Joe Conason said it much better than I could say it:
Meanwhile, millions of Americans still don't have health care, or can afford to go to college, or have to make hard choices about overpriced drugs vs. utility bills or groceries.
The very idea that 'the free market', that essentially the massed aggregate of everyones greed and avarice will somehow magically provide for the welfare of everyone is not only absurd, but at best stupid. At worst a sign of a profound disconnect with actual reality akin to believing that magic actually works or that the tooth fairy is real. There are real needs that can only be met by the massed concentration of both will and effort on what is essentially a state level. That's what societies are for. To provide for the common welfare of all.
The disaster that was Katrina. This HUGE financial mess that the country is in thanks to the wonders of deregulation. These things (and more like them) are what happen when you elect a party to control governance whose main philosophy is that governance is bad (or unnecessary). None of this is any real surprise. The only real surprise is that anyone is falling for their bullcrap anymore.
Ok. Rant mode off.
Now that we're all about to take on hundreds of billions or perhaps a trillion dollars in new public debt to redeem the nation's super-smart corporate financiers, there is one thing I hope we can expect in addition to postponing the apocalypse. Will they all please shut up about the wonders of the unfettered free market and the horrors of big government?This is all corporate welfare. That's all it really is. Which is ultimately what the morally bankrupt philosophy of 'convservatism' boils down to. That welfare is ok as long as it's for a corporation that's gotten so big and bloated that it can't be allowed to fail, but any form of the same for individuals is 'socialism' or some other nonsense (we can bail out Wall Street, but those people who lost their homes? No way). The spirit of trust-buster Teddy Roosevelt is slapping himself on his forehead, somewhere.
Meanwhile, millions of Americans still don't have health care, or can afford to go to college, or have to make hard choices about overpriced drugs vs. utility bills or groceries.
The very idea that 'the free market', that essentially the massed aggregate of everyones greed and avarice will somehow magically provide for the welfare of everyone is not only absurd, but at best stupid. At worst a sign of a profound disconnect with actual reality akin to believing that magic actually works or that the tooth fairy is real. There are real needs that can only be met by the massed concentration of both will and effort on what is essentially a state level. That's what societies are for. To provide for the common welfare of all.
The disaster that was Katrina. This HUGE financial mess that the country is in thanks to the wonders of deregulation. These things (and more like them) are what happen when you elect a party to control governance whose main philosophy is that governance is bad (or unnecessary). None of this is any real surprise. The only real surprise is that anyone is falling for their bullcrap anymore.
Ok. Rant mode off.
posted by Peter at 12:13 AM
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