“Beggar Thy Neighbor” 2
Dan Simpson thinks that the “American Dream” is in danger of being sacrificed on the altar of Mammon. A nugget, which does not do justice to the whole:
The untenable-anyway argument that America’s poor are poor because they don’t want to work, preferring to live on unemployment benefits and food stamps, leaves out the children. Can anyone with a heart and in his right mind argue that more than 9 million of America’s children “deserve” to go to bed or school hungry, or be homeless with no fit place to do their homework?
The One Per Cent constructs fanciful Galtian theories (yclept “Libertarianism” and the “Laffable Curve“) and paranoid terrors to justify greed and cold-heartedness, but those who look beyond, who pay attention to what the One Per Cent and their sycophants do, rather than to what they say, recognize those as smokescreens to obfuscate thievery.
If I believed that “fair use” meant I could quote the entire column, I would do so, but it doesn’t and I will not. I have pondered for over a day now what bit to excerpt here. Whatever I excerpted, it would not have been enough.
Just read the rest.
Aside:
I managed to use both “obfuscate” and “yclept” in the same blog post!
(I once got cussed out by a co-worker for using “obfuscate” in a conversation. Don’t think I’ve ever worked “yclept” into a conversation.)
January 18, 2014 at 12:20 pm
He has a very nice column going, for a six or seven figure explainer, and then spoils it with the “shining beacon on the hill” road apple plucked from the glory days of Reagan, one presumes for the sake of readers who remember it all so fondly. I just saw “Inequality for All,” a pirated copy, Robert Reich’s documentary and you know what a year at UC Berkeley costs, where much of it was shot in front of his class? 50,000 plus change. Anyway, when our now eyes wide open explainers are talking about my social layer they conveniently neglect to mention plenty of us don’t need their acumen and eloquence to describe the situation to others, we’re quite capable of it ourselves. It’s just that we don’t have the six and seven figure union cards.
January 18, 2014 at 5:34 pm
Well, he is an establishment guy, so I’m not surprised when establishment pablum seeps into his writing, but he does recognize that there is a problem, one that won’t be solved by increasing privation.
What beats me is how apologists for Republicans who are always wrong, such as David Brooks (not to mention Krauthammer and Cal Thomas) maintain their status and platforms. I guess that, once you are on wingnut welfare, you are there for life.