Kelly Maher at WhoSaidYouSaid attacks Romanoff first by connecting his Russian-sounding last name to to the word "czar" and then goes on to write about how it's governments fault that businesses spend so much money to influence representatives in our democracy.
So first, I want to make sure you get Kelly's thought processes, Romanoff is Russian-sounding and Russians are like, communists n stuff so czars are like Romanoff who MUST be a commie, er something, like, whoa.
But that's not even the really stupid part: she quotes one of Romanoff's speeches (copied below) and then check out her response in bold.
Romanoff says, "You can see the corrosive influence of big money on politics in virtually every area of public policy that we now face. You can see it in the debate over health care reform, when big insurance and drug companies were able to protect their profits at our expense; able to kill consideration of a universal single-payer non-profit plan and to wipe the public option off the table. You can see it in the debate over financial reform, when Wall Street banks were able to turn the Senate Banking Committee into a wholly owned subsidiary, and destroy consideration of the Glass-Steagall law and protect themselves as 'too big to fail.' And you can certainly see it now, in the most important debate that the Senate is not having, the debate over revolutionizing energy policy so that we can end our addiction to fossil fuel and accelerate our transition to a new cleaner renewable energy economy, that's a cause worth fighting for."
What Romanoff misses is that business interests lobby so intensely BECAUSE the government inserts itself into all aspects of commerce. When the government is bailing out some companies over others, regulating more and more aspects of industry; telling companies what benefits they must provide their employees (i.e. health care); and trying (and failing) to socially engineer our economy, businesses rightfully stand up and advocate for their interests. (emphasis added)
I GET IT NAO! Businesses spend billions every year to lobby because they're jealous of businesses who get bailouts? And government, via evil regulations, makes them do things like not kill people in the name of the bottom line. According to Kelly, it's governments fault that businesses lobby because big, nasty democratically-elected government tells them to stop polluting the air, water, earth and YOU'RE FIRED!!! That's the dumbest thing I've ever read! Do all Republicans think this way?
Real quick: corporations get their agency from government. If it weren't for things like laws, which governments enforce (except GWB), business would not exist.
Awash in the amnesia of privilege and entitlement, conservative America forgets how the free market can really suck and really hurt people. The free market did NOT one day decide that child labor is not profitable. It wasn't the free market that decided that the weekend makes people more productive or that certain lethal chemicals shouldn't be dumped untreated into the mighty Platte to save money. The free market did NOT decide to make hazardous working conditions the responsibility of the company to remedy. These things were fixed by citizens organizing and petitioning their government OR they were fixed by people organizing a union.
Why are we having this conversation in this country? How stupid can we be? How detached from reality are we?
If ever you're depressed because you seem to not be accepted by the mainstream, consider the possibility that your fellow American is oft a depression-inducing creature.
If you drudge through this chaotic existence in search of deeper meaning, look beyond the hollow ideals perpetrated by the status quo and their advocates like Kelly. Take heart and take the high road. Through hard work and persistence, we can achieve better things than sticking our heads in the sand by making excuses for the horrible things people do when they're driven only by the bottom line.
