Fraters Libertas

It's Not Easy Being Green

It is always disturbing to be in agreement with a Green Party member on matters of public policy. And I think I find myself in that situation with regard to the garbage burner baseball stadium in downtown Minneapolis.

The two Greens on the Minneapolis City Council (yes, Greens aren't an amusing novelty in Minneapolis, they're the government), have come out against the ballpark:

A resolution introduced Friday would put the city on record against the plan. The council's Intergovernmental Relations Committee will consider the resolution at a meeting May 24. The council's two Green Party members, Natalie Johnson Lee and Dean Zimmermann, introduced the proposal.

Seeing Dean Zimmermann's name attached to this proposal makes me even more nervous. Recall, he's the fellow, while a member of a Marxist-Leninist cult, cited the following as models for a just society:

"We looked to Cuba, which had health care for everyone. We looked to China, which eradicated starvation. We thought we could transform our society and eliminate the chasm between the rich and the poor"

Nope, that cult was not the Minneapolis City Council, it was something called "O". But I suspect ol' Dean carries over many of these same warm and fuzzy feelings for brutal, socialist dictatorships into his new endeavor, governing the city of Minneapolis. And now me and Dean are in lockstep agreement on the baseball stadium.

Luckily, before scheduling a battery of psychological tests and a desperate review of my economic analysis and philosophical foundations, I read the rest of the article, which details the alternative path Zimmermann took to arrive at the same conclusion as I:

Zimmermann said he thinks the proposal is a great one in a great location, but he questions how it's funded.

OK, a baseball stadium next to a 1,000 ton per day garbage processing facility, "a great location," that's starting to sound like the Zimmermann we know and love. Then, the clincher:

"This is the most blatant example of corporate welfare that I've seen since George Bush invaded Iraq to fill the pockets of Halliburton," Zimmermann said.

Whhew, I feel much better now. He's still crazy after all these years. His position on the ballpark is merely a case of a stopped clock being right twice a day, or a blind nut finding a squirrel, or something. And knowing this nut will soon be paying $353 million for a garbage burner baseball stadium seems be rough justice, on some level. Minneapolis gets the government, the baseball stadiums, and sales taxes they deserve.