America on Fire [View all]

[WilliamPitt]

Peter G. Peterson, a Wall Street billionaire, in
New York in a Jan. 29, 2008 file photo.
(Photo: Fred R. Conrad / The New York Times)

America on Fire
By William Rivers Pitt
Truthout | Op-Ed

Tuesday 22 October 2013

At this moment, a sizable percentage of southeastern Australia is on fire. More than 62 separate wildfires are raging, the three largest of which are poised to merge into a single monstrous "mega-fire" that could eventually threaten the suburbs of Sydney, or even the city itself.

Hundreds of homes have been destroyed, power has been lost in thousands of others, and the entire state of New South Wales is under a state of emergency. If those three large fires merge, fire officials are deeply pessimistic about their ability to get the situation under control.

The rural area where the conflagration began is prone to wildfires, though not at this unprecedented scale, but that did not stop New South Wales Premier Barry O'Farrell from successfully spearheading an effort to slash millions of dollars in funding from the Rural Fire Services that are now desperately trying to contain the destruction.

Mr. O'Farrell is a fiscal conservative, because of course he is. "There is not much we can do except wish those extraordinary volunteers and paid firefighters out there every success and every luck," said O'Farrell earlier this week.

He's exactly right, too. Cut their funds and wish them luck as the flames lick their heels. It's the conservative way.

Here on the other side of the world in America, another sort of fire is threatening to burn out the futures of millions of people. A bunch of billionaires are working hammer and tong with their bottomless pockets, their hired Congressional stooges, their idolaters in the press, and all those useful idiots who hate government but love Medicare and always vote to destroy Social Security and Medicare, because government programs that actually work really well are the enemy, and must be scourged.

The rest: http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/19548-america-on-fire