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Thursday, July 01, 2004
Republicans and the Common Good Via Josh Marshall, is this BizReport coverage of U.S. Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Thomas Donohue's June 30 speech to the Commonwealth Club of California. Donohue acknowledged the pain for people who have lost jobs to offshoring - an estimated 250,000 a year, according to government estimates. But pockets of unemployment shouldn't lead to "anecdotal politics and policies," he said, and people affected by offshoring should "stop whining." Following the recent shitstorm over Hillary Clinton's telling a group of wealthy supporters, "We're going to take [tax cuts] away from you on behalf of the common good," this is really too much. When the rich lose a few percent of their already more than adequate incomes, republicans howl and piss and moan and make an unholy racket, as if to say, "Fuck the common good! I got mine, and I'm keeping it!" But when an outsourced worker loses his job, his house, his aspirations, and his dignity, he's supposed to "stop whining" and suck it up. Some other American will benefit, so it's all to the good. The hypocrisy of this double standard, coming as it does from people who inveigh tirelessly against the minimum wage, who spend next to nothing on worker training, and are generally opposed on principle to any and every social safety net that doesn't come out of the barrel of a crucifix, is staggering. |