The main theme of this book is easily stated: a healthy democracy requires abundance and steady growth, while scarcity, whether natural or the man-made byproduct of muddled policy, can pull a democratic polity into the slough of despond. For a long time following World War II, America basked in the politics of abundance; a widely shared prosperity helped lubricate our multiraci (...)
March 09, 2012
Books
Fighting over the Scraps
The Age of AusterityHow Scarcity Will Remake American PoliticsThomas Byrne EdsallDoubleday, $24.95, 272 pp.
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Rush and his ilk are simply appealing to the super righteous, white, disrespected and underpaid male worker on every work site just itching to find someone to blame for their misery and the perception that the government hates them. Thus no government program can possibly work, no effort should be made to support the truly needy (even wounded and suffering veterans and fellow workers now unemployed), it is right and just to characterize all recipients of welfare and help as cheaters and malingerers. Nothing can be exempt from ridicule, knowing nods, and ditto-heads cheering it on with locker room language. It feels as if it will be a long, long way back to a truly Christian approach to our social and economic issues. It's as if Matthew 25 has been suspended.
So, we are all doomed?