The Era Of Heroes And Cons
by digby
For some reason I can’t stop listening to this:
And this one too:
Why can’t I stop listening to these songs? Mainly because I need to find a way to channel the … emotion … I felt after reading this post by Edroso on what the right wingers have to say about labor day.Here’s a taste:
Tim Cavanaugh, for example, defended those brave economists who felt that extended unemployment benefits just gave lazy looters an excuse to stay jobless. When former of U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich sarcastically rejoined that “it’s also true that if we got rid of lifeguards and let more swimmers drown, fewer people would venture into the water,” Cavanaugh grabbed a paddle: “Beach patrols are a cheap way for municipalities to claim the right to restrict access to public beaches,” he wrote. “The city takes on liability on behalf of the shoobs, and in exchange the shoobs have to pay to get on the beach.” Cavanaugh failed to explain why anyone, even a shoob, would make such a deal with Big Gummint, rather than hire his or her own private lifeguards. “It’s a nice racket,” Cavanaugh continued, “but you would not see a large increase in drownings if all the lifeguards were sent back to their sandy shacks. You would see some!” (He generously admitted.) “But if saving lives were the only benefit, and maintaining lifeguards were the only cost, nobody would maintain lifeguards.” Indeed, why would anybody go to all that trouble to save other people’s lives? Haven’t they read Ayn Rand? Finally Cavanaugh got to the real reason Gummint shouldn’t extend unemployment benefits: “We’re out of money. So yes, as heartless as it sounds, we should be cutting unemployment even to those fantastically goodhearted people throughout this stout land who are pure as the unsunned snow yet really can’t find a job. It’s not tough love; it’s sad love.”
Just when I start to feel tired, I read puerile bullshit like that and get … emotional.
*The official “21st Century Breakdown” video is great. But it’s not embeddable. You can see it here.