f*** the poor+ the middle class, up with money, down with taxes
Bush gets his tax cuts, because Republicans play to the greed and misguided idenfication of their base with the interests of the rich, while Democrat lawmakers cave and play the nihilist card by passing tax cuts that are impossible to pay for. "We're not going to let them cast us assupporting higher taxes," say our beleaguered incuments.
You did not hear it here first: the poor are screwed, public services, public institutions undermined. The more money one makes, the more one will benefit from these cuts: the broad swathe of the middle class will be screwed because these tax paying classes depend upon public schools, public universities, public institutions more than their rich ego ideals.
It is time to offer reasoned argument to the middle class for the importance of taxes -- for the cultivation and the protection of PUBLIC institutions and PUBLIC spaces. Hell, paying taxes is patriotic. Public should be a good word -- but anyone supporting public institutions is seen as being a raving communist.
The radical grassroots transformation of our understanding of how vital the public sphere is to our democracy is what is we desperately need. Big media is not going to do it. As Eric Alterman has proven, the journalists are paid enough to send THEIR kids to private schools. Just as health care has suffered AND become more expensive because of "free market" permissiveness and deregulation, all other public services are undergoing the same processes. In Minneapolis where we lived this past winter, snow removal services were radically cut back because of city budget deficits. This is directly related to irresponsible tax cuts, not irresponsible management of public funds. But if you're driving a Hummer, what the heck right?
Back to the Shanghai Wildlife Park: we don't actually like to see the poor and the disenfranchised get it in its grotesque actuality. In the US, the ethos of the right does seem legitimately sadistic: we'll f*** you. They realize the poor don't vote. And leftist intellectuals cannot spend their time identifiying with the marginal. It is about time we spent a little time defending the Enlightenment values upon which we depend, unless you think neo-feudalism is cool or something, or you're writing dissertation on masculinity in panic and you think this is what it's all about.
You did not hear it here first: the poor are screwed, public services, public institutions undermined. The more money one makes, the more one will benefit from these cuts: the broad swathe of the middle class will be screwed because these tax paying classes depend upon public schools, public universities, public institutions more than their rich ego ideals.
It is time to offer reasoned argument to the middle class for the importance of taxes -- for the cultivation and the protection of PUBLIC institutions and PUBLIC spaces. Hell, paying taxes is patriotic. Public should be a good word -- but anyone supporting public institutions is seen as being a raving communist.
The radical grassroots transformation of our understanding of how vital the public sphere is to our democracy is what is we desperately need. Big media is not going to do it. As Eric Alterman has proven, the journalists are paid enough to send THEIR kids to private schools. Just as health care has suffered AND become more expensive because of "free market" permissiveness and deregulation, all other public services are undergoing the same processes. In Minneapolis where we lived this past winter, snow removal services were radically cut back because of city budget deficits. This is directly related to irresponsible tax cuts, not irresponsible management of public funds. But if you're driving a Hummer, what the heck right?
Back to the Shanghai Wildlife Park: we don't actually like to see the poor and the disenfranchised get it in its grotesque actuality. In the US, the ethos of the right does seem legitimately sadistic: we'll f*** you. They realize the poor don't vote. And leftist intellectuals cannot spend their time identifiying with the marginal. It is about time we spent a little time defending the Enlightenment values upon which we depend, unless you think neo-feudalism is cool or something, or you're writing dissertation on masculinity in panic and you think this is what it's all about.
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