Mega Infrastructure Bill To Make Jobs? - 2

Fig. 1 Serious Arctic Climate Change

I. Background

There has been talk for many years about degenerating U.S. infrastructure.

It came up in the presidential election and in comments from a bi-partisan list of Senate and House members.

Infrastructure upgrade is a good thing they say, but once again Dredd Blog wonders about and asks "what is infrastructure?" that they keep talking about like they do with other dog whistles.

II. What Is Infrastructure?

Is it just the great anti-immigrant wall that middle class workers are going to build and Mexico is allegedly going to pay for?

Fig. 2 Trend?

Does it include repairing the global warming induced climate change damage, caused by past catastrophe after catastrophe which insurance companies worriedly talk about (The Evolution and Extinction of Affordable Insurance) ?

Does it include damage by ongoing and future sea level rise and fall (Why Sea Level Rise May Be The Greatest Threat To Civilization, 2, 3, 4, 5) ?

The graphs at Fig. 1 and Fig. 2 show that the Arctic sea ice is still losing extent even in the middle of November, which means that Greenland will also lose more of its ice sheet, and thereby cause even more sea level change (The Evolution and Migration of Sea Level Hinge Points - 2).

III. Military Infrastructure

The military sees climate change as the major threat to its infrastructure, as Dredd Blog has pointed out for years (Global Climate & Homeland Insecurity, 2009; Global Climate & Homeland Insecurity - 2, 2016).

Professor, and Colonel, Wilkerson points out in the video below that the top Naval installation in Norfolk, VA and the Air Force headquarters airport runway near there, both flood due to sea level rise.

The word Dredd Blog has been spreading all these years is getting around:

Based on these calculations, the report says a three-foot sea level rise would threaten 128 U.S. military bases, valued at roughly $100 billion.

Nine of those bases are major hubs for the Navy: In addition to Norfolk, flooding threatens Naval Station Mayport, Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay in Georgia and the Naval Academy in Maryland, where 2003's Hurricane Isabel flooded classrooms, dormitories and athletic facilities.

It's not just the Navy. Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island is at risk of being completely underwater. All told, three Marine Corps installations, two joint bases, an Air Force base and a Coast Guard Station are also at risk of daily flooding, the report said.

(The Extinction of Robust Sea Ports - 9, quoting Navy Times). The dangers that Professor Wilkerson talks about in today's video are, in his words, "extremely dangerous".

He sees the brain-lock in congress and in the approaching presidency, concerning the global climate change national security threat, as a "complete vacuum" where the military has always stepped in to take over.

IV. Ghost Infrastructure?

Or is "infrastructure" the ghost-infrastructure Dredd Blog has been asking about for years now:

We are talking about "the most expensive public works legislation in US history" having creative billions reserved as special earmarking to the tune of "$24 billion for a staggering 6,376 pet projects, spread among virtually every congressional district in the land".

"The enormous bill -- 1,752 pages long" costing "$286.4 BILLION" known as "the highway bill" was the republican congress and republican president's bill passed in late 2005.

But it did not stop the Minnesota bridge from collapsing and killing American citizens, nor did it stop the great recession that is still ongoing.

So how is the next most expensive public works legislation in US history going to be any different?

The answer is that nothing is going to work until we stop destroying wealth with the stupid wars, the stupid military spending gone pork barrel wild, and the stupid military propaganda deciding our fate.

Read this following quote slowly, remembering that it was done while the exorbitant costs of war were not being included in the budget a few years back, while everyone was smitten with bubbleosis, that economic disease which says this economic universe is expanding forever baby, and while we were in the love of war daze:

AT $286.4 BILLION, the highway bill just passed by Congress is the most expensive public works legislation in US history. In addition to funding the interstate highway system and other federal transportation programs, it sets a new record for pork-barrel spending, earmarking $24 billion for a staggering 6,376 pet projects, spread among virtually every congressional district in the land. The enormous bill -- 1,752 pages long -- wasn't made public until just before it was brought to a vote, and so, as The New York Times noted, ''it is safe to bet that none of the lawmakers, not even the main authors, had read the entire package."

That didn't stop them from voting for it. It passed 412 to 8 in the House, 91 to 4 in the Senate.

(Boston Globe, August 2005, emphasis added, see also PBS Transcript). Once again, why didn't the greatest infrastructure spending in fiscal history not help the economy?

(Mega Infrastructure Bill To Make Jobs?, Dredd Blog, 2009). That money went somewhere but it did not fix the still-crumbling infrastructure (Inferior Structure, 2, Famous Last Words,The Homeland: Big Brother Plutonomy - 4).

That is likely to continue in the current corrupt state of things (Getting Caught Is The Only No-No).

V. Trump Infrastructure Vision

How hard engineering concepts can become "political" is only understood completely by a trip down along Highway 61 (War is the Highway 61 of the 1%).

Here is the current rap on trumpfrastructure:

It was supposed to be a big, beautiful infrastructure bill. But President-elect Donald Trump’s pitch for a $1 trillion upgrade of the nation’s roads, bridges, tunnels and airports is already running into potholes as it meets reality in Washington.

The overwhelming sticking point, as always, is how to pay for it.

(Infrastructure according to Trump, "plan hits D.C. speed bumps"). The situation seems to be that everything everywhere is now "politically controversial," which is not the essence of a stable country.

VI. Conclusion

Pay attention to the video below, because it probably offers the answer to the question: Will The Military Become The Police?, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.

The previous post in this series is here.

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