Savanna River Ecology Laboratory closing, thanks to Bush Administration small-esse

Arch Conservative Bush advisor Grover Norquist has been pushing the “Starve the Beast” strategy for a long time. This is the strategy that says run up a huge budget debt and then a future Congress will be unable to support government spending. The “War on Terror” is obviously the great implementation of the starve the beast strategy.

So as the “beast” is starved, little by little, services that exist for the public good die off.

That’s the way to think about the threatened closure of the Savanna River Ecology Laboratory and closures of many other facilities, including federal libraries. In this particular situation, it has to do with the Department of Energy running out of money, and the guidance of Bush appointees on how to use what is left.

I hate to be pessimistic, but considering everything, what we are up against now, in terms of the survival of librarianship as an institution for the public good, seems overwhelming.