What A Difference A Few Decades Make

“The test of our progress is not whether we add to the abundance of those who have much. It is whether we provide enough to those who have little.” - Franklin D. Roosevelt

Sometimes I wonder what has happened to us as a nation. How have we allowed greed and selfishness to thrive and flourish so rampantly in our society? How can anyone take these so-called leaders seriously when on the one hand they continue to provide the corporate class and the wealthy with tax-cuts and on the other they tell the other classes that they are costing the country too much money? Can someone explain to me how the last time we faced similar economic conditions and the country was suffering so much pain that we created safety nets and today we are demolishing safety nets? How could we in the midst of a catastrophe find the resources and courage to provide for our countrymen but today we can provide for oil companies, wars, and corporate subsidies yet nothing for education, the unemployed or medical care?

I wonder what has fundamentally changed in our national psyche that we can now look at our fellow citizens suffering and have the ability to not only walk right by them but also curse them as we do so. The problem is not that we don’t have enough resources. It comes down to our priorities and what things do we value. Shortly there will be debates concerning our national priorities and what resources we are willing to allocate to them. There will be a lot of posturing and demagoguery concerning entitlements. Entitlements have become the new scapegoat for all that is wrong in America. Programs that have allowed seniors to live longer and more fulfilling lives will now be cut to shorten those lives. Obviously, it has been working too well and we have to cull the herd according to the wing-nuts. Death panels? Pulling the plug on grandma? How is this possible that even programs that have been successful are now being cast as failures? Sound familiar?

It is simple they have to cast these programs as failures so they can cut and eventually demolish them. The wing-nuts are realizing that the socialism tact is losing steam and so they have to develop a new strategy and with the help of the Democrats they will. If you continue to reduce revenues or shift revenues to corporate subsidies and war then of course the deficits are going to go up and spending cuts are going to seem like a necessary evil. The problem with this theory is that it flies in the face of reality and in the face of the majority of Americans who do not support these draconian cuts being proposed by the wing-nuts and the teabaggers. The majority of Americans do not support reducing the deficit on the backs of the poor and the elderly. The majority of Americans want to see the taxes of the wealthy increased not reduced and yet here we are. In America it is never about lack of, it is always about priorities.

We have gone from the poor and the elderly having problems to saying they are the problem. You see this is one of the things governments do, they support the weak and the old. So by saying that the government is the problem you are by extension saying these folks are the problem and to me that is a problem. The continued and strategic assault on unions, the middle-class, the elderly, and the poor is beginning to pay dividends, but for whom? If the majority of Americans support these items and yet the politicians are continuing to press their eradication then somewhere there is a disconnect. The will of the people is being circumvented by the interests of the moneyed few.

If our politicians aren’t willing to listen to us then we must “take our government back”, but not in the false sense of the teabaggers and their desire to return to 1776 when only white male property owners had rights. No, we must return to a “government of the people, by the people, and for the people”. Decades ago in the midst of a worse economic crisis our leaders used that opportunity to tell the American people the truth that many of our economic woes were due to the greed of unchecked capitalism and laid the foundation of many of the programs that ushered in the middle-class and dignity for our seniors. Wow, what a difference a few decades can make. Now our political leaders are telling us that the problem is no longer unchecked greed and capitalism it is the victims of unchecked greed and capitalism. Yeah, that’s it. This is akin to saying that prior to Nader’s crusade against unsafe cars that what caused the needless traffic fatalities wasn’t that automakers were designing and building unsafe cars, it was that drivers were buying and driving the unsafe cars.

When the “great debate” begins about cutting this and cutting that I hope we remember what made us a great nation. It wasn’t our huge military, it wasn’t our giveaways to corporate America, and it certainly wasn’t the unchecked greed of capitalism. What made us a great nation was our willingness to provide for the least of these and to provide an opportunity for all to succeed. These policies allowed a child from a family of 12 children living in a 2 bedroom house to attend college and grow up to be the Speaker of the House. It’s funny how these same folks who have benefited from these policies once they gain power want to pull up the ladder behind them. I will never understand the arrogance of these people.

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. - Dwight D. Eisenhower

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He Will Be Tested

When Vice-President elect Joe Biden first broached the subject of President-elect Barack Obama being tested in the first few days or months in office by rogue elements in the nefarious underworld of terrorist states and “Axis of Evil” residents the McCain campaign and the RNC couldn’t wait to tout it as some sort of backside endorsement of McCain and his experience. My belief is that while there could be those who may rattle sabers to get a reaction from the new President, the reaction from the world has been one of refreshing good-will even from those elements who were considered unapproachable by the Bush administration. The truth is that President Obama will be tested in the early days of his administration, but it won’t come from those predicted by Biden.

The new President will and already is being tested not by external terrorist, but by internal dissent from the losing Party. Since the election what few Party leaders the Republicans have left have been on a non-stop effort to diminish and tarnish the election of President Obama. The marginalization of President Obama has begun. I guess it isn’t enough to disenfranchise and marginalize millions of American voters since that strategy has failed their next line of attack is to marginalize the election itself. I can understand trying to find a silver lining in the clouds but this is ridiculous. According to these home grown rogues the American electorate did not sign on for any wholesale changes in how the government does business. The fact that they have lost millions of voters obviously has escaped their attention. Another minor detail they have failed to notice was that this election was more than a referendum of George W. Bush; it was a repudiation of the Republican brand. The country has turned the page, but the Republicans have not. They want to continue the same practices that caused them to lose Virginia, Ohio, and North Carolina.

Rather than rolling up their sleeves and joining with the rest of us in seeking out what we can do to help this nation, they have already begun to dictate to the next President what he will and won’t be able to do. In the same breathe they talk about bi-partisanship and obstructionism as if this is what the American public voted for. I don’t think so. The choice is simple: lead, follow, or get out of the way. Stagnation and hindering are not opinions in today’s America. The quickest way to ensure that the Republican Party will become a fringe Party is to continue this false narrative of what this election signified. I thought it was just a campaign tactic but now I am convinced that they truly believe that if they say something enough it is either true or will become true. I hope that the Republicans do try to obstruct the new policies and legislation of the President-elect and the Democrats. With the country in free-fall I want to see how they spin doing little or nothing to help middle-class America after offering up 700 billion to the banks and CEO’s. I can’t wait to see how that socialism argument flies with 10% unemployment and millions of foreclosures. Maybe they can talk about abortions or same-sex marriage that ought to help comfort those suffering during this depression.

The true test of the relevancy of the Republican Party will be in their response to the crisis and their willingness to support efforts to fix it. Now, more so than at any time in recent memory President-elect Obama has a bully pulpit, he has mobilized millions of Americans to believe in and expect change. I would not want to be a Republican slowing down any relief for those suffering the most from this crisis. My guess is that they really don’t get it and despite their “Country First” rhetoric they would allow the country to suffer if they thought it would allow them to return to power sooner. We shall witness first hand if the Republicans really are willing to put demagoguery aside for the greater good of their countrymen and if they don’t they will remain adrift in the wilderness of American politics. If they underestimate the political savvy of Obama or the desire for change as they did in the election they will pay dearly. They will create a generation of Democrats that will insure the Democrats majority status for years to come.

The President-elect’s first test will not be from the “Axis of Evil”, but from the “Excesses of Evil”. I guess it isn’t enough to be the authors of the biggest economic meltdown since the Depression through negligence, greed, and tax-cuts for the wealthy, now we want to compound the problem through obstructionist’s tactics. Please Mr. Boehner and Mr. McConnell do try to block the much needed relief for middle-America; let’s see how that works out for you in 2010. The long-term future of your Party is at stake, I hope you don’t misread the public on this one it will cost you big time. This isn’t the 90’s we are now in uncharted waters with grave dangers for all. I hope you choose wisely.

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They Just Don’t Get It

“In record numbers, Americans voted on Tuesday for a skillful presidential nominee promising change, but "change" should not be confused with a license to raise taxes, drive up wasteful government spending, weaken our security, or give more power to Washington, Big Labor bosses and the trial bar. Americans did not vote for higher taxes to fund a redistribution of wealth; drastic cuts in funding for our troops; the end of secret ballots for workers participating in union elections; more costly obstacles to American energy production; or the imposition of government-run health care on employers and working families.”[1] – John Boehner

Did this guy see the same campaign and election that I saw? In the campaign that I saw President-elect Barack Obama laid out in no uncertain terms what his agenda was and what he wanted to accomplish. There were no hidden innuendos or code words; he stated as a matter of fact what he felt the government’s role was and how he planned to implement that role. And despite Mr. Boehner’s claims to the contrary, the majority of the American public voted to accept this candidate and his agenda. We have seen for the last two election cycles the electorate’s repudiation of the Republican ideas and their tactics and yet they continue to believe that nothing has changed. Many of them feel that the reason they lost was because they weren’t right of center enough. If this continues this Party will be replaced by another one and they will become strictly a regional and rural Party.

My belief is that the Republicans in the Congress are going to become obstructionists as they were during the 90’s. They are exposing to the American people that they are devoid of original thought and so rather than propose they merely condemn. In the current political climate I don’t think the people are going to be responsive to that type of politics. I just hope the Democrats do not respond to this election as they did after the 2006 election with fear and trepidation. If the Republicans goal is to remain adrift in the wilderness then this is the way to do it. Mr. Boehner wrote of Republican ideas to solve the economic crisis but from what I and many of my fellow citizens heard trickledown economics is not going to sell. I think the majority of people are tired of being trickled on, I know I am.

Maybe I am crazy but I thought if you ran on a platform and you won by an impressive margin then you get to enact that platform. Mr. Boehner obviously feels that the margin of victory wasn’t convincing enough. What he refuses to see is not necessarily in the raw numbers of how many, but in who voted for whom. The Republicans may have won the cultural debate but they have lost the intellectual debate. Many of the so-called Reagan Democrats and moderate Republicans voted for President-elect Obama. He won in the 100,000 income group, the 200,000 income group, and with the suburban voters. I have never agreed with the Reagan Democrat lie, those voters are just socially conscious Republicans. If it were not for the die-hard Southerners who many as we know voted on issues besides competence in this election, the rout would have been unprecedented.

President-elect Obama was able to forge a new majority that resembles more of how America resembles. The country is changing and someone forgot to tell the Republicans. President-elect Obama won the Latino vote, the advanced degree vote, and the urban vote. America is becoming darker, smarter, and more urbane and the cultural warfare argument has lost its appeal among these voters. What the Republicans don’t realize is that there are more “other” Americans than there are “real” Americans and that base is shrinking all the time. It’s funny how the Republican apologists have settled on two causes for their defeat and they are the economic downturn and Governor Sarah Palin. I disagree on both counts. While an impending depression does have a tendency to hurt the incumbent party I don’t think that the downturn in and of itself caused the campaign melt-down of Senator McCain. Many point to his small lead in September that vanished with the news of the melt-down. This idea completely ignores two very important facts. The first is that the policies of the Republicans led to this debacle. It wasn’t like this was the result of some unpredictable calamities. The second is that it ignores the response of Senator McCain to the crisis. As far as Governor Palin is concerned granted she was a Hail-Mary but let’s face it McCain was going to lose anyway. This was not the election for two pasty old white dudes to win. That was not what the country was looking for.

So it is my hope that Republicans continue to live in their alternative reality of phony outrage and crisis’s while we continue to offer the new America “a change they can believe in”. I use to think these people were bad people but that is not the case. They just don’t get it and I am not sure they ever will.

[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/06/AR2008110602568.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

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