I note this morning that the Guardian are saying of Mitt Romney's choice of Paul Ryan as his running mate:
Murdoch described Ryan, the most right-wing of the candidates on Romney's vice-presidential shortlist, as "almost perfect".
The choice of words is telling. Read this Washington Post article by Ezra Klein. What Murdoch calls almost perfect is a full frontal assault on pensioners, women, students and the entire architecture government itself - all intended to make the likes of Murdoch very much richer and more powerful.
But what's really bizarre is just how mad (I use the word advisedly) the whole Ryan plan is. OK, I've been influenced by Paul Krugman on Ryan, but any reasonable observer could note just how bizarre his views are. As, I hope, will the American people. Firstly that's because Ryan proposes cuts that make Osborne look timid - and anyone with eyes to see can observe that Osborne is shredding our economy to bits. Second, as the Guardian editorial notes:
Even if cuts on the Ryan scale could be carried off without immediately killing the economy, they would very likely end in the deaths of many poor Americans. The US already has the highest infant mortality in the rich world, and the Ryan plan would further shred the medical safety net. It would trash American science, hurt veterans and even affect theRepublicans' cherished military.
I'm quite sure they meant to say people would die because of Paul Ryan. They will.
They already are dying because of what the Tories are doing here. By reducing services, increasing homelessness, cutting assistance for the disabled and more the Tories are guaranteeing that death for some who are vulnerable inevitably follows. Let's not pretend otherwise. That's what is and will happen. And that's not chance. In the social Darwinism of the right the poor aren't fit to survive. That is what they think.
With Ryan now running for Veep we'll hear much more of this madness here in the UK now, but have no doubt what it means: this is an attack on the poor, the old, the young, women, the disabled and minorities of all sorts. This is an attack on the 99% by the 1%. This is class warfare, but it's worse than that: this sort of politics of hatred (for that's what it is) is an attack on everything of value in the interests of concentrating cash in the hands of a few.
Ryan's selection will encourage those driven by hate for ordinary people.
We'll just have to fight back.
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Paul Ryan is a follower of Ayn Rand. For those who want to know about Rand I suggest they go to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, which has a nice article looking at her ‘economics’ and ‘philosophy’.
And here is Krugman July 21 ‘The Conservative Onion’:
‘Thus someone like Paul Ryan starts by claiming to be a deficit hawk. Push him really hard, however, on why in that case he advocates big tax cuts, and he’ll shift to arguing that big government (as opposed to not-paid-for government) is the real problem. (That’s also what happened in my UK debate on Newsnight.) But if you push hard on that, it turns out that there’s yet another layer: the claim that things like taxing the rich to help pay for social insurance are immoral, because people have a right to keep the wealth they created – which is why suggesting that no plutocrat is an island is heresy. This onion structure is why you should never believe reasonable-sounding conservatives who say that you’re attacking a straw man, that “nobody believes” that wealth creators owe nothing to society. Oh yes they do – it’s usually hidden inside a couple of more socially acceptable excuses, but at their core Ryan and people like him believe that they’re characters in Atlas Shrugged. By the way, who built the roads in Galt’s Gulch?’
Christ, even Newt Gingrich (he who wants to build a colony on the moon!) disdainfully called Ryan’s plan right wing social engineering. What makes Ryan scary is that unlike Palin he is crazy and bright — and enough GOPers voted for the McCain / Palin ticket! I like to imagine the USA is finally emerging from the crazy sickness it succumbed to after 9/11, I hope that is the case and Americans ensure a decisive Obama victory coz if these two jokers win then working people in America are in for a right kicking. And the Tories here will be chomping at the bit to follow the example.
If evil had a face, there is a good chance it would look like Paul Ryan. Indeed one cannot even give him whatever credit might be gleaned from saying he wants to improve people’s lives by reducing their taxes, given that he openly wants to raise taxes on poorer people alongside giving enormous tax cuts to the wealthy.
That man’s worldview in frankly misanthropic.
“Then of course there is the famous Ryan budget. Â A budget that reminds of me the great Oz. Â It is daunting and impressive, but if you look behind the curtain there is a tiny little man pulling a whole lot of levers”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/guest-post-mitt-romneys-selection-paul-ryan-sign-desperation
@JohnM – I believe the WIzard of Oz is actually an attack on the power of money, written in the form of a fable. Draw back the curtain/tell the Emperor he’s actually naked, and get enough people to see – REALLY see – the truth, and the whole house of cards would collapse. Alas, far too many people are taken in by the conjuror’s sleight of hand and smooth patter, and continue to lose money on the global Three Card/Three Shell trick that constitues the international banking system.
Ryan calls himself a Roman Catholic Christian. I’d love to know how because almost every single word he says is contrary to every word Jesus said. I’d like to think the Holy Father would point this out but I understand the Vatican’s etiquette forbids commenting during elections.
The “philosophy”, if it deserves the title, of Ayn Rand is completely incompatible with Roman Catholic Christianity & it is rather alarming that Ryan, if he’s so bright, hasn’t worked that out.
It is also, of course, total bollox, FWIW I’d go with Dorothy Parker’s view of Ayn Rand’s odd thoughts: “this is not a book to be lightly tossed aside, on the contrary, it should be thrown with great force.”