“I never have had a moral objection to gambling,” Governor Deval Patrick said after signing the casino bill last week. “I respect those who have a moral objection, but I am not one of them.”
I’ve never had a moral objection to gambling either, governor. What I have a moral objection to is a bunch of slick politicians soaked in casino lobby cash pushing gambling as economic development that will help the people of the Commonwealth over the long haul.
What I object to is a glib governor who barely bothered to make an argument for casino gambling, yet intones self-righteously when he’s criticized for making it a top priority.
I object to Deval Patrick’s facile attempt to lower both fears and expectations for casino gaming—”It’s not the solution to every economic challenge we face. And it’s not the source of every social ill we face,” he wrote in a widely distributed email last week that began, “Dear Friend”—as if he has achieved something hopeful and worthy of praise instead of something harmful and pitifully mediocre.
I object to the audacity of a shrewd corporate lawyer like Patrick presuming to lecture the media and the public about the pitfall of cynicism, a preemptive strike at those who would disagree with his handling of the casino issue.
I object to a governor who, after winning an election in which he had ample opportunity to declare his plan to pursue gambling, finally makes it clear that he was predisposed to legalize gaming all along, as he did in this clause from his email last week: “The fundamental question for me has always been: what’s the best way to expand gaming in Massachusetts?”
I object to the justification of expanded gaming in terms of the union construction jobs it will “create,” as if employment alone can offset any and all of the externalized costs created by an industry. By that argument, why ban or regulate any sort of enterprise, so long as the unions get some work?
I object to the fickleness of a Legislature that, for good reason, long resisted the onslaught of the gaming industry, only to reverse course when the leadership changed.
I object to a system in which lawmakers like Robert DeLeo and Therese Murray can accept huge amounts of money from gaming interests and still have the credibility to strongarm their colleagues into supporting a casino bill.
I object to the Democrat partisans, including Murray’s henchman from Amherst, Stan Rosenberg, who continue to support Patrick and Murray and others despite their unethical decisions to accept largesse from a gaming industry they propose to license and regulate.
I object to the circle-the-wagons mentality displayed by party politicians like Mike Dukakis, a staunch opponent of casino gambling in Massachusetts, who nevertheless defended Patrick last week, treating Patrick’s most significant achievement as just another day at the office. “You don’t expect to agree with everything the guy does,’ said Dukakis. “We are disappointed, but I did things my supporters weren’t happy about.”
I object to a media that helped Patrick and his allies frame the debate as a fight between moralists and fiscal pragmatists. Sure, the Boston Globe and other dailies covered the ugly behind-the-scenes politicking, never failing to point to all the cash rolling into the coffers of lawmakers. But from start to finish, the media narrative pitted the glitz of Las Vegas-style gaming against the tight-assed Puritanism of Massachusetts.
Casino gambling isn’t a bad idea because it violates some unbendable tradition rooted in Massachusetts Puritanism. It’s a bad idea because it will suck up discretionary cash just as huge malls and Big Box stores have destroyed the diversified retail and restaurant districts in towns across the nation—a particularly bad idea at a time when people are already broke. Every credible study of the long-term economic impact of casinos on surrounding communities paints a bleak picture—a reality proponents sidestep with promises that a percentage of casino profits will be directed to mitigate the harm.
Casinos are like Norway maples—a pretty but invasive species that so shade and deplete the soil that nothing else can grow around them. I don’t have to have a moral objection to the trees to understand why they don’t belong in Massachusetts.”
