BushCo using Minn. bridge collapse to privatize infrastructure work?

[marmar]

from OurFuture.org:



Ghouls of Minneapolis
By Rick Perlstein on August 23, 2007 - 7:35pm.


Yesterday I wrote about how the right identified Hurrican Katrina as a golden opportunity. Today? It's the I-35W bridge collapse. Minnesapolis 'wingers are bringing in a think-tanker from Washington to explain why their town now needs a corporate bridge.

* * SPECIAL LUNCHEON FORUM * *

SAFEGUARDING AND REBUILDING AMERICA'S PHYSICAL INFRASTRUCTURE
The Indispensable Role of Markets

Robert Poole

Noon to 1:30 p.m.
Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Hilton Airport ● Minnesota Valley Ballroom
3800 American Boulevard East, Bloomington

In the terrible wake of the 35W bridge collapse, please join us for a special American Experiment Luncheon Forum at which Robert Poole, founder of the Reason Foundation in Los Angeles, talks about better ways of rebuilding our nation's Interstate and urban expressway system while simultaneously expanding its capacity to cope with growth.

Mr. Poole has written about how the "Twentieth Century's highway funding and governance model worked reasonably well," but that it "leaves much to be desired for the Twenty-First," making it time to shift to a more market-based model--the earliest stages of which, he says, are "struggling to be born."

Bringing matters home, the 35W bridge disaster very sadly "illustrates some of the old system's failings." Replacing the span offers a "possible testing ground for a more effective market-grounded approach."

A mechanical engineer trained at M.I.T., Bob Poole currently serves as Reason's Director of Transportation Studies.

Incidentally, like a seminar on the Iraq War underwritten by Halliburton, the event is cosponsored by "Cretex Concrete Products."

http://commonsense.ourfuture.org/ghouls_minneapolis

[coco77]

1. Just like with Katrina,,,

When he got rid of the Bacon-Davis act..

[shance]

5. And just like Katrina,

witnesses heard "explosions" just as the New Orleans homeowners heard explosions at the levees but were ignored and silenced by those who had the power to overrule their testimony.

[rodeodance]

2. i resist i resist, yet it seems to inevitable (privatization of everything)

[rodeodance]

3. Reason Foundation: free minds and Free Markets: here

http://www.reason.org/

[marmar]

8. Thanks for the link....

:thumbsup:

[rusty quoin]

4. Say, how's that privatization experiment going in Iraq anyways?

[ljm2002]

6. Well this is how they get their way so much...

...they attach a laser focus to the goal, then they promote it come hell or high water. For example, Bush's idea to lower taxes for the rich: this was his recommendation before 9/11, and it was his recommendation after 9/11; it was his recommendation pre-Iraq war, and it was his recommendation post-Iraq war; it will alway be his recommendation, because it is in fact one of the primary goals of his being in office in the first place. He is nothing if not an absolute loyalist to his class.

This is the tactic. It is very effective. How to counter it? That is the question for us.

[kenny blankenship]

7. Because that worked so well in Iraq???