Thread: Does Bridge Collaspse Have A Link To North America Highway?

Originally Posted by BearFlagRepublic

Originally Posted by minnie

I was watching CNBC at 5.00 pm and the anchor was enterviewing somebody from the dep. of Transportations and another person from the Chamber of Commerce ( our "good" friends ) they were discussing how great idea is to privatize all our bridges and tunnels in order to avoid having to fix them. They were talking about the privatizations they did already, and the one they are doing in Pensilvanya.
If they privatize we have to be ready to start paying toll in most of these places.
Bush won again. What a coincidence !!

Minnie, you and greyparrot have a point......It has been a theme for this administration to jack things up, then say, "see, government doesn't work -- we need to privatize." I am not one of these conservatives who thinks that government is bad in every single circumstance. Our public transportation and public schooling has done amazing things in the past. But it does seem as if this administration is hell-bent on f-ing things up to set up privatization......and before "conservatives" say this is good.......... "privitazion" = globalist corporations.

Now I am one that thinks our government is very likely to be bad in every circumstance. The only thing worse than our government is corporations who own our politicians.

Originally Posted by apropos

I think the cause of this bridge collapse is no secret. Since the 1960s, this country and its government has been remarkably short-sighted. We act like we deserve to live in the greatest country in the world, but in our arrogance we forget that our forefathers built it through hard work.

Common sense, which is all but dead in the public arena today, made this country great. Hard work, which has been shelved in favor of an entitlement mentality, made this country great. Individualism, the reliance of volunteerism, and a pride in your community are attitudes that made America different from the pack. I acknowledge exceptions, but as a whole the baby boomer generation has been the most self-centered, myopic, and demanding of entitlement in the history of this nation. It will take a century to repair the damage they have inflicted, if it is even possible.

We just assume our infrastructure will always be there. We assume illegal aliens will assimilate into our country with no problem. We assume our credit will always be good. We assume we can withdraw from the battlefield again and again and that the enemy will never follow us home. We assume that 'diversity is a strength'. Our assumptions will destroy this country, unless we wake up right now and look at the realities around us, and the realities of what we have become.

We are weaker now than we were before World War II. We are perhaps at the low ebb in this country's history. However, if we can survive these next thirty years intact, America's future will be bright and long.

apropos – So well spoken!

What you say about the baby-boomers is so-so true. Sorry to say, I am one of those baby-boomers and I have been asking for years and years. “WHAT HAVE WE DONE?â€

Originally Posted by nntrixie

Now I am one that thinks our government is very likely to be bad in every circumstance. The only thing worse than our government is corporations who own our politicians.

Trix, I was talking about government in general......Eisenhower set up this multi-state highway system, and it has been very beneficial to us. Now.......Our current government?.....Yes, they suck at EVERYTHING they do. That was the point I was trying to make -- Bush makes a mess of government to show how it supposedly does not work in general. BECAUSE they are bought off by globalists -- unlike their predecessors who set up the system they promptly destroy.

Originally Posted by BearFlagRepublic

Originally Posted by nntrixie

Now I am one that thinks our government is very likely to be bad in every circumstance. The only thing worse than our government is corporations who own our politicians.

Trix, I was talking about government in general......Eisenhower set up this multi-state highway system, and it has been very beneficial to us. Now.......Our current government?.....Yes, they suck at EVERYTHING they do. That was the point I was trying to make -- Bush makes a mess of government to show how it supposedly does not work in general. BECAUSE they are bought off by globalists -- unlike their predecessors who set up the system they promptly destroy.

Ya...the idiots are running the store. I often wonder what is it going to take to stop Bush with his plan to tank America. The Democrats are looking like a trainwreck and would probably like that, because they love collision courses and racing to the bottom.

In Pennsylvania's case, the Pa turnpike Commission was or is actually considering "buying" highways. They had the bright idea to turn I-80 into a toll road and the feds cut off any federal money to do it with.

McCain raps Congress for bridge collapse

By MIKE GLOVER, Associated Press Writer
Sat Aug 4, 2:04 PM ET



ANKENY, Iowa - Republican John McCain said Saturday that Congress could share in the blame for the Minnesota bridge collapse because lawmakers diverted billions of dollars in transportation money from road work to pet projects.

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"I think perhaps you can make the argument that part of the responsibility lies with the Congress of the United States," the Arizona senator said.

McCain said Congress spent roughly $20 billion on special-interest projects when it approved a new highway bill, signed into law by President Bush.

"We spent approximately $20 billion of that money on pork barrel, earmark projects," said McCain. "Maybe if we had done it right, maybe some of that money would have gone to inspect those bridges and other bridges around the country. Maybe the 200,000 people who cross that bridge every day would have been safer than spending $233 million of your tax dollars on a bridge in Alaska to an island with 50 people on it."

McCain spoke during a town hall-style meeting with activists, saying he was angered not just by Congress wasting money on special projects, but also by it approving reform packages he labeled a sham.

"I'm angry today because we just had a chance to reform this process in Washington and we punted," said McCain. "We pushed off on the American people a joke and a sham in the name of earmark reform."

The term "earmark" refers to projects favored by individual lawmakers that are inserted into larger spending packages, often winning approval without debate.

Meeting with reporters after his session, McCain deflected questions about whether the bridge collapse could have been avoided if more had been spent on safety and inspections.

"The tragedy of the bridge over the Mississippi River is one that I don't know if it could have been avoided or not," McCain said. "Clearly inspections are needed of bridges and that's why the Department of Transportation has ordered them."

In the wake of the deadly collapse, federal transportation officials and those in many states have stepped up their inspections of bridges of a similar design to the one that collapsed into the Mississippi River.

The Senate has overwhelmingly approved legislation backers said is aimed at reforming the process of individual lawmakers slipping special projects into spending packages, but McCain dismissed that effort.

"We just completed a joke and a sham on the American people with pretended reform that we just passed," said McCain. "It does not attack seriously the earmark."

McCain also waded into a local controversy that could put him at odds with Republican Sen. Charles Grassley, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee. Grassley has supported $50 million in funding for development of an indoor rain forest in Iowa, a plan that critics see as the epitome of pork barrel.

McCain used that rain forest as he recited a list of over-the-top spending projects Congress approved.

"Do you think even the people of Iowa think we need an indoor rain forest in Iowa?" asked McCain. McCain said he was being critical of the process that led to approval of the rain forest, a culture that's led to outrageous growth in spending.

"That's what's bred the corruption in Washington, that's what's caused members of Congress to be in jail," said McCain. "The most egregious of these pork barrel projects are on highway bills which are intended not for bridges to nowhere, not for museums, not for bike paths, but to make transportation safe and available to all Americans."

Saturday's swing was the first public campaign event McCain has held in Iowa since he slashed deeply into his campaign staff because of money troubles. After making that announcement, he made one low-key swing through the state but only met privately with staffers and key backers.

I'm back. I was wondering if anyone has seen the media do an interview with the construction worker who were on the bridge at the time of the collapse? Certainly they have a unique perspective - they know what work they were doing and how it should have affected the bridge. As far as saying the bridge was structurally deficient, how many people walk around for decades with various "deficiencies", yet we don't expect them to keel over for lack of Vitamin C. The point I'm trying to make is no trained construction crew would go out on a bridge they felt was unsafe for the work they were doing. Notice after the collapse motorists and others help the victims, but do you see any construction workers helping? I accept that I may be a nut, but how many folks would just keep watching TV after someone knocked on their door to say a thief MIGHT be in their car stealing -yet when you tell them there might be more to the collapse, they shrug it off and don't investigate. So again, GOOGLE Superhighway St Paul, read the articles, look at the dates and tell me, is it coincidence?..

Expendable PostPosted: Sun Aug 05, 2007 3:01 pm


Notice after the collapse motorists and others help the victims, but do you see any construction workers helping?

Exactly that is what Mark Furman suggested that a background check should be done on the crew workers who were doing the construction. All I remember hearing that all the crew workers were ok, except 1 is missing.

Your right Expendable, I don't recall seeing any video showing not one construction crew helping out. It was all bystanders, motorists and victims helping other victims.

Just an FYI - I am good friends with a person who lives 5 minutes from this bridge. She said it was publicly known that the bridge needed repair for some time. I think it's the local goverment's fault, something similar to the levees and hurricane Katrina type of thing. She also said this is the main route many people take to a big college and some type of metro center that lots of people go to. At any time there would have been alot of people on the bridge.

When I read this thread I was a little surprised at some of the comments, which in some ways could be qualified as conspiracy theory. But, I was thinking about why this is the case...What I realized is that due to the nature of sovereign decay in the Untied States and its gradual and decentralized form, the fact that it has been moving slowly since ww2 and that we are living on the crest of it, I can see where they are coming from. I think folks have a very keen sense that things are awry, that we are feeling the effects of the ill-intended and greedy. Many of the events that contribute to this are sporatic and slow moving. We have been used to, throughout our history, identifying events by their very empirical nature. In fact, we were taught to see things in this manner. Magna Carta 1215, the Emancipation Proclamation January 1, 1863 etc. We learn that Hitlers invasion of Poland cause an outbreak of hostilities...In other words, very identifiable events, where regardless of opinions surrounding them, you could find a definite event or marker in time that indicates a piece of the puzzle. But as for our Nations slow decline, how do we put to empricism a timeline for academic acceptance of communism, msm's obsession with radical philosophy, the use of socialistic principles as a means of control by the elite. Its not easy, not even for historians. I can't say, for example, that on a moonlight summer night in a Paris hotel room after George Soros experienced his first sexual encounters with two other men, he decided to bring down capitalism and the west. There really aren't too many event markers. There are tens of thousands of tiny events, all part of one singular philosophical movement, but trying to fit all of them on a timeline, its tough.

I think when you have a tragedy like this, with the silouhette of one of the worst leaders of all time in the background we have a tendency to find the quantifiable in something that isn't. Not saying that it couldn't be, but honestly, we will never know if it was. And you cannot expect that this type of an administration, this type of congress, this type of media and the current academic trends to help with any insight on the issue. I just see people as desperately wanting something we can all point to, one event, a sinking of the Lusitania, a bombing of Pearl Harbor...But thugs have leanred that definite events galvanize opposition. They have learned that the more polar and understandable, the more chances you create a defined "guerilla resistance." These folk know that their push to globalism has to be in small pieces. Sever Americans from their history and culture, replace their pride with guilt, kill their Gods and give them the religion of the state, disrupt their communities and economies with illegal immigrants and backdoor economic deals to erase their sense of geography, keep their minds occupied with hypocrisy and take away any feelings of privacy and security. Make them less independent and more state dependent. That's what we can quantify.