blaming the victims

Paul Rosenberg's piece "Blaming the victims for market failure" at OpenLeft takes a hard look at Newt's misrepresentation of unemployment insurance as "welfare," and how he misdirects culpability from systemic economic problems to those who have suffered the ill effects of the Great Recession:

Cold-hearted narcissists like Gingrich will never be capable of walking a mile in the shoes of the millions of Americans facing the reality of unemployment, or other forms of real economic hardship. Nor will simple-minded moral fantasists like Ginrich ever be convinced by arguments that point to complex causality. But many of those taken in by their fairy-tale economic fantasies could be wooed away to a more realistic point of view if they were made aware of how fundamentally flawed the "free market" mythology actually is...

Orthodox conservatives seem unable to understand that things such as speculative bubbles, lax lending standards, widespread bankruptcies, a foreclosure crisis, and high structural unemployment exist BECAUSE THE MARKET HAS FAILED. Keynesian stimulus, extended unemployment benefits, and welfare programs are necessary BECAUSE THE MARKET HAS FAILED. Pretending that liberals are expanding the federal government's efforts without justification is simply ludicrous: government must pick up the economic slack BECAUSE THE MARKET HAS FAILED. Claiming that the market is perfect and will solve our economic problems is a willful denial of reality in favor of theory--and MARKET FUNDAMENTALISM HAS FAILED, TOO.