I was recently at the gym and looked up at one of the television screens which was tuned to FoxNews. What I saw was a former Shell Oil executive expressing his outrage at the 2010 comments of a regional administrator of the EPA who stated that his office's way of dealing with oil and gas companies who fail to follow the EPA regulations, was to make examples of them. The words the administrator chose to express the way his office handled these noncompliance companies was to "crucify them."
There is no question that the statement was a posturing, self-aggrandizing statement made by one guy who, by no means, makes the policy for the Obama administration. And, the Obama administration made it clear that this is not their policy within the EPA. However, Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma decided to make this stupid two year old statement of one low level administrator an example of the "general philosophy" of the Obama administration. He contends that the President wants to "increase the price of gas and electricity," as if President Obama sits up at night twirling his mustache and thinking of new ways to screw American citizens.
The picture of the Shell Oil executive taking umbrage with this statement and making it a referendum on the President's energy policy seemed so ludicrous, I couldn't hold back my laughter. I mean, really, Sen. Inhofe? You vote against repealing billions of dollars in subsidies to oil companies and this is thing with which you take issue? And can we really take the word of the guy whose company gets all those subsidies and pays Sen. Inhofe to raise this stupid non-issue?
The next concocted "outrage" reported on Fox News that morning was in response to moveon.org's suggestion that use of the word "illegal" in connection with immigrants is a hate crime. I must be honest, I haven't given this one much thought and I am smart enough not to have a knee-jerk reaction to stuff like this until I have a chance to fully understand the issue (unlike the folks at Fox News who knee-jerk everything no matter how trivial). What struck me was not the vitriol with which every story they cover is encased, but the fact that this relative minutiae is what they are covering while they completely ignore the fact that in approx. 21 states in this country the Republican controlled legislatures and governors' offices are systematically and in coordinated fashion, destroying democracy.
I'm sure those of you who get your news from Fox only have no idea of this. In fact, this story is also not being adequately covered in the main stream media, either. However, if you pay attention to one thing and one thing only, you might want to know what is going on in Michigan.
In Republican led Michigan, in a purported effort to help cities and municipalities (the majority's of which are primarily African-American and lower income areas) which are having economic problems, the state government has passed a law which allows the state to come in and dismiss all elected officials and install "emergency managers" to come in and take over all decision making for those municipalities. These emergency managers come in, terminate police officers, fire, and other public employees, eliminate unions and overall destroy the local communities. Their reasoning is that these local governments are just not effectively handling the economic issues and need the brilliant guidance of Republican surrogates who know better how to fix things. Unfortunately, what they are doing is completely decimating these cities and depriving their citizens of a say in their own governance. They are, in effect, creating small dictatorships where the residents of cities must comply with the desires of the big ruling party in the State house and with no ability to vote out those who are ruling at the local level. http://www.freep.com/article/20120425/NEWS05/204250386/Ex-Pontiac-emergency-manager-Law-is-a-quick-fix-destined-to-fail
This is a destruction of democracy in its worst form. And where is the Fox News outrage? Moreover, where is the public outrage about the erosion of democracy?
The fact is, the problem with these municipalities is not that they have been horribly mismanaged. These municipalities cannot financially survive because the federal government has not been able to provide economic assistance needed due to the GOP insistence of austerity. Once the federal dollars are cut off from the state and local governments, how could a local municipality whose population has decreased because of a significant foreclosure rate, rebuild? When people leave their homes, they do not pay the taxes that are necessary to provide the services that are desperately needed. When a town's population is decimated, no business will want to bring their businesses into that municipality. Thus, further destroying the economic feasibility of a successful rebuild. This isn't rocket science. It's simple common sense.
If you want to be truly outraged by something, how about being outraged by the fact that deregulation and disastrous economic policy of the prior administration caused the housing market in these poorer areas completely tank? How about being outraged by the fact that for the people in these communities, the state government is effectively telling them "democracy isn't working here, so we'll try a dictatorship"?
There is a lot about which you can be outraged. However, none of it is going to be covered by Fox. Maybe that's reason enough to turn the channel?
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