Minnesota's government shut down today. According to the Rachel Maddow Show prisons will not offer Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous meetings, or library services, and the TV's might be turned off. Food for the poor will not be available. Maybe seniors will get their meals delivered, maybe they won't. Services for hearing and blind Minnesotans will not be available. Parks and zoos are closed. Probably libraries as well. Battered women's shelters will close and child-care services will not be offered. HIV/AIDS patients will not receive medication. And 23,000 government employees will not go to work.
So who cares? Maybe you and I do, because we care about services to the poor and that the commons be available to those who own them. But some people don't care. Some people really like the idea of state governments being shut down and can't wait for the federal government to be shut down, too.
Because they are not poor. They don't have poor family members. They don't have family members in prison and if they do, they don't actually care about them. They don't know any blind or deaf people and if they do, they certainly wouldn't lift a finger to help them for anything less than a fee. They don't believe women should be sheltered (or fed or receive healthcare or childcare) on their dime. They aren't gay and they don't care very much for people who are. They don't go to public parks, and in fact, they probably think public parks are trashy and should be privatized. They don't care about state run zoos and they certainly don't care about government employees who actually need their paychecks.
They don't want the people's public services and commons to exist at all. They want everything to be privatized and to only profit business.
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