Thursday, November 27, 2008

What you mean "we", white man?

driftglass brings to my attention this quotation from Andrew Sullivan:
Evceryone is acting as if the worst thing that could possibly happen is that we should all feel the full impact of the massive fiscal recklessness of the past decade.

Why? Why does the world owe us a soft landing after the insanity of the last decade? Haven't the excesses of the past shown that it is only through such market discipline that we will ever avoid the easy path of borrowing out of greed? Yes, innocents will suffer terribly, and many of the guilty will escape. But that is life: we can and should try to help the poorest, but avoiding our collective responsibility for this insanity seems a very bad signal to send to ourselves.

The truth is: we had this coming. We deserve it. And we deserve leaders who are able to tell us that.
What you mean "we", white man?

Andrew Sullivan is not going to suffer; he himself will be one of the guilty who will escape. Indeed all (or almost all) of the guilty will escape, and almost all who will suffer will be innocents. The bourgeoisie who got us into this mess will not only escape, they will profit.

When Andrew Sullivan says we had this coming, we deserve it, he doesn't mean "we", he means you: you had this coming, you deserve it. Why? Because you listened to Andrew Sullivan and his ilk, but more importantly because you're not rich (or attached, like Sullivan, remora-like to the rich).

1 comment:

  1. Sullivan used to do blog begging before he got his magazine gigs; I remember one notable one where his readers sent him about $80K in a few days.

    He may not be rich, but as you say, he's not gonna suffer either.

    ReplyDelete

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