we expanded and modified the Lobby Fair program to focus more on the BID and the multifaceted work of our uniformed Safety/Hospitality and Maintenance (SAM) employees."
>>
>> Glenn, I looked at that site a bit...
>>
>> Compared to help with financing / and housing programs, compared to social economic reforms / and free access to legal and jobs skills (training and usage); compared to jobs for peace, and a general returning to Faith, Hope, and Charity... the instituting of only more private ownership of Police and Safety patrols is somewhat like: "All the King's Horses and all the King's Men, couldn't put Humpty together again.."
>>
>> What an ironic thing, they decided to call their uniformed force "SAM"... when the acronym did not include their "Hospitality" word and should actually be "SHAM", which is what it sort of sounds like, or "SHAME" which it sounds like too... though if you put it in Hebrew just slightly juxtaposed, it could be Shmae (as in Watch Out!).
>>
>> Reminds me of that famous allegorical restauranteer who's food kept making people sick; and then the cook was quoted on their menu as saying "Please come back soon, we love to hospitalize people."
>>
>> On Oct 2, 2011, at 8:49 PM, Glenn wrote:
>>
>>> http://www.downtowndc.org/issues/branding
>>>
>>>
>>> Lots of people here in the UCD still believe that the gentrification of West Philly was a local "vision" from Penn power brokers like Fry, Rodin, etc. While the Wharton university is a huge player on K St. and Wall St., the BIDification of urban centers is all part of a much larger nightmarish corporate scheme for the entire planet. (Think of Fry and Rodin more as used car salesmen than despicable intellectuals)
>>>
>>> Homeless outreach teams, pedestrian "studies", branding, etc. are copied and pasted for BIDs everywhere, just like the laws introduced by the Democrats/Republicans! (compare the web site to UCD) This international BID movement was never based on merely making Melanie happy! I believe an increased number of district consumers now understand that a primary UCD goal was always gentrification and not the cleaner and safer nonsense.
>>>
>>> But I think local consumers still need to wake up to the fact that our CCD and UCD are very much a part of a much larger international neo-liberal paradigm. Swallowing all public assets and destroying citizenship and rights (ie. peaceful assembly, free speech, etc.) are as much a part of the BID movement, as shifting wealth to connected cronies in the plutocracy. It's also about creating unlimited private taxation and spending power over a vulgar enslaved consumer culture, while representative democracy is rendered useless. (The entire population of the city is subsidizing BID territory, while the necessary resources of other neighborhoods are being stolen through grants, parklets, park redesigns, etc.)
>>>
>>> Compare the web sites and start considering "special service districts" beyond the obvious gentrification, feudalistic control over the petty bourgeoisie, and crony corruption/capitalism. As despicable as those goals are, international BIDification is much larger and comprehensive. This will become much more apparent when folks see that our UCD/CCD was not some local nightmare!
>>>
>>> Glenn
>>> PS: Freedom plaza, where the occupation of DC will begin Oct. 6, lies in the domain of this DC BID
>>> ----
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>>> .
>>
>
>William H. Magill
>Block Captain
>4400 Chestnut Street
>
>
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