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kpete

(71,867 posts)
Tue Jun 24, 2014, 05:20 PM Jun 2014

We practice fiscal cruelty and call it an economy. We practice legal cruelty and call it justice

THE UNITED STATES OF CRUELTY
By Charles P. Pierce on June 24, 2014


.........................................


There is a new kind of systematized cruelty in our daily lives, in how we relate to each other, and in how we treat our fellow citizens, and, therefore, there is a new kind of systematized cruelty in our politics as well. It is not as though there haven't been times in the history of our country in which cruelty was practiced for political or pecuniary advantage. It is not as though there haven't been times in our history when the circumstances in people's lives did not conspire cruelly against them, or when the various systems that influenced those lives did not conspire in their collective cruelty against their seeking any succor or relief. There was slavery, and the cruel war that ended it. There was the organized cruelty that followed Reconstruction, and the modern, grinding cruelty of the Industrial Revolution and the Gilded Age that followed it. There were two World Wars, the first one featuring a new era in mechanized slaughter and the second featuring a new era in industrialized genocide. There was the Great Depression. There was McCarthyism, and the cruelty that was practiced in Southeast Asia that ended up partly dehumanizingthe entire country. There always has been the cruelty of poverty and disease.

But there is something different abroad in the politics now, perhaps because we are in the middle of an era of scarcity and because we have invested ourselves in a timid culture of austerity and doubt. The system seems too full now of opportunities to grind and to bully. We have politicians, most of whom will never have to work another day in their lives, making the argument seriously that there is no role in self-government for the protection and welfare of the political commonwealth as that term applies to the poorest among us. We have politicians, most of whom have gilt-edged health care plans, making the argument seriously that an insurance-friendly system of health-care reform is in some way bad for the people whom it is helping the most, and we have politicians seriously arguing that those without health-care somehow are more free than the people who have turned to their government, their self-government, for help in this area. In the wake of a horrific outbreak of violence in a Connecticut elementary school, we have enacted gun laws now that make it easier to shoot our fellow citizens and not harder to do so. Our police forces equip themselves with weapons of war and then go out and look for wars to fight. We are cheap. We are suspicious. We will shoot first, and we will do it with hearts grown cold and, yes, cruel.

We cheer for cruelty and say that we are asking for personal responsibility among those people who are not us, because the people who are not us do not deserve the same benefits of the political commonwealth that we have. In our politics, we have become masters of camouflage. We practice fiscal cruelty and call it an economy. We practice legal cruelty and call it justice. We practice environmental cruelty and call it opportunity. We practice vicarious cruelty and call it entertainment. We practice rhetorical cruelty and call it debate. We set the best instincts of ourselves in conflict with each other until they tear each other to ribbons, and until they are no longer our best instincts but something dark and bitter and corroborate with itself. And then it fights all the institutions that our best instincts once supported, all the elements of the political commonwealth that we once thought permanent, all the arguments that we once thought settled -- until there is a terrible kind of moral self-destruction that touches those institutions and leaves them soft and fragile and, eventually, evanescent. We do all these things, cruelty running through them like hot blood, and we call it our politics.

Because of that, the daily gunplay no longer surprises us. The rising rates of poverty no longer surprise us. The chaos of our lunatic public discourse no longer surprises us. We make war based on lies and deceit because cruelty is seen to be enough, seen to be the immutable law of the modern world. We make policy based on being as tough as we can on the weakest among us, because cruelty is seen to be enough, seen to be the fundamental morality behind what ultimately is merely the law of the jungle. We do all these things, cruelty running through them like a cold river, and we call it our politics.

...............


MORE:
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/Cruelty_In_Excelsis

16 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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We practice fiscal cruelty and call it an economy. We practice legal cruelty and call it justice (Original Post) kpete Jun 2014 OP
I like what I am reading, but one thing leaps out at me - scarcity? truedelphi Jun 2014 #1
Our representatives do not represent us. SalviaBlue Jun 2014 #2
Bingo! Enthusiast Jun 2014 #15
Exactly! rickyhall Jun 2014 #6
Scarcity is created to maintain the system. DeSwiss Jun 2014 #8
+1! Enthusiast Jun 2014 #14
K&R for truth. nt Mnemosyne Jun 2014 #3
recommended phantom power Jun 2014 #4
K&R cprise Jun 2014 #5
That is brilliantly written annabanana Jun 2014 #7
Kick And Recommend cantbeserious Jun 2014 #9
This is an outstanding article. Uncle Joe Jun 2014 #10
True but.....We're a paradoxical society Armstead Jun 2014 #11
Cruelty + Selfishness = Republican/Libertarian grahamhgreen Jun 2014 #12
K & R for Charlie Pierce Coventina Jun 2014 #13
Kicked and recommended! We have become an Ayn Rand nation. Enthusiast Jun 2014 #16

truedelphi

(32,324 posts)
1. I like what I am reading, but one thing leaps out at me - scarcity?
Tue Jun 24, 2014, 05:41 PM
Jun 2014

There would be no scarcity had the clowns running the show not allowed the Big Banking and Financial crew to glibly transfer middle-incomed people's wealth away from Main Street and over to the pockets of the one Percent. Without that travesty, we would all be doing fine.

And how is there scarcity if there are 4 to 6 trillion dollar wars to enjoy? One of which apparently needs to be re-visited, as we didn't accomplish our mission there.

Or how is there scarcity if the Clowns that Be can carve up the Peace Dividend to support our New Total Surveillance society?

SalviaBlue

(2,905 posts)
2. Our representatives do not represent us.
Tue Jun 24, 2014, 05:57 PM
Jun 2014

>We have politicians, most of whom will never have to work another day in their lives, making the argument seriously that there is no role in self-government for the protection and welfare of the political commonwealth as that term applies to the poorest among us.<

 

DeSwiss

(27,137 posts)
8. Scarcity is created to maintain the system.
Tue Jun 24, 2014, 07:43 PM
Jun 2014

As with any cancer, as it takes up space it deprives the organism that it is feeding off of, access to the nutrients that it is obtaining and even internally converting into useable proteins and hormones, in order to maintain its own health.

But cancers don't give a shit about their host's health. Only to the extent that it prevents them from feeding. And when one of us drops from their vampiric embrace, they get off our dried and empty husk, and onto another one to start the sucking all over again. Until once again there's nothing but a trail of husks left in their wake.

- This is Capitalism 101.

K&R

annabanana

(52,791 posts)
7. That is brilliantly written
Tue Jun 24, 2014, 07:19 PM
Jun 2014
We set the best instincts of ourselves in conflict with each other until they tear each other to ribbons, and until they are no longer our best instincts but something dark and bitter and corroborate with itself. And then it fights all the institutions that our best instincts once supported, all the elements of the political commonwealth that we once thought permanent, all the arguments that we once thought settled


wow
 

Armstead

(47,803 posts)
11. True but.....We're a paradoxical society
Tue Jun 24, 2014, 08:54 PM
Jun 2014

It is true that we've gotten a whole lot crueler and meaner and more selfish in many ways.

But whenever there's a natural disaster, or some other crisis a better side of our natures also takes over. People -- of many political stripes -- rush to help or contribute.

It's depressing to think that such things require a disaster to bring out, but it does indicate that there is a better side of our collective natires also ready to be tapped.

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