The net that shall enmesh them all
Edited, Written, and Published by Josh Nossiter
Friday, November 14th, 2008
A smarter government is one that doesn't flush trillions of tax dollars down the toilet on two wars without point or end, chimerical missile defense systems, rich contracts to defense companies for goods and services that are either fatally shoddy or that simply aren't, blank checks to giant banks and insurance companies. A smarter government addresses natural disasters, hurricanes for example, speedily, thoroughly, efficaciously. A smarter government houses agencies that do their jobs, whether it's regulating industry or supervising our natural resources or educating our youth or maintaining our infrastructure. A smarter government studies the data, pays attention to the trends, and anticipates troubles, be they terrorist attacks or financial system meltdowns, before they occur. A smarter government doesn't dispatch tens of thousands of its citizens to be killed or maimed for no purpose.
A smarter government doesn't pander to religious zealots, the ignorant fearful and the fearfully ignorant, by denying scientific facts and promoting superstition. A smarter government understands that investment in human capital, in health care, decent housing, education, is the way to insure general prosperity; also that disinvestment in human capital has the reverse effect. A smarter government obeys domestic and international law, upholds rather than infringes its citizens' liberties, operates transparently, holds itself accountable for its actions, doesn't go out of its way to antagonize and alienate other governments. A smarter government doesn’t work tirelessly to benefit a wealthy few at the expense of everybody else.
"Not more government"? That would be not using government to groundlessly prosecute political foes. Or to torture detainees. Or to spy on its own citizens.
So after eight years of ever more, ever stupider government, has Bush finally learned his lesson? Why, no. It seems he wasn't talking about his own performance. In a CNN interview on Tuesday, the president expressed regret about some intemperate things he may have said during his term, but not about anything he'd actually done. We'll just have to wait for his successor for the advent of that smarter government the president was talking about.
©Joshua C. Nossiter, 2008
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A NOTE TO READERS ***Update***
Another three week plus hiatus, from April 30th until May 23rd, again due to Yahoo Geocities dismal service.
There was nothing new at The Nossiter Net between March 3rd and April 26th, 2007, nearly eight weeks. The reason: tech sabotage. Yahoo Geocities, the host for this site, denied access for the entire period. At one point, they even managed to lose all the files. In many discussions with Yahoo staff, no clear explanation was forthcoming. No one seemed able to fix the problem. Ruling out the possibility of Dubbya’s revenge, I finally wrote to Mr. Terry Semel, Chairman and CEO of Yahoo! Inc and described the ordeal the page had undergone since the beginning of March. A week later, a helpful Yahooo engineer named Jason called. He had my letter before him. Though he couldn’t do the repairs on on the spot, he promised a fix by the next day. That was April 26th, nearly two months after shutting me down in the first place.
The Nossiter Net apologizes, which is more than I can say for Yahoo Geocities.
