For whom the sun dims
By Max J. Castro
MIAMI – “Dolphins’ dream crushed,” screamed the top-of-page 1A headline in Sunday’s Miami Herald.
Such a tragedy: the Florida Legislature, in a rare fit of temporary sanity, concluded its business for the year and went home without handing Dolphins’ owner Stephen Ross, a very rich man, his fondest wish: about $400 million dollars of public money over thirty years to refurbish his team’s home, Sun Life Stadium.
How rich is Steve Ross? He is rich enough to have paid a cool $1 billion for the team four years ago. Don’t cry for Steve Ross, Miami Herald.
One question quickly sprung to mind when I saw the headline. What in the world were the Herald headline writers and page layout decision makers thinking?
They weren’t thinking, or they have a warped sense of values, or they have an all too keen sense of sensationalism. For the real dream crushed when lawmakers fled Tallahassee without taking action wasn’t that of the Dolphins or of the spoiled, spiteful billionaire who owns the team. No, the real crushed dream is that of as many as 1.3 million of our fellow Floridians who finally had affordable health care within their grasp only to have it yanked away, sacrificed on the altar of the rampant “government is always bad ideology” of a right-wing Republican legislature, who refused a $50 billion federal government gift essentially because the two houses couldn’t agree on the best way to take the money without trampling all over their own dogma.
Now, health care coverage shouldn’t be a dream, it’s a basic necessity, treated as a human right and provided by the government in any country that can afford it and even in some that can’t. Any country, that is, except the United States, where a mercenary medical care system still prevails.
No, having access to health care should not be a dream. But in this country, for tens of millions who don’t have it, it is. And not having health insurance is a constant nightmare. For some, who avoid the medical system altogether because of the cost or who don’t have the money for preventive care, it is a death sentence. Today, thanks to the legislature, this fear and this risk continue for more than one million of our fellow citizens in this state, needlessly.
That’s the crushed dream, the catastrophe, the travesty that the Herald should have featured in big headlines above the fold. Instead, the top story was about the legislature’s failure to bestow a gift of hundreds of millions on yet another ultra-rich sports franchise owner.
It’s a cruel joke to call Stephen Ross’s failed attempt to get the legislature to allow a transfer of several hundred million dollars from the people to a private corporation a crushed dream. There’s nothing about this campaign for corporate welfare that evokes an authentic dream crushed. We are not talking here about Martin Luther King (“I have a dream”) or Langston Hughes (“What happens to a dream deferred?”). We are talking about a very wealthy man who dreams to become even wealthier on our dime.
A very rich and spoiled guy, moreover, who when he doesn’t get his way throws a tantrum, or has his surrogate throw one for him, revealing a huge streak of arrogance, contempt, and vindictiveness.
From the Miami Herald: “Dolphins owner Stephen Ross Friday night released a written statement lambasting House Speaker Will Weatherford, whom he blamed for not giving the legislation a floor vote in his chamber.”
That was only the beginning. On Sunday it was the turn of Ross’s top underling, CEO Mike Dee, to escalate. From the Miami Herald: “The Miami Dolphins do not intend to pay for any upgrades to Sun Life Stadium now that the team’s push for a subsidized renovation to the 1987 facility has failed, CEO Mike Dee said Sunday.” Good going, Mike and Steve. The whole world hates a sore loser. You guys missed your calling in public relations.
Seldom do we see the contempt of the very rich and their best-paid servants for politicians as starkly as in this case. It happened this time because Weatherford somehow went off script and forgot he is supposed to be the handmaiden of big business. From the Miami Herald: “More than once Dee referred to Weatherford somewhat dismissively as ‘“a guy from Pasco County.’” In other words, where does a yahoo from the sticks get off foiling the designs of a well-heeled resident of that capital of high society, Palm Beach?
Vindictiveness, you ask? From the Miami Herald: Dee “echoed Ross’s statement suggesting the owner plans to remain involved in Tallahassee politics – against Weatherford.” Threats, you ask? From the Miami Herald: ‘“This abuse of power, I believe, will follow his career [Weatherford’s] for a long time,” Dee said, without providing details’”
Oh, the unfairness of it all. No, not the million people praying they don’t get sick and not only lose their health but their shirt too. From the Miami Herald: “Dee noted that public financing helped build facilities for the Miami Heat and Miami Marlins…” Hey, those guys screwed the public, received gobs of corporate welfare. Why are we left out of this party?
The supreme irony is that Ross is a benefactor of the welfare-hating Republican Party, and in 2012 held a big fundraiser for Mitt Romney, who in a different fundraiser got caught on video disparaging 47 percent of the American people, who he said were “takers.”
I guess there is taking and then there is taking, welfare and welfare. Get a measly unemployment compensation check from the government because your job was shipped abroad where the “job creators” of this world can make more money and you are a taker. Get $400 million from the government to increase the value of your private business and you are a job maker.
Karl Marx had it right on at least on one thing. The ideas of the rulers become the ruling ideas. That’s how what happened to Steve Ross on the way to feeding at the public trough became a “crushed dream” and a lead story while the unnecessary pain, suffering, and fear of over a million people is just tough luck, business as usual in the era of savage capitalism.
