BLACKOUT SERMON: It’s Sunday morning, and being a former churchgoer, that puts me in the mood for a sermon. So that’s what I’m gonna write today. A sermon about the Blackout of 2003.

It’s pretty clear now that the Blackout is related to DEREGULATION. Ah yes, deregulation, one of the pillars of the modern Republican world that we’ve been in since 1968. (Jimmy Carter? A temporary aberration. Bill Clinton? A Republican in drag.) Since the 1970s, the free-market business Republicans have convinced us that regulation of key industries like communications, finance, transportation and power are no longer needed. They gave plenty of reasons why deregulation would benefit the common man, but in the end they were trying to line their own pockets. And line them they did. Isn’t it time to turn the tide a bit?

In the power industry, the government regulators (FERC and the state commissions) once sought to maintain high levels of reliability by granting the power companies limited monopolies and in return requiring them to act nice — i.e., don’t gouge the public so as to make outrageous profits. Part of this agreement meant that the power companies would set up very reliable systems to generate and distribute electric power, so as to avoid all of the chaos that a big power outage causes. Who gets socked with the bill for all the added power lines and equipment that sit idle most of the time but come in handy when Murphy’s Law comes calling? The consumer, through higher electric bills. But, again, under regulation, the power companies only get to tack on enough profit on their investment to raise capital. And the consumer gets to avoid the fun of being stranded when the power goes down, and paying higher taxes to cover all the police overtime and other emergency costs needed to avoid looting and such. So, your electricity bill goes up a buck or two a month, but maybe it’s worth it.

BY COMPARISON: under DEREGULATION, as we have it today, the consumer pays a little bit less, and the rich people who are the biggest corporate investors make a whole lot more. Any wonder why they vote Republican and send big checks to support Republican political candidates? The deregulated power companies, acting on behalf of their investors, buy just enough power lines and equipment to maximize their profits. If that means a big blackout every so many months, well, that’s not their problem. They don’t pay the bill caused by civic chaos and having the rest of the economy shut down for a day or two. Economists call this the “internal versus external cost” problem.

Another problem with DEREGULATION is instability. Even if power company investors decide to take a long-term view and do the right thing, they may not be able to raise the money to buy the stuff that will avoid the next big blackout. Why not? Because the bankers and investors are still all freaked out about some big bankruptcy or something. Something like ENRON. (Financial deregulation doesn’t help either.)

I’m not a socialist; I know that free markets promote innovation and when they work correctly, pass the benefits on to the consumer. But dang, there are just too many times when they don’t work right. And that’s when government needs to get involved. But over the past 30 years, the Republicans have told the little folk that all government is bad and the little folk have swallowed it, hook, line and sinker. The Republicans have given the little folk their cell phones and $100 tax rebates in return for their votes, and have retreated to their mansions to call their accountants and watch the profits roll in. We are clearly living in an era of entrenched wealth once again, something like the “Roaring 20’s” (and you know where that led). It’s the little people who went along with it all by electing Nixon and Reagan and Bush and Bush (and Clinton — let’s be honest about the honorary Republican category).

And they are the ones who now have to deal with the mess left behind by this deregulated, small-government world. They are the ones who often can’t get proper health coverage, they are the ones who spend hours trying to get through an automated answering system to straighten out some important thing and avoid being thrown in to bankruptcy and becoming homeless, they are the ones who can’t get proper help if they have a retarded child or a crippled grandparent. They are the ones who swim in polluted public beaches, while the rich folk jet off to pristine shores in the western Pacific. The world is great if you’re healthy and attractive and have a good job that pays. But let just one or two little things go wrong, let your bank account get drawn down and your credit card accounts puffed up, and you’re thrown to the dogs.

Really, does it have to be this way? DEREGULATION and lack of good health insurance is a big part of the whole Republican scheme, but I’ve noticed a whole lot of other little things that go with the flow. One little example: credit cards. I’ve almost always paid my credit card bills on time. In 25 years, I had two late payments, both just by a few days because of a vacation or a delay in the US Mail. One was about 20 years ago, back in the early 80s. I got hit with a small interest charge, maybe a dollar or two. My second one was last month. I got hit with about the same small interest charge, maybe two dollars, PLUS a $30 LATE FEE. Now when was that policy started? Another little example: trying to renew my anti-virus updates, I noticed that if you want to order it by phone, you get hit with a $10 FEE, because you have to talk to somebody.

And don’t even get me started about the way that people drive these days. I’m old enough to know that it wasn’t always so aggressive. Once upon a time, cooperation and tolerance were the norm when people got in their cars.

This world is really starting to get UGLY. Should we go back to the old Democrat days of the ‘40s and 60s when labor unions had a lot of power and there were lots of government regulations and not as many people were rich or near-rich? Yea, there were plenty of bad things about those days, including stupid, greedy labor unions that caused a lot of American jobs to go overseas because of their inflexibility. Today we have a lot more consumer choices, things that couldn’t even be dreamed of back then (like laptops and hand-helds and portable mp3 players and DVDs and air-conditioning everywhere). But we also had people who answered the phone when you called the bank or doctors office or insurance company or motor vehicles bureau. The average slob seemed to get a little more respect. Finding a job wasn’t such a horrendous process (and you didn’t lose your old one so quickly). You didn’t seem to fall off the edge so fast when something bad happened to you.

It’s a question of balance, obviously. Maybe the pendulum did swing too far towards socialism and economic stagnation in the 60s. And a lot of people got scared when the Democrats got too aggressive about civil rights (NOT to the credit of those people) and started moving away from “old fashioned Christian values”. But can’t we see that it’s time to move a little bit back towards the center, towards the middle ground, a middle ground where government would do a lot, but not too much. Taxes might be higher, but you’d be sure that Social Security was there when you need it. Where being rich isn’t the answer to everything, and isn’t seen as the only way to live a good life?

Most people today seem absolutely convinced that you’ve got to struggle fiercely to get all you can economically, even if you have to cut some throats, because otherwise you’re gonna get thrown into the gutter. Can’t we put some safety nets back into the system, so that we can all calm down a bit, and maybe get back to acting human towards each other? Can’t we make a decent middle-class life the standard to shoot for, instead of shooting for a McMansion up in the woods? Can’t we start driving sensible and efficient cars again instead of huge monster trucks, even if that means that we might have to sit home for a few hours during a snowstorm while the government gets the roads plowed? Can’t we stop the trucking industry from taking over the Interstates with huge high-speed trucks that crash big time and usually take a few average motorists down with them? (A lot of the railroad lines that once hauled the freight are now abandoned — guess why? — yep, deregulation). Can’t we start trusting in the commonweal a little more?

Think about it during the next blackout or terrorist attack. (The next blackout may be both).