THE THREAT IS REAL AND RIGHT NOW
Some of my friends have asked me to stop the editorializing while REDDING digs out from the disaster.
It sounds to me like “have thoughts and prayers” after yet another school shooting. Of course ‘thoughts and prayers’ do nothing, stall for time, some people forget and do nothing…Make no mistake there are forces in the United States (one in the White House) who want us to shut up, to endure these fires and just shut up, buy more cars and make them richer. For that reason I am joining the Sacramento Bee in not shutting up, this thing is way past prayers!
What to do what to do? Well first of all don’t do what REDDING did, foolishly turning down a small sales tax that would have rebuilt their decimated police and fire departments, and would have funded the fire prevention program that was essentially ended from 2008 to present. That’s right, twice the conservative anti-tax mania, the mistrust of government that is a pandemic, succeeded in basically leaving the city unprotected.
You need government during times of resource disaster and threat. Right now this anti government anti tax stupidity would have lost WWII.
That’s right we are unprotected. California has made bone headed decision several times, starting with Prop 13, that has come back to haunt us.
Presently this is about to happen again as the Republicans who are so out of touch about the only thing they can do is attempt to pass irresponsible roll backs of taxes, in the idiotic effort to roll back the gas tax. The Republican Party’s irresponsibility has ended their hegemony in California, but they hope for a rebound with an anti-tax program. This time global warming stands in their path as the state burns and we spend billions fighting wildfires that are being caused by our burning of fossil fuels.
Now the gas tax, if it survives, will just put gas taxes in California where it should be allowing for inflation. Right now Americans, and yes Californians pay the lowest tax on gas by far than every other industrialized nation by far. And, as a result the roads throughout America are rough, uneven, resulting in horrible gas mileage and worse carbon pollution.
And we will not even consider driving less. Of course this results in the decapitation of mass transit (seen a Greyhound Bus lately) and the constant advertisements selling bigger trucks and cars. If you haven’t noticed, the automobile industry is in a full assault on your pocketbook, with hundreds of car commercials a day on every media.
The more cars the better IS going exactly I mean exactly the wrong way!
So, as we see countless proofs of carbon destruction of the climate that allows life on earth as the fossils fuel industry continues a relentless profit mad attack on our common sense.
Moreover, the fact that oil and gas will run out in about 20 years is totally hidden from us.
This is setting up a catastrophe, a hyper heated atmosphere coupled with an inability to run air conditioning. Americans, being spoiled, actually believe they can ruin the environment but hide in their air conditioned homes and air conditioned cars.
One, the homes burn down. In Redding, Sunset Terrace is the rich people’s homes. It burned first! The wealthy tend to live. in the higher places, like all primates. And the higher places, up in the woods, burns first and most! Two, cars need gasoline to run and run the air conditioner. WE ARE RUNNING OUT OF GAS!
In Redding recreation is a mainstay of the economy, Whiskeytown is a mainstay, it burned down. Redding depends on recreation. This fire has ended that for a decade at least. Redding is in real economic trouble anyway, this could be the knockout blow.
Meanwhile the State of Jefferson folks are no kidding, working hard to pull Shasta County out of the state. I wonder how the Carr Fire would have been fought without Cal-Fire? It wouldn’t…
In short, the ingredients of the end of times is real and closer than we think. And then we elect Trump and a majority Republican Congress, made up of fossil fuel lobbyists and. profit at all costs types who are busy dismantling the minimal anti-global warming the government had been able to construct.
In California the majority of polling shows the gas tax in trouble as our state burns down and our roads fall apart.
The question is; is. California like Redding, foolishly voting down taxes that would result in protection and reversal of global climate change? Are we not capable of supporting a train and bus system of transportation?
Right now it looks like stupidity is winning out.