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Simon Phipps's personal commentary

Underestimating Bush [SocioPolitico]

It's tempting to view the current US President as a bumbling puppet of a right-wing sect. But exposure to intelligent people in the public eye often reveals that the persona they project is actually calculated and created from deeper, more long-term motives. In his insightful piece in the New York Times yesterday (sorry, you need to register), Paul Krugman makes the frightening suggestion that the callous actions they are taking

House Republicans recently refused to extend unemployment insurance. Their inaction means that later this month more than 800,000 workers will receive Merry Christmas letters from the government, telling them that their benefits have been cut off.

are not being take in ignorance of the harm they do to the disadvantaged but specifically because of that harm. He suggests this is in pursuit of a long-term far-right libertarian agenda to make people hate being governed, so that future governments of whatever complexion find it hard to construct legislation. Bush is in fact playing the bumbling role (it may be method acting...) to further an agenda of distrust.

It's not so much about cutting taxes for the rich - that is a side benefit - as about ensuring the people eventually distrustfully place such barriers in the path of legislators that no social agenda can be followed without either moving heaven and earth or invoking 'national security'. And guess which party is most adept at the latter...?

posted at 10:54 PM (UK) | |