Bridge & Other Government Disasters

I remember the Silver Bridge disaster in Ohio when I was a kid. It was a narrow, steel truss over the Ohio River and one winter during rush hour it collapsed and dumped a hundred cars into the freezing water. Lots of people died. It was the first big bridge disaster I had ever heard of, and I thought, well, this will be a wake up call. The people responsible will take action and start inspecting bridges and this will never happen again. Silly boy.

Lately we seem to be having more than the usual number of embezzlements of local government funds around here. I remember hearing about one a year or so ago, and once again, I thought, well this will be a wake up call. All these little local government operations will be taking a close look at their finances and stopping all these embezzlers. Silly boy. We have had one every couple of months since and there doesn't seem to be any sign of it slowing down.

I started reading Al Gore's new book in Powell's bookstore the other day while I was waiting for my gang to finish whatever they were doing. He starts off talking about how fear clouds the mind and inhibits rational thought, and how when all those old famous dead guys were working on the constitution, this was one of their foremost considerations.

Then he starts talking about how the brain works, and what new brainiac researchers are discovering. People make decisions emotionally, and only after they have already made the decision does the rational, conscious brain get to deal with it, and since the deed is already done, the conscious brain gets to rationalize the decisions that the emotional brain has already made. In other words, your conscious mind is only along for the ride. You can try to influence your lower brain, but at some point, the emotional part of your brain makes the actual decision.

This goes along with something I read earlier that was talking about simple actions, like getting a glass of water. It takes milliseconds for a signal from your brain to tell your arm to do something. By the time you realize you want a glass of water, your hand is already holding the glass under the faucet. Your subconscious, emotional brain has already made the decision to get a glass of water, and it is just informing your conscious brain of that fait accompli.

So anyway, Fox News, Rupert Murdoch and Republican Party are engaged in fear mongering in order to sway your vote at the voting booth, and it worked for a while. Hopefully the damage wrought by their self-centered policies is becoming apparent and the Democrats will be able to take control, at least for a while.

At some level, I suspect there is no difference between the Republicans and the Democrats, but what can I do? Besides writing to try and influence other people (of course that can only work on people who bother to read), all I can do is vote, and I will be voting Democrat. Ever since the Republicans tried to bring down Clinton with their smear campaign, I have been repulsed by their vicious attitude towards anything that threatens their accumulation of even greater wealth. To heck with all of them.