Let’s Not Play The Blame Game
by digby
Harry Shearer brings up a point about Rand Pauls comments on BP that I hadn’t thought about:
What’s escaping public notice so far, though, is his take on a far more contemporary issue: accountability. Here’s Rand Paul on the BP oil spill:
I think it’s part of this sort of blame game society in the sense that it’s always got to be someone’s fault instead of the fact that sometimes accidents happen.
The reason this quote isn’t inflaming debate the way Paul’s Libertarian dance around the Civil Rights Act has is simple: on this issue, Paul is not fringe-y or extremist or unusual; he’s spouting a line we’ve heard incessantly, from defenders of BP, from apologists for the US Army Corps of Engineers (in the case of the flooding of New Orleans), from architects of the Iraq War. Paul is channeling Donald Rumsfeld: “Stuff happens.” Nothing to see here, move on.
Now, that certainly isn’t a partisan position, is it? Our Democratic administration made a veritable fetish of “stuff happens” so let’s not look in the rear view mirror.
But Shearer places it in a slightly different context:
The deeper meaning of the quote is the standard Republican assault against lawyers who have the temerity to challenge, in court, established power. Just this week, the Louisiana legislature defeated a bill that would have punished the Tulane Legal Clinic for its work taking government agencies to court. The bill had the support of the Louisiana Chemical Association.
Until I read that I had not seen the accountability issue in that light. Naturally the “stuff happens” defense contributes to a belief that there’s something wrong with seeking accountability and redress when companies and individuals cut corners that result in mayhem, death and destruction. And that leads directly to the most obscure and bizarrely energizing rallying cry ever devised: “tort reform!”
Democrats who undermine accountability are furthering GOP propaganda and policies designed to protect moneyed interests — and defund Democrats in the process. Well played.
.