I've fiddled around with trying figure why? These are clearly not reality-based folks running things or making decisions since few of the latest round of decisions and policy announcements make `realistic' sense.
I think it means that these guys don't see there are fundamental problems with the whole neoliberal project, which burst the financial bubble, threaten the concrete economy, and now threaten the entire public sector, via State and Local government operations.
But here is Michael Moore on Democracy Now, today:
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/1/26/michael_moore_on_haiti_the_supreme
His outrage, despair and laughing disbelief are great to watch. From Haiti to the Mass. Senate election to the Supreme Court decision, a great couple of weeks for Capital.
His best revelation was about a call from the National Nurses Union head who had 11,000 nurses volunteer to go to Haiti within a couple of days along with equipment and supplies, and they couldn't get anybody in the White House, but a flunky to talk to.
``...the Obama administration from the executive director of the National Nurses Union. She contacted the administration. She got put off. She had no response. Then they sent her to some low-level person that had no authority to do anything.
And then, finally, she’s contacting me. And she says, “Do you know any way to get a hold of President Obama?” And I’m going, “Well, this is pretty pathetic if you’re having to call me. I mean, you are the largest nurses union. You are, I believe, one of the vice presidents of the AFL-CIO, of the main board of the AFL-CIO, and you can’t get a call in to the White House to get 12,000 nurses down there? I don’t know what I can do for you. I mean, I’ll put my call in, too.”
But as we sit here today, not a whole heck of a lot has happened. And it’s distressing. It’s just one example, I think, of so many things, and you covered a lot of it last week when you were there, that just have fallen through here....''
CG