Among the many stories related to the recent (ongoing?) wildfires here in Colorado was a tragedy of neglect and misplaced priorities that graphically illustrates the failure of private enterprise to respond properly to a public crisis. This will continue happening as long as we allow corporations dictate public policy at all levels of government.
Colorado Springs, where I live, is full of military bases with airports. One of those bases is home to an enormous plane known as the "Global SuperTanker." It is a Boeing 747-400 jet modified to carry and drop nearly 20,000 pounds of fire retardant at a time. It can fly as fast as 600 miles per hour, so it can reach any given destination quickly....but only if you have a contract with Global SuperTanker Services, LLC.
There is the rub. The plane remained grounded during our worst conflagrations in part because the landowners affected by the blazes did not have a contract with the SuperTanker company. This attitude is akin to a childish actor whining "where's my motivation?" How about decency and humanity? How about that for motivation? What are you, the firefighting version of the "Soup Nazi?"
Wildfires do not respect geopolitical boundaries, but neither do publicly-employed (government) firefighting crews. Why should the Global SuperTanker be any different? It is different because it is a private corporation that has the freedom, if you can call it that, to do as it pleases and make decisions on where to respond based on who can pay, if not "who can pay more." What do you think will happen the next time, when there is more than one fire, in different states? The plane will be deployed to whoever can provide the greatest financial return. That is the gravitational pull of money in the private sector. It is a big "FU" to any jurisdiction that is too poor to pony up.
Meanwhile, corporate media did a magnificent job of portraying government red tape as the real villain in this scenario. If only there were fewer regulations, the story seems to go, then the plane would be airborne already. Don't you believe it.
Not every fire can be fought with the huge aircraft, and the U.S. Forest Service may be behind in its approval process for new tools in its firefighting arsenal, but to suggest that bureaucracy is the sole problem here is to refuse to address the broader issue of profit-above-safety and resource protection.The solution? We citizens should own the SuperTanker. It should be government property, not a private tool with profit ahead of public safety.
Government's biggest problem may be that it has terrible marketing. It fails to explain how many public benefits we enjoy, from schools to parks, to public roads to...emergency response. The other problem is that government as morphed into a quasi-business itself whereby our public officials are now looking out only for private big-business interests. Lawmakers are actively replacing government with corporate rule.
Some elected officials have done an amazing job of convincing us that government programs are a waste of taxpayer dollars; that we as citizens have no choices in anything but the "free market." The free market is of course rigged itself and government is poised to fail because our tax dollars are subsidizing private industries instead of the public good. The only people who benefit from this kind of corruption are the lawmakers (I use that term loosely) themselves, corporate executive officers, and shareholders, all of whom are already wealthy. They are not earning their money, they are siphoning from the gas tank of you and me. Taxpayers are viewed as the "supertankers" from which money needs to be sucked up and deposited into the coffers of the elite. Call it class warfare if you wish, but it is an unmitigated tragedy that will continue until consumers and the labor force decide they will no longer participate in the system.
Vote your sensible neighbor into public office. Run for office yourself. Shop local every day. Go off the grid as much as you can. Reward excellence and scaled-down business enterprises in your consumer choices. Your dollar-spending votes in the marketplace speak even louder than the ballot box.
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