Friday, October 9, 2009

Reform Rx: Defanging Predators

Reading the Wall Street Journal can be a difficult chore at times when wading through market and business news about how corporations and industries manipulate everything from Washington to currencies to their own opaque images. Wearily one comes to the editorials and opinions that cheerlead and critique aspects of a superficial world that real people who are the instruments and hostages of capital do not inhabit.

But there is much that is to be gleaned from careful reading of this chronicle of corporate elitism. A wry smile at quirky front page offbeat stories, an impressive answer back to the palaces of power in an op-ed or letter, and perhaps a useful personal finance pointer are occasional rewards. And an understanding of the financial class's evangelical manipulation of tax and free market religion to single-issue conservative voters to insulate them from regulation and continue feeding the politics of selfishness is valuable.

Then comes Wednesday and The Tilting Yard by Thomas Frank that tells me that a genuine op-ed which in one of its best roles as “opposition-editorial” does take place within the pages of the Wall Street Journal. This week’s installment, like many, gets behind the gauzy curtains of Republican Conservatives exposes their shallow interpretation of economic theory and adoption of sound bite politics. Mr. Frank challenges the right wing’s mantra of government as predator by once again demonstrating that corporate teeth in the state’s jaw are the real danger to health care reform.

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