The Coast News (Page 1)
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OPINION &EDITORIAL<br />
A4 OCT. 3, 2008<br />
Bankers, bureaucrats<br />
and bailouts ... oh my!<br />
I don’t know about you<br />
folks, but all this sturm and<br />
drang over the Wall Street<br />
bailout has me questioning<br />
the viability of the U.S. federal<br />
government now that it<br />
has abandoned any pretense<br />
of responsibility, accountability<br />
or respectability.<br />
Government is a shell<br />
game — big government<br />
even more so.<br />
We have all heard the<br />
term “Wild Wild West.” Well,<br />
welcome to the “Wild Wild<br />
East,” where laws are manipulated<br />
to maintain order and<br />
bankers are the ones robbing<br />
the bank. Adding to this epic<br />
failure of ethical integrity,<br />
the federal government is<br />
rushing to rescue bad<br />
bankers from the mortgage<br />
mayhem they created.<br />
Lawmakers in Washington<br />
have decided to buy out $700<br />
billion worth of bad debt to<br />
keep lenders from sharing<br />
the fate of the lendees.<br />
Rewarding greed and<br />
graft with more of the same<br />
is hardly in the best interest<br />
of anyone, other than those<br />
involved in the financial mismanagement<br />
that has<br />
brought us to the brink of<br />
economic collapse.<br />
I guess my biggest issue<br />
is that the federal foxes want<br />
the homeless hens to pay for<br />
their pillaging, without any<br />
say in the matter. And when I<br />
say federal foxes, I speak of<br />
both the Republican and<br />
Democratic varieties.<br />
Although I’m not the type<br />
who sees this as a case of<br />
creeping socialism, I do see<br />
this as another example of<br />
the corporate kleptocracy<br />
having its way with<br />
Washington, D.C.<br />
What concerns me most<br />
is the two-tier system of letting<br />
individuals lose everything<br />
to bad loans while corporations<br />
making the bad<br />
loans are protected by the<br />
policymakers who allowed<br />
for the deregulation of the<br />
banking and mortgage industry<br />
in the first place. Why<br />
should taxpayers bail out the<br />
industry that has brought the<br />
American economy to the<br />
brink of recession, depres-<br />
P.O. Box 232550, Encinitas, CA 92023-2550 • 760-436-9737<br />
www.thecoastnews.com • Fax: 760-943-0850<br />
MAKING WAVES IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD<br />
PUBLISHER JIM KYDD<br />
GENERAL MANAGER GLENAS ORCUTT<br />
ACCOUNTING BECKY ROLAND<br />
MANAGING EDITOR LAURIE SUTTON<br />
COMMUNITY NEWS EDITOR JEAN GILLETTE<br />
ASSISTANT EDITOR ERIC MURTAUGH<br />
PRODUCTION MANAGER SANDRA POWERS<br />
GRAPHIC ARTIST PHYLLIS MITCHELL<br />
PRODUCTION EDITOR CHUCK STEINMAN<br />
ADVERTISING SALES TONY BARRYMORE<br />
LINDSEY FLEMMING<br />
CHRIS KYDD<br />
LIONEL TALARO<br />
RECEPTIONIST CHERYL PLONTUS<br />
BOB<br />
NANNINGA<br />
Observations from the Edge<br />
sion and deeper debt?<br />
Call me a fiscal conservative,<br />
but I don’t think the<br />
bailout is anything but a<br />
license to fraud and fail<br />
again. To cover their bad<br />
loans, the federal government<br />
is rewarding the bad<br />
behavior of bankers and<br />
bureaucrats.<br />
Enough is enough.<br />
Gone are the days of lavish<br />
spending, bottomless<br />
credit and “I’ll pay later”<br />
mentality. If there is a lesson<br />
to be learned from this mortgage<br />
mess, it is how to prevent<br />
it from happening again<br />
on a larger scale.<br />
It’s time for state, county<br />
and municipal government<br />
to adapt to leaner and meaner<br />
times, and the best way to<br />
accomplish this goal is<br />
through fiscal restraint and a<br />
clear sense of priorities.<br />
Economic self-sufficiency<br />
should be one of those priorities,<br />
as should resource conservation,<br />
environmental<br />
restoration and lifestyle<br />
preservation. We the people<br />
have to take care of ourselves.<br />
We must move beyond<br />
the philosophy of build, borrow,<br />
bank and bail.<br />
Borrowing from the future<br />
has proven to be a plunderous<br />
blunder. It is proving to<br />
be what will eventually<br />
break the bank once and for<br />
all.<br />
Responsibility, accountability<br />
and respectability are<br />
the changes we need.<br />
Throwing money at a systemic<br />
problem is not change.<br />
Rewarding greed and incompetence<br />
is not change.<br />
It’s time for change.<br />
Bob Nanninga is a freelance writer, producer<br />
and environmental journalist. For more,<br />
go to www.bobservations.com, or e-mail<br />
him at bnanninga@coastnewsgroup.com.<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Coast</strong> <strong>News</strong> is a legally adjudicated newspaper<br />
published weekly on Fridays by <strong>The</strong> <strong>Coast</strong><br />
<strong>News</strong> Group. It is qualified to publish notices<br />
required by law to be published in a newspaper of<br />
general circulation (Case No. 677114).<br />
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the Friday of publication. Editorial deadline<br />
is the Friday proceeding publication.<br />
INDEPENDENT FREE<br />
PAPERS OF AMERICA<br />
By Mary Fleener<br />
GUEST COLUMNIST<br />
<strong>The</strong> first time I wrote about<br />
Toll Road 241, I was proud to be<br />
an American, because it looked<br />
like we were going to prevail, so<br />
naturally, I was feeling patriotic.<br />
Today, I am not so happy. I am<br />
ashamed to be part of the human<br />
race, if the truth be told, and it’s<br />
not because the road might actually<br />
be built, but I am saddened<br />
by the way we, the public, were<br />
treated, and the utter disregard<br />
and disrespect shown by the Del<br />
Mar Fairgrounds, the TCA, (the<br />
crooks that are financing this<br />
boondoggle), and the National<br />
Oceanic and Atmospheric<br />
Administration. After the<br />
<strong>Coast</strong>al Commission voted down<br />
the project, the TCA appealed,<br />
and stated that because of the<br />
“circus like atmosphere” they<br />
wanted to deny the public any<br />
access to their meeting with the<br />
NOAA.<br />
So we got a compromise, if<br />
you want to call it that. We got<br />
treated like cattle. We got treated<br />
like crap. Anyone wishing to<br />
speak had to send a letter via<br />
snail mail, and that didn’t guarantee<br />
you would be chosen to<br />
speak.You could not donate time<br />
to another speaker, and even if<br />
you were a politician, like Pam<br />
Slater (who was in Washington),<br />
you could not have an assistant<br />
Contact a Reporter<br />
CARLSBAD<br />
JEANNIE SPRAGUE-BENTLEY<br />
jsprague-bentley@coastnewsgroup.com<br />
DEL MAR / SOLANA BEACH<br />
BIANCA KAPLANEK<br />
bkaplanek@coastnewsgroup.com<br />
ENCINITAS<br />
WEHTAHNAH TUCKER<br />
wtucker@coastnewsgroup.com<br />
OCEANSIDE<br />
PROMISE YEE<br />
pyee@coastnewsgroup.com<br />
RANCHO SANTA FE<br />
DAVID WIEMERS<br />
dwiemers@coastnewsgroup.com<br />
SAN MARCOS / VISTA<br />
GIDEON MARCUS<br />
gmarcus@coastnewsgroup.com<br />
CRIME / COURTS<br />
RANDY KALP<br />
rkalp@coastnewsgroup.com<br />
Contact the Editor<br />
LAURIE SUTTON<br />
lsutton@coastnewsgroup.com<br />
Views expressed in Opinion &<br />
Editorial do not necessarily reflect the<br />
views of <strong>The</strong> <strong>Coast</strong> <strong>News</strong>.<br />
or representative to speak on<br />
your behalf. That was forbidden.<br />
No, boys and girls, these were the<br />
Feds and they were calling the<br />
shots.<br />
<strong>The</strong> meeting was held in a<br />
huge room with no air conditioning.<br />
You were not allowed to<br />
bring any water into the room.<br />
You could not hold signs over<br />
your head. Unless you were the<br />
media, you weren’t supposed to<br />
take any pictures, and the parking<br />
fee was a whooping $9 per<br />
car.<strong>The</strong> sound system was ridiculous<br />
and it was impossible to<br />
hear what anyone was saying.<br />
When I was in the bathroom I<br />
almost felt like I was in an old<br />
church, the echoing was so bad.<br />
We weren’t supposed to clap. We<br />
weren’t allowed to cheer. I was<br />
asked to sit down several times.<br />
Our only form of expression<br />
and/or protest was to hold our<br />
thumbs up, or down. Quite a few<br />
of us starting waving dollar bills<br />
in the air when appropriate and<br />
one guy showed me how to hold<br />
my money using my middle finger,<br />
which I did with relish and<br />
there wasn’t a damn thing the<br />
security could do about it.<br />
I walked around and took<br />
pictures anyway, and while I was<br />
aiming at the pro toll road people,<br />
who were paid to be there, a<br />
security guy asked me if I was<br />
from the media. I lied and said I<br />
was a freelancer. “Oh, OK”, he<br />
said. However, an hour later,<br />
when he noticed I was taking pictures<br />
of everyone, he asked to see<br />
my media pass.“I don’t have one,<br />
I’m a freelancer, remember?”<br />
I asked. “<strong>The</strong>n you can’t take<br />
any pictures. I don’t make the<br />
rules.”<br />
Two hours into the meeting,<br />
I guess the Feds had enough of<br />
letting us exercising our rights,<br />
and a woman in a black power<br />
suit with a walkie talkie started<br />
making the rounds, checking<br />
everyone out and making people<br />
obey the rules. Of course, I<br />
noticed she only mingled with<br />
the side of the room that had the<br />
potential to become a “circus”<br />
and ignored the other side of the<br />
room — the pro toll road folks in<br />
their ubiquitous orange shirts. It<br />
was a rainbow coalition of security,<br />
I must admit. <strong>The</strong>re were regular<br />
police, sheriffs, the ELITE<br />
THE COAST NEWS<br />
Toll-tally lame meeting at fairgrounds<br />
guys, Del Mar Fairgrounds staff<br />
and who knows how many undercover<br />
agents.<br />
As for the speakers, I will say<br />
this much. <strong>The</strong> pro toll road people<br />
were the best dressed hookers<br />
I’ve seen in a while, oh yes,<br />
indeed. Oh yeah, check this out:<br />
did you know that the toll road<br />
will help National Security? If<br />
we have a catastrophic earthquake,<br />
it’ll come in handy! <strong>The</strong><br />
surf won’t be affected at all; in<br />
fact the waves will be even better!<br />
<strong>The</strong>y’ll be less crowded! Hell,<br />
maybe global warming will get<br />
better because more cars will be<br />
traveling less miles and fewer<br />
emissions will be created! <strong>The</strong><br />
endangered animals will find<br />
new places to live and they’ll be<br />
even happier in their new locale.<br />
<strong>The</strong> birds will be able to migrate<br />
easier because now they’ll have a<br />
nice big freeway to point them to<br />
their destination! Never once did<br />
anyone bother to mention that a<br />
toll road costs money to drive on<br />
each and every time you use it,<br />
but hey, that’s what credit cards<br />
are for, so no biggie.<br />
And then there’s the children.<br />
Think of all the happy kids<br />
that get to drive on the toll road<br />
when they grow up! It’s a winwin,<br />
people. Like one of the signs<br />
outside said, are you willing to<br />
sacrifice your lifestyle because<br />
of all this “disinformation”? Are<br />
you willing to sacrifice your entitled<br />
place on this planet where<br />
you get to consume as much as<br />
you want and use as much as you<br />
desire because that’s the<br />
American way? No way, man! I<br />
want my toll road and I want it<br />
now!<br />
Tell you what, this time the<br />
pro toll roaders were expertly<br />
organized. We, the people<br />
against it, were organized, but we<br />
should’ve had a much stronger<br />
showing this time, and I’m sorry<br />
to have to report this, but, we didn’t.<br />
If Good is to triumph over<br />
Evil, we must make our voices<br />
heard and we must go to the next<br />
meeting and pack the house.<br />
Even if it does mean shelling out<br />
9 bucks for parking.<br />
Mary Fleener is a longtime resident of<br />
Encinitas, a published writer and cartoonist,<br />
and is a board member of the Leucadia<br />
Town Council.