In 2003, the East Coast endured a massive blackout brought on by an equally massive grid failure. After the blackout, republicans promised to take steps to prevent future outages. From Wikipedia:

In the United States, the effects may be even more profound, as the George W. Bush administration has emphasized the need for changes to the U.S. national energy policy, Critical Infrastructure Protection, and Homeland Security. During the blackout, most systems that would detect unauthorized border crossings, port landings, or detect unauthorized access to many vulnerable sites, failed. There was considerable fear that future blackouts would be exploited for terrorism. In addition, the failure highlighted the ease with which the power grid could be taken down.

And what have they done? Well, take a look at Queens, Los Angeles, Saint Louis, and now, Staten Island. That's right, more blackouts. So republicans, who last I checked govern this country, this state and this city, and who had time for Terri Schiavo and the insidious menace that is flag-burning, didn't get around to the unsexy nuts-and-bolts infrastructure maintenance stuff. Kind of like they handled Katrina, in fact - or Iraq.

So yes, it's time to cast some blame.

At the heart of the republican failure to maintain our infrastructure are two key ideological concepts they hold sacred. One, that the market does everything better than the public interest, a rule to which they tolerate no exception; and two, that they themselves hate government. That's how people like Mike Brown of FEMA get appointed: if the market does everything better than government can, there's no need to staff government with competent people. And if they fail, as they inevitably do, well, that just proves the original theory.

Lost in that muddle is the public interest.

New Yorkers and other Americans should keep the root causes of our blackouts in mind this November: the starving of our public infrastructure, the deregulation boondoggles, and last, not least, the huge giveaways to energy companies. Here's a radical thought: how about, instead of $60 billion in handouts to oil and energy companies, we spend half that on the infrastructure that delivers the power to where we need it? Crazy leftwing talk, I know.

Staten Islanders, the newest beneficiaries of laissez-faire, even have a chance this November to throw out their local big oil agenda poodle, Vito Fossella. if you're looking for a poster boy for the republican Katrina culture, he's it.

Want reliable power delivered to your home? Vote Democrat.

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