Showing posts with label destruction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label destruction. Show all posts
Flooded
"Flooding the zone." They throw so much stuff at us, we are overwhelmed, unable to prioritize.
What should we deal with first? People kidnapped in broad daylight by masked thugs? Insane policies that make international trade nearly impossible, and cause prices to skyrocket? The end of life--saving medical research? Laws that prevent women from voting? The end of food safety? The destruction of national parks? Deliberate starvation of poor children? A president who openly takes bribes? People imprisoned, without trials, in foreign countries? Our personal data handed over to who-knows-who for who-knows-what purposes? Book-banning? Competent public employees fired, replaced by unqualified sycophants or by nobody? Deliberate erosion of air traffic safety? Lost access to health information? The erasure of historical records? Rising death rates for women and infants? Attempts to make dissent a crime? Arresting public officials for doing their jobs? Threatening judges? Extorting law firms? Representatives of the president blatantly lying to the public about everything? The end of product safety? Reporters afraid to report? Elected officials afraid to speak up? All the other nightmares I haven't listed here?
There is so much, it can have the effect of paralyzing people, because they just don't know what to do first. That's the idea. They want us frozen in place, unable to take action. One reason for flooding the zone is to present us with so much terrible stuff, that even if we do fight back, we won't be able to stop all of it, and many things will get by us.
It's like being attacked simultaneously by army ants, locusts, Hitchcock birds, and zombies. Some of them are going to slip through the cracks.
Because MONEY is more important than anything else.
"Avarice" (1904), James Ensor
National parks are popular! They actually bring in more money than it costs to run them. Yet the Republican regime wants to kill them. Why? They want to trade the public good for private gain. The plan is to sell our natural resources to ruthless industrialists, to be torn apart, mined for minerals, drilled for oil, and stripped of lumber. Creepy rich guys will pay a lot to be allowed to shoot all the animals. The Grand Canyon is huge. It would be a great place to dump toxic waste.
None of the money generated by destroying our parks and other agencies will be used to benefit Americans in any way. Old people will still be robbed of Social Security and Medicare. Research to cure diseases will not be funded. Disaster relief will not be provided after storms and fires. Laws that protect our food, water, and air will not be enforced. Schools will be closed. Children will not be fed. Medicaid will disappear. Even weather forecasting will be stopped.
Where will all that money go? Will it be refunded to taxpayers? No. Will some helpful programs be re-opened? No. Instead, there will be more ad campaigns praising Dear Leader. An irresponsible billionaire will get more government contracts. Dear Leader and his buddies will spend even more time using government-owned planes to fly off to resort vacations. They will hire more private soldiers to guard them from contact with the public. Wealthy Republican donors will buy more yachts, do more golfing, and have more fancy parties.
The sole purpose of the Republican regime is to create permanent damage in exchange for the temporary gratification of the oligarchs. A billionaire's lifestyle will not be improved or harmed if his net worth goes up or down by hundreds of millions, but seeing it go up on paper makes him feel better for a little while, and that's a good enough reason to make sure our grandchildren never walk in a forest or see an eagle.
We're Here to Help Ourselves
The potential improvements that would benefit most organizations are usually things that are noticed by people familiar with the current workflow, people who know what is being done and what the outcomes are. In any case, suddenly eliminating half (or three-fourths or a third or a quarter) of the employees would not improve productivity. And, even if removing some employees would increase efficiency, only someone who knows what tasks are being done, and by whom, could correctly decide who to let go.
The same concept applies to reducing the budget. An outsider might arbitrarily declare, as some sort of eccentric guiding principle, that everyone should just stop ordering office supplies, or that nobody should ever spend more than $5.00 on pencils. In many offices, people may be wasting paper or overwatering the plants. Nevertheless, only someone who actually works there can see what is necessary and useful, and what is wasteful.
If I wanted to improve efficiency and economy in an organization, I would take some time to work with the people and help them to identify areas for improvement. If I wanted to completely destroy an organization so that it could not fulfill its purpose, I would send in an angry clown to just fire half the staff for no reason, and I'd take away the operating budget and order a halt to all normal procedures.
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