The Hypocritical Mantra of MAGA

PWC (the Public Works Commission) in Fayetteville, North Carolina, was just allotted twenty million dollars specifically  to remove PFAS from Glenville Lake.  This is part of a "mini budget" passed by the  General Assembly in recent days.  The state legislature punted on the budget, because the previous budget would sustain if a new one was not passed.  Although the EPA severely has been weakened, and DOGE and far right leaning Republicans want no regulation or corporate oversight, the courts eventually speak.  This takes time.  If the Trump family wanted a lineage for their enterprises, suing would be their forte.  Considering the drinking water in Wilmington, NC was the first discovered evidence of forever chemicals in the state's watershed, it is interesting that the state legislature would be so specific about water clean up.  They have found PFAS up the Cape Fear River in Jordan Lake.  This suggests that Chemours is not the only culprit polluting the state's water supply.  Fayetteville has some very specific monikers.  Originally the city's logo was "History, Heroes, and a Home Town Feeling."  Recently Fayettenam was designated the most depressed place in the country.  The water in Cumberland Country after testing was the worst in the state.  Teacher's salaries are low statewide, in the bottom three.  I reckon there is a reason to be depressed.  There are other reasons why the circus has left town.  The Covid outbreak only was part of it, because in light of a deadly pathogen trying to kill you, there are other things.  Traditionally your community is supposed to provide support, not antagonism.  It would be difficult to sidestep that antagonism knowing that the war preparation machine is churning 24/7.  How will that twenty million dollars be spent?  Is their a tried and true method for removing PFAS from water?  Will they purchase and install this equipment in the near future?  To merit such a large grant from Governor Josh Stein, there are reasons.  For the first time since Covid I ventured out to the Cape Fear River Trail to ride my mountain bike hybrid.  It was the first temperate day we have had since the hot humid summer, and the ride was enjoyable.  The level of the  Cape Fear River was strikingly low, and as I passed the sewer plant on its banks it made me think.  No wonder out tap water is putrid.  I acutely remember the time when corporate America decided to bottle tap water and well it as something more.  Bottled water mostly is a scam, but there are some exceptions.  Perhaps other more metropolitan areas are better kept than Fayettenam such as Charlotte, the Triad, or the RTP.  The home of the world's largest military base should aspire to more.  There is some funky history in this town, and it is criminal in nature.  I think it ties to the drug trade because of the I-95 corridor and the military.  Always I have had a virtuous view of the military, because my father instilled that patriotism in me.  His stint as a corporal was only two years playing trumpet in a band in Germany.  Often he said it was the best two years of his life.  Likewise the best two years of my life were playing with a black R&B Hip/Hop band in Columbus, Ohio.  We are a musical family.  The kind of devotion and patriotism once found in America has waned, and I no longer trust the military.  Aside from the abundant poppy crops in Afghanistan, which was one reason why we were there, our most recent perception of the United States military was the television war waged by George Bush Sr. in Kuwait and Iraq.  Saddam Hussein was their target, and the sole reason for the invasion and destroying of Iraq was a lie.  He didn't win reelection.  Other than World War ll when the world was fighting the Nazis, the United States does not have a virtuous history of warfare.  Ronald Reagan and Ollie North did not help the situation, nor did waging a ten year war in Viet Nam.  America's recent military past is smeared with ulterior motive, imperialism, and egotism.  The honorable tenets of serving one's country and its people largely are absent.  In Donald Trump's great plan he has pitted Americans against one another rather than trying to unite a populace.  Petting infighting has become the sole job of most Americans trying to survive.  There is little room for enlightened living.  It is this I face everyday I wake up in Fayettenam.  When I sat down to blog it was not my intent to trash Fayetteville.  We must find more productive things to do, and they must be positive.  Spewing sour grapes only will pull you further into the abyss.  This particular blog entry all ready was penned about the information about cleaning PFAS out of Glenville Lake.  There is more to that issue, and it merited exposure.  To know that interior lakes fed by tributaries of the Cape Fear River contain forever chemicals is tragic.  Your child is swimming in tainted water with PFAS and Canadian duck poop.  That we have allowed these birds to compromise public health in an entire city is irresponsible.  They should be eradicated.  In thinking about the underlying criminal impetus of Fayetteville and the forever unanswered question of whence the drugs come, I made an interesting discovery.  CSX has been on my list of superfund sites, since they implemented AC traction in the early 1990's.  They are not a virtuous company, and consequently they have passed off much of their liability to welcoming Wabtec.  What began as Westinghouse Air Brakes recently has grown into a railroad corporate monopoly buying up most of the industry.  This includes rebuilding traditional DC locomotives to AC specifications and/or converting the traction motors to brushless AC drives controlled by a microprocessor.  Much of this activity occurs in Altoona, Pennsylvania.  They also embraced distributed power or wireless remote control of motive power or split consists in a single train.  I have a study sitting on my desk of the radio capabilities of these large diesel electric freight locomotives.  The arrays are so diverse and so complicated, they could measure the RF energy potentially causing interference to human infrastructure.  GE in particular with their electrical roots uses every imaginable means of wireless communication to control these two and three miles monstrosities.  They disrupt both my on air television reception and FM in my house, not military aircraft.  You would be cast as a dinosaur using such outdated technology, which was a precursor to any of the current microwave energy being used for consumer satisfaction.  As a nation were were better without it.  On air television and AM and FM radio were enough to unite the country a create a mainstream.  The sprawling and unwieldy conglomerate that has emerged with little governmental regulation or understanding has proven itself weak and convoluted, nothing more than a channel for each show.  Electricity, wireless electricity is our economy, and it has failed the people.  It was Bill Clinton who made this happen.  I am no fan of CSX, and singlehandedly they have lessened the quality of lives of Americans.  When looking up a freight schedule for CSX, a private entity with unpublished data, I found FEC, Florida East Coast Railroad.  This Class ll railroad owns and operates the trackage between Miami and Jacksonville, Florida controlling the ports of Miami, Everglades, Palm Beach, and Canaveral.  The Florida East Coast Railroad is owned by Grupo Mexico.  This Mexican conglomerate also owns Texas Pacifico Transportation Limited, a Class III railroad in Texas.  How is it that a Mexican conglomerate own major rail right-of-ways in the two largest states on the Gulf of Mexico, and the states with the most accessible ports?  This is Mexico, the country with which Donald Trump has declared holy war and wants to build a wall to separate them from the United States.  When Mexicans all ready own the transportation systems responsible for moving imported goods within the continental United States, the wheel is all ready greased for easy logistics of foreign products, including drugs.  Is there any federal oversight of Grupo Mexico's rail systems?  I was sure that CSX must own the right of way up and down the east coast, but no.  That vulnerable and venerable corridor from Miami to Jacksonville is owned by Mexicans.  The targeting of average people seeking asylum from persecution in Latin America and labeling them criminals while allowing foreign corporate monopolies to run amuck infringing upon the lives of Americans is quintessential hypocrisy.  This is the rich taking advantage of the poor, the emerging mantra of MAGA.