Posted on 10/14/2010 12:18:08 PM PDT by MissesBush
For a guy known to hold some pretty strange views, this might be the most bizarre perspective on welfare policy I have ever seen. Here is Jerry Brown from his Pacifica Radio show in 1995 (full transcript here):
The conventional viewpoint says we need a jobs program and we need to cut welfare. Just the opposite! We need more welfare and fewer jobs. Jobs for every American is doomed to failure because of modern automation and production. We ought to recognize it and create an income-maintenance system so every single American has the dignity and the wherewithal for shelter, basic food, and medical care. I’m talking about welfare for all. Without it, you’re going to have warfare for all. Without a universal health care like every other civilized country, without a minimum level of income, this country will explode. You can’t blame the guy at the bottom forever. At some point there’s a reaction and we’ll see that the real criminals are those calling the tune, making the rules, and walking to the bank. We have the money, we have the brain power. The United States now has the highest measured wealth of any nation ever in the history of the world. We could rebuild our cities, we could create the kind of buying power and community well-being that will provide for peace. The guaranteed income is one way. Another way is to have always the availability of work in a nonprofit, in community service. A third is to start giving people training to develop skills where they can be self-supporting. You could come up with a cash supplement. Even conservatives have suggested a negative income tax to cut out the bureaucracy. If we were smart, we’d get rid of welfare and give people a family assistance like they do in Europe…
The problem isn’t even a problem. Automation and technology would be a great boon if it were creative, if there were more leisure, more opportunity to engage in raising a family, providing guidance to the young, all the stuff we say we need. America will work if we’re all in it together. It’ll work when there’s a shared sense of destiny. It can be done! It’s all there! What isn’t there is the leadership to create the kind of social network, the safety net, the distribution that would truly create a just and equal society…
We have to restore power to the family, to the neighborhood, and the community with a non-market principle, a principle of equality, of charity, of let’s-take-care-of-one-another. That’s the creative challenge. First, expose relentlessly the big lie that comes over the tube every night-that if you just go out and find that job, and work harder, it’ll all be fine. It won’t! There’s not enough work to go around and a lot of the pay is not fair. Unless you totally yank up that system and create a better one, unless the spirit changes, unless the heart opens, unless we confront power with the truth of our own unarmed but absolute fearless truth, we’re not going to overcome it. Evil is too embedded to be overcome by anything other than a spiritual challenge.
So let me see if I can get this straight. Since full employment is a practical impossibility, we should just give up on the idea of job promotion and hand out a minimum income or dole like they do in Europe. This has clearly worked out so well for them.
This way everyone can have more leisure and family time (funemployment!) without any sense of responsibility or guilt over not providing for one’s family. After all, there aren’t enough good-paying jobs to go around anyway.
More welfare and fewer jobs. Let’s call it cuckoo economics.
And this is the guy Democrats have selected to deal with the worst fiscal and economic crisis in the history of California? I mean, seriously??
Brown is a power hungry idiot Marxist/socialist traitor.
moonbeams
This is why it is well worth the time to go fishing around down at the low end of your FM dial to find Pacifica programming. With nutjobs like this it is always just so danged entertaining!!
I can’t believe we could have this fruitcake as our governor again. Whitman doesn’t excite me by any means, but the idea this leftist lunatic could be governor rubber stamping everything that comes from the leftist lunatics in the State Assembly is downright terrifying.
Bump
We need the audio, not just some transcript, otherwise Jerry Brown will insist one of his staffers said it. Trust me. Where is the audio? It has to be out there somewhere — 1995 was not 30 or 40 years ago. Find it, Andrew. Find it.
Unfortunately he would be an appropriate, nutty topping for the stale churro (Mexican confection) that was once the great state of California
Unfortunately he would be an appropriate, nutty topping for the stale churro (Mexican confection) that was once the great state of California.
By all means, let’s hope Freepers don’t make the same mistake in 2008 by either not voting as a lame “protest” against the RINO candidate, or by voting for a candidate that has no chance of winning.
We ended up with disastrous Obama and Obamacare forced down our throats because of this.
In the Calif governor’s election in 2010, Freepers might argue out of principle that they don’t want Whitman because she’s a RINO. BUT WHEN THE CHOICE IS A BULLY/MARXIST IDIOT like MOONBEAM, YOU VOTE FOR THE RINO.
What’s so hard to understand about this?
In his debate with Whitman he had the gall and dishonesty to say the identity of the person who called her a whore could not be determined. This after he was heard to say, in words to this effect, let’s use that. What a liar!
“Jobs for every American is doomed to failure because of modern automation and production.”
Reality needs to land on this fool’s head like a ton of books. Like a few thousand copies of Hazlitt’s “ECONOMICS IN ONE LESSON.”
...well then, Moonbeam should love America circe 2010...
I cant beleive anyone takes this guy seriously, even in Commiefornia.
LOL, well said! I like that. “Stale churro.”
Well other than on immigration, she sounded pretty conservative on economic issues the other night which is THE big issue facing the state. I do like that she’d crack down on employers who’d hire illegals. It’s more than we do now.
The police union believes it was Moonbeam’s wife. The only thing that surprised me about that was I was sure he was gay.
Moonbeam has always been a nutjob. The Tuesday night debate with Whitman was like sane vs. insane, stark contrast between smart reasonable Meg and rambling incoherent stumbling Jer.
If the voters couldn’t see and hear the clear choice there, well, they’re nuts too!!
That was one of the lowest moments in politics I have ever seen. Brown has no integrity, no core; he is a desperate empty container. His lie was transparent for all to see.
Meg smacked him (and Broke-jaw) down with ease.
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