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Tea Panarchy
Far from being a sign of hope and freedom, the tea party
movement seems a predictable development in 2010. With America
facing deep and cancerous problems on multiple fronts, with a
corporatization of American media and a decline in American education
standards, we find ourselves with a sizable part of our population
frustrated and angry and conflicted.
America has always had a fierce anti-government, anti-community
subcurrent, which flourished under the W Bush years as right-wing media
like Fox and talk radio grabbed the ears of America’s working class,
once firmly on the union left. Our largest problems have festered for
decades but worsened under the contempt of Bush conservatives. Now with a
colossal mess facing policymakers on all levels of government, caused
largely by deregulation, the tea bag movement and Republicans hungry for
power at all costs rise up with comforting, but childishly simplistic
responses to complex and dangerous problems.
In reality, our health insurance system, our health care system, our
food system and corporate subsidies related to these are creating a
bubble of debt that will destroy our state, federal and private finances
in the next decade. But conservatives have no solutions except to
coddle corporations and yell “socialist” at those who seek answers. The
climate in fact is changing rapidly due to human pollution, something
all nations except the US and Saudi Arabia accept. Conservatives
fantasize this gravest of problems away because real solutions don’t fit
with their hatred of government, international cooperation and their
desire for the comforts of selfishness. Our financial system demands
regulation to protect us from greedy Wall Street thieves, but the GOP
blocks reform, offering nothing in response.
Tea baggers and the GOP in the US Senate are not liberators; they are
anarchists. These are folks who have no answers other than seeking
freedom from taxes (community responsibility) and government. If you
want their system, check out Nigeria, Afghanistan or Somalia before you
bring it home here. Countries without government are brutal chaos where
blood flows in the streets. But the tea baggers are angry about losing
their status as the white-male majority in America and, above all, they
want emotional satisfaction and power more than they want to deal with
reality.
Tom Ribe
Santa Fe
Feel that Wi-Fi?
Now Zane is a brilliant fellow and has a knack for provoking
response, so I’ll assume that’s what he was trying to do in the case
of Wi-Fi technology. Either that or, like all brilliant folks,
sometimes they’re dead wrong. In this case, maybe he didn’t see the Full
Signal world premier in Santa Fe, exposing the dangers of
Wi-Fi, which may be like the lead in the aqueducts and wine flasks of
Rome. We won’t know what hit us until it’s too late. Scientists tracking
the effects of a new technology are always way behind the businesses
selling it.
We all wish it were benign. It’s so cool to have wireless messaging.
Maybe they can improve it but, in the meantime, many of us can’t figure
why others can’t feel it. Give it a year of constant use and towers
outside your house, and see if that’s still the case. The fact that they
passed laws last decade prohibiting communities from rejecting it on
the basis of health should give us a clue. What kind of a law is that?
Palestinians are chopping down towers because kids living near them are
getting cancer. Feel that, Zane?
PS: As the director of the All Species Projects in Santa Fe for 30
years, I pay attention to what affects our local ecosystems. Within
three to four years of these 500 Wi-Fi transmitters going in Santa Fe,
we will be seeing lowered pollination rates, more cancers, more nervous
people and for what? Do in your children to “save the economy”? Wake up,
Santa Fe. You’re supposed to be so intelligent and conservative.
Conserve yourselves.
Chris Wells
Santa Fe
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