Garrison on Romney and Obama
From Carla Garrison at The Greensboro Guardian:
Calm encouragement and sound direction is what we need, not angry lectures on fairness or threats to “fundamentally transform the country.”
Apparently, that is what we are to expect from Romney, author of the Massachusetts health care system adopted for national use as ObamaCare. Never mind that Romney doesn’t run on its success because it failed to cut costs. Also forget that Romney made his fortune wielding the tenets of creative destruction by outsourcing jobs and parking profits in offshore tax havens. And overlook the fact he is so ashamed of his behavior that he cannot divulge his tax returns.
Obama was in neighboring Virginia last week continuing to beat the tinny drum of government is the answer and rich people need to pay more so the government can spend more.
I don’t know where Garrison spends her time, but I spend mine helping people buy things they need, and they are hurting aplenty. I am constantly amazed at the dignity these ever more economically marginalized folk display while making the hard choices of what to go without. The reality is that as conditions continue to worsen these people manage to remain hopeful that someone somewhere will come to their rescue. Of one thing they seem certain: Romney and the GOP won’t be there to do it. The I Got Mine So Fuck You crowd that Garrison belongs to apparently has no clue how bad things really are out there.
If the detritus of neoliberalism has any hope at all, it resides with Obama. I’ll not address the conservative argument that taxpayers built the roads and bridges he claims are responsible for their successes other than to say it ignores the basic truth that left to many of them, those taxes would never have been levied and that essential infrastructure would never have existed.
In the land of the 0.1% owning nearly all the wealth, it is ridiculous bordering on lunacy to believe anyone other than government will stave off the disastrous pattern of lawless corporatism and public austerity which currently assails us. One need look no further than the foundering municipalities in California to see where we are headed.
The sad reality is the bankers got bailed out and the rest of us remain left wanting. Obama may not have fixed the mortgage mess or reined in the gamed stock market, but neither has he personally profited from those criminal enterprises.
Listening to the Romneys makes people feel like not giving up, believing in the possibility that America might once again lead the world in every area. Listening to the Obamas brings on a sense of failure, defeat and disappointment. The former reflects leadership while the latter reflects desperation to defend a hollow philosophy.
Get a clue, sister: We rank 29th out of 30 among nations in every important social statistic. What we have now is failure for everyone but the rich. Corporatism is the hollow philosophy. Its victims are indeed desperate, but not for more of the same from an out of touch snake oil salesman named Romney.
That is part of the problem. Personal accountability has been forsaken for victim-hood.
We’re talking about people bereft of opportunities. Even kids with college degrees can’t find anything beyond a part time minimum wage job. They can’t go back home where conditions are even worse. Bootstrapping their way out of poverty is a rich white man’s fantasy. Of course, given your struggles, I don’t ascribe such fictions to you.
The bar is very high when opportunities are lacking. So, that’s a certain amount of work that is typically unanticipated than the recent past decade or two. That raises the uncertainty bar, also, in addition.
Bootstrapping is harder for some folks than others. For example being an introvert can be an advantage, and being an extrovert can be a disadvantage.
Wiki:
Besides this in USA bootstrapping is not socially acceptable in the ‘keeping up with the Jones’ way’.
Plus, it seems, as you note, being or getting ‘rich’ is such a common goal in so many people’s ‘American Dream’ that there is that additional straw to the camel’s back.
I disagree. I think in this economy, bootstrapping is the national sport. More people have been forced to think of innovative ways of paying the bills since the Great Depression. Just watch Duck Commander as evidence. If those hairy neanderthals can get rich, literally anyone can.
So, you are willing to take one case (from TV according to Wiki) and claim a ‘national sport’, eh ?
Methinks you are wishful thinking, for one thing. In addition, one case does not make a healthy, broad-based economy, for another thing. It’s not even an exception that proves any rule.