A number of cities around the country are turning off their street lights, unpaving their roads and rolling back what used to be sacrosanct public services because they can no longer afford to provide them. The New York Times reported recently that students at a Hawaii public school are being asked to bring their own toilet paper to school and that public school students in other states are also being asked to bring their own paper towels and cleaning supplies.
Then, on Wednesday, USA Today reported this:
Budget cuts are forcing police around the country to stop responding to fraud, burglary and theft calls as officers focus limited resources on violent crime.
Cutbacks in such places as Oakland, Tulsa and Norton, Mass. have forced police to tell residents to file their own reports — online or in writing — for break-ins and other lesser crimes.
“If you come home to find your house burglarized and you call, we’re not coming,” said Oakland Police spokeswoman Holly Joshi. The city laid off 80 officers from its force of 687 last month and the department can’t respond to burglary, vandalism, and identity theft. “It’s amazing. It’s a big change for us.”
Conservatism’s trashing of the economy and of the government resources We the People need for our well-being has brought us to a new level of homeland insecurity. Working people see no job security on the horizon. Their retirement security has been eviscerated by an orgy of Wall Street greed. And now some of them are being told that if someone breaks into their home and steals what little they have, don’t bother calling the police.
Of all the reasons for a million or more people to be marching the streets of a major American city, the Third -Worldization of America by conservative ideology has to be at the top of the list.
