Tag Archives: privatization

Mr. Trump, some restrictions apply

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I have a t-shirt with a modified Virginia tourism slogan. It says:

Virginia is for lovers*

*some restrictions apply

The slogan refers to the 2006 anti-marriage amendment, an amendment that applies to my family, but doesn’t apply to Donald Trump. Trump’s traditional, one-man, one-woman* (*at a time) serial marriage is a-ok. As a matter of fact, as he gets older, saggier and richer, his current wife gets younger and more super-model-like-unattainable, and that’s just dandy.

Well, on more important matters, Supervisor Volpe is putting Trump in his place. He can get away with basically anything in his “married” life, but he can’t rename Lowes Island Boulevard. Supervisor Volpe explains in her latest email, emphasis mine.

I have personally met with representatives of Trump National Golf Club to discuss their desire to change Lowes Island Boulevard to Trump Boulevard. In June, I informed the Cascades HOA Board of Directors and the Community Manager about this inquiry and stated that I do not support the name change.

Good for you Supervisor Volpe. Trump can cut down all the trees he wants and use any chemical he wants on his expansive “gentleman’s lawn”, but leave the name of that damn street alone. We’ve got to draw the line somewhere, or the corporate moneybags like the Washington football team will think they can get away with anything.

Actually, they can, so long as “anything” is opposed by “land-use freaks“, an endearing term coined by Reform Commissioner Bob Gordon. But, hey, a line in the sand is better than no line. At least Loudoun has symbolic boundary between citizens and unadulterated corporatism. Thank you Supervisor Volpe. Now Loudoun has a slogan that would do the BoS and their fellow winners of the “contest of ideas” proud:

Loudoun is for privatization*

*some restrictions apply

“NOT WITH A BANG BUT WITH A WIMPER”

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There are those who think the answers to economic progress in a democracy are simply to be had by privatizing everything as much as we can as soon as we can, all the while de-regulating the market place. (Both nationally and locally.) In case you are not yet sure how you feel about that—or even if you think you are, consider your almost 1000% increase in tolls on the Greenway. If that’s not enough to get you “into the streets,” then consider also this local example:

In a current HOA condominium neighborhood in Loudoun, a recent discovery was made of structural repairs needed. There are two cost options for these repairs: 1) $2 million dollars; or 2) $700,000. A vote will be taken of homeowners (never mind the ones who lease and whose lease will increase. They can’t vote.) There is a corporation that owns several investment condos in the community. It gets to vote each piece of property it owns. The rule is “one property = one vote,” not “one person, one vote.”

BUT, each and every homeowner will be assessed either $3500 or $10,000 depending upon the choice this one company makes.
In other words, there is only 1 absentee landlord making this decision – not the resident owners who live in the neighborhood, although they will share the cost burden – most of them seniors or working families… many of them with mortgages under water as a result of the last housing debacle.

Moreover, who will guard against the possibility that the whole repair proposal is possibly a fraudulent scam? The only people who could afford the lawyer to do that are the ones who stand to benefit from having homes dumped on the market at a low price that they can snap up for investment purposes.

THIS is how wealth is transferred from the bottom up… and only a small example. THIS is how we become dis-enfranchised and will increasingly so when corporations own everything. They have already bought Congress and the investment HOAs, and a commuter highway. Why is anyone so eager to give them more?