What amazes me is that in their desire to keep taxes low and eliminate government regulations, the oligarchs in the US seem to be succeeding in convincing many ordinary people to deliberately set about destroying the very things that America was once noted for.
It is true that the country has a lousy social safety net with very limited access for the poor for health care, support for the elderly and infirm, child care, and the like. But there were some things that America used to do really well, like providing good roads, parks, libraries, and general infrastructure. But now those very things are being systematically destroyed.
The Colbert Report provides a small example about how the Koch brothers seem to be determined to destroy the Columbus zoo. There are many problems with the entire concept of zoos and I can understand those who feel negatively towards them because I am ambivalent about zoos myself and share some of those concerns. But I cannot understand those who don’t want to support them simply because they are supported by public funds.
(This clip aired on May 13, 2014. To get suggestions on how to view clips of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report outside the US, please see this earlier post. If the videos autoplay, please see here for a diagnosis and possible solutions.)
My husband moved to Europe at the age of 30 so he has some basis for comparison. He would dispute that statement. Regrettably, Americans have tended to think they have it better than they do. American children are often taught that they have the best quality of life in the world, and whilst it isn’t true, it primes them to ‘make sacrifices’ in the quality of life they do have.
The US also had the best system of higher education in the world, In fact, it was the envy of the rest of the world and was greatly responsible for the technical advantage we held over the rest of the world. This was particularly true of public universities like Berkeley. However, we are presently engaged in a campaign to destroy that system. Back when I was a freshman at Berkeley, it cost $50/semester, regardless of the number of credit hours taken. Today, it’s getting hard to tell the difference between Berkeley and Stanford in terms of tuition charges. This is a textbook example of being penny wise and pound foolish.
These Koch-suckers are not only assholes who have never done an honest day’s work in their lives, they are also stupid. When the USA has tens or hundreds of millions of people who can’t get jobs because they can’t afford a decent education, who is going to buy Georgia-Pacific lumber products or any of the other things Koch Industries wants to sell?
They need the infrastructure and public services to fail, so they can blame the government, and also move towards “proving” that privatization of infrastructure is the right way. Go libertarians.
When you own a helicopter, you needn’t care about the quality of the roads and bridges.