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| Robert Moses (1888-1981) |
Robert Moses was the urban planner of all urban planners. In Staten Island, alone, where I live, he built the Staten Island Expressway and the Verrazanno Narrows Bridge. He also built the Triburo Bridge. All the tolls the cars had to pay to go across these bridges went to him.
Moses tore out huge sections of the city to put up highways. He wanted to crisscross Manhattan with three super highways, but was finally stopped from doing that by a woman, Jane Jacobs. He was one of the most powerful men that the City has ever known. Obsessed with building highways, he seemed to care nothing about the lives of the people he was displacing or the architectural history of the city. He replaced homes and mom-and-pop stores that had existed for decades, ruining the lives of thousands of people. He thought that building highways everywhere would reduce the traffic congestion of the city, but it only increased it by bringing in more cars. After all these highways he built, it's still almost impossible to drive in the city because of the traffic. He thought he had a larger vision that he had to fulfill. He referred to the people whom he moved out of their houses as "animals." He didn't care about what they thought about him or anything else.
While watching this film about Robert Moses, I began to think about Mitt Romney. I think these two men are much alike. They have this vision of what they want to do, and don't really care about people. Instead of highways, parks and beaches, Romney was obsessed with building and rebuilding companies. If people had to lose their jobs, so be it. They could go someplace else. Some people had to sacrifice for the good of the whole. Except, it seems, that the people who make others sacrifice for the good of the whole, never do it themselves. These men may have larger views, but they don't care about the lives of the people that they disrupt in carrying out their vision. They think what they do is the best for the whole, but is that the real motivation? Or is it just the desire for power, and they figured out how to get it. I don't pretend to know or to understand this kind of mind.
Men like Moses and Romney operate inside the law, but push it to its outer limits. If what they want conflicts with the law, they either try to change the law or find a way of circumventing it. Although Romney, from his background, seems like he's religious, the circumstances of his life don't seem very spiritual. He has devoted his life to everything that is the opposite of spiritual, money and power.


