NOB HILL--Since the last election liberals keep asking, "How did the Republicans get people to vote against their own best interests?" And there are lots of issues by way of illustration: social security, stem cell research, gutting most democratic institutions, tax cuts for the rich, etc. Well, chalk it up to the Mother Goose Coalition. Do you remember the nursery rhyme?
Jack Spratt could eat no fat;
His wife could eat no lean.
So between the pair of them,
They licked the platter clean.
You see, the very rich care nothing about religion and the very religious care nothing about money. It is the best of all alliances. As long as the rich don't interfere with the religious zealotry of right-wing Christianity, the rich have the blessing of the church. And as long as the religious people let the rich get richer, the Christian absolutists have the backing of the monied class. And so we are assaulted on both the social and financial realms by two groups that have no real interest in what the other one does. It is indeed the perfect Jack Spratt situation.
1 comment:
So, does this mean all religious conservatives are trailer-trash po' fokes? Or "rich" conservatives are filthy money-grubbing Enron executives? Boy, aren't you an idiot. Keep up the generalizations and we'll keep winning elections. I'm so sick of these analyses - they used to be funny, now I find them mind-numbingly annoying because they are so monotonous.
Maybe, just maybe, the fiscal conservatism of your so called "rich" wing of conservatism goes hand-in-hand with religious conservatism. Hard work and individual achievement are bedrocks of the Judeo-Christian tradition. VOLUNTARILY helping the poor, the sick, and the needy are a part of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Free market economics has done more to alleviate poverty in the US than harebrained self-aggrandizing pseudosocialism ever has. Some of us are smart enough to recognize that.
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