Scott Bruun: Let Them Eat Cake

By J. Graber of Portland, Oregon. He is a former journalist and a graduate student in strategic communications at the University of Oregon, Portland campus. Previously, he contributed Running against Peter Defazio, Art Robinson brings the crazy

Oh how I fondly remember all those cold winter days as a child filing into my classroom first thing in the morning, stomping off the snow clinging to the hems of my pants, and turning to the flag with my hand over my heart to faithfully recite:

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of the Rich and Privileged. And to the top 1 percent economic strata for which it stands, one nation under Tony Hayward for profits and tax breaks for special interest groups who can afford to pay someone to represent their interests in the capitol. "

Uhm no, that’s not how I remember it. It does seem to be the pledge Oregon State Representative and would-be congressman Scott Bruun has been reciting for all these years though.

And now, Scott, who represents the 37 Oregon House District, is hoping to take his bit of historically revisionist ideology on the road to Washington by unseating Oregon 5th Congressional District Rep. Kurt Schrader this November.

What? Don’t believe me?

Think I’m twisting or exaggerating the truth?

All one needs to do is listen to Scott’s little speech last February against a bill that would have ensured health care coverage for all Oregonians. Although I can’t convey the snarky inflection in Scott’s voice, it goes a little like this:

Our state simply cannot afford to make health care an inalienable right. And if we did make that an inalienable right, to echo what the representative from southern Oregon said, ‘What’s next? What’s the next inalienable right? Housing? Food? Clothing? Paid maternity leave? Paid vacation leave? Transportation?’

Yes Scott, we fat-cat Oregonians may actually want food in our bellies and a roof over our heads … OK, I’ll meet you half way on this one and agree to live in a field except for when it rains, or drops below 60 degrees.

I mean, these aren’t exactly extravagant requests here.

And every morning I will venture out of … er at least away from … my grassy Shangri la of domestic bliss and head to my job. You know, the kind that hires you despite the fact you are stark naked and can’t actually get to it.

And once there, I will work shoulder to shoulder with women conscientious enough to only birth their children during the lunch break so they can get right back to it when that whistle blows.

Let the wolves raise the children!

And to drive his message home, Scott goes on to quote the insane ramblings of some obviously socialist lunatic, whom he refused to name but had the audacity to claim, “It’s a right if the people say it is a right.”

Perhaps this anonymous crackpot should go back and revisit part of the Gettysburg Address where Abraham scratched out the phrase “government of the people, by the people, for the people” and replaced it with, “ government paid for by the people who don’t actually get anything in return.”

It seems Scott would be more comfortable quoting the likes of Marie Antoinette who, when asked what the starving masses should live on, replied “Let them eat cake!”

Or maybe not, let’s not loose our heads here.

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    Yes, Scott Bruun's economic philosophy is elitist and cold-hearted. Let us hope he is not elected to Congress.

    But, let us also not neglect to mention the same type of philosophy which emanates from the upper echelon of the Democratic Party, i.e., the Obama Administration's recent insulting of the Bolivian ambassador to the United Nations because Bolivia had the temerity to introduce a resolution recognizing potable water and sanitation as being irrevocable human rights. The resolution recognizing these as being rights passed, without support of the U.S.A. and other wealthy countries (the United Kingdom said it did not want to pay for toilets in Africa).

    It's about time for Blue Oregon to continue with its advocacy for progressive candidates but also to call for a challenger to Obama in 2012. Let him go the way of LBJ in 1968. Maybe a progressive could score fairly high in the '12 NH primary- maybe Obama will quit, then.

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      I definitely don't want Obama in 2012 to go the way of LBJ in 1968, because I remember who was elected President that year--Richard M. Nixon. LBJ had his problems, including a blind-spot big enough to hide all of Southeast Asia, but let's not forget the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act, Title IX, Medicare and Medicaid and the Great Society. Incomplete and underfunded? Of course. But our world would look a heck of a lot more like Scott Bruun's wet dream than it does now without them. And that's even after the destruction wrought by President's Reagan through Bush II.

      So, I'll take Obama over anybody the GOP could nominate, any day, any year. And let's not kid ourselves that a primary challenger to the left of Obama could ever (a) win, or (b) win in the general if they did. It may not be ideal, but it's reality and to operate as if it is not is foolish at best and dangerous at worst.

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        Jay Cosnett,

        Yes, let us not forget that LBJ was a great progressive leader on the domestic agenda (heck, even Nixon was a good progressive leader on a lot of major domestic policy). Obama's not. And Obama's foreign policy is more in line with the LBJ/Nixon continuum of carrying on a mistaken occupation.

        Also, just came down the pike that Obama is continuing to burnish his neoliberal cred as he's advocating for U.S. federal funding to train high tech workers for jobs in south Asia (working for U.S. corporations).

        At what point do we say Obama's not worth defending?

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      It's about time for Blue Oregon to continue with its advocacy for progressive candidates but also to call for a challenger to Obama in 2012.

      For the record, BlueOregon doesn't endorse candidates. This has been on our About page since the very first day:

      We expect our contributors to individually motivate our readers to action - but BlueOregon itself won't collectively endorse candidates, stage protests, or even go out for donuts.

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    The reason the "global South" wants the water right spelled out is so that corrupt governments will not privatze water rights, as the neoliberal Sanchez de Lozada of Bolivia did prior to Evo's terms as president, by selling exclusive rights to Bechtel Corp.

    The water wars of Cochabamba of 2000 were the result.

    It got to where it was illegal for residents of Cochabamba to collect rainwater in cisterns!

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    For a party that doesn't believe in biological Darwinism, they sure do believe in Social Darwinism. Survival of the wealthiest, destruction, destitution, and death for the middle class and poor.

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