Anne Applebaum finally notices that “conservative” Alaskans are full of shit:
For whatever the reason, the hypocrisy at the heart of the party – and at the heart of American politics – is at its starkest in Alaska. For decades, Alaskans have lived off federal welfare. Taxpayers’ money subsidizes everything from Alaska’s roads and bridges to itsmyriad programs for Native Americans. Federal funding accounts for one-third of Alaskan jobs. Nevertheless, Alaskans love to think of themselves as the last frontiersmen, the inhabitants of a land “beyond the horizon of urban clutter,” a state with no use for Washington and its wicked ways.
Perhaps in a year or two Applebaum will note that a lot of Tea Party members are railing against the federal government from the comfort of a Medicare-financed mobility scooter.
biff diggerence
Make a deal with Vlad the Impaler.
Sell it back to Russia.
Alwhite
Is it too much to hope that this dawn of realization will awaken more of the beltway drones, seeping slowly into some sort of misty morning for cognition?
The Grand Panjandrum
They can see Russia from their gummint subsidized porch!
The Bearded Blogger
@Alwhite: Yes
Lupin
fixed.
Linda Featheringill
To Alaska you can add the Gulf states between Florida and Texas. Welfare states, filled with people who consume as much of the federal tax money that the rest of us pay and then bitch.
dhd
Seldom is the question asked…
El Cid
This is unfair criticism, as no one could have anticipated that TeaTard revolutionaries were anything but advocates of smaller, more efficient government backed by 180% of the American population.
kay
Oh, thanks, mistermix. The column is genuinely funny, it’s so completely dishonest and hackneyed.
I love this:
Why does she put it in quotes?
Conservatives (and Anne Applebaum, apparently) want to privatize Social Security. It’s a public program and they want to take it private. That’s a simple factual matter. Is she privy to some information that the rest of the country doesn’t have?
aimai
@kay:
Yes, that line rather undid whatever good work she’d done in the rest of the column.
aimai
The Bearded Blogger
@Linda Featheringill: If democrats had balls, they would have put an amendment up for vote with which a state could opt out of most federal taxes as well as most federal subsidies… just to force the hypocrites to vote against it.
If the democrats had balls… heh
lol
@kay:
“Privatize” is a mean, misleading word liberals and the liberal media came up with to demonize a perfectly innocent scheme by Republicans to privatize social security.
cleek
pundits apparently now feel free to openly talk about how ignorant and insane the teabaggers really are. how interesting.
MattF
I’d luuuuve to see Congressional Republicans try to ‘privatize’ Social Security. “We’ll send your Social Security tax dollars to Wall Street bankers, they always have your best interests in mind.” Tee hee.
PeakVT
Applebaum somehow managed to not mention the soçialist Alaska Permanent Fund.
kay
@aimai:
It’s all dishonest. There’s no “hypocrisy at the heart of American politics”. There’s a shit-load of hypocrisy at the heart of Sarah Palin and the GOP, but Applebaum is too chicken to just say it.
Nothing I like better than a finger-wagging lecture on frugality and sacrifice from a wealthy pundit.
You probably don’t listen to a lot of them, but I’ve been in the car a lot this week (which is where I put my pundit time in) and they’re all reading this same script, verbatim.
I love the stern, parental tone.
jinxtigr
@cleek: Means the corporate side no longer wishes their assistance. Better to co-opt the Democrats than to have the world plunged into financial collapse and to see all that virtual, imaginary money go away.
kay
@lol:
I think they’re relying on the suggestion that privatization is phased in.
Which is actually the most egregious, dishonest part of it. Conservatives aren’t even willing to take the political hit. They’re cutting future benefits for now-25 year olds, who, because they’re 25, aren’t paying attention.
Xenos
Not to drag Sullivan into the conversation (but we are talking about half-assed complaints about the right, Sullivan’s main beat), but he called out several leading conservative pundits for orchestrating a misinformation campaign where they all dishonestly reported an Obama speech in the exact same way, and he openly accusing them of being propagandists.
Anybody notice any responses to this? Is this going to get the same response (sound of crickets) that most liberal complaints on this issue get?
Chris
That’s not Alaska, it’s rural America in general. Take a look at the way federal money flows from state to state some day. New York and California give more than they get, while for the Bible belt it’s exactly the other way around.
The Republic of Stupidity
Not to mention the “dividend checks from the state’s oil royalty investment program distributed annually to eligible residents just for living here”.
THAT sure smacks of socialism, huh? Or mebbe it’s just rugged, he-man individualism on the dole… quien sabe?
And did I mention that Alasak also has the highest debt to GNP ratio of any state in the Union?
Oh those fiscally conservative Alaskan Republicans!
***eyes roll…***
The Republic of Stupidity
Not to mention the “dividend checks from the state’s oil royalty investment program distributed annually to eligible residents just for living here”.
THAT sure smacks of socialism, huh? Or mebbe it’s just rugged, he-man individualism on the dole… quien sabe?
And did I mention that Alasak also has the highest debt to GNP ratio of any state in the Union?
Oh those fiscally conservative Alaskan Republicans!
***eyes roll…***
cleek
anyone else hear that NPR story about cotton subsidy wars, last night?
short version: we subsidize our cotton farmers, against WTO laws. Brazilian cotton farmers don’t like this and got their govt to threaten to slap tariffs on a whole bunch of US goods if we didn’t stop the subsidies. we solved the problem by having the US govt subsidize Brazilian cotton farmers, too.
humans are phenomenally stupid.
Steeplejack
@Xenos:
Link would help.
WyldPirate
@jinxtigr:
This. I’ve been wondering if the Rethugs of a corporatist bent (and their corporate owners) were going to boink the TeaTards once they made some gains
I’ve been expecting a scenario similar to what happened for years starting with Ronnie Raygun and his courting of the religious right. Rethug after Rethug used them and made promises to get out the fundy troops to the polls, then fucked them over by paying lip service to their Holy Grail of repealing abortion.
I don’t know about how the Teatards will shake out. The Rethugs and the toadies in the “think tanks” may have made a better Frankenstein this time and won’t be able to control it. I suppose much will have to do with the extent and duration of the economic pain.
I don’t think these TeaTards will go so quietly back to their Mom’s basement and cheetos or ride of quietly into the sunset on their trusty Hoverounds.
Joshua
@Chris: Correct. Funnily enough, the fact that these states only get around 70 or 80 cents for every $1 they send to Washington never factors into the wingnut rantings against these “failed states.” And the fact that Tennessee, Kentucky, South Carolina, etc. get anywhere from $1.10 to $2 for every $1 does not factor into the “success stories”, either.
Hell bring CA’s ratio up to Texas’ – about 95 cents – and a lot of fiscal problems there will be solved.
Xenos
@Steeplejack: Sully link.
WyldPirate
@cleek:
Fixed.
Paris
Anne Applebaum is still writing? I thought she retired to assume control Christine O’Donnell’s coven when she decided to run for Senate.
Linda Featheringill
@The Bearded Blogger:
Now that would be an interesting development. Not to make them vote against it but to let the bill pass and become law. More money for the rest of us, immediately.
Actually, it sounds very attractive. Hmmmmm . . . .
PopeRatzy
I spend my days as the left wing of my family listening to my relatives excoriate the current administration and how the administration just needs to let the free markets deal with just about everything. How the government is too intrusive and socialism must be stopped.
Almost everyone of my relatives that mewls the wingnut line is either a government employee, their job is based upon government contracts or is retired with a government pension, medicare & social security.
These are very intelligent people. Most are college educated. Yet they cannot see the cognitive dissonance of their own beliefs when laid against their own lives.
The Bearded Blogger
@Linda Featheringill: It’s win/win.
That means the democrats will never do it.
Violet
It’s just cover fluff for when Miller
stealswins the election and changes from an anti-government teabagger into a pork-loving Republican. Part of the rehabilitation campaign.Alwhite
@WyldPirate:
Yes, my concern all along. A substantial portion of the country wants instant, painless fixes to everything. And they want them NOW! Unless FAUX News can successfully tamp down this insanity those clowns will chase bigger and better demagogues faster & faster. The end is the rise of something like Glen Beck on acid for President followed by “Riechstag fire” event.
But I have always been an optimist :)
The other potential is tied to a Beck-like character too: Lonesome Rhodes. I don’t know what happens to the teabaggers in the scenario, maybe they melt away & pretend they never believed him anyway but there is an awful lot of hate & anger built up to see that happening.
Chris
@Linda Featheringill:
As attractive as it would be in a theoretical sense, they’d find a way to justify themselves. They interviewed a farmer out west who gets subsidized out the ass, and his response was “yeah but I pay a lot in taxes, this is just them paying me back.” In the Rolling Stone article about the teabaggers, they interviewed a couple of elderly people on Medicare who’d been working for the feds their whole life. “Yeah, but I don’t make very much, so it’s okay.” It’ll always be “okay” for God knows what reason when it’s their benefits at stake.
On the other hand, it might piss off enough people in the blue states, including conservatives in those states whose money’s been going down the gigantic drain that is rural America. Hmm, that’d be interesting.
Bulworth
@aimai: Applebaum is actually disappointed the teatard Republicans haven’t privatized Social Security.
kindness
I know, I know!!!! I know where the Feds can save money and cut the deficit…..Let’s start with the money we send to Alaska! Let them build their own roads, bridges to no where & stuff. It’s the new Tea Party way! (except of course the Tea Party only wants to cut OTHER peoples money out, not any of their own)
catclub
@Linda Featheringill:
Those subsidies did not come to idiots who had no idea they were happening. They came to states that decided, whether intentionally or not, to keep their senators and repsresentatives in WDC for very long periods of time. They were also effectively agreed to by FDR (things like TVA) and the democrats to help bring the south into the 20th century for the benefit (ha!) of the entire US.
Of course, given that they were designed by wily southern politicians, unwinding those subsidies will be incredibly difficult – like moving military and bases and other federal government installations. Don’t waste too much energy dreaming about it.
The direct beneficiaries of those subsidies (pockets of extreme poverty in the Mississippi delta are one example, native americans are another) would be hurt most by their withdrawal.
sven
@kay: My 65+ year old relatives continue to insist that it would be unfair to cut their benefits after they have paid into the system for their entire lifetime. If that is true, how is it more fair to cut the future benefits of someone who is 25-45 years old? Younger people will still need to pay into the system at the same rate to fund the folks currently receiving Social Security.
aimai
@Bulworth:
Yes, I know Applebaum’s work. She’s a disgusting person. And of course everyone is correct that her column, such as it is, fails to grasp that the “contradiction” doesn’t lie at the heart of all American voters but simply at the heart of the corrupt bargain that is right wing America. Still, its a teenytiny baby step towards a sliver of honesty to even admit that AK isn’t our independent wonderland but a grifter’s paradise.
aimai
Stefan
As attractive as it would be in a theoretical sense, they’d find a way to justify themselves. They interviewed a farmer out west who gets subsidized out the ass, and his response was “yeah but I pay a lot in taxes, this is just them paying me back.”
Jesus. You aren’t supposed to get your taxes paid back, you moron.
Jay in Oregon
@cleek:
Yeah, it’s almost as if the useful idiots have served their purpose of getting the Republicans re-elected.
jcricket
I predict absolutely nothing comes of this. The fraud that is conservatism will still be portrayed as if they actually favor small government and tap into what “Americans want”. Liberals will still be painted as profligate and “out of touch” with “real Americans”.
The truth is the public does not favor small government (no one who matters, anyway). They just want different parts of the government to be big (defense or entitlements or the morality police, etc). And a large number of people claim to want small government, but what they really mean is “keep doing what you’re doing, but find a way for not to charge me for it”.
And then you have the libertarian-esque frauds like Sullivan blabbering about an entitlement crisis when, if his ideas were actually followed (let’s cut/destroy Social Security and Medicare) would result in widespread poverty and illness amongst already vulnerable populations. If you cut those programs, people won’t stop getting sick or stop being poor. And don’t give me the bullshit about people taking “personal accountability” or being “educated healthcare consumers”. That’s a pompous load of tripe with no relation or understanding as to how the real world works.
Shorter me: We’re doomed because we’re stupid hypocrites that most politicians play for chumps, while enriching themselves and their cronies.
artem1s
@kay:
perhaps their ‘privatize’ means something other than what GWB wanted to do, which was still take the money out of your paycheck and allow ‘private’ investment organizations manage it. In other words have the government pay a private investment firm to do the same thing it is doing now (writing checks to seniors). Except the money would have gone into shoring up the stock market for a few more years with a giant influx of cash.
It never ceases to amuse me when idiots argue for ‘privatization’ of social security as if that means they will get to opt out of having the deduction taken from their pay and they will get to do as they wish with it.
srsly, does anyone actually believe that Congress is going to give up that cash flow? Government literally could not operate without it and anyone who can read a spreadsheet understands this after looking at the numbers for like 5 seconds.
FDR gave us more than a safety net for old people. He gave us a monetary system that has HUGE cash resources flowing in and out of it daily. That’s at least one reason why the dollar stays as strong as it does even when the economy sucks.
Stillwater
@lol: “Privatize” is a mean, misleading word liberals and the liberal media came up with to demonize a perfectly innocent scheme by Republicans to privatize social security.
Exactly. And if liberals are so stupid they don’t understand the different meanings when “privatizing SS” is spoken by a liberal as opposed to a conservative, then screw em and their word-fascism.
Jay in Oregon
Actually, the Permanent Fund Dividend is a pretty progressive piece of legislature. It’s been a model for similar resource-sharing laws, and Jay Hammond (former Alaskan governor who oversaw the creation of the Alaska Permanent Fund) proposed a similar program for Iraqi citizens.
It’s such a successful program that the Alaskan Legislature has tried for decades to break into the Permanent Fund lockbox; all such attempts have been voted down. The last scheme that I heard of was to propose giving $25,000 to every eligible Alaskan in a lump sum — presumably any leftover money would revert back to the Legislature.
You won’t hear me diss the Permanent Fund because a lot of people my age got their college education funded, at least in part, by PFD money. Without the PFD I’d have never gone to school outside the state and would probably be another crazy Alaskan teabagger.
jl
I have quite a bit of family, and through them, made a number of friends in Alaska. Therefore I know that not all Alaskans share this astounding hypocrisy. But, most of the Alaskans I know are Democrats or progressive independents.