The Chicago Freedom Forum is presenting a new award for individuals who have advanced the cause of "progressive" policies:
The Jimmy Carter Prize for the Advancement of Douchebagery.
This week's winner is Robert Reich, a member of Obama's economic transition team. In regards to the jobs that the stimulus plan will supposedly generate, Mr. Reich stated:
"I am concerned, as I’m sure many of you are, that these jobs not simply go to high-skilled people who are already professionals or to white male construction workers…I have nothing against white male construction workers, I’m just saying there are other people who have needs as well.”
I don't know where to begin, because Mr. Reich's statement reflects so many tenants of racist-marxist douchebagery.
To begin with, if you are going to spend billions of tax payer money on infrastructure projects it's essential to have the most skilled and experienced workers. To use anything but the best candidate, for whatever ideological reason, raises costs and lowers quality.
This represents the redistributive impulse in many "progressives." Rather than simply seek to redistribute jobs to "protected classes," Mr. Reich could have focused on expanding the skills and productivity of impoverished individuals and communities through construction training programs. Of course the track record of such programs is largely unproven, but at least it would have demonstrated the understanding that prosperity occurs through raising productivity and social capital, rather than having the state redistribute wealth to the less productive.
More than anything Mr. Reich displays the single minded obsession on race that many "progressives" possess. Viewing individuals and workers according to their merits and needs is beyond Mr. Reich's race-ist worldview. A "race-ist" individual doesn't necessarily hate people of particular ethnic groups; rather they simply view all individuals and social phenomena through the lens of race.
Race-ists are the opposite of economists; they ignore the mountains of evidence that economic factors like a worker's education, skill level and work ethic are the prime determinants of economic outcomes, instead believing that race is the grand factor. Paradoxically the commitment of race-ists to diversity leaves them totally incapable of viewing African-Americans and other "protected classes" as unique individuals.
For this and much more we proudly bestow the Jimmy Carter Prize for the Advancement of Douchebagery to Mr. Reich. The prize includes a one way plane ticket to Chavez's Venezuela and a collection of Noam Chomsky's writings.
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