The Daily Cannibal |
| Posted: 03 Feb 2012 03:57 AM PST  "Give me your tired, your poor...." Whoo hoo, there’s a big hoo-hah today about Mitt Romney’s comment that he’s “not concerned about the very poor,” which New York Times reporter Ashley Parker admirably pointed out in a lengthy article on page A17, was a gross out-of-context distortion of his actual statement, which in its entirety said something very different: “I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs a repair, I’ll fix it.” But then, some pages later, in the opening sentence of its lead editorial, the Times did precisely what Ms. Parker criticized:
Nothing surprising here, as the Times generally assures us that all Republicans are incarnations of Mesopotamian demons demanding human sacrifice, but it does raise an interesting question. Just how much do we believe politicians when they start crying crocodile tears for the less fortunate? Are we such gullible simpletons that we actually take seriously those somber expressions, those quivering voices and those earnest speeches about how deeply they have been affected by their encounters with single mothers of six or ancient couples struggling to get by on their social security? Really? I don’t believe a word of it. Personally, I think any Presidential aspirant with a shred of compassion remaining in their body will likely fail to survive long enough to offend a single voter. Of course, this is born of a long experience with grisly choices for chief executives. Since I came of voting age, this is the menu I have been given:
Right. That’s forty years of largely wandering in the wilderness, with a very occasional bright spot, and I’ll leave you to wonder which ones those were. Strangely, the most admirable of the lot wasn’t a particularly inspiring leader: “Poppy” Bush, who at least had the distinction of serving his country in war and nearly getting killed in the process, and then re-upping as a public servant in a long string of thankless tasks, including a stint as CIA director. He is still roundly hated today by many of our leading intellectuals, possibly because of his impressive resume of tangible accomplishment and achievement. But he was clearly a very decent man, and that alone makes him stand out from many of the names on this list. His closest competitor in that department might have been Dukakis, who also at least ties for the lead with Kerry and McGovern as the most feckless. As for Romney and his disregard, real or putative, for the poor, I would suspect he has actually done more for the poor than anyone else in the presidential sweepstakes, by virtue of the tithes he has paid to his church and the whopping taxes he has actually paid. While we might carp and squeal about his tax rates, the actual amount of cabbage he has forked over in his career to the federal government must cover a sizable acreage indeed, and we assume that even given the spectacular ineptitude of that same government in distributing assistance to the needy without leakages of Mississippi dimensions into various private spillways and sluice gates, a fair amount of Mitt’s earnings must have found its way into the pockets of the deserving. Which brings us to a strangely fitting conclusion, tying in nicely with Butler’s somewhat mystifying collection of homilies that preceded this post: what about the poor? Jesus famously noted that “ye have the poor with you always,” and despite our awesome prosperity, the vastness of our resources, the astonishing amount of effort and funding we have poured into thousands of programs over all these years, he remains absolutely correct. Why? With everything that we as a nation can bring to the eradication of actual ppoverty, why have we failed so spectacularly? Well, certainly it’s not for lack of effort, or good intentions, or research and study. The fact is — and may the current President please take note — we can design and fund an Alps of programs, but between the intent of legislation and its actual implementation lies a vast gulf of detail, where the Devil lies in wait. There is almost no scheme for improvement that does not founder in some way on the greed of those with fewer scruples than we might wish. Those who rush to profit from any and all government efforts at improvement have been with us almost as long as the poor themselves. So — we just give up? Of course not. But perhaps we might require that our public servants — after they have finished basking in the flashbulbs of the bill signings — actually take some care to ensure that the actions they have so nobly proposed and enacted — pay as much attention to the effective and efficient implementation of their good intentions as they did to crafting the speeches they made to proclaim them.
 |
| Posted: 02 Feb 2012 11:43 PM PST
“Experience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind; for I can apply no milder term to the governments of Europe, and to the general prey of the rich on the poor.” – Thomas Jefferson And while we’re on the topic: “If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.” – John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address “A decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilization.” – Samuel Johnson “Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law.” – Oliver Goldsmith “The millions who are poor in the United States tend to become increasingly invisible…It takes an effort of the intellect and will even to see them.” – Michael Harrington, The Other America: Poverty in the United States “Few, save the poor, feel for the poor.” – Letitia Elizabeth Landon “He who is kind to the poor lends to the Lord.” – Proverbs 19:17 “He who mocks the poor insults his Maker.” – Proverbs 17:5 “…as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.” – Matthew 25:40 God said, I am tired of kings,  |
| Like Us On Facebook. Hate Us On Payday. Posted: 02 Feb 2012 11:32 PM PST
Arthur Jensen, a corporate chieftain, escorts Howard Beale, a television newscaster-turned-prophet into a grand boardroom after folksily sharing his exploits as a door to door salesman, remarking "They say I can sell anything. I’d like to try to sell something to you." Jensen's sudden explosive tirade is a stroke of genius. Striding to the head of the huge boardroom table, he booms "You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale…." Beale had been ginning up opposition to a takeover of Jensen’s network by the Saudis, and the notion of a billion dollar transaction floundering at the hands of a TV pundit is simply too much for this seasoned corporate champion to tolerate. At the end of his polemic, Jensen tells Beale that he must repent his heresy and preach his gospel of global commerce. Beale asks, “Why me?” and receives Jensen’s immortal reply. Never has this been more true than today. But today, Jensen is much more than a television network — he’s the internet, which ultimate is a much, much more powerful device than TV, since it includes virtually every form of expression and communication. That is just the point. The world as we know it has been built on trade, commerce, data, information, and the exchange of goods and services in exchange for more trade, commerce, data, information, and wealth. No one person or company can be allowed to get in the way of this wonderful symphony of commerce. Yet some believe that the internet changed this — that the ivory towers of corporate America would crumble as Google, Facebook, and Twitter leveled the playing field: trade would be balanced, commerce would be egalitarian, data would be free, information would be provided by the public, and wealth evenly distributed by to the masses. Wrong. The Internet provided one simple change. People are still mad as hell, but they would feel a lot better if they didn't have to pay for everything. So why not trade on the people? Bingo. It is the people themselves that are the internet's trade, commerce, data, information, and wealth. Why? – Because it's free: "You're on the internet, dummy." So listen up, Occupy Movement, and pay attention to the 99% — you are fueling the very system that you propose to overhaul. Every time you use the internet or are featured on CNN, Fox, or Aljazeera it is IBM, AT&T, DuPont, Dow, Coke, and Exxon who benefit. You are the news that brings viewers and benefits to the advertisers and marketers of corporate America. And you don't make a dime on it. You work for free. The irony is that Arthur Jensen was part of the 99%, and did everything in his power to become a part of the 1%. It is in that journey that he came to perceive that "There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immense, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, florins, rubles, pounds, and shekels. It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today!" What was true in 1976 is still very true today.  |
| You are subscribed to email updates from The Daily Cannibal To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
No comments:
Post a Comment