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22 October 2007

Lotteryland / Governor Patrick's Amazing Plan to Bring Wealth and Prosperity to Massachusetts

A week ago our Total Fuckhead Governor, Deval Patrick (a Democrat and an African-American), announced his Big Economic Plan to bring Wealth and Prosperity back to Massachusetts by authorizing the state's first three gambling casinos, one of them on a Native-American reservation.

I would really enjoy seeing him arrested, convicted and sent to prison for a couple of years before he gets a chance to do much more damage to the people of my state and community.

He studied the question of licensing casinos for months before announcing his decision. I guess nobody whispered the news to him -- that casino gambling doesn't add wealth to a community, it sucks wealth, growth and prosperity out of the community. Most of the jobs go to outsiders, and the cash profits likewise get promptly trucked away to other wealth centers. And casinos are always accompanied by hard drugs and underage prostitution because that's what "the sports" always want.

Do you live in or near a city like this? I do. First I lived in it for three years -- downstairs from a motherbeater -- and then I moved away, but it's still a ten-minute drive south of me.

A wonderful old-style amusement park, Mountain Park, went out of business, and a dream to replace it on the mountainside overlooking the failed mill town is a casino, a Magickal Money-$pewing Fountain which will bring Lotteryland back to its former days of glory, before the mills closed.

There are enormously high rates of hard-drug addiction, illiteracy, alcoholism, infant mortality (a former governor had to threaten to yank the licenses of pre- and post-natal doctors who wouldn't treat Welfare mothers and kids) and violent crime in Lotteryland. A storefront tire shop turned out to have not been selling tires at all, but was really a walk-in crack store.

A federal judge had to order the public schools to racially desegregate in the mid-1980s (Brown v. Topeka was 1954). The public schools are an illiteracy factory.


One man heard he could get to the top of the better public-housing list if he was a fire victim, so he burned down the tenament he lived in, killing a few of his neighbors, leaving a hundred homeless.

Through the 19th and first six decades of the 20th century Lotteryland was a thriving, prosperous paper manufacturing town. Since the mills closed around 1965, leadership -- if you can call it that -- has degenerated into systemic corruption and racial polarization and hatred. Its famed, huge annual festival and parade, slavishly covered live by the local NBC affiliate, is a celebration of public drunkenness and street violence. Onlookers like to throw beer cans and rocks at high school bands marching by.


Lotteryland

by Richard Thompson / Beeswing Music BMI
from "Industry" / Hannibal HNCD 1414
by Richard Thompson and Danny Thompson

vocals: Richard Thompson and Christine Collister

that's the place i used to work
when i was a wild young Turk
it's now the Museum of Industry
schoolkids get in for free

brickworks smelled of rotten eggs
rubber works poured out the dregs
now it smells of Dettol and pee
Lotteryland's the place to be

where the steel mill used to stand
there's a park in Lotteryland
be a pram pusher on parole
go windsurfing on the dole

they can put you right to sleep
better than Brookside or The Street
play lucky numbers one two three
Lotteryland's the place to be

we don't care who runs the shop
left wing right wing curse the lot
a million quid talks sense to me
Lotteryland's the place to be

now gone is dirt and gone is strife
and gone is struggle and gone is life

shove it mate i'm busy see
Lotteryland's the place to be

now we triple lock the doors
streets are full of thieves and whores
in a padded-cell eternity
Lotteryland's the place to be
Lotteryland's the place to be
Lotteryland's the place to be

5 comments:

Mike Stone said...

Um, I live in Reno, NV. I think there might be a casino here. Maybe. I think one.

Mike

James J. Olson said...

I'm with you, Bob. The casinos are going to be a social engineering disaster of epic proportions. The UCC, my denomination, and the Mass. Council of Churches is vehemently opposed to the Casino plan. The Roman Catholic Bishops are also against the plan. I don't know if the other religious groups in the Commonwealth are on board as well.

Speaker DiMasi has stated that he is not convinced, Treasurer Cahill and Senate President Murray are also not convinced. It's going to be an uphill battle for the Governor to get this all approved. Unfortunately, every time the Governor says "casinos or higher taxes", the casino idea is going to get more traction with the voters. Patrick would do well to begin rooting out the graft, nepotism, corruption and fraud that permeates Massachusetts. Does a ticket-taker on the Turnpike really need to make $57,000 plus full state pension and benefits to hand out tickets? How about the millions wasted on police details for construction projects when almost every other state uses non-police flag wavers?

Oh, and Mike, look at the crime and drug-use rate in Reno, and things like the average income of households. We would see similar spikes in our numbers. Casinos are bad for society, and would be bad for our state. We will regret it if we allow them.

Vleeptron Dude said...

anonymous, because you said such sweet things about my Vleeptron blog, and because I'm so thrilled that Vleeptron is beginning to get Comments from India, I won't immediately delete your robot advertising spam.

But if you ever pull this stunt again, I am going to buy the heaviest edition of the Baghavad Gita I can find, and drop it on your head from the top of the Taj Mahal. When you get out of the hospital, you're probably going to have erectile dysfunction, but you know where to click to get help with that.

As for the Human Beings who've commented on this post, I'll have quite a bit to reply after I've finished shooting a big syringe of black coffee directly into my superior vena cava.

Steven Klein said...

Much of what you wrote about casinos applies to pretty much any mass-market entertainment -- movies, tv, even books!

I don't find gambling entertaining, so I don't spend my money doing it. I also don't find watching rich guys playing professional sports, so I don't spend my money doing that either.

But I really don't think it's my job to tell other people how they can spend their money, or what forms of entertainment are acceptable. (Assuming said entertainment involves consenting adults.)

Mike Stone said...

As much problem as I have with the crime in this part of the world, I do have to admit that most of the crime in the Reno area is property crime. Meaning, you're much more likely to have all of your stuff stolen than get shot. While our "violont crime" is still above national average, it's much, MUCH lower than places like New York, or LA. I'm not entirely sure that the Casinos are entirely to blame either. Take into consideration that we also have legal prostitution here. I can't tell you how many times I've read about some jackass coming over from California trying to pimp out who ever he picked up off the street because of that. We also have fairly high drug traffic because of both of those industries.