September 26, 2011
by Jim Miller
Paul Krugman recently wrote that:
“lack of compassion has become a matter of principle, at least among the G.O.P.’s base . . . And what this means is that modern conservatism is actually a deeply radical movement, one that is hostile to the kind of society we’ve had for the past three generations — that is, a society that, acting through the government, tries to mitigate some of the ‘common hazards of life’ through such programs as Social Security, unemployment insurance, Medicare and Medicaid.”
Of course this has been true for quite some time now, …
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September 19, 2011
by Jim Miller
Editor: This was originally published on Sept 19, 2011, so the intro is somewhat dated. But I’ve picked this tomb up in the last few days to reread it – and it is definitely worth a second look.
Last week on KUSI’s Republican campaign infomercial, Carl DeMaio, Jerry Sanders, Kevin Faulconer, and all the usual suspects lined up to pound home the point that the pension scandal is the root of all things evil in San Diego.
If only we can bust city employees’ pensions, the future will be golden for San Diego’s taxpayers. It is time, they said, as the KUSI lapdogs nodded along, to save the city from the horrors brought them by the public employee unions. Other than the show trial-like atmosphere, this exercise in right-wing demagoguery was nothing new. And it explains little. Back in 2005 in the afterward to the paperback edition of Under the Perfect Sun, I addressed the emerging scandal by putting it in its larger context…
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