Thin Ice?

Rob Christensen has an essay in today's N&O in which he characterizes "insurgent Democrats" in N.C. as "mad as hell," which in his locution does appear to mean "off their rockers": "North Carolina Democrats have survived under Jim Hunt and Mike Easley as a moderate, pro-business party. I think some of the Insurgents don't realize that their party in North Carolina is skating on some exceedingly thin ice."

Shoot! You don't survive as a Democrat in the South without hearing the ice crack. You certainly don't survive as a Democrat in a majority-Republican county in the South without going under the floe a time or two.

But there's "pro-business" and then there's "pro-business." The pro-business mentality that gets our goat intends to make poor people "adjust" to their poverty, intends to make working people work longer, harder, for less money, intends to "wean" Americans off Social Security, intends to run everything for their own benefit and would like to put an end to those buzzing flies of democratic governance that make their form of business a tad more accountable.

We're all whores for something, I reckon. (They used to say in West Texas that Ticky Sue would do it for a button.) If "insurgent" Democrats in N.C. are peeved, it might be from seeing our own Ticky Sues climb into bed with every big-gutted asphalt company and corporate pig farmer. Those guys didn't get where they are today by being overly solicitous of "little people."

There's "pro-business" that likes economies of scale rather than scope, that nurtures entrepreneurship and brilliant innovation, that actually gets turned on by creativity and is embarrassed by blatant displays of greed. Doing what the big bankers always want you to do is "pro-business," we guess, by one definition, but corporations are an artificial lifeform that mimicks us in everything but feeling.

So, ridiculously burdened by the lead weight of differing assumptions, we set out across the lake.