Cassandra Manifested In California

In Greek mythology, Cassandra was a prophetess who would dream dreams, which were true, but was cursed by the Greek gods so that no one would believe her warnings she gleaned from her dreams. The state of California is like one of Cassandra’s recurring dreams/nightmares manifested, which warned us about the consequences of fiscal irresponsibility. The reason this is of import is because California is that negative template and the proverbial elephant in the room of what not do in dealing with our growing, alarming national crises we are facing vis-à-vis burdensome taxes, the advent of cap and trade, deficits, and the radical environmentalist agenda.

Late last year, we watched on the program “Sixty Minutes,” with mouths agape, while radical environmentalists engineered a scheme preventing thousands of farmers from farming their lands in California because, supposedly a Minot, a tiny fish was endangered. As a consequence, the farms are now arid and literally thousands of farmers and their extended families are left in dire straits.

We are not here to say that the choices that have to be made will be easy, but those same difficult choices will have to be made on the National level. If California who have so much--oil, gold, an exporter of Rice, vegetables, wine, apples, oranges, fish, and Hollywood movies - is struggling, then what of Michigan, New Jersey, Nevada, Ohio, New York, and the National Government who are in a similar dire fiscal situation?

I pray that we open our eyes and realize that we are not like those denizens in mythological Greece who ignored Cassandra’s warnings, and, moreover, the empirical evidence, as seen in the template of California or Greece. Years ago, the author of this post was watching the show “Jeopardy” and the answer to one of the questions was that California was so rich that if it were a country, it would be the seventh richest - I longed for California to regain that mantle… for it bodes well for the rest of these United States.