Will the ax fall on R. I. Arsenal?

A "company" with 6,400 employees, $345 million in salaries, the average being $53,830, $20,000 higher than the area average, and which awards $53.6 million annually in local sub-contracts. That's a pretty bigfoot company, and that's what the R.I. Arsenal represents economically to this area. It runs on incredibly vast amounts of tax dollars and produces the material and means to wage war.

I certainly agree with commenters on a related post below that the BRAC commission decisions on base closings is a huge issue for the area, and more so for those employed there and those companies and their employees who depend on the Arsenal for most if not all of their business. The ripple effect on the entire area were it to be either closed or reduced in size would be significant.

The reason I haven't posted much is that there isn't too much of a story. Yet. It's essentially a cliff-hanger. We are now just playing the waiting game, hoping that the ax doesn't fall too heavily.

Within 11 days, we will know the fateful decision of the Base Closure and Realignment Commission, or BRAC, regarding the R.I. Arsenal.

But until then, it's simply wait and worry for many in the area. No doubt Illinois and Iowa legislators are scrambling and fighting and horse-trading their butts off in order to preserve as much of the Arsenal as possible. But so far, the general tone has been one of pessimism. It seems inevitable that some very deep cuts will result. How deep is anyone's guess at the moment.

This is in some ways the worst of situations for those who will be directly impacted by a closure of the Arsenal, which includes the entire area to a greater or lesser degree. The fact is that the decision is in the hands of others, and there's precious little anyone can do but simply wait, worry, and cross their fingers.

Let's hope the news is bright when it arrives.

But if the Army does decide to deeply cut or eliminate the Arsenal, the blame should directly go where it belongs. Not necessarily to the local politicians, who are laboring long and hard to do all they can to save it, but to the Bush administration.

If the Arsenal closes, it will be due to BushCo's blunders and disasters in attempted Empire building. It will be due to his truly reckless refusal to amend or retract his colossally expensive tax cuts for the very richest citizens in the country. They could afford several R.I. Arsenals just by the revenue they are throwing away by eliminating inheritance taxes for just plain folks like Paris Hilton. (the amount lost from that idiotic move alone would provide 3/4 of the money required to make Social Security solvent indefinitely.)

In light of the fact that the administration has rightly taken a lot of well-deserved heat for sending many U.S. soldiers to their deaths due to the lack of armor on their vehicles, just how much sense would it make to then turn around and shut down the factory that is currently producing just such armor at long last??

IF the Arsenal gets caught in BushCo's effort to slash and burn in order to desperately prop up the economic disaster their reckless policies have created, I expect unfortunately that local Pols will take the heat. And, most maddeningly, Bush and his administration will likely not even be mentioned. And even worse, many of the people who will be ruined or severely impacted by the closing will likely continue to support him and his policies.
Of course, this is insane, but it's the same insanity that has given us two terms of this walking disaster in the first place.

People simply can't connect the dots for three reasons. A. They're shamefully uninformed and/or misinformed by this administration and the major press. B. They catch bits and pieces of things, but simply don't make the connection, or C. They are informed and are part of the ideological quasi-religious cult that willfully accept complete cognitive dissonance. They know it's wrong, they know it doesn't make sense, they know it's hypocritical and dishonest. But they will go to any length to rationalize it and defend it. They've drunk the Bush/Rove Kool-ade. A lot of otherwise intelligent people have become ideological zombies, willing to agree with anything Bush does, and ignore or rationalize his blunders, no matter how egregious, out of their unquenchable thirst for power.

And Bush, Rove, et. al. couldn't be happier.