Oliver Stone interviewed Vladimir Putin. Here’s a takeaway from Vox.com:
Should Sanders become president, Putin says, he would suddenly realize the vast weight of the American bureaucracy that existed underneath him. He might make some changes to the US on a domestic level, but he would ultimately be unable to change that much — the person at the head of the state matters less than the centuries of power the state has accumulated and will protect at all costs. People aren’t responsible for what happens; the vast structures surrounding them are. Look at Barack Obama, Putin suggests. He sincerely wanted to close the Guantanamo Bay prison, and did he? No. You can’t fight the state.
Swap Sanders for any of the recent mayoral candidates, trade Barack Obama for Oscar Leeser, and switch out Guantanamo Bay for the downtown arena, and you’ve got the kettle of fish that El Pasoans are frying in.
Elected officials come and go, but the bureaucracy goes on forever.
Wow, that’s a stretch! Running out of rationalizations on why you think Downtown El Paso’s rebirth needs to be stopped. It’s been: our history is being destroyed, the wealthy developers are evil, the government is evil, taxes taxes taxes, the poor are being displaced and now it’s Putin. Respectfully disagree with you on this one issue (Downtown Development.) Agree with you on everything else you write so eloquently on.
Henry, l will start off by agreeing that it is foolish to compare Putin with this mess. Putin would never tolerate such fiscal carelessness. And on a national level, the reason why Russia has a higher quality of immigrants (like we used to have just over 50 years ago) is because they actually care about their nation as opposed to being concerned about supposedly offending anyone’s feelings. But let’s get back to this local crap. l was going to argue with you about this downtown “development” fiasco, but that list that YOU made did it for me. Thanks. Oh, BTW, do you think the reason why El Paso has virtually no population growth is because the rest of the country has observed our brilliant, economically savvy policies during the last 5 + years and feels that they aren’t worthy of existing in this southwestern paradise filled with Mensa members OR they see the illegible graffiti on the wall: more higher taxes and higher fees, an out of control debt that will become more out of control just so we can tear down sparsely occupied buildings and replace them with new sparsely occupied buildings that are seven feet wider, and let’s not forget about the choo choo. Sure the choo choo will make are slow traffic even slower, but at least we’ll now have a choo choo. lf l’m lucky, maybe it’ll even look like the one that l had as a kid! l’m sure Henry is going to intellectually bitch slap me with a well thought out, factually correct response on how El Paso is going to (in some century) benefit from all of these QoL projects. Let me help you out a little bit. Typing something like, ‘Well, l like what’s going on because it makes me feel good and you’re just being a meanie.’ That ain’t gonna cut it.