raspberry-blower wrote:Fascinating article posted by G Mark Towhey about the similarities and differences between Toronto Mayor Rob Ford and Donald Trump.
Yeah, some good, honest points, particularly about how ordinary voters have too much to contend with already, without contemplating broader issues and people who read and write such articles are 'not typical'.
However:
He vowed to privatize garbage collection to reduce costs, improve service, and prevent future strikes.
He's right on one thing: it'll prevent strikes - through fear, fear of losing one's job; employment rights are stripped away once privatisation is granted. We all know this.
But I can tell you from experience and observation, privatisation does
not reduce refuse collection costs and it does not improve its service.
He says it's "already working in one quarter of the city"; either (1) he's naive, or (2) it's a controlled experiment or (3) the authority still holds power over prices and level of service, in which case it's not really privatisation.
I do like this line, it made me smile:
Typical Americans have spent decades electing smarter people who call themselves Republicans or Democrats. After each election, they’ve waited for their lives to improve, even just a little bit, to no avail.
I experience pleasure and pains, and pursue goals in service of them, so I cannot reasonably deny the right of other sentient agents to do the same - Steven Pinker