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i dont think there's any way for someone who views things economic from ace's viewpoint to get his or her head around the ongoing situation. one aspect of what i take obama to be proposing is a series of new-dealish programs geared at getting folk to work in decent paying situations on infrastructure projects. this would require a redirecting of resources. there are a host of arguments as to why this redirect would be a good and desirable thing--but all of them assume that you can think about taxation as a mechanism for moving money from one area of the social system to another in order to accomplish political and/or economic and/or social system goals. it seems that from the supply-sider viewpoint, there is no social system--remember margaret thatcher's fanous quip "when i look around me i do not see society, i see individuals"....
this is the differend (the point of talking-past each other) that inevitably turns up in this sort of discussion--ace does not EVER relativize his position enough to entertain the possibility that his way of thinking is PARTICULAR, but expects others to relativize their positions enough to engage with his. this is why he cannot outline his own premises--it's almost like there are not premises because there are not arguments because this is how things *are* for him.
i do not find discussion in good faith to be possible under these rules of engagement.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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