A few weeks ago on a Friday like today I belted out an antithesis to our current malaise which is conservative do-nothing capitalism-rules-above-all philosophy.
While it generated some nice hits, I felt a little bit like its message rippled out like throwing a pebble in the ocean. This morning I was excited to find that someone out there has the exact same feelings as me and sums it up nicely in this post on Thought Catalog. http://goo.gl/oC1RU
I particularly love these paragraphs:
Is it really true that we assess the economic success of our country via the GNP? But if we’re making more money and getting less and less for it — less education, less healthcare — then isn’t that the sign of a failing economy? Isn’t that obvious, even to one such as myself with no economic training?
San Francisco public school teachers are furloughed once a month. I’m not making this up. Thirty miles from here is Google, Yahoo, Apple, Genentech, and Facebook. And teachers are furloughed. Uh, hmn, doesn’t it seem like corporations are getting away with something — like not paying enough taxes?
How about we say: you can form a corporation but once your valuation exceeds a billion dollars, you have to give the schools in your own fucking neighborhood enough money to pay the teachers and provide a lunch other than mad cow meatloaf?
I wonder out loud … where is this middle class rage going? I feel like I constantly am reading charts about how wages are stagnant and how the top 1% has reaped all of the rewards of the last 30 years of capitalism and yet the only rage manifesting itself is in cutting middle class programs under the disguise of fixing the deficit. Boxed up and supported by plugged in business lobbyists and messaged to death by Republican TV talking heads.
My guess is that liberal leaning middle class angsters are actually caused-out. We’re the ones in the community groups fighting for recycling or street improvement programs. We’re the ones selling cookies to raise funds for school or in the meetings protesting cuts to community pools and parks. We have to constantly fight business interests and threats to our environment.
Given all that, we’re exhausted.
Conservatives don’t have this baggage. If everything is left to the individual, why fight for anything. They are the proverbial bullies in the back of the classroom, disrupting everyone but adding no value.
Adding value is hard to do. Much harder than being a bully.
Something tells me that its going to be a long four years for you up on Maine as your new governor and his robber baron cronies undo thirty years of environmental and social progress so some billionaire can buy another yacht.
ReplyDeleteAnd can someone please explain to me why caving to business interests is conservative?
I think its a more "conservative" approach in the true meaning of the word to say, "Hey wait a minute... before we build this mall, shouldn't we see how it fits into our long term development plan... or that it won't destroy the current quality of life we enjoy?.. Or that a few fast bucks might actually kill our long term image?"
I don't think it makes sense to alienate people who consider themselves conservative. I think people who are labeled... or label themselves as liberal and conservative actually share alot of ground.