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Tuesday, March 08, 2005

Reality and Delusion duke it out for the soul of mankind
Posted by Jill | 6:52 AM

After having sat through the latest episode of Carnivale twice in two nights (and DAMN, if that isn't the most gorgeous, intelligent television program in years), I guess I'm predisposed to see everything in terms of good vs. evil.

But today, the Battle of Light and Dark is taking place in the pages of none other than the New York Times. Reality's avatar is Paul Krugman, who strips aside the veneer of "responsibility" that Republicans are trying to attach to the bankruptcy bill and exposes it for what it is: an attempt to take advantage of people who are down on their luck and screw them over until they can't possibly recover:


The bankruptcy bill was written by and for credit card companies, and the industry's political muscle is the reason it seems unstoppable. But the bill also fits into the broader context of what Jacob Hacker, a political scientist at Yale, calls "risk privatization": a steady erosion of the protection the government provides against personal misfortune, even as ordinary families face ever-growing economic insecurity.

The bill would make it much harder for families in distress to write off their debts and make a fresh start. Instead, many debtors would find themselves on an endless treadmill of payments.

The credit card companies say this is needed because people have been abusing the bankruptcy law, borrowing irresponsibly and walking away from debts. The facts say otherwise.

A vast majority of personal bankruptcies in the United States are the result of severe misfortune. One recent study found that more than half of bankruptcies are the result of medical emergencies. The rest are overwhelmingly the result either of job loss or of divorce.

To the extent that there is significant abuse of the system, it's concentrated among the wealthy - including corporate executives found guilty of misleading investors - who can exploit loopholes in the law to protect their wealth, no matter how ill-gotten.

One increasingly popular loophole is the creation of an "asset protection trust," which is worth doing only for the wealthy. Senator Charles Schumer introduced an amendment that would have limited the exemption on such trusts, but apparently it's O.K. to game the system if you're rich: 54 Republicans and 2 Democrats voted against the Schumer amendment.

Other amendments were aimed at protecting families and individuals who have clearly been forced into bankruptcy by events, or who would face extreme hardship in repaying debts. Ted Kennedy introduced an exemption for cases of medical bankruptcy. Russ Feingold introduced an amendment protecting the homes of the elderly. Dick Durbin asked for protection for armed services members and veterans. All were rejected.

None of this should come as a surprise: it's all part of the pattern.


And Americans are allowing their leaders to do this.

Meanwhile, Delusion's avatar is the idiotic David Brooks, who has found his Messiah in that old comb-licking chickenhawk Likudnik warmonger himself, Paul Wolfowitz. Brook's lack of touch with reality is evident:

et us now praise Paul Wolfowitz. Let us now take another look at the man who has pursued - longer and more forcefully than almost anyone else - the supposedly utopian notion that people across the Muslim world might actually hunger for freedom.

[snip]

If the trends of the last few months continue, Wolfowitz will be the subject of fascinating biographies decades from now, while many of his smuggest critics will be forgotten. Those biographies will mention not only his intellectual commitment but also his personal commitment, his years spent learning the languages of the places that concerned him, and the thousands of hours spent listening deferentially to the local heroes who led the causes he supported.

To praise Wolfowitz is not triumphalism. The difficulties ahead are obvious. It's simple justice. It's a recognition that amid all the legitimate criticism, this guy has been the subject of a vicious piling-on campaign by people who know less than nothing about what is actually going on in the government, while he, in the core belief that has energized his work, may turn out to be right.


But what is this definition of "freedom"? Granted, the recent events in Ukraine and Lebanon (only one of which is a Muslim country) show that people hunger (well, outside of the U.S., anyway, where we acquiesce like sheep as our own government lies to us and robs us blind) to be free of oppressive leaders. But sham elections in Iraq, won by religious fundamentalists who have already begun to oppress women far worse than Saddam Hussein ever did, hardly constitutes "freedom" (unless you think freedom is something for men only, which Republicans clearly do, unless the woman is named "Condoleeza Rice").

Whether Brooks wants to believe it or not, the jury is still out on Iraq. Suicide bombings continue unabated, and it's still entirely likely that the country will split into three warring factions, with the Shia majority joining with its neighbors to form a bigger, meaner nation called "Iranq".

Let's hold off on the beatification of Paul Wolfowitz until we see the long-term effects of the neocons' reckless exercise in penis-size perception enhancement.
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