[lbo-talk] Adolph Reed on the politics of the crisis

Dorene Cornwell dorenefc at gmail.com
Wed Oct 1 10:13:08 PDT 2008


On Wed, Oct 1, 2008 at 10:48 AM, John Thornton <jthorn65 at sbcglobal.net>wrote:


>
>
> Obama has repeated the right wing talking points on "personal
> responsibility", which are absolute garbage, on many occasions.
> This is an attack on all poor people and Reed is accurate on this point.
>
> John Thornton
>
>
>

Why? How many poor people do you know who never make dumb decisions, even if the biggest dumb decision is to believe all the crap being fed to them about how their situation is all their own fault?

How many middle class or wealthy people do you know who not only make dumb decisions all over the place but can never ever take any kind of responsbility for their actions? Given the cast of characters central to the bailout debate, I think this point is really central to the widespread nausea about the whole idea.

There unquestionably is social responsibility for many ways life is stacked against poor people, but there is nothing like taking personal responsibility to see how one can make things better.

O of course is quite a washout on this point. His life story is supposed to be enough, as if luck and the right opportunities were all his choice. But if McCain can try to defang every one of O's ideas by trying to claim it too, why cede the rhetorical space on this one either?

DC



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