@blatham,
blatham wrote:
Here's a pattern that continues
Quote:Trump taps former Texas Gov. Rick Perry to head Energy Department he once vowed to abolish
That is, extremist ideologues usually tied into very big corporate money setting to the task of dismantling the institutions of government that Americans, as voters supporting such institutions, have built up over the last century. And they are setting to this under cover of deceits to bait and then switch. How many seniors who voted for Trump grasp what is intended for Medicare? Or Medicaid? How many, newly insured or protected under the ACA conceive properly of their new futures? How many get what could, and likely will, happens as a consequence of deregulation of environmental laws? And that's to list just a few such areas of concern.
The really serious problem in all of this is how difficult it will be to rebuild these institutions once they've been dismantled or made powerless.
The US is setting out now on a path which has no precedents in the free world.
Oh I believe the free world has a very wide field of precedents and that its limits are not at all stretched. More than a little exaggeration here.
I believe that calling the Department of Energy "an institution" is excessively charitable. It is instead an amalgum of formely distinct entities (Atomic Energy Commission; Energy Research & Deveolopment Administation: Nuclear Regulatory Commission Federal Energy Regulatory Commission; etc.) It is an utterly prosaic government bureaucracy, full of process and venality, badly needing reform. The environmental component of DOE started mainly with the cleanup of former Manhatten Project sites in the easrly 1990s, though the Reneweable Energy Lab in Denver had been operating for a few years (I'm not aware of any useful research that has
ever come out of that institution). That appears to be your main concern, but in fact it is a very small part of the operation. I have a lot of direct experience in some DOE operationa and I am well acquainted with several former Secretaries & Ass't Secretaries of that Department. I believe Gov. Perry is at least as well qualified as most past Secretaries and far better than some. I would be happy to trade specifics with you if you have any.
My impression is that the concerns expressed in the Washington Post article you cited are merely those of the departing establishment - stuff that has been said many times before with as much (or little ) significance.
In short, I believe you are magnifying the significance of utterly ordinary processes and and seeing disaster where there is only routine change. However if you have any concrete, factual information suggesting the contrary I will be glad to review it.