Watching events unfold this week in Santa Rosa and the world, I imagine these two scenarios.
1. Firefighters for public office. Imagine if We The People were represented by firefighters. Imagine if Congresspersons had the ethics and morals and commitment to the public good that we have seen firefighters demonstrate over and over this past week. Imagine if Congress, the Executive, and the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies were willing to work tirelessly, 16 hour shifts and more for day after day and that for just what the job pays which is listed as $22 per hour.
2. If Donald Trump was in charge of firefighting. Imagine what it would be like if Trump and Pruitt and Minuchin and Devos controlled firefighting. First of all they would privatize firefighting. They would buy Congresspeople and state legislators and get them to pass laws mandating that local, state, and federal agencies would have to use the privately owned firefighters. State and county-owned firefighting companies would be outlawed. They would promise that this arrangement would save money. Citizens would fall into an authority trance and would believe them. Trump and his cronies would sell stock in the private companies they owned and would make more money. They would replace our highly trained firefighters with unqualified and inexperienced and untrained H1B foreign workers who would be paid $5 per hour. Trump and his cronies would lease the firefighting equipment they own to the companies they own at exorbitant rates. Trump and his cronies would submit a massive bill for services that would bankrupt the cities, counties, and states, and then Trump and his cronies would take over the bankrupted cities, counties, and states. Trump would tweet that the fires were caused by the residents and if we weren't so lazy the fires would not have happened. Pruitt would deny there was a connection between global warming and fires. Carson would say that dispossession due to fires was a "state of mind." The Department of Health and Human Services would deny medical benefits to people injured by the fire or harmed by breathing the smoke. Mike Pence and Mike Huckabee would lecture us that if only we had been more godly this would not have happened and that the fires represented God's wrath for our tolerance of gays and lesbians.
Star Man