TUESDAY, MARCH 5, 2013
A long, thirteen-year campaign: Here at THE DAILY HOWLER, we’ve been running E.R. Shipp for president ever since her ombudsman column for the Washington Post on Sunday, March 5, 2000.
For our real-time reaction, just click this. Shipp’s column has only become more insightful as the years have rolled by.
Well sir, this very evening, at 5 PM, we’ll be doing The Marc Steiner Show with Shipp herself! At present, Shipp is serving as “Journalist in Residence” at Morgan State. Steiner’s show is heard on WEAA, Morgan’s blockbuster, powerhouse NPR affiliate.
Just noticed: This is the thirteenth anniversary of Shipp's righteous and accurate piece, which was also completely ignored.
OK, so I'm listening to the show now, and finding it scary. You may love Shipp, but she just said that the "extremes" of the debate are between cuts to "entitlements" and no cuts.
ReplyDeleteNo, they're not. They're between people who want to cut or eliminate (or privatize) Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, and those who believe we need to lower the retirement age and expand the programs.
"No cuts" is not an "extreme" position, it's the mainstream American position, held by 80% of the public.
In fact, Shipp was just restating the Washington storyline, where the conversation is Obama saying we need cuts, David Gregory saying we need pain (for we, and not for he), and the Republicans saying we need more cuts.
Which means that Washington itself is the extreme. The rest of us, who disagree with them, are in accord, whether we are Republicans or Democrats or third-party types or apolitical. No one agrees with these cuts because we can all see that they will only make things worse without any potential for making things better.