Today, C-Plus Nero finds himself caught in a web of his own making.
It's one thing to talk about less government and to quietly implement policies of social Darwinism when the people adversely affected have no voice, no influence, and increasingly (as evidenced in Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004), no vote. When we don't see the faces of the poor and the displaced, the middle class can pretend that these policies don't really affect real people, and if they do, those people deserve it.
But when the need for a governmental helping hand is played out on a national stage, as is the case with the Hurricane Katrina survivors, the reality of social Darwinism, of what Driftglass so eloquently yet succinctly calls "Fuck everyone but me" forces Americans to wake up and see what their selfishness hath wrought. It's one thing to talk theory, it's another to look into the face of a distraught mother who has lost everything and her screaming baby and say "Fuck everyone but me."
There are two parts to the Bush presidency. There's the extreme conservative ideological aspect, which is handled by groups such as the Heritage Foundation, the Federalist Society, PNAC, and the American Enterprise Institute, and their spokespeople in the Administration, and then there's the political arm, the "Make Bush look good at any cost" wing, which is essentially one man: Karl Rove, who also has been put in charge of the rebuilding effort.
The reality that social Darwinism, that "Fuck everyone but me" hurts Real People, is so completely inconsistent with the Administration agenda to make Bush look good no matter what you have to spend in order to do it, has Republican Washington in a bind today:
The drive to pour tens of billions of federal dollars into rebuilding the hurricane-battered Gulf Coast is widening a fissure among Republicans over fiscal policy, with more of them expressing worry about unbridled spending.
On Thursday, even before President Bush promised that "federal funds will cover the great majority of the costs of repairing public infrastructure in the disaster zone," fiscal conservatives from the House and Senate joined budget watchdog groups in demanding that the administration be judicious in asking for taxpayer dollars.
One fiscal conservative, Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, said Thursday, "I don't believe that everything that should happen in Louisiana should be paid for by the rest of the country. I believe there are certain responsibilities that are due the people of Louisiana."
Senator Jim DeMint, Republican of South Carolina, called for restoring "sanity" to the federal recovery effort. Congress has approved $62 billion, mostly to cover costs already incurred, and the price tag is rising. The House and Senate approved tax relief Thursday at an estimated cost of more than $5 billion on top of $3.5 billion in housing vouchers approved by the Senate on Wednesday.
"We know we need to help, but throwing more and more money without accountability at this is not going to solve the problem," Mr. DeMint said.
On this Jim DeMint is correct...except that I'd apply it to the lack of accountability of Bush Administration crony companies who are being handed mountains of government cash with no accountability required. Somehow I don't think that's what Jim DeMint is talking about....once again, it's code for "irresponsible n-----s.
"We are not sure he knows what he is getting into," said one senior House Republican official who requested anonymity because of the potential consequences of publicly criticizing the administration.
Yes, they might find themselves behind the wheel of their cars, a "suicide" by carbon monoxide poisoning, which seems to be the Bush junta's dispatch of choice. Or at the very least, they'll find themselves swiftboated by a bunch of well-financed surrogate mouthpieces for Karl Rove.
But this dispute underscores a reality that a listless and increasingly pointless Democratic party fails to realize: Americans believe strongly in a social safety net. Yes, people in the middle and working classes have fallen for the Reagan construction of the "welfare queen in the Cadillac" meme, but that doesn't mean they believe that there shouldn't be a safety net. And once again, when poor are given faces, names, and a voice, suddenly these same people realize that those poor are Americans too -- and their tone changes.
The Republican right has believed that all Americans are as mean-spirited as they are. The fact that we are not all lining up and applauding the "Fuck everyone but me" wing gives me at least a scintilla of hope that at last a majority of us will stand up and say "Enough."
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