Tuesday, June 05, 2007
(9:16 AM) | Adam Kotsko:
Tuesday Hatred: The Hatred Edition
I hate it when people believe lies. I hate that when people are drawn into the right-wing propaganda machine, there is no credible alternative to pull them out. I hate that people who were right about the Iraq War from the beginning are still treated as crazy fringe figures. I hate how anti-worker and how indifferent to the poor the mainstream media is -- it took a natural disaster of unprecedented scale for the media to even notice that poor people exist, and within a few months they just went back to normal.I hate how defensive people are when someone points out structural problems. Aside from outright denial, the strategies seem to be either berating the person for not immediately offering a positive alternative or accusing the person of not doing enough to help with a situation -- as though the solution to a structural injustice was just more individual charity. I hate the way the concept of "individual responsibility" is deployed.
I hate that every public service is constantly in danger of "cuts." I hate that the idea of raising taxes is so anathema. I hate that stupid Gov. Blagojevich is threatening to veto even a minor regional increase in sales taxes, which is meant to bring some stability into transit funding. It's great that he has ambitions on health care, but if he's decided in advance that raising taxes is impossible, then I really don't know what he's thinking. Someone needs to hold a little seminar for politicians. To make it easy to understand, they could use a PowerPoint. Some of the points could be:
- The government provides essential services.
- Providing services costs money.
I hate the rhetoric that one can't just "throw money at a problem." For any given problem, there is usually a group of highly motivated people who know what needs to be done -- whether in government agencies or in non-profits. They know how best to use basically an indefinite amount of money. The solution is precisely to "throw money at the problem."
In the US, there are so many great ideas out there to solve real problems. I would even go so far as to say that on the level of "reformism" at least, every problem has, in principle, been solved -- in aggregate, the class of people who worry about such things "knows" what to do. But I hate that there is absolutely no concept of how we would overcome political inertia to implement any of that stuff.
I hate that it's just accepted that businessmen will act like they do, even when the destructive effects are acknowledged. "Yes, it's bad for society, but they're businessmen -- they can't help it." This forms the background to my Hugely Controversial Opinion that people need to stop screaming about the religious right so much -- everyone's on the ball when it comes to picking on private individuals who have reactionary opinions and organize in favor of them, but the capitalist ethos is much more destructive on a much larger scale than the religious right could ever dream of being.
Go ahead, someone -- say it's "not an either/or."
Stupid liberals with their balance and measure. Historians are going to look back on our period -- assuming human society endures -- and say that the real problem was that all the smart people frittered away their power and influence through a disease called "procedural liberalism," which blinded them to the fact that the right wing was gaming the system until it was too late to do anything about it. As their lame-duck president illegally invaded Iran and the rising waters destroyed Bangladesh, these smart liberals were at the physical therapist, complaining of shoulder strain from so enthusiastically patting themselves on the back for "playing by the rules."
But seriously, if it would help, I'd agree not to complain if people started criticizing capitalism as "the ultimate religion" or something. Whatever it takes.
The Tuesday Love is available for your delectation.
