March 11, 2009

Let’s Hear It For Big Government!

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We’ve all got our issues about which we’re just plain unreasonable. One of mine is the right wing’s vilification of “big government.” You might as well try to engage me in a forum on whether the Earth is flat; I will simply get up and walk away from such a pointless conversation. Nothing will convince me that America, or any country, is a group of hearty frontiersmen with no one to blame but themselves if they don’t build their own roads, provide their own medical care…oh wait. We’re supposed to trust capitalism to do that which we individually can’t and religion to take care of the losers. My bad.

As I listen to the latest pathetic jeremiads against the boogeyman of ‘socialism,’ my eyes just roll and roll. I simply do not trust people who believe we need as little government as possible. Who believe we need just a coupla folks to hand over public resources to corporations gratis, with no pesky bureaucrats whining about not being able to breathe. Who believe that capitalism is always and everywhere rational, so why would corporations contaminate the very resources it needs to exist? And that therefore, there is no global warming. Puh-leeze.

We certainly need better government (a former president comes to mind), but I’m not sure we need less of it. We need government if only to protect us from capitalism; if anyone still believes the profit motive has its limits, I’d like to know what color the sky is in your world. Here’s me being unreasonable again: People who want only fifty cents worth of government are people who just don’t want to pay taxes. Which makes me sneer because without all this government—roads, cops, telecommunications systems, public schools—we’d all only be able to make fifty cents. Duh. I pay about half my income in taxes (and I don’t make even half as much as you think I do). I don’t like it, but I’m a patriot, which means thinking now and then about what’s best for all of us, not just me. I don’t like my money going to people like KBR and Halliburton and AIG; their allegiance is to money and other rich people, and that kind of government we don’t need.

Bill Maher summed it up on HuffPo:

“The first responders who put out your fires, that’s your government. The ranger who shoos pedophiles out of the park restroom…Recent years have made me much more wary of government…stepping aside and letting unregulated private enterprise run things it is plainly too greedy to trust with.”

Take a page from Bill and say it out loud: I’m for big government and I’m proud! Why he lowered himself to ‘debate’ this ur-knuckle dragger, I don’t know, but still…the video of it made me want to stand up and cheer.

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That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

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“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

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And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

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