Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: I frutti marci di Reagan

Los Angeles Times
September 6, 2005
Rotten Fruit of the 'Reagan Revolution'
by Robert Scheer
WHAT THE WORLD has witnessed this past week is an image of poverty and
social disarray that tears away the affluent mask of the United States.
Instead of the much-celebrated American can-do machine that promises to
bring freedom and prosperity to less fortunate people abroad, we have
seen a callous official incompetence that puts even Third World rulers
to shame. The well-reported litany of mistakes by the Bush
administration in failing to prevent and respond to Katrina's
destruction grew longer with each hour's grim revelation from the
streets of an apocalyptic New Orleans.
Yet the problem is much deeper. For half a century, free-market purists
have to great effect denigrated the essential role that modern
government performs as some terrible liberal plot. Thus, the symbolism
of New Orleans' flooding is tragically apt: Franklin Roosevelt's New
Deal and Louisiana Gov. Huey Long's ambitious populist reforms in the
1930s eased Louisiana out of feudalism and toward modernity; the Reagan
Revolution and the callousness of both Bush administrations have sent
them back toward the abyss.
Now we have a president who wastes tax revenues in Iraq instead of
protecting us at home. Levee improvements were deferred in recent years
even after congressional approval, reportedly prompting EPA staffers to
dub flooded New Orleans "Lake George."
None of this is an oversight, or simple incompetence. It is the result
of a campaign by most Republicans and too many Democrats to
systematically vilify the role of government in American life.
Manipulative politicians have convinced lower- and middle-class whites
that their own economic pains were caused by "quasi-socialist"
government policies that aid only poor brown and black people - even
as corporate profits and CEO salaries soared.
For decades we have seen social services that benefit everyone -
education, community policing, public health, environmental protections
and infrastructure repair, emergency services - in steady, steep
decline in the face of tax cuts and rising military spending. But it is
a false savings; it will certainly cost exponentially more to save New
Orleans than it would have to protect it in the first place.
And, although the wealthy can soften the blow of this national decline
by sending their kids to private school, building walls around their
communities and checking into distant hotels in the face of approaching
calamities, others, like the 150,000 people living below the poverty
line in the Katrina damage area - one-third of whom are elderly -
are left exposed.
Watching on television the stark vulnerability of a permanent
underclass of African Americans living in New Orleans ghettos is
terrifying. It should be remembered, however, that even when hurricanes
are not threatening their lives and sanity, they live in rotting
housing complexes, attend embarrassingly ill-equipped public schools
and, lacking adequate police protection, are frequently terrorized by
unemployed, uneducated young men.
In fact, rather than an anomaly, the public suffering of these
desperate Americans is a symbol for a nation that is becoming
progressively poorer under the leadership of the party of Big Business.
As Katrina was making its devastating landfall, the U.S. Census Bureau
released new figures that show that since 1999, the income of the
poorest fifth of Americans has dropped 8.7% in inflation-adjusted
dollars. Last year alone, 1.1 million were added to the 36 million
already on the poverty rolls.
For those who have trouble with statistics, here's the shorthand: The
rich have been getting richer and the poor have been getting, in the
ripe populist language of Louisiana's legendary Long, the shaft.
These are people who have long since been abandoned to their fate.
Despite the deep religiosity of the Gulf States and the United States
in general, it is the gods of greed that seem to rule. Case in point:
The crucial New Orleans marshland that absorbs excess water during
storms has been greatly denuded by rampant commercial development
allowed by a deregulation-crazy culture that favors a quick buck over
long-term community benefits.
Given all this, it is no surprise that leaders, from the White House on
down, haven't done right by the people of New Orleans and the rest of
the region, before and after what insurance companies insultingly call
an "act of God."
Fact is, most of them, and especially our president, just don't care
about the people who can't afford to attend political fundraisers or
pay for high-priced lobbyists. No, these folks are supposed to be
cruising on the rising tide of a booming, unregulated economy that
"floats all boats."
They were left floating all right.

 as corporate profits and CEO salaries soared.
Per l'appunto non mi ricordo in quale giornale americano l'ho letto, ma
di un certo Grover Norquist, un celebre lobbista di una associazione
contro le tasse, grande amico di Karl Rove (lo stratega elettorale di
Bush). Norquist è un idiota, per dirla in breve, che considera la tassa
di successione pari all'olocausto, e ha detto una celebre frase:
 "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the
size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."
(Non voglio abolire il governo. Voglio semplicemente ridurlo a
dimensioni tali da poterlo trascinare in bagno e affogarlo nella vasca.)
L'altro giorno non mi ricordo quale editoriale auspicava che Grover si
trovasse in bagno con l'acqua fino alla cintola, e che fosse costretto
ad invocare l'aiuto del governo che aveva appena affogato.
-- 
Luca Logi - Firenze - Italy        e-mail: 
ll...@dada.it