Somebody's Gotta Do It

I do the dirty work so you won't have to.

That's what I think when reading anything from Townhall. Today's rant is once again on Thomas Sowell, a white man's man. Previously, he was a February 2005 recipient of KAB's There Are Black Conservatives Out There Hoax Award. Given to the biggest, glibbest Black liars for America's reichwing. In July 2005 KAB actually agreed with Sowell on Black America taking it's cue from Israel.

Sowell's recent Townhall article An Investment in Failure states the "political left has an investment in failure."

Well, you may have noticed with blog posts recently that I've come to a similar conclusion. But I've concluded both right and left politics invest in failure, specifically in regard to the Iraq war.

SOWELL: " …. there have been some remarkable developments in some Third World countries within the past generation that have allowed many very poor people to rise to a standard of living that was never within their reach before."

He speaks of the advancements in Latin American countries, China, and India. What he doesn't tell you is that there are not really that many uplifted or that most of those who have risen "to a standard of living never within their reach before" is code for an extra chicken clucking through the shanty and little Jose gets a day off from selling Chicklets on the street.

In all my years in Central America I've seen only two products that minimally lifted the standard of living for the very poor. 1) Tourism, catering to gringos. 2) Family members working in the US to $end it home.

Seventy hours for a $30 work week in a shirt factory doesn't lift anyone no matter what country they live in. Drive a bit further out and most of Latin America is today pretty much what it was 50 years ago. Sowell mentions Argentina as an example but that's another bird, transformed 60 years ago by both fleeing Jews and Nazis. He conveniently forgot to mention lefty Chavez is lifting the very poor, or that Brazil's president is the lefty Workers Party's Lulu da Silva.

SOWELL: The August 18th issue of the distinguished British magazine "The Economist" reveals the economic progress in Brazil, Argentina, and other Latin American nations that has given a better life to millions of their poorest citizens. Some of the economic policies that have led to these results are discussed in "The Economist" but it is doubtful that members of the political left will stampede there to find out what those policies were. They have shown no such interest in how tens of millions of people in China and tens of millions of people in India have risen out of poverty within the past generation."

Well, Tom Snob, maybe the political left didn't stampede the Economist because you fail to mention the specific article in the August 18 issue and I didn't see one that seemed to discuss the economic policies you're referring to. Is the material online or only in the print edition?

In developing nations a "better life" for "their poorest citizens" is still poverty – but better poverty, i.e. the hunger pains are less frequent and the kids get immunizations and a pencil.

And Tom, some on the left know the policies that have lifted many in China and India out of poverty. They call it outsourcing. Global investors. You're an economist - if there's an appreciation of the yuan and hikes in interest rates, which Beijing has to do to avoid an economic meltdown – there's gonna be a lot of unhappy and angry Chinese peasants and some very, very unhappy global bankers. What's a country gone capitalist to do?

(Sowell wouldn't be Sowell if he did not end his tripe with the usual - Blacks are nothing more to the left than pawns in an ideological game. It's a rightwing talking point from the Reagan era.)

SOWELL : "The poverty rate among black married couples has been in single digits since 1994 but the left has shown no more interest in why that is so than they have shown in why many millions of people have risen out of poverty in Latin America or in China and India."

Thomas, I have to say you're juggling statistics. Every chart I found gave figures of double digits for 1994 Black married couples (11-13% poverty rate). But I do agree that illegitimate births are a problem; all children need a stable environment with both a mom and a dad; unless you're a romaticized celeb, then kids need only a nannie and photo-ops.

Of course married couple of all races fare better – two incomes. And lets not forget to mention the "poverty rate" cutoff in the US for a married couple with 2 children is around $20,000 a year. Whoopee. If one cannot support a family and save for the future on 20K then what's wrong with a person. Americans should not look at the income gap – they should celebrate having indoor plumbing and a playstation.

By the way, illegitimacy in Latin America accounts for 25 to 40 percent of all births. It's often the cultural norm to have a wife and an outside woman, and a pack of kids with both. But, using your conservative logic I suppose sex created third world poverty – not colonialism and oligarchy.

Tom, you seem to be all over the place with this article about leftists, third world success, Black poverty, pawns, and something to do with "policies" that I can only assume have to do with the glorification of capitalism as the cure all.

SOWELL: Retrogressions in the wake of the policies of the 1960s are studiously ignored -- the runaway crime rates, the disintegration of black families, and the ghetto riots of the 1960s that have left many black communities still barren more than 40 years later.

You got me there. We are socially retrogressing. And yes, a good deal of it is self-inflicted. But you must be kidding me when you claim social failure is the agenda of the left. In case you haven't noticed, the predominantly conservative white owned and operated prison industry, white owned media glorifying immorality and thuggery, white owned educational system, and a few uncle toms have done more for "retrogressing" than any policies from the '60s.

And if not for those "ghetto riots of the 1960s" more than likely you wouldn't be where you are today – pretending concern with poverty/social malaise while defending the ideology of greed is good.