The gruesome dance of our humanitarian pwogs prattling on about Haiti in extremis cries out for the big "NO MAS".
For days now I've been muttering under my breath: Listen, you foursquare swell-hearted googoos, take it from the class Grinch, "relief aid" is nothing more than... well... gateway imperialism. And listen to me now, believe me later, charity leads by steps uncounted right on to harder stuff like... well, like blasting Iraq back a couple-three generations.
But suddenly this morning, while reading Paul Krugman, I realized just how much renunciation is really needed here -- just how deep it must go -- and why the whole damn googoo gig's gotta head for the chopping block along with crackpot realism and other noblemen of the ancien regime.
Face it, rangers, liberal interventionism begins right here at home. Take universal health care as a dembot pwog-base priority item -- higher than a fast job recovery.
Uplift and a helpin' hand offered by the Fortunate Ones has just gotta go, gotta go.
Maybe I'm kinda slow at this, but now I see the light. Here's my advice, Mr and Ms Bobpo: Anytime you or anyone else you know has an altruistic urge, shout: "Stifle that, citizen... no more of that boohoo googoo 'may I help you child ' crap." Just say no.
Next time your conscience pokes its smug little head into your thoughts, scream "Scram, weenie!" Give in to your dark side; be selfish, you overcredentialed ghoul.
We're all better off in the long run if you just stay a yuppie. That's right, go on, live it up. Better that than gabble on about the poor poor whodos out there groping through the mean streets of America. When the old ayenbite of inwit hits, say to yourself, "What's in this for me, anyhow? I mean, somethin' really tangible?"
Either you start taking things strictly by the my-me-I handle, or the next thing you know, you'll be backing a bombing run over Venezuela.
As super Al often points out to me when I ask him for a light or a bite of his chocolate danish --
"No, Owen, no. Not that I don't want to. But the harm, my dear derelict friend, is right there up front, in the simple wholesome desire to help others."
We help others best if we stick to helping ourselves -- and others in our same boat -- first last and always. Enlightened self-interest means economic class interest. It makes horse sense to figure that out and abide by it. But beyond that, we got no higher calling, in a society so full of moving social fault lines it shakes itself apart more often than not.
No more pleas for universal this and universal that -- not education, health care, welfare, or same-sex dating.
Altruism is a corporate pimp. The habitual other-improver instinct is a source of continued corporate power, the boy Robin to the for-profit executive-suite Batman.
And the outcome of this diabolical synergy between boardroom Benthamism and merit-class salvationism is, err, today's America, the free-soil land where millions of our fellow joblings find their body parts baking away into lumpen crisps inside papa Sam's no-job no-credit pizza oven, occasionally basted with a squirt of soothing altruistic butter by some meddling conscience-struck meritoid.
