DC Metro Crash: Who Will Die Next Because We Throw Money at Billionaries and Scrimp on the Public Good?

By Dave Zirin, The Nation. Posted June 30, 2009.

The Post also reported that Deborah Hersman of the National Transportation Safety Board said, "They have not been able to do that and our recommendation was not addressed. So, it has been an unacceptable status." Even worse, we now know that Jeanice McMillan probably pressed the emergency brake and it did not respond.

The Metro has now become our broken levee: An utterly preventable tragedy if only people in government had the will to do the public good. And as in New Orleans, whose Superdome sucked up public money better spent on flood control, if publicly funded stadiums hadn't become a substitute for urban policy, we wouldn't be mourning today.

The boondoggle of government-funded stadiums is just one example from a society that provides handouts to billionaires at the expense of ordinary citizens' needs.

DC Mayor Adrian Fenty should be crawling under a rock right now. Instead Fenty sees this crisis, according to reports, as his Giuliani moment. In other words, as an opportunity for him to be some sort kind of strongman visionary in the wake of tragedy. There he is in front of every camera: the very image of an urban leader.

Spare us your ambition, Mr. Mayor. Instead, explain how we are going to get Metro funded. And while you are at it, explain why the District of Columbia is on the hook for a $700 million ballpark, where the city's last-place team in the National League's Eastern Division toils in front of their dozen or so biggest fans? Why, under your watch, does the DC government own skyboxes at all sporting venues? Why are you in discussion for more stadium spending -- on soccer, hoops and the mother of all stadium deals, the possible return of the Washington Redskins from suburban Maryland to the District?

Every billionaire sports owner has his hand out because Fenty has shown that he will turn his pockets inside out for them -- this despite the fact that Fenty became mayor on the strength of standing up to the Nationals stadium deal when he was on the City Council. The Nats are now owned by the multibillionaire Lerner family, which was essentially handed the stadium and continues to exact concessions from the city.

Fenty should by no means be the only political leader to feel the heat. The state governments in Maryland and Virginia should also be doing a perp walk. But the WMATA is the DC-area Metro. If Fenty wants to own this crisis, he needs to own his own accountability.

This is a question of priorities, plain and simple. But not our priorities. A majority of DC-area residents opposed the public funding of the stadiums. These are the priorities of power and they must be opposed at all costs. The advice of peace activist Sister Joan Chittister has some relevance here. "Anger is not bad," she has said. "Anger can be a very positive thing, the thing that moves us beyond the acceptance of evil." It's time to get angry. Or the next city may be your own.

See more stories tagged with: dc metro crash, infraststructure, sports stadiums

Dave Zirin is the author of "What's My Name Fool? Sports and Resistance in the United States." Read more of his work at Edgeofsports.com.

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