like, duh.
Music: Black Swan Lane: A Long Way From Home (2007)
When I started writing this blog entry yesterday, the news of Romney's "true feelings" about "47% of Americans" had just broke, and one could almost hear audible gasps as journalists scrambled to announce Mother Jones' scoop: Romney was taped at a private meeting with wealthy donors declaring there's no way to win a large segment of U.S. voters because they believe they are entitled to government hand-outs: "who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that's an entitlement."
Well: yes. Frankly, I'd be surprised if only half of U.S. citizens believed they had a right to shelter, food, and health care. It's called "life," and human life is dependent upon these basic necessities. To argue against the "right to life," in the only sense of the phrase that makes sense, is to argue that some lives aren't worth living. Of course, folks of Romney's ilk believe this---which is what he is, in effect, saying to his wealthy donors. Romney seems to lament the fact that he could never convince one of these blood-sucking dependents not to demand food, shelter, and health care. But, um, that would be like trying to convince someone to kill him or herself---to negate their own drives.
Perhaps I am equivocating and amplifying just a tad, however, everyone who claims the anything left of Obama's left (which would be right, so left of Obama is closer to the center) knows what Romney is saying: the wealthy class should be left alone to make more wealth and it's not their responsibility to care for the lower classes---except, perhaps, the ones who work for them (and even then, only the minimum to sustain employment and, by extension, their living bodies).
What's way more astonishing than Romney's "candid" beliefs is that someone is actually astonished. In part, this "scandal" is an enflamed media event designed to garner ratings, stimulate excitement, get bodies all-atwitter over something that is not news. One wonders, given Romney's past political views, which were apparently much more "moderate," if his more or less "extreme" viewpoints on class and those lives not worth living reflect more the mass mediated environment of shock, outrage, amplification, astonishment, and so on. Hence the humor regarding Newsweek's "Muslim Rage" cover, to which folks are responding with delightfully fun comments that humanize Muslims as human beings first and foremost. Perhaps we should regard the media reportage of Romney's candid comments with similar mockery and scorn, if only because such comments are at least partially a consequence of SHOCKING journalism.