11.29.09
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http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091005/cockburn
The Nation
October 5, 2009 edition
Beat the Devil
By Alexander Cockburn
Was there ever a society so saturated with lunacy as ours? One expects
modulated nuttiness from the better element, particularly those inhabiting
the corporate and legislative spheres. But these days insanity is pervasive,
spreading through all classes and walks of life. For years we have been
treated to pinstriped fugitives from the asylum like Pete Peterson urging
the nation into ruin by slashing the deficit; but on September 12 in
Washington by tens of thousands were the sans-culottes screaming for fiscal
propriety as though channeling the ruinous orthodoxies of Montagu Norman or
Andrew Mellon. Many among these Glenn Beck legions were surely one stroke or
tumor away from financial ruin yet were still ready to tear any advocates of
publicly funded health insurance into tiny pieces as though they were
hawking The Communist Manifesto at a revival meeting. Inspiring, was it not,
to see such self-abnegation on the part of so many people prepared to die in
the name of free enterprise!