West Virginia's appalling & life-threatening secondary roads: The job-creation road not taken.

Above: This is a secondary road in Mineral County, West Virginia. It is a mess. Driving over it will make your teeth chatter like an old typewriter. According to the 2020 West Virginia Infrastructure Report Card, put together by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), "the repaving cycle for secondary roads is approaching a 33-year cycle, nearly two decades beyond the ideal 12-year cycle. This means that a secondary road, a road supplementing a main road, paved today will not be repaved for another 30 years" (p. 34). So, instead of proper repaving, patches are used, as you see here. And then, when patches break apart, another patch is put in, creating a wonderfully violent ride. Photo by Brent McKee, 2025.

Above: There is plenty of alligator cracking on this secondary road. Alligator cracking eventually crumbles, creating potholes that need patched. But then more alligator cracking appears, including in the patches themselves, thus requiring more patches. And since this road may not be repaved for decades, it may need hundreds or even thousands of patches. The ASCE notes that "Driving on these rough roads is costing West Virginia motorists $758 million every year, which amounts to $647 per driver, in the form of increased Vehicle Operating Costs (VOC)" (p. 34). Photo by Brent McKee, 2025.

Above: Here, you can see how alligator cracking has completely devoured a patching job (see the remnants of the patch in the upper-right of the damaged road section). Photo by Brent McKee, 2025.

Above: Here's another problem with this and other secondary roads: Trees bowing over the roadway, waiting for just the right time to drop and pulverize someone's car or, at the least, cause a lengthy detour until it's cleaned up. Wouldn't it be nice to have a new WPA, or just more road funding, to cut these trees down - instead of relying on auto insurance and funeral caskets? Photo by Brent McKee, 2025.

Above: Here's a close-up of the previous tree. It doesn't look long for this world. Photo by Brent McKee, 2025.

Above: Here are some more trees, left and right, leaning over the road. Pay particular attention to the tall pine tree, and now look at the next photo. Photo by Brent McKee, 2025.

Above: Do I even need to explain the problem here? Photo by Brent McKee, 2025.

Above: The big dark tree on the right is dead (no leaf production in the Spring) and runs horizontally over the road. In the lower right, you see the remnants of a tree that recently fell across the road, an increasingly frequent occurrence over the past two years. Some residents in the area keep chainsaws in their vehicles, because they know they may have to use them to get to work or home on any given day. The common good? Bah humbug, it's now every man or woman for his or her self! Photo by Brent McKee 2025.

Above: Here's another thing on this secondary road to make you bounce around in your car like a popcorn kernel in microwave popcorn bag: roughly done culvert backfills. Photo by Brent McKee, 2025.

Above: Here's another culvert on the road, with bumpy backfill and also clogged with leaves. Photo by Brent McKee, 2025.

Above: Sometimes the edges of the road fall apart. And since secondary roads are narrow, crossing paths with another vehicle suddenly (for example, around a blind curve) can be dicey; you may have to choose between side-swiping that vehicle or running your car into the gutter. The ASCE notes: "In 2018 alone, West Virginia had a traffic fatality rate of 16.3 fatalities per 100,000 people, which was much higher than the national average of 11.2. This trend of a high fatality rate is particularly significant on West Virginia’s rural roads which had a fatality rate of 2.55 fatalities per 100 million VMT compared to 0.97 across all other roads in the state. Motor vehicle crashes, in which roadway design was likely a contributing factor have cost West Virginia motorists $534 million per year in the form of medical costs, productivity loss, travel delays and insurance costs" (p. 37). Photo by Brent McKee, 2025.

Above: In this area of the road, a good-sized branch (in the foreground) has broken and is hanging above the roadway. If you look closely, you will see a power line running through the tangled mess. Maybe it will come down someday. Oh well, nothing wrong a some high voltage to go with that morning coffee, as your driving to work, right? Photo by Brent McKee, 2025.

Above: Lest you think I'm cherry-picking a road to make a point, nope, crappy West Virginia roads can be found all across the state. Image from the American Society of Civil Engineers, used here for educational and non-commercial purposes.

Above: West Virginia isn't doing any better with its other infrastructure. Image from the American Society of Civil Engineers, used here for educational and non-commercial purposes.

Above: Crappy infrastructure has been normalized in West Virginia, but it doesn't have to be. Here is a bridge replacement project in Grant County, showing what a good deal West Virginia is getting from federal funds. We could do more of this, if we prioritized infrastructure over tax cuts for the rich. For some strange reason though--a reason that I will never understand, not even on my death bed (which might be soon if that power line falls on my car), Americans seem perfectly fine with America's billionaires buying private islands, mega-yachts, and gold-plated toilets... while the nation's roads, dams, and bridges fall apart. I'm sorry, but... that's extremely messed up. Photo by Brent McKee, 2025.

Above: The federally-funded bridge project in Grant County, West Virginia. More of this--over the past many decades--could have provided loads and loads of good-paying jobs to West Virginians displaced by manufacturing job losses. Instead, we scolded them into taking lower-paying dead-end jobs, while  repeatedly handing out gargantuan tax cuts to the 1%, who, in many cases, had profited from the loss or offshoring of manufacturing jobs! How dumb was that? Photo by Brent McKee, 2025.

Above: This image is from a 2024 West Virginia Division of Highways report, and shows the importance of federal funds (note: in West Virginia, the state's Division of Highways takes care of county roads too, e.g., secondary roads). But with the Trump Administration slowing down, or perhaps even unconstitutionally terminating some or most federal infrastructure funding, in order to pay for tax cuts for the rich, it's quite possible that West Virginia will be receiving much less help for its crumbling roads and bridges. To make matters worse, West Virginia's Republican Governor Patrick Morrisey supports federal funding freezes (!) while, at the same time, manages a state budget shortfall. Can you see the complete lunacy of the situation? West Virginia roads crumble; both federal and state funding are in a chokehold; and all the while America's millionaires & billionaires are living increasingly luxurious lives - sipping Martinis by the pool and waiting for their next round of cherished tax cuts.

A Better, New Deal Way

We could, of course, improve our roads with a New Deal-style initiative. In West Virginia, WPA workers built, repaired, or improved 20,514 miles of highways, roads, and streets; and did the same with 1,693 bridges (creating tons of jobs). However, to repeat a New Deal-style of initiative would require that West Virginians, and the rest of America, prioritize economic issues over cultural issues when they go to the ballot box. It would require Republican politicians to end their obsession with coddling the rich, and it would require Democratic politicians to tone-down identity politics and ramp-up a more broad working-class politics.

If not--if we continue going down this divisive, plutocratic, and authoritarian road, where the Dems ignore the rurals and the rurals seek to "own the libs"--then I suppose West Virginia's 33-year repavement schedule will increase to 50-years... and then to a sort of "the heck with it, why even bother?" approach.

Are Americans too intellectually lazy for democracy? Warnings from Studebaker, Schumacher, and Sotomayor.

Above: WPA poster. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Democracy requires critical thinking and intellectual curiosity

Elon Musk's X account is full of misinformation, context-free assertions, impossible-to-verify claims, followed by reactions of hysteria, outrage, and gasps. Musk will write or repost something negative or hyperbolic about a government agency--without any evidence to examine or comprehensive report to evaluate--and an endless number of followers & commenters take it as gospel and demand the government agency or program be eliminated entirely. And, when someone asks for evidence or reports, another endless number of followers & commenters will reply along the lines of, "Bro, he's showing it to you right here on X!!! WTF's wrong with you??" It is clear that for many of Musk's followers (he has 217 million), his social media claims, reposts, and screenshots of numbers and graphs (again, with zero context) are the comprehensive reports.

For anyone who values critical thinking, Musk's X account is a horror show, a disaster area of intellectual incuriousness. And this disaster area is influencing public policy. People are suffering (hunger, demonization, terminated medical care, job loss, economic pain, etc.) because of this evidence-free and misinformed fury. Years from now--if we survive this--this disgraceful phenomenon will takes its place next to other episodes of unjust terrorism, such as the Salem Witch Trials, McCarthyism, the Duke Lacrosse rape hoax, and the Central Park Five.

Many times in history, great minds have warned Americans, or other peoples around the world, about the dangers of a public that lacks critical thinking skills, intellectual curiosity, civic literacy, and the like. In his book Plain Talk (National Home Library Foundation, 1936), FDR's chief of education, John W. Studebaker, wrote: "The ballot in the hands of an apathetic, ignorant, or fear-ridden people, unwilling to devote themselves to a continuing cooperative search for reality, is but an instrument of self-destruction" (p. 24).

In 1952, Kurt Schumacher, the Social Democrat member of the Reichstag who had described Nazism as the mobilization of human stupidity, wrote: "Only a Germany that is supported by a civic consciousness and social justice can be successful in warding off totalitarian tendencies" ("Kurt Schumacher, 1895-1952," German Historical Museum, accessed February 14, 2025).

And on Tuesday, February 11, 2025, in a speech that warned about the potential loss of American democracy, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor told an audience: "You cannot depend on what people are telling you. Before you make choices about the direction that anything should be going in in this country, actually study it. And don't trust that any one news source is giving you the whole picture" ("Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor speaks with Knight Foundation CEO," Associated Press, YouTube, February 11, 2025, at 1:14:46).

Too many people in America, and around the world, lack critical thinking skills. Too many are intellectually lazy. Too many people let crackpots, blowhards, and carnival barkers form their opinions for them. After all, why think when it's so much easier to let someone think for you? And so... the warnings from Studebaker, Schumacher, and Sotomayor may be too late. The hysteria-driven social media mob, ready to hate whoever the Social Media Leader says to hate, may be about to take control.

"Critical thinking involves asking questions, defining a problem, examining evidence, analyzing assumptions and biases, avoiding emotional reasoning, avoiding oversimplification, considering other interpretations, and tolerating ambiguity."

--"Critical Thinking and Problem-Solving," University of Tennessee Chattanooga (citing Wade, C. 1995)

77 million Americans voted to send 480,000 veterans to the unemployment line

Above: When I tried to share--with Musk's Twitter / X followers--the fact that many veterans would become unemployed due to the purge being conducted by Trump, Musk, DOGE, and the GOP, my Twitter / X account was suspended. This appears to be a well-used to tactic to silence critics. See for example, here, here, and here. (My screenshot above)

Above: Meanwhile, Musk is allowed to raise the possibility of bringing back a member of DOGE who engaged in terribly racist comments. He also peddles an enormous amount of misinformation to rile up his Twitter / X followers. Why was his account not suspended? Oh yeah, because he owns Twitter / X. It's good to be the king! (My screenshot above, taken 2-7-2025, late morning)

America votes for, and social media cheers on, the layoff of 480,000 veterans

Currently, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, DOGE, and the larger Republican Party are trying to purge the federal workforce and dismantle most of our federal government. Most people probably don't know that about one-third of the federal workforce consists of veterans. And, as the National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE) recently pointed out:

"The federal government is the single largest employer of veterans in this country. There are currently 2.278 million civilian federal employees and nearly 30 percent of them are veterans. If DOGE follows through on proposed threats, and lays off 75 percent of the federal workforce, an estimated 481,950 veterans will be laid off... The pain that DOGE would inflict on America’s veterans would not end there. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) employs nearly 371,000 health care professionals and support staff at VA medical facilities across the country. It is also responsible for administering benefits programs for Veterans, their families, and survivors. A 75 percent reduction in staff, about 278,000 total employees, would cripple the services currently provided to veterans in the U.S."

When I shared this information with Musk's Twitter / X followers & commenters, before my account was suspended, they didn't seem to care. But when Musk posts something about shutting a government agency down, the responses are nearly always along the lines of "Yes!" "Crush it!" "Get rid of it all!" "Way to go DOGE!" "Musk is a hero!" "Finally we're getting transparency!" And the latter-type of comment is ironic, because no one knows exactly what DOGE is doing - they simply post screenshots of things on Twitter / X, make hysterical and unverifiable claims about government contracts, and write something like, "deleted." 

As of February 7, 2025, there is nothing on DOGE's website - no mission statement, no outline of methods, no list or bios of staff, and no reports to evaluate - absolutely, 100% nothing. And still the Twitter / X folks cheer and scream in self-righteous exaltation. (Trust me, it's a WILD thing to witness if you haven't already.)

Yes, 77 million Americans voted to send 480,000 veterans to the unemployment line, and many on social media are cheering it on, howling with delight. 

The pure wickedness of these days, the sadistic desire to see others in fear and pain, is something I'll never forget.

... and then they came for me

Above: A scene from a WPA theatre performance of It Can't Happen Here. Photo from the National Archives.

Regret

First they came for the civil servants, and I did not speak out because I was not a civil servant.

Then they came for the left-leaning journalists, and I did not speak out because I was not a left-leaning journalist.

Then they came for the private citizens who believed in the General Welfare Clause of the U.S. Constitution, the common good, and I did not speak out because I did not believe in those things.

Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.

(See Martin Niemoller's original statement--which I adapted above to fit today's darkening atmosphere--at the United States Holocaust Museum, here. Niemoller "explained that in the first years of the Nazi regime he had remained silent as the Nazis persecuted other Germans, especially members of leftist political movements with whom he disagreed.")

*****

"Displays honoring women and people of color who served the National Security Agency were covered up by staff at a national museum over the weekend amid workers’ rush to comply with President Donald Trump’s dismantling of diversity, equity, and inclusion policies, an NSA representative told NPR."

--"National Museum Covered Exhibit Honoring Women, People Of Color Amid Anti-DEI Efforts," Huffington Post, February 6, 2025

FDR explained how the Democratic Party would destroy itself, but the Democratic Party--and its voters--refused to listen. And now our freedoms of speech and liberty are at extreme risk.

Above: Part of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial in Washington, DC. The inscription warns against oligarchy. Photo by Carol M. Highsmith, courtesy of the Library of Congress.

"A Democratic Tweedle Dummer"

In 1939, President Franklin Roosevelt said: "The Democratic Party will not survive as an effective force in the nation if the voters have to choose between a Republican Tweedle Dum and a Democratic Tweedle Dummer. If we nominate conservative candidates, or lip-service candidates, on a straddle bug platform, I personally, for my own self respect and because of my long service to and belief in, liberal democracy, will find it impossible to have any active part in such an unfortunate suicide of the old Democratic Party." ("Advice to the Convention of Young Democratic Clubs of America. August 08, 1939." American Presidency Project, University of California Santa Barbara.)

FDR did not believe the above scenario would happen for the 1940 election; and he was right, winning a third term. But his overall prediction has now come true. The Democratic Party--under the leadership of the Clintons, the Obamas, Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, etc.--rejected the economic populism of the New Deal (indeed, the words "New Deal" have become dirty words in the Democratic Party) and embraced neoliberalism instead, and all the corporate money that came with that embrace; and now the Democratic Party is almost completely powerless. 

The Democrats' plans to tax the rich were timid; they failed to aggressively pursue an expansion of Social Security (or better still, a return to full retirement benefits at 65); they were silent on how terrible 401k's are compared to fixed-pension plans; they participated in the offshoring of manufacturing jobs and joined in the failure to address the resulting devastation; they refused the concept of Medicare-for-All, and President Obama even turned his back on the public option; and, Dear Lord, the list goes on and on and on.

In place of economic populism, the Democratic Party went full-steam ahead on identity politics - the dreadful socio-economic approach that leaves most people in the dust, while the supposed best & brightest of each race and gender take their rightful place as executives making gargantuan sums of money. Identity politics also has the bad habit or grouping people and ranking their misery; with white poverty--especially white male poverty--frequently put on the low end of the spectrum, if not dismissed altogether.

Democrat voters share the blame too. They've had 20+ years to demand a return to the New Deal, but instead continued to vote for "conservative candidates, or lip-service candidates, on a straddle bug platform." Some even dismissed the New Deal as hopelessly racist, despite the significant--but admittedly imperfect--strides the New Deal made towards racial equality. Apparently, if the New Deal did not end hundreds of years of racism in ten years or so, well then, it just wasn't worthy of replication (how utterly ridiculous is that?).    

(Straddle-bug: "A politician who is non-committal or who equivocates" (Oxford University Press). Equivocate: "to speak in a way that is intentionally not clear and confusing to other people, especially to hide the truth" (Cambridge University Press).

And so now we're all going to pay a terrible price for the Democratic Party's rejection of the New Deal, and the voters' refusal to demand a modern New Deal. The Republican Party controls Congress and has handed legislative and funding authority over to Donald Trump and Elon Musk. The Supreme Court has granted Trump broad criminal immunity, and Congressional Republicans will never impeach him no matter how many laws he breaks, even if engages in mass violence. Trump is putting revenge-minded people in charge of the Defense Department, the Department of Justice, and the FBI. Trump has pardoned people who attacked police officers and is now firing the people who held them accountable for attacking police officers. 

A wickedness has taken control of the nation and, mark my words, it will not be long before private citizens expressing disagreement with the Trump Administration will face extra-judicial arrest and incarceration. Court orders to release them will be ignored. Even Chief Justice John Roberts probably knows this is likely (which is ironic since he and his fellow justices gave Trump the authority to defy court orders via criminal immunity). See, for example, "Roberts warns against ignoring Supreme Court rulings as tension with Trump looms," CNN, December 31, 2024).

The Democratic Party and many Democratic voters rejected the New Deal, and now we are at extreme risk of being investigated and imprisoned if we express viewpoints that are not in alignment with right-wing viewpoints. The OMB memo, forbidding funding based upon viewpoint, and the illegal mass firings of government employees, and the forcing of NPR and PBS to appear before Marjorie Taylor Greene, are just the opening salvos - more will come, and they will be increasingly sadistic and vicious.

It HAS happened here.

Above: A WPA poster, promoting a WPA theatre production of It Can't Happen Here. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.

MAGA is an exercise in futility, because it fails to confront the primary source of its problems - the investor class

Above: "Back of the Yards," oil on canvas, by Mitchell Siporin, WPA, 1938. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Misplaced Ire

Ever since Donald Trump took office we have learned that diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) is the cause of all problems - from high prices to wildfires, and everything in between. And from the very beginning of its movement, MAGA (essentially, the Tea Party movement 2.0) has focused most of its anger on immigrants, Black Lives Matter, "libtards," and similar villains. But what it never seems to confront is the investor class - those Americans who make most of their money in the stock markets.

Many in the MAGA movement are lower income (see here, for example), and presumably upset about high prices, the loss of manufacturing jobs, the high cost of healthcare, stagnant wages, and so forth. But instead of recognizing how the investor class has done this to them--through stock buybacks, political donations (i.e., bribery to ensure policy preferences), offshoring jobs to take advantage of cheap labor (or importing cheap labor), wealth hoarding, etc.--MAGA directs most of its anger at other working-class folks, and also at low-income migrant workers (but rarely at the rich who lure migrant workers here, like Donald Trump and his billionaire donors, the Uihlein's).

Indeed, MAGA will soon reward the wealth-hoarding investor class with yet another round of tax cuts, provided courtesy of their president, billionaire Donald Trump, and the rest of the billionaire-owned Republican Party. We will be told the same lie that has been told for the past many decades - that if the wealthy receive tax cuts, they'll invest and create tons of wonderful jobs for everyone. The fact that we've been down this road several times before--via Reagan, Bush Jr., and Trump 1.0--and the fact that people are still economically downtrodden and angry (in fact, even worse so) doesn't seem to faze MAGA voters at all. What's that saying?... about doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results, and insanity?

As long MAGA voters give the investor class a free pass (and indeed, reward them with more and more tax cuts), and focus their attention on DEI, Black Lives Matter, low-income migrant workers, "libtards," and the "Biden Crime Family," their movement will be an exercise in futility. The investor class will continue to prey upon them financially, wrecking them with usury, long-term healthcare costs, high prescription drug prices, high prices for goods and groceries, a constant push to raise the Social Security retirement age, pathetic 401k's instead of fixed pension plans, job outsourcing, and a whole array of regressive taxes, tolls, fees, fines, and utility rates at the state and local level--see, e.g., "Who Pays? 7th Edition" (Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy)--to pay for tax cuts for themselves at all levels of government.

MAGA voters are being duped by the investor class--just as the Tea Party movement was--and we're all going to pay a terrible price for it. And it doesn't help, of course, that the Democratic Party is also bought and paid for by the rich, forcing it to speak out of both sides of its mouth on matters that affect the working class.

"[MAGA] concerns have been exploited and manipulated by Republicans who have traumatized them into believing that liberalism, rather than capitalism, is the source of their ills; that because of the evil policies of liberals, they keep working harder and harder but never seem to break even, much less get ahead."

--Rich Logis, "MAGA's true believers don't understand capitalism — Trump will teach them a hard lesson," Salon, January 26, 2025.

The Los Angeles wildfires and our self-destructive New Deal oblivion

Above: CCC men battling a wildfire. From the CCC brochure, Forests Protected by the CCC (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1938).

America's massive firefighting precedent

Reporting on the recent fires around Los Angeles, a Guardian journalist writes: "And building the infrastructure to sustain the firefighting efforts necessary to respond to megafires would be a massive and unprecedented financial and structural undertaking. But walking through the ash-covered sidewalks in Altadena, past the donation centers that residents have created to help their neighbors, I kept wondering why we haven't seen meaningful progress in how we respond to these fires. It seems as if after each blaze, the strategy is instead to simply hope it doesn't happen again." ("I've covered deadly wildfires for seven years. It doesn't have to be this way." January 18, 2025) 

But actually, there is precedent for a massive build-up of firefighting infrastructure in the United States. 

From 1933-1942, the CCC employed millions of young men in thousands of camps across the U.S. In August 1935, a high point of enrollment, the Corps had 520,000 young men serving in 2,514 camps (Final Report of the Director of the CCC, 1942, p. 24). If we were to scale that up, proportionate to the U.S. population today, we would have about 1.3 million young Americans (men and women) stationed in about 6,500 camps. (The average number of CCC camps at any given time, though, was about 1,000.) 

The CCC constructed 126,000 miles of truck roads to, among other things, allow for better firefighting in remote areas. It built over 3,000 fire lookout towers that helped spot fires more quickly. It built 116 new radio stations (that could work with portable radiophones) and strung 88,000 miles of telephone line to speed up communication (and thus fire response time). The Triple C's carved out 68,000 miles of firebreaks, including the massive 800-mile-long Ponderosa Way firebreak in California. They reduced wildfire fuel on millions of acres of land--"actual removal and clearance of dead and down trees, slash, and other highly inflammable material, which, during the dry season, will burn like tinder" (Forests Protected by the CCC, p. 7). They created over 30,000 wells, reservoirs, springs, and similar water sources and containments areas, many of which could be used as firefighting resources. And of course, they fought fires directly. (Most statistics from the Final Report of the Director of the CCC, 1942, pp. 104-107). 

The key point to all of the above is: speed. With camps all over, increased manpower, good training, truck roads, improved spotting, better communication, better removal of wildfire fuel, more water sources, etc, the CCC was able to prevent many potential "megafires" from actually becoming megafires. And with respect to the fires that did become very large, it never hurt to have hundreds of CCC men helping to contain and extinguish it.

Above: U.S. Forest Service photo, from: C.C. Averill, "The Civilian Conservation Corps As a Fire Suppression Organization," in "Civilian Conservation Corps Number," The Black Hills Engineer (The South Dakota State School of Mines), December 1937, pp. 38-47.

Forgotten Success

Did all the CCC work and government expense reduce damage caused by wildfire? Unequivocally, yes! Consider the following examples:

--"The San Francisco headquarters of the National Forest Service said [the Ponderosa Way] firebreak stopped nine out of eleven large fires from spreading into the timbered regions..." ("Ponderosa Way Is Lauded By Officials," The Sacramento Bee, December 28, 1934, p. 7) 

--"Late in October 1935, the United States Forest Service announced that forest fires had totaled 9,512 for the preceding nine months, as compared to the yearly average from 1929 to 1934 of 7,601. However, the total area burned was only 192,040 acres, as against a 5-year average of 417,603 acres - or a decrease of more than fifty percent. And this decrease was attributed by the forest service 'largely to the fact that the woods were full of CCC boys'" ("Fires and the CCC," The Minneapolis Tribune (Minneapolis, Minnesota), December 31, 1935, p. 6).

--"In 1937 the [U.S. Forest] service was able to report that, while the average number of fires were started, the acreage burned totalled less than any recorded year... Because of the large-scale instruction and training in forest-fire fighting, the C.C.C. is able to provide service that a less well-organised group would find impossible" ("Fighting the Forest Demon: Elaborate Organisation in the U.S.A.," 'The Age' Literary Supplement (Melbourne, Australia), May 27, 1939, p. 11).

--"Largely through the fire control improvements and facilities constructed by the CCC it has been possible for the state foresters in the southern region to provide fire control for millions of acres of privately owned timber lands that otherwise would have continued to suffer severe damage annually. At the beginning of the CCC program in 1933, there were 47 million acres in the south receiving forest fire protection. By January 1, 1942, this area had increased to 75 million acres" (Perry H. Merrill, Roosevelt's Forest Army: A History of the Civilian Conservation Corps, 1933-1942, Montpelier, VT: 1981, p. 51). 

Note: Some New Deal programs worked on private property when there was a heightened public interest, for example, areas threatended by wildfires, dams, and farms suffering from soil erosion.

Above: Other New Deal agencies, especially the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and the National Youth Administration (NYA) also contributed to firefighting activities. For example, the WPA had 2,700 projects to build, repair, or improve fire stations. They also built water reservoirs and installed fire hydrants in cities and towns all across the country. The above fire station, in San Diego, was constructed by the WPA between 1935 and 1943. Photo from the National Archives.

A media blackout of New Deal history and information

I watched and read the news about the recent Los Angeles wildfires very closely. Not once did I see or hear the words "Civilian Conservation Corps." It's as if the CCC never existed. And this is par for the course in today's mainstream media, and par for the course for most of the media outside the mainstream as well. And it's not just the CCC that is blacked-out; most other parts of the New Deal are erased as well. For example, when was the last time you heard a host on CNN or MSNBC promote the idea of a new WPA for America's ailing infrastructure? I'm going to go out on a limb here, and assume your answer is: "I've never heard that." And this, despite the fact that the WPA's infrastructure work, alongside other New Deal infrastructure work, is perhaps the largest public works initiative in human history. Indeed, not mentioning the WPA alongside infrastructure needs, or the CCC alongside wildfire solutions, is like failing to mention Hank Aaron and Babe Ruth in a discussion about home runs.

This media blackout is probably due to inadequate teaching of the New Deal in our school systems; but sometimes I do wonder if the rich who control the media are purposefully blacking out New Deal history so there won't be public demand for another New Deal - because another New Deal would require much higher taxes on the rich.

Whatever the case may be, our continued lack of awareness of New Deal history, and the media's continued omission, will ensure further catastrophes, further death and destruction, further loss of natural areas, further loss of affordable and adequate home insurance policies, and further toxic air. If we're ever going to get wildfires (and a multitude of other problems) under control, we're going to need the following: History remembrance, public policy imagination, citizen energy, and a journalism that fosters all three.