I just finished reading Dana Milbank's column today and still can't believe it.
On the morning of Oct. 14, a cyberinsurgency caused servers to crash at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
The culprits, however, weren't attacking the chamber; they were well-meaning citizens who overwhelmed the big-business lobbying group with a sudden wave of online contributions. It was one of the more extraordinary events in the annals of American populism: The common man voluntarily giving money to make the rich richer.
These donors to the cause of the Fortune 500 were motivated by a radio appeal by the de facto leader of the Tea Party movement, Glenn Beck, who told them: "Put your money where your mouth is. If you have a dollar, please go to ... the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and donate today." Chamber members, he said, are "our parents, our grandparents. They are us."
Wow.
It's simply amazing to me how ridiculous this has gotten.
Only in this day and age can Ron Johnson, a multi millionaire who worships Ayn Rand, run against Russ Feingold in Wisconsin as a non elite representative of the people. As Milbank goes on to mention....
The Tea Party, he wrote, will "constrain the elite's economic and cultural hegemony."
Oh? Who will do this constraining of the elite's hegemony? Why, people such as the Tea Party's Senate candidate from Alaska, Joe Miller (Yale Law School), and from Kentucky, Rand Paul (Duke Medical School), and from Colorado, Ken Buck (Princeton University).
Is this a joke? Really?
I know several people personally who post comments on here. They aren't multi millionaires protecting their power and pot of gold. They are ordinary, hard working people...many making less than my family...and yet they are staunch supporters of the latest version of the GOP...staunch enemies of President Obama and the Democrats...and I have no idea why. It makes no sense whatsoever.
They are willingly supporting people whose chief goal is to maintain the current system of maximum stratification. They view people who are actually trying to make their lives better as mortal enemies in some sort of sick and twisted reality. They act in direct conflict with their own self interest. And vilify anyone who points that out to them.
It's a sad fucking day in our country, my friends. Very fucking sad.
5 comments:
>They view people who are actually trying to make their lives better as mortal enemies in some sort of sick and twisted reality.
If someone "tries" to make my life better but in fact makes it worse, why would I support them? Saying that Democrats make things better over and over does not make it true.
>They act in direct conflict with their own self interest.
You have no basis to claim knowledge of someone else's self interest. None. Neither does a politician. This is why you fail. You presume to think you understand other people's motivations and thought processes. When they don't match yours, you assume bad faith or flawed reasoning on their part. That is, of course, leaving aside the supreme irony of one as reason imparied as you making such judgments.
The phrases Latest Version of the GOP, Cheif Goal, Current System of Maximum Stratification, Make Their Lives Better, and Their Own Self Interest have pretty subjective definitions - meaning your definition may be different than mine.
"Your own self interest" means that you have a job that pays well enough to allow you to do the things you want and need to do, to make sure you have clean air to breathe, clean water to drink, pure food to eat, decent and affordable medical care, etc.
The policies of the Republicans and the big banks and corporations that run the Chamber of Commerce caused the economic meltdown. The insurance companies have opposed meaningful health care reform. The oil companies and coal mining outfits have opposed environmental and safety regulations that made our air cleaner, our water purer and our miners alive. The food companies have opposed regulations that keep rat feces out of our food, and prevent crazy livestock rearing practices such feeding prion-tainted cow parts to cattle.
The Chamber of Commerce want to turn America into a copy of China, where the sky is always a filthy brown, literally THOUSANDS of miners die every year in coal-mining accidents, where workers live by the THOUSANDS in huge dorms while working 12- and 16-hour days, where companies intentionally put toxins in food to falsify tests.
The wealthy convince angry right-wing voters that they should be able to continue doing whatever they want to do by essentially blackmailing politicians and voters. These business people tell us that if they don't get their way, they'll ship even more jobs out of the country. Atlas will shrug and they, the providers of everything that is good and holy, will take their balls and go elsewhere.
And they've already put their money where their mouths are: firmly attached to China's big-ass economy. American companies are sending jobs by the millions to China, betraying American workers.
American companies -- or, rather, huge multinational corporations that were once American companies -- are selling the American people out. They prattle nonsense about freedom, and choice, and all that crap, but when push comes to shove, they choose China and India and Mexico and UAE above America. They co-opt religious symbolism and rugged American stereotypes, use fear of crime and racial differences to bring out the worst kind of anger in people. All the while selling out the Chinese.
These big corporate hot-shots are the real America haters. They refuse to invest in America because average Americans make too much money. That's why they want to export jobs and import low-wage workers from Central and Latin America. Remember, the Chamber of Commerce was the driving force behind the immigration reform the Bush administration was pushing, which included the dread amnesty. But they aren't reminding the suckers who are sending their hard-earned cash to them.
Corporate CEOs -- the guys at the Chamber of Commerce -- have made out like bandits during the recession, while regular guys have been getting screwed. You think that giving them what they want will appease them? You don't understand the rich. Give them $100 million and they want $200 million.
They have so much money it's become a meaningless pinball game to them: they just want run up the numbers as high as they can.
...are selling the American people out. They prattle nonsense about freedom, and choice, and all that crap, but when push comes to shove, they choose... ...above America. They co-opt religious symbolism and rugged American stereotypes, use fear of crime and racial differences to bring out the worst kind of anger in people. All the while selling out the Chinese.
You sound like you're quoting a John Bircher.
and I have no idea why.
That's okay you know.
What isn't okay is you imputing all kinds of evil motives to them.
Now, rather than claim that the fault is all theirs that you don't understand them; might you just consider the possibility that the deficit in your understanding is actually YOUR problem. Just possibly because their motives don't fit your cartoon caricaturization of their political views?
Or would that cause your head to explode? Your narcissistic worldview shattered beyond repair?
They act in direct conflict with their own self interest.
You just can't imagine that they might actually know what is better for them than you do, can you? Un fucking believable. Did you not READ the link I recently posted - the only doubt Dems harbor is about their salesmanship. None whatsoever about their agenda - just the ability to make people believe what a good liberal SHOULD (and DOES) believe.
Hubris just does not do this justice. Even the gods on Olympus didn't have such an inflated sense of self.
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