Tag Archives: Mitt Romney

The Deficiency of Empathy in Conservatives

March 17, 2013

Many liberals and gay rights advocates are celebrating Senator Rob Portman’s reversal on same-sex marriages. Many are also pointing out how this reversal was motivated by an empathy that appears to only extend no further than immediate family members. It was the revelation that his son was gay that encouraged the Republican congressman from Ohio to reevaluate his view of gay rights and decide not to support any federal law that prohibits gay couples from receiving the same federal benefits that heterosexual married couples enjoy. Here are but two of those reactions:

“While I would like to say that it makes me happy to have the first Republican senator come out in support of marriage equality, I am having a difficult time getting past the whole “I need this EXACT situation to affect me PERSONALLY before I can do anything” mentality that seems to persist in the halls of Congress.” Kenneth Walsh from the HuffPo blog

“I’m glad that Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio has reconsidered his view on gay marriage upon realization that his son is gay, but I also find this particular window into moderation—memorably dubbed Miss America conservatism by Mark Schmitt—to be the most annoying form.” Matthew Yglesias at Slate.com

Though Portman’s turn around on this issue is quite dramatic since he was one of the original backers of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in the 1990s, it is still noteworthy that this change in attitude would likely have never been forthcoming had his son remained in the closet. Kudos to the son who understood that his coming out could be a national embarrassment to his father and yes, some applause should be extended to the dad for not trying to conceal it to benefit his political career.

But I’m on the side with the critics here. Empathy is something that conservative Republicans appear to have very little of until it impacts some of their own. There are those of course who appear to lack any at all. There was Newt Gingrich’s hypocrisy towards Clinton sexual misconduct while the former speaker himself was boning another woman before serving divorce papers to his second wife – while she was hospitalized. Most recently there was Mitt Romney’s 47% soul-less comment about those who had fallen on hard economic times as a result of financial malfeasance in the investment banking sector, declaring them as moochers and takers because they supported someone who provided relief for them when they lost their jobs and homes.

Many top officials in the Bush administration, including the president himself, VP Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld – none of who saw active combat duty – supported the shock and awe campaign that killed tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children in the government’s assault on Iraq back in 2003 and ultimately the death of 4488 American military personnel. Rumsfeld’s cavalier attitude toward most of the civilian deaths was typical of the neo-conservative mentality that wrote off such tragic loss of human life as mere “collateral damage”.

Compassionate Conservatives?

CONFESSION AND MEA CULPA

All of this has taken me back to a time when I myself was anti-gay, even as I professed liberal ideas. I also considered myself to be a somewhat devout Christian at the time but I didn’t want scripture alone to be the basis of my opposition to same-sex unions. I was intent on pressing the compassion of Christ however if I was going to pass judgment on others who appeared to violate “the word of God’.

I came to reason then that homosexuality was indeed a distortion of that natural state men and women developed from. Rather than cite scripture I attempted to appeal to the intellect by insisting that homosexuality violated the laws of nature. How could we be designed for anything else other than being drawn to opposite sex partners out of the life-serving need to procreate and sustain the species? Did not the male and females anatomies alone validate this?

It was important to me too that homosexuals were not to be demonized but merely were the unfortunate recipients of a gene mutation that led to same-sex propensities. But as I expounded on this notion it drew into question the perfection of God’s creation that we have been led to believe is there. If homosexuality was more than mere choice; a choice that eschews God, then why would people who were raised with this belief suffer the torment they developed overtime that drove them toward gender like partners rather than opposites?

I could have easily rejected such a rational response and declared, as many fundamentalist do, that Satan was trying to deceive me. But my journey to understanding my faith had already convinced me that a God of love and mercy could not also create his or her evil opposite.

The deeper I dug into my faith origins the more I discovered that much of the dogma we’re taught as children and the fear of hell we’re raised with should we “stray”, had little basis outside the conventional wisdom of a time when people still thought the earth was flat and was the center of the universe. Once I concluded that many fundamentals of my religious teachings were wrong or metaphorical at best, it was not such a great leap to conclude my adversity towards homosexuals had no raison d’etre except for the fear-based attitudes of many of my elders and peers.

Inherent in my decision to change, as mentioned above, was the need to express compassion or empathy for those who suffer from want or hatred of others. Raised in the Catholic church I had fully incorporated the core principles behind our faith being love and mercy. How could we be so cruel to blacks back then and still call ourselves Christians? How could we treat women as second class citizens and still not share the mindset of Jesus who saved the whore from stoning and rebuked the Pharisees who admonished the woman who washed his feet in Luke 7:38?

If God was, is and always will be, how could it be that such things were seen as they were but no longer are now? Were we wrong then or are we wrong now? In view of the evidence we now possess about our universe and human equality, the logical conclusion one would have to draw is that we had it wrong then.

To admit that our previous and preconceived ideas about many things we held so tightly to are now wrong and should thus be revised to fit the reality, to me, takes real courage. The fact that Senator Portman has made this change about gay marriages in light of the evidence he has been willing to accept with his own son is exemplary … but courageous?

I have not always been courageous when I should have been. I have been guilty of trying to reconcile my lack of courage with some feeble rationale that excuses such weakness. I have been able to forgive myself to some degree however because of those times when I have shown some courage in the face of adversity. One of those times came when I finally admitted openly to many gay people I had looked down on that my views about them were wrong.

SHARED HUMANITY; NOT RELIGIOUS CONVICTIONS

It didn’t take the revelation about 4 years later that my own daughter was gay for me to develop empathy for homosexuals. It simply required that seed of compassion planted, oddly enough, by the same church people who taught me to condemn those different from me.

Why the one stuck with me more than the other can only be attributed, in my opinion, to the legitimacy of what is morally right. Love and mercy that hones our empathy for others carries the moral high ground and for people who wait until something personal happens to them or theirs means needless suffering continues for millions of others who share similar deprivations.

Many conservatives will raise the objection about their lack of compassion by pointing out their charitable giving through their churches or private giving. That’s a whole other issue we could debate but let this response suffice to answer that objection. So what?

Liberals give equally in these areas and yet still all of this charity combined is insufficient to meet the human deprivations that exist not only in our country but around the world. Where some might ask as Cain did “Am I my brother’s keeper”?, a liberal is more likely than a conservative to answer yes to that question. That’s part of what distinguishes the two. Besides, treating people as equals costs nothing in monetary terms.

It’s time that the moral high ground showed itself more naturally within the ranks of conservatives instead of those arguments they diligently make to avoid it. A good place to start is to change the right-wing narrative within the GOP that persecutes anyone who raises the issue of income disparity. It’s real and it’s not a choice people make. It’s unnatural and needs to be confronted courageously.

Will Republicans Commit Harikiri for the 1%?

November 14, 2012

“The Republican party is going to fall on its sword to defend a bunch of millionaires, half of whom voted Democratic and half of whom live in Hollywood?” – Bill Kristol, editor of the conservative Weekly Standard

Is the “fiscal cliff” that everyone is raising a scream about really the doomsday issue they say it is? We’re told that unless the Executive and Legislative branches of the federal government do not work together to hammer out a sane approach to the deficit, there will be hell to pay if the Budget Control Act of 2011 is allowed to go into effect at the end of this year. There’s something to hate in this legislation for both sides.

Among the laws set to change at midnight on December 31, 2012, are the end of last year’s temporary payroll tax cuts (resulting in a 2% tax increase for workers), the end of certain tax breaks for businesses, shifts in the alternative minimum tax that would take a larger bite, the end of the tax cuts from 2001-2003, and the beginning of taxes related to President Obama’s health care law. At the same time, the spending cuts agreed upon as part of the debt ceiling deal of 2011 will begin to go into effect. According to Barron’s, over 1,000 government programs – including the defense budget and Medicare are in line for “deep, automatic cuts.” SOURCE

Depending on who you listen to however, the failure to work out a sensible approach that hurts the fewest people may or may not throw the economy back into a recession. So who are the “sides” disputing what will and won’t happen? As usual the devil’s in the details and fear-mongering abounds. When such chaos is expressed I always rely on those economists who not only favor the middle-income working families but tend to have a good track record in their estimations.

The other side is often defensive for the wealthiest amongst us; assuring us as they have for decades now that trickle down economics will be our salvation. Trickle-down is the economic brain-child of the Reagan administration; one that has failed miserably in lieu of low taxes and fewer regulations over the last 30 years. Never mind that the so-called job creators at the top of the income pyramid have shown little willingness to create jobs with their great wealth. Their incomes have sky-rocketed while production - with fewer workers – has kept pace with their increased wealth. The notion that lower taxes allows entrepreneurs and high income earners to stick it back into the economy and thus create jobs just hasn’t held up under the light of scrutiny.

One observer has astutely noted that “the rich create bubbles, not jobs.”

This graph shows the true magnitude of the failure of the “jobs creators”: bubble job formation, no growth in the labor force, and a 20.352 million gap in September 2012 between the employed and those who would work if work was available. Add in the poor quality of the jobs being created and the increased number of involuntary part-time workers, and we have fail upon fail upon fail. It is Orwellian that after a decade of trillion-dollar tax cuts and bailouts of the rich, and a steadily worsening jobs and employment picture for American workers, we are told to be kind to the rich and give them even more money because they are the “jobs creators”. With job creators like these, we are better off without them. SOURCE

These are the same people who resided in that bubble that cost them the election last week. They believe this fantasy as they did the one that said their presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, was a shoe-in and that the GOP would regain the Senate, even with the likes of rape-friendly Todd Akin in Missouri and Richard Mourdock in Indiana.

So based just on this limited information I’m thinking I’m going to go with those experts who seem to see things more clearly. Let’s start with a nobel laureate for Economics.

In a recent column of his, Paul Krugman reminds us that the deficit hawks “have been wrong about everything so far.”

Recent events have also demonstrated clearly what was already apparent to careful observers: the deficit-scold movement was never really about the deficit. Instead, it was about using deficit fears to shred the social safety net. And letting that happen wouldn’t just be bad policy; it would be a betrayal of the Americans who just re-elected a health-reformer president and voted in some of the most progressive senators ever. SOURCE

Last week there was this from Dean Baker at the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

The political leadership, including the Washington press corps and punditry, were already intently ignoring the economic downturn that is still wreaking havoc on the lives of tens of millions of people across the country. Now, in the wake of the destruction from Hurricane Sandy, they will intensify their efforts to ignore global warming. After all, they want the country to focus on the debt – an issue that no one other than the elites views as a problem.

The reality, of course, is straightforward. The large deficits of recent years are due to the economic downturn caused by the collapse of the housing bubble. If the economy were back near its pre-recession level of unemployment, then the deficits would be close to 1% of GDP, a level that could be sustained indefinitely.

But the deficit scare-mongers are not interested in numbers and economics; they want to gut key government programs – most importantly, social security and Medicare. That is why they are pushing the fear stories about the debt and deficit. This is the rationale for the Campaign to “Fix” the Debt, a collection of 80 CEOs ostensibly focused on getting the budget in order.

And finally there is this from Michael Hoexter, a policy analyst and marketing consultant on green issues, climate change, clean and renewable energy, and energy efficiency.

Whatever one’s personal tastes and predilections are in government programs and the role of government overall, the net effect in dollar terms of reducing the spending of government, in the context of the current Lesser Depression is to stall and eventually shrink the economy. Because of a mountain of private sector debt and overvalued assets like real estate in which people are now under water, the only source of renewed spending on goods and services, the engine of economic growth, is government spending. (emphasis mine)

The current ubiquity of austerity advocates and the accompanying rise in fashionable gold-bugism are part of a nostalgia for a past that never was, a fantasy of the solidity and fixity of monetary value. The increased attraction to the primitive idea that economic value is located in the currency itself, rather than generated and maintained by a dynamic real economy with a flexible currency managed by government, [like the U.S.], is a sign of a retreat from confidence in the private economy’s growth potential and in much-maligned government’s leadership role in managing and supporting that economy. SOURCE

What appears to be going on here is that the head-in-the-sand crowd, who refuse to recognize that their ideas are no longer the Holy Grail they’ve touted for years, are equally unable to read the writing on the wall – TAKE YOUR VOODOO ECONOMICS AND STICK IT WHERE THE SUN DON’T SHINE.

If they’re going to commit economic suicide we need to make sure they are not taking us all down with them. They may get their clutches on even greater wealth in the short run but in so doing they risk depriving the vast majority of people to live with integrity, absent the fear from basic needs, which can only create high levels of social chaos.

I think the voters made their views quite clear to both Parties. Obama was elected because he was the more sane of the two but there was no mandate here to continue business as usual promoted by both centrist neo-liberals and conservatives. The policies that saw the greatest rise in the middle-class following WWII are slowing disappearing through the diligent machination efforts of the plutocracy who have taken over our democratic institutions.

It is important that each and every one of us who said NO to people like the Koch brothers and Sheldon Adelson, said NO to the undemocratic thrust behind Citizens United, said NO to repressive voter ID laws, said NO to dehumanizing women on abortion rights, said NO to holding the economy hostage for a few of the privileged wealthy, … that we continue to stand up for policies that recreate the level playing field that once made this nation the most powerful economic force on the planet.

The post-WWII generation were part of a middle-out economy that not only increased individual wealth but had the vision to address those problems that threatened society then, like racism and poverty. We need to muster that same will and vision to ensure that our short-sighted energy policy that relies too heavily on fossil fuels is corrected with clean, renewable energy sources to meet the demands of the 21st century … lest the industrial waste and the dirty energy that generates it chokes the life from our planet.

Just a reminder. It isn’t over with just your vote

Elites Demanding Austerity Also Ignored Housing Bubble

Corporations Calling To ‘Fix The Debt’ Want $134 Billion In Tax Breaks

The Grand Bargain is a Grand Lie

Posted by lbwoodgate in Budget Crisis Tags: Budget Control Act of 2011, fiscal cliff, fiscal cliff a ruse, gutting safety net programs, Mitt Romney, Paul Krugman, republicans and 1%, Simpson-Bowles

9 comments

Will the Following People Take a Bow For the Election Outcomes

November 7, 2012

Just a few words of gratitude to a few people you may never have thought had a hand in making the recent victories in this 2012 election possible.

Thank You Todd Akin of Missouri and Richard Mourdock of Indiana for allowing the Democrats to take away your Senate opportunities. By exposing your neanderthal views of women the Democrats have held onto the Majority in the upper house.

Thank You FOX News for scaring everyone so bad with fantastical bullshit that even the people who voted for Obama in 2008 but were thinking about sitting this one out felt they needed to give the President one more chance.

Thanks to the Koch brothers, Sheldon Adelson and the 30 other billionaires that gave so generously to their billionaire candidate. We now know that money really is no object to you and therefore feel no guilt for supporting a decision to eliminate the Bush tax cuts for your income class.

Thanks to the CEOs for Murray Energy, Koch Industries, ASG Software and Westgate Resorts that put pressure on their employees to vote for Mitt Romney. Threatening workers like this always brings out the best in people who don’t like to be told what to do. I can only imagine how many more people who were not thinking of voting changed their mind when they got wind of this plutocratic threat.

To those elderly voters in Florida that voted their personal pocket books rather than support the majority of elder citizens who rely on Social Security and Medicare to survive, THANK GOD you were a small minority. At this time we are still waiting for Florida to swing into the president’s camp but if it doesn’t by only a small margin, then you know who you are.

Victims of Superstorm Sandy wait in line to apply for recovery assistance at a FEMA processing center Friday on New York’s Coney Island. The agency has been praised for its response to the storm.

And finally, on a more serious note, a special thanks to those people on the East coast who lost their homes, along with days and weeks of downtime from their jobs but still managed to take time to make their voice heard in support of someone who knows how effective the power of government (FEMA) can be in such tragic circumstances. Thank you too for those volunteers that went out of their way to accommodate those voters by using any and every means they had at their disposal to insure the will of the people was not silenced by an angry lady named Sandy.

Without the efforts of people like these we might all be looking at the next 4 years where the plutocrats in this country gain even greater hold of the political power than they currently do. The defeats of many in the GOP have stymied this drive for the time being, but the battle still continues because the assaults will never stop.

Get involved. It’s your future.

I would now encourage each and everyone who had a direct hand in bringing this victory about to NOT stop here. The workings of democracy do not stop at the ballot box. The president himself has fallen short on many critical issues like climate change, closing GITMO and addressing the easy access to assault weapons that are part of the American mass suicide tragedies we have all been affected by, just to name a few. Change in these and other areas are more likely to occur on the local and state level. The character of politics is really unchanged in Washington, so it will require boots-on-the ground efforts in your communities to show the national leaders what it is the people really want, not the corporate, financial interests on Wall Street.

Get involved. You are neither too old or too young to make things happen. All any of us really lacks to make change happen where it is needed is simply the will to do so. That doesn’t come from being wealthy or well-bred. It comes from within. It’s free and it’s there as a part of your makeup. Look at it as you will – an innate natural ability or a gift from your creator – but don’t think only others possess it. The others who do make an impact in this world have discovered this gift; not those who refuse to see it.

Posted by lbwoodgate in 2012 Presidential Elections, People Tags: 2012 election victories, citizen involvement, factors for Obama victory, Koch family, Koch Industries, Mitt Romney, Obama re-elected, Richard Mourdock, Sheldon Adelson, Westgate Resorts

23 comments

The Prevarication Model On Climate Change In the Romney Camp

November 2, 2012

“The best things carried to excess are wrong” - Winston Churchill

According to a statement made by Mitt Romney’s campaign press secretary, Andrea Saul back in July of last year.

“Gov. Romney does not think greenhouse gases are pollutants within the meaning of the Clean Air Act, and he does not believe that the EPA should be regulating them … CO2 is a naturally occurring gas. Humans emit it every time they exhale.” (emphasis mine) SOURCE

Andrea is correct. CO2 is indeed a naturally occurring gas that humans emit every time they exhale. As a walk away statement you simply want to shrug your shoulders though and say, “Okay?” However, what Andrea was primarily doing here in the larger context was giving Big Oil and Big Coal a wink, letting them know that Romney would remain in their back pocket. On a lower level she was assuring those climate-denying conservatives, who were still undecided at the time if Mitt was their man or not, that he too is climate-science challenged.

But what’s even more deceptive about this statement is the suggestion underlying it that CO2 is nothing to be concerned about. It’s natural and it’s been here since Adam and beyond. This is reflective of the half-truths that climate deniers are good at spitting out and that poorly informed people are good at swallowing, as if it were a whole truth.

If there is no need to worry about CO2 then we clearly don’t need trees, flowers, wild grasses and other flora that take this toxic CO2 and regurgitate it into healthy oxygen necessary for all life on this tiny blue dot.

Remember how all of this was explained to us in grade school?

As long as there are the natural (or “God-given” if you prefer) capabilities to convert this seemingly harmless CO2 into a more life friendly molecule, there is no reason to be concerned.

But let me add something to the knowledge base here for those who may have thought Ms. Saul was a gifted thinker. When you extract CO2 from beneath the surface where it is an inert substance – which essentially means that it has little or no ability to react with our biosphere – then you offset the natural balance whereby our planet can exchange CO2 at a rate that still allows us to have adequate oxygen to breathe and process life. Let me make this even simpler for those whose heads are fixing to explode if all of this is beginning to shine a light into your cave.

Put a plastic bag over your head and see how pleasant the CO2 your emitting is compared to the O2 you have now deprived your lungs of. Uncomfortable isn’t it? What’s happening ought to be clear because it happens at such a rapid rate. But this is exactly what is happening to the planet we live on; just at a slower rate that keeps you from noticing it – UNTIL IT’S TOO LATE. While you were busy buying those material creature comforts that require vast amounts of fossil fuel energy to make, your ability to survive was and continues to be, slowly squeezed off.

When we destroy millions of acres of forest to put up a new mall or housing development we are changing the balance nature has provided us to exchange CO2 for O2. Remember also that we lose millions of trees from wild fires which will be growing and spreading quicker over the coming years. Combine this along with all of the CO2 we extract lying out of harms way far below the Earth’s surface as fossil fuels and impose it upon the natural balance that allowed life to develop as we know it, then we dramatically alter the means to provide sufficient food sources, drinking water and healthy air that every living species on this planet requires to sustain itself.

So get one of those life’s Ms. Saul and all of you that thought she and others who parrot this half-truth knew what they were talking about. Join the majority of people who believe man-made global warming that impacts climate change is nothing to mock, like RMoney Romney did at the Republican National Convention just a few short months ago.

I wonder if those people laughing at Romney’s shallowness in this video are laughing now at those people on the East coast that have recently suffered immense property damage and the death of a loved one from one of the worst natural disasters in our history? A natural disaster that was made worse from higher than natural levels of CO2 in the atmosphere that has resulted from burning oil, coal and natural gas. This imbalance has warmed the planet at unnatural rates and in so doing has rapidly enhanced ice melts in Greenland and the Arctic that elevated sea levels along the East coast and generated warmer ocean waters to make Sandy the ‘Frankenstorm” it became.

Will Romney and those who follow him realize too late that by helping us and our families requires something more than knowing how to invest other people’s capital and making yourself rich? Jobs will be the least of our children’s worries as they try to deal with water and food shortages and the inundation of climate change refugees.

Science Denial and Andrea Saul -Romney 2012 Campaign Spokesperson

Posted by lbwoodgate in Climate Science/Global Warming Tags: Clean Air Act, Climate change, climate deniers, climate skeptics, Fossil fuel, frankenstorms, hurricane sandy, increasing natural disasters, man-made global warming, Mitt Romney

14 comments

What’s In a Name?

October 26, 2012

The depressing state of the current political campaign has been so egregious that even I can’t weigh in much longer. However that doesn’t mean we can’t have a little fun with this silly season. In the vein of the bible decoding scams I started playing around with the letters of the presidential and VP candidates’ last names to see if there was anything striking that could be divined from them. I know. Get a job right? If only.

Anyway, I was a little surprised that with the limited choices I had at how well the words I could create seem to reveal prophetic traits of the candidates.

The only rule I made for myself was that I had to use ALL of the letters of their last name to form real words.

So starting with the VP candidates here’s what I came up with

BIDEN – In Bed Politically speaking, when you are in bed with someone you are supportive and aligned with their ideas and policies. OMG! Does this speak directly to Biden or what? As Obama’s Vice-president Biden has been nothing but a loyal advocate for the POTUS.

RYAN – Now this one is really prophetic. Who is Paul Ryan’s role model? AYN Rand

Romney = R Money (Republican money). Need I say anything more other than what this 1984 photo of Romney’s Bain Capital group conveys? (Take my word for it. Those really are conservative greenbacks coming out of their orifices)

Obama – A Moab. We all laughed at the Tea Party-types when they chided Obama supporters for treating him like the anointed one but check out this revelation.

Moab was the illegitimate offspring of Lot’s daughter who became pregnant by having sex with her father after she and her sister got him drunk. Ironically, Moab was the patriarch of the line that eventually gave us King David and ultimately Jesus himself. One can only conclude, with the logic of Orly Taitz, that the messiah has returned.

“Whoa! It’s Really Him”

Posted by lbwoodgate in Humor Tags: Ayn Rand, Barack Obama, bible decoding, campaign 2012 political humor, fun with names, Joe Biden, Mitt Romney, Moab, Obama, Orly Taitz, Paul Ryan, Republican

10 comments

What a Difference Four Years Makes

October 23, 2012

The presentations by the candidates in last night’s presidential debate should have removed any doubt who has the foreign policy strengths. Obama made distinctions that Romney could only agree with.

In 2008 Barack Obama’s critics said that he was an “empty suit” compared to John McCain on foreign policy. Though it was an ugly assessment it had great merit at the time. Obama ‘s national political experience was fairly nascent in 2008 and his foreign policy savvy was almost non-existent. Had the country not been so determined to shuck the failures and abuses of the Bush administration, which by default fell on any GOP candidate for President, this foreign policy weakness could have lost it for Obama.

Fast forward to last night’s foreign policy debate with Mitt Romney and you see a Barack Obama who has mastered not only the language of a foreign policy expert but who has a broad and in-depth understanding of the matrix that is critical in setting policy here and abroad to sustain a position of leadership in global affairs. Gone was the “empty suit” that many accused him of being in 2008. Yet when Mitt Romney clearly displayed a similar weakness last night, as he has this entire campaign, supporters raved how well he displayed a “leadership” image.

Style, not substance, all of a sudden became a ringing endorsement for the crowd that always liked to point out how the GOP had the foreign policy creds. And it was this approach that apparently seemed to be the card that the Romney campaign wanted to play based on the political spin put out by his operatives following the debate. During the debate many conservative commentators were lamenting Romney’s performance.

David Limbaugh asked on Twitter, “Why do these advisers tell Mitt not to go for the jugular? Why? Laura Ingraham was essentially doing the same – Romney using kid gloves ag[ain] — WHY?!” The ever vivacious S.E. Cupp thought that “Obama is making laughable, easily argued points. But Romney’s not effectively arguing them.” I find it presumptuous for anyone to say there is any “jugular” there. Even Romney’s attacks on Libya are falling apart.

Afterwards conservative pundits were trying to portray Romney as “restrained” while painting Obama as agitated and overly aggressive. Some of us thought we saw the reverse of a Presidential debate #1 and yet conservatives now view the candidates differently. Looking presidential was more important than attacking your opponents weaknesses.

Try as he did to come off as a poised leader, Mitt Romney was often flustered in how to respond to foreign policy details posed by President Obama

Comments were similar by Romney supporters who went to the blogs to present their views on who they thought won. It was an obvious defense for a man who had now become the empty suit of the campaign. His ideas were neither fresh nor pertinent. His cold-war state-of-mind seemed to think an Iran with nuclear weapons was our greatest national security threat (something they are years away from by the way) yet who had told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer back in March this year that Russia was “without question our number one geopolitical foe” On this, Obama had perhaps one of the best one-liners of the night. “The 1980s called, they want their foreign policy back.”

What was clear about the Romney strategy last night was that since he was a light-weight compared to the President on foreign policy, his goal became, which many say he achieved, not to get entangled in details he has no knowledge about. His one strength was to try to connect a weak economy with a weak foreign policy effort. But the President was ready for him on this issue to. Obama pointed out how Romney leans towards sending troops back into Iraq and appears too eager in suggesting that boots on the ground may be required in Syria and Iran. “After a decade of war, I think we all agree, we need to do some nation-building here at home,” the President told the audience in his closing statement.

Tying Romney to a cold war, militaristic approach nullified, I thought, any attempt on Romney’s part to assure many voters, especially women, that he would not be quick to send our sons and daughters back into harms way. This point could have been driven home more vividly had Obama pointed out that the members of Romney’s foreign policy team are essentially the same who helped define the “preemptive strike” doctrine of the Bush/Cheney era.

[On] July 12, Governor Mitt Romney [was] attending a GOP fundraiser hosted by former Vice President Dick Cheney at his home in Wyoming. It’s fitting, really, since Romney has called Cheney a “person of wisdom and judgment.”

[When Romney was considering] possible running mates, it’s worth remembering that he pointed to Dick Cheney as the “kind of person I’d like to have” working with him.

Out of Romney’s 24 special advisors on foreign policy, 17 served in the Bush-Cheney administration. If Romney were to win, it’s likely that many of these people would serve in his administration in some capacity — a frightening prospect given the legacy of this particular group. The last time they were in government, it was disastrous. SOURCE

Perhaps Romney’s performance last night did present itself to many as a calm leader who would not cave under the stress of global conflicts. This is indeed a quality that exudes leadership. But knowledge and decisive action speak louder than appearances. Obama has demonstrated this capability, along with a cool-headed demeanor, and was convincing as commander-in-chief in last nights debate. Once Romney opened his mouth it became apparent that he was more concerned about having his feelings hurt by Obama while coming across as agreeing more with the President than as someone who has any bold new approach for addressing crises around the world.

If it were appearances we were going for instead of knowledge and certainty then this image of Romney would be appropriate

Horses and bayonets’ is the hot new meme

Posted by lbwoodgate in 2012 Presidential Elections Tags: Barack Obama, conservative commentators, Dick Cheney, empty suit, John McCain, Mitt Romney, presidential debate #3, romney's foreign policy team, Romney's foreign policy weakness

12 comments

Why I Still Support Barack Obama

October 17, 2012

My comments below were documented about 6 hours before last night’s 2nd Presidential debate took place and have not been altered as a result of anything either candidate conveyed during the debate.

I have issues with Barack Obama. Many of us on the Left do. But in the heat of a tight campaign race I am not going to attack my choice for President and thus help someone who I feel will do greater harm to our economy and the future of our planet. I wish there was this pure ideal of a candidate out there that many people thinks exists, but there isn’t and we all need to get past that.

We have a two-party system that doesn’t always give us the candidates we want but it does allow our participation and it falls on more than simply voting for whoever wins the ticket to create a government that was the envy of the world when it was inaugurated back in 1789. I realize the Roberts court with its Citizens United decision has made it more difficult by allowing larger amounts of money into politics to influence voters. For at least the last 150 years, the plutocracy in this country, with the aid of the courts in some cases, have diminished the original concept of a government for and by the people of this land. But the system does still work if we put more than a faint effort behind it. So until it doesn’t, I’ll do all that I can to prevent people like Mitt Romney from making choices that can hurt me and almost every other American.

Mitt Romney will double down on the Reagan/Bush policies of trickle down economics and kill what gains we have made since January 2009. His uncertainty about whether or not the climate science is sufficient is a joke in light of the abundant data available to him and presented by a significant consensus of climate scientists. The guy makes a rash call on what took place the night the Libyan embassy was attacked before the intelligence is even conveyed to the commander-in-chief, yet somehow he doesn’t have the capability to assess the legitimacy of man-made global warming? Only a fool would subscribe to such a weak notion and I do not want to waste my vote on a fool.

There’s a certain amount of noise being made by those who have bought in too easily the imagery that has been created by the religious right, the Tea Party, FOX News commentators, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter and right-wing blogs like Breitbart and The Drudge Report who want to portray the president as un-American, a Muslim jihadist sympathizer, a socialist/communist/fascist, and yes, even a racist. They’ve regurgitated this nonsense so long that they have bought into it so completely, now accepting it as unquestionable and can’t understand why anyone would consider voting for the man.

Here then, not laid out necessarily in any hierarchical fashion, are the reasons I will vote for Barack Obama instead of the Republican option.

1. He has a broader constituency he considers when making public policy compared to Romney’s narrower concerns for the wealthiest 1%. He doesn’t belittle and give up on people he feels certain won’t vote for him.

2. He gets it about “man-made global warming” and though he hasn’t moved fast enough to act on what he knows, he will not be the immovable object Mitt Romney will be on this.

3. He understands that reducing taxes and cutting public sector jobs deprives the U.S. treasury of revenue for paying down our national debt and that free market principles alone will not create the job growth we need at this time.

4. He is more willing to promote clean, renewable energy as a part of an energy and jobs policy to become oil independent rather than Romney, who wants to open up more dangerous exploration for oil in offshore deepwater and under arctic ice.

5. He has shown that he is serious about reducing health care costs in this country where the Republicans have NEVER made any serious effort at this. Who wants to vote for a candidate like Romney who supports repealing the one piece of health care legislation that has at least made a dent in one of the highest expenses consumers have to deal with today?

6. He has a better feel for what poverty is really like, growing up around it and at times having lived on its threshold, making something of himself despite the absence of traditional parents. Many growing up under these conditions and feeling alienated as a mixed-race child might have given into drug addiction and a life of crime. Instead, the man has fulfilled the American dream and created a stable family life that serves as a role model for others.

7. He supports the free-enterprise system but also understands that it is subject to human weaknesses, requiring sufficient government oversight to protect those who would suffer abuses from greedy corporate interests.

8. He shares my view that values tradition yet understands that the Constitution is a living document and subject to the interpretations of the ever changing social dynamics as opposed to the rigid concept of “original intent” that claims to know what the framers over 200 hundred years ago thought would be best for the general welfare of this nation today.

9. He’s more willing to sustain a lot of what belongs to the public commons rather than turning it all over to the for-profit private sector.

10. He’s shown greater concern and support for public education while Romney and the GOP work with wealthy special interests to privatize education.

11. He fulfilled the spirit of compromise more than the GOP who refused to work for the common good and allowed itself to be hi-jacked by a radical element that voted NO on everything that didn’t meet their strict and narrow criteria.

12. I feel safer that he is less likely to send our military troops into harms way and doesn’t alienate other cultures and nations with an obnoxious level of American exceptionalism.

13. He doesn’t show the disdain and indifference for science that too many in the GOP do.

14. He thinks women should make equal pay for equal work.

15. He thinks the American worker deserves a minimum wage

16. He too thinks it is dishonest and selfish for people of great wealth to hide their fair share of taxes in off-shore and overseas accounts while voting against a livable wage for the rest of us.

17. His tax rate is more comparable to mine than Romney’s 13% and has shown ample evidence of this in releasing years of tax records to Romney’s one and half.

18. He hasn’t threatened to restrict civil rights in the form of banning gays in the military, creating a constitutional amendment opposing same-sex marriage and insisting women‘s bodies be invaded to support extremist pro-life views.

19. He supports a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians where Romney sees “no hope” for this.

20. With four of the nine members of the Supreme Court over 70 years old, the next occupant of the White House could have the opportunity to appoint one or more new justices. Don’t want Romney adding more Scalias and Thomas’. Think what would happen to Roe v. Wade

As I mentioned earlier, there’s a lot of money out there in politics and this invariably opens the door for corruption and influence peddling. When you look at both campaigns however one thing sticks out with the Romney campaign – they’re getting much more larger individual donations. In August, the average donation was $58 for the Obama camp. Ninety-eight percent of donations were $250 or less. Romney’s campaign has not been that forthcoming on what their average donation is but it is clearly higher than Obama’s . What little I did find on Romney’s was in this AP report where representatives said “about 94 percent of its donations came from people who gave $250 or less.”

You get a better idea how much more each donor is giving when you look at state and local coffers. In San Antonio the average contribution to the Democrat’s campaign was $135 while Romney was pulling in an average of $681 per donation and in New Jersey Obama’s average was $149, compared with an average of $802 for Romney. Opensecrets.org also shows Romney’s top contributors are outpacing Obama’s. Even more glaring is how many billionaires have lined up in the Romney camp.

What also repulses me about electing a Republican as President or even for dog catcher is their brazen attempts to eliminate qualified voters by pushing voter ID laws. Voter fraud is a fear mongering tactic used by those on the right and most of them know that the threat of in-person voter fraud is wildly exaggerated.

So I am voting for Barack Obama even though my vote won’t carry much weight in Texas where the GOP is sure to walk away with all the electoral college votes. There are caveats to my reasons and imperfections that can be pointed out. But they are insufficient to make me think that Romney would be the better choice. Should Obama be successful in gaining a second term then I will spend as much energy challenging his decisions I object to, like continuing the practice of torture, privacy right violations and his deadly use of drones. Issues that few Republicans would find fault with.

As president I understand that he may feel the need to continue such practices, seeing the world from a vantage point the common man or woman can’t. But if we have learned anything from the Bush White House’s reason for taking us to war in Iraq, it is that we shouldn’t hesitate to challenge the Executive branch’s claims that rationalize calls to war or human rights violations. Actions to defend any national security interests should be based on the highest legal & moral standards, not the influences of wealthy, powerful self-interests.

Posted by lbwoodgate in 2012 Presidential Elections Tags: American plutocracy, Barack Obama, corporate influence in politics, ending social security as we know it, equal pay for equal work, legalize same sex marriage, Mitt Romney, Republicans, Romney, Romney and the wealthiest 1%, universal health care, voting for Obama, vouchers for Medicare

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Obama to Romney: “Those 12 million Jobs you’re claiming will happen without you.”

October 11, 2012

The title of my essay suggests that the President himself has informed Mitt Romney that he is on to his little deception but I am in fact writing vicariously for the President in the hopes that he takes this baton and effectively carries it to not only his next debate with his GOP opponent but for the remainder of the campaign as he travels through swing states talking to voters.

Voters need to make sure that Romney isn’t employing some legerdemain when he debates the president

Following the first presidential debates in Denver, GOP candidate Mitt Romney put a spotlight on himself that continues to reveal how he is misleading the American voter, not only in his claims about his own abilities but in how he is misrepresenting President Obama’s job creating policies.

Mitt Romney has made the economy the centerpiece of his campaign and has tried to make a case that not only has the President’s policies not worked but that they will make things worse if he remains in office. Romney has also assured us that if he is elected he will use his business skills to bring jobs back and reduce the deficit without raising taxes. In order for voters to buy into this they will have allow themselves to be mesmerized by the trickery Romney and his VP choice, Paul Ryan, will be performing for the remainder of this election year.

Ignore that man behind the curtain

If the President’s policies were not working and were in fact making things worse, then we wouldn’t be seeing the opposite of what we were experiencing during George Bush’s last year.

[O]ur economy and financial markets went into a tailspin in the second half of 2008 due to the consequences of conservative economic policies aggressively implemented by the Bush administration.

Compare this to the economic situation today:

The U.S. economy has added jobs for 31 consecutive months

The economy has been growing since June 2009

Manufacturing has been on the upswing

Corporate profits have risen sharply

The stock market has added healthy gains

Foreclosures are finally falling

Household wealth is continuing to expand

Instead of a second Great Depression, the actions of President Barack Obama’s administration resulted in our economy exiting what became known as the Great Recession of 2007–2009 within the first six months of his term. - SOURCE

Watch, as I create jobs out of thin air!

“See, nothing up my sleeves”

Mitt Romney claims, “If I’m president, I will help create 12 million new jobs in this country with rising incomes.” Really? Romney says he can achieve what only Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton have and will do it in 4 years rather than the course of two terms Clinton and Reagan needed to achieve this.

That’s pretty bold stuff. Romney has always viewed himself as something of a hero riding in to save the day. His successes at Bain Capital, passing Universal Health Care in Massachusetts (Romney-care) and the 2002 Winter Olympics may make this a justifiable view of himself. But his achievements with these were perhaps more a factor of his fiduciary skills. The claim that he will help create 12 million jobs is more a sleight of hand move that involves something he hasn’t had a hand in and which has essentially already been set in motion without any Romney heroics.

12 million new jobs will occur with or without Romney, according to several reports by Moody Analytics, the economic firm IHS Global Insight as well as the CBO’s own analysis. Strange that this is forecasted and Mr. Romney has yet to step foot in the Oval office. Romney’s imaginary part in this only comes about if he wins in November and finds himself in place when this all materializes. Voila! His promise of creating 12 million jobs comes true. But it comes true not for actions he took but for merely showing up.

These analyses likely do not take into account an Obama loss that allows the GOP to repeal Obamacare along with their failure to address the debt ceiling issue that could well push the economy over the “fiscal cliff”. Then that 12 million figure would likely drop dramatically according to the CBO’s analysis. Hundreds of thousands of jobs could be lost in the first two years alone if Romney implements most of his draconian budget cuts.

What this job creation projection does is to debunk the claims made by Romney and the GOP that Obama’s actions have not improved the economic quagmire he inherited. Though factors are in play here that no single person can take credit for, it becomes clear that if unemployment is reduced to the projected 6-7% figure by the fourth quarter of 2016, it will have done so by actions Obama has taken that have been anything but hurtful.

“ … GDP grew by 1.7 percent in 2011, producing nearly 1.6 million jobs. This is net of nearly 300,000 jobs lost in the public sector, thereby reflecting a private sector that is experiencing sustained, if not vigorous, growth.

A stronger above-trend economic recovery is not expected until 2014, after which several years of healthy growth are forecast. Thus, in the mid- to long-term, real estate markets should experience full recovery. This recovery should also lead to new supply ..

While a modest improvement from 2011, the coming year is forecast to experience continued gradual recovery, with anticipated job creation of about 140,000 per month. Longer-term, growth should accelerate. The previous employment peak should be achieved in 2014, and the unemployment rate should fall below 7 percent in 2016.” SOURCE (emphasis mine)

Obama and the Democrats have less than four weeks to convince voters who were impressed with Governor Romney’s performance following the first debate that there exuberance is based largely on distortions and lies. Unless they can convince enough people that the change they think they will get by returning the power back to the GOP is simply more of the same policies that created the great recession in the first place, this country will devolve into an economic morass that will take at least a decade to recover from. The writing is already on the wall as we watch conservative austerity programs dragging Europe down as it prevents a faster resurgence of our own economy.

And now for a side show

Watch the Daily Beast’s video of Hankeygate showing Romney employing a little prestidigitation that could violate the debate rules forbidding the use of any props, notes, charts, diagrams or other writings

Hankeygate

Romney Has No Real Jobs Plan

Posted by lbwoodgate in Social Discourse Tags: Barack Obama, fact checking romney's claims, GOP, Mitt Romney, Obama, political tricks, presidential debates, Republicans, Romney's job creation plan, romney/ryan magical mystery tour, slight of hand figures, voodoo economics

8 comments

Saturday Humor

October 6, 2012

Are Homeless People Happy Living in Cardboard Boxes?

Ann Romney has gone on-line and asked wiki.answers a question that’s always been a puzzle to her. Having never had to worry about her financial security, Ann’s question seems concerned about why homeless people make the choices they do regarding their living conditions.

Okay that’s not true. I was just playing the game they play at FOX News by putting something out there to create misinformation for people who usually don’t keep up with politics. By the time most of you would have realized that this was contrived, at least 50% would have taken it seriously and retained it within their memory at some level until the day they die.

But someone actually has asked the following question

“Why do homeless people choose to live in cardboard boxes?”

First you have to be naive to think that this was a realistic choice. You’d also have to believe that being homeless was a choice I suppose.

But in the vein of this charade passing as a serious inquiry, let’s see what the top ten equally inane answers might be.

10. Cardboard doesn’t cling to you like plastic and remains in place better than newspapers

9. The homeless can more easily pick their neighborhood

8. Many homeless people are in tune with “going green” and participate in this by recycling old appliance boxes.

7. They no longer have an automobile

6. Being rent free and no maintenance, it meets their income levels

5. Once decorated with personal belongings it shows the general public that they are trying to improve their lot in life

4. There’s not enough trash dumpsters to meet demand

3. More amenable for expansion if they want to add a wing to their “residence”.

2. Today’s housing market shortage dictates that they find cheaper accommodations.

and the number 1 reason - The discriminating homeless person sees cardboard boxes as a status symbol over street curbs and under bridges

Rumor has it that Gretchen Carlson was the person behind this question.

Just kidding again.

Shocker! Mitt Prefers Big Bird to the Count

I was astounded to discover that of all the characters on Sesame Street that Mitt Romney would say that he loved, it was Big Bird. At least that’s what he told Jim Lehrer the other night at the first Presidential debates in Denver

Who da thunk.

I would have bet my last dollar that Count von Count would have been Romney’s preference

“$1 million in my Cayman Offshore Account, $2 million in my Cayman Offshore Account, $3 million in my Cayman Offshore Account … Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah ah”

Posted by lbwoodgate in Humor, Satire Tags: Ann Romney, Big Bird, Cardboard box, Count von Count, Fox & Friends, Gretchen Carlson, homeless people, Homelessness, Jim Lehrer, Mitt Romney, rich vs. poor, Sesame Street

9 comments

Decreasing the Surplus Population

October 1, 2012

I feel like I’m in something of a Dickens Twilight Zone. Are we all being transported back to a time in human history when debtors prisons and workhouses for the poor were the norm in dealing with those lower income levels Mitt Romney has deemed the 47% not worthy of his concern?

There is often the blind assumption that the poor are always responsible for their plight

We’re all familiar with that part of the Charles Dickens’ classic, A Christmas Carol, where Ebenezer Scrooge is approached by two gentlemen gathering donations during the Christmas holiday to help provide “some slight provision for the poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time”. Scrooge frowns and shakes his head at the two men as they entreat him to donate. He tells the men to leave him alone after assuring them that such ne’er-do-wells can best be assisted by the prisons, workhouses, treadmills and poor laws that were still in place then.

I don’t make merry myself at Christmas and I can’t afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned: they cost enough: and those who are badly off must go there.”

One of the gentlemen replied, “Many can’t go there; and many would rather die.”

“If they would rather die,” said Scrooge, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population. Besides — excuse me — I don’t know that.” SOURCE

That last line about how Scrooge wasn’t even aware that conditions were so bad at those workhouses that “many [of the poor] would rather die” is symptomatic of very wealthy people who often view most poor people, especially those so destitute that they are homeless, as lazy derelicts and what aid they receive is more than they deserve. Some would view them as the secured caste in India, better known perhaps as “the untouchables”.

Those institutions Scrooge mentions were publicly supported. They were the harsh government efforts by which the poor were dealt with in early 19th century England. They are a far cry from what civilized Western societies offer today who treat people much more humanely and provide esteem-building incentives to overcome their poverty. For example:

The Poor Law was the Victorian answer to poverty [that] was enacted in 1834. Prior to passage of the New Poor Law, indigent care was the burden of individual parishes, but the new regulation required parishes to band together and create regional workhouses where the poor could apply for relief. Little more than prisons for the poor, workhouses were notorious for denying civil liberties, separating family members, and destroying human dignity. As a result, most of the poorest people went to great lengths in order to avoid this degrading solution. SOURCE

Though we have become more humane over the last two centuries there are signs that some segments within society would like to “Restore America” to a level and time where such humane assistance was not available. Take for example Mitt Romney’s comments recently in an 60 Minutes Interview with Scott Pelley:

Pelley: Does the government have a responsibility to provide health care to the 50 million Americans who don’t have it today?

Romney: Well, we do provide care for people who don’t have insurance, people– we– if someone has a heart attack, they don’t sit in their apartment and die. We pick them up in an ambulance, and take them to the hospital, and give them care. And different states have different ways of providing for that care.

If I were Pelley I would have followed up this comment and asked Romney, “what about the aftercare these people will need Governor? Many can’t afford it and because of it will surely die”.

The refrain from many of those who will either be voting for Romney or against Obama is “Let ‘em die!” . Of course Romney and others within the GOP hierarchy would not be so brazen to simply say let them die but the policies they support are creating that very condition.

Those politicians who signed Grover Norquist’s No Tax pledge have agreed to shrink government small enough so it can be drowned in a bath tub. This means deep and lasting cuts to social welfare programs that provide “some slight provision for the poor and destitute, who suffer greatly …” Some recent news has revealed that this tactic is having the “Scrooge Effect”.

For generations of Americans, it was a given that children would live longer than their parents. But there is now mounting evidence that this enduring trend has reversed itself for the country’s least-educated whites, an increasingly troubled group whose life expectancy has fallen by four years since 1990.

The reasons for the decline remain unclear, but researchers offered possible explanations, including a spike in prescription drug overdoses among young whites, higher rates of smoking among less educated white women, rising obesity, and a steady increase in the number of the least educated Americans who lack health insurance. SOURCE

The conditions mentioned in this report, that scientist feel may be the causal factors for lower life expectancies for the country’s least-educated whites, are predominant in the South along with two adjoining states – Texas and Oklahoma. This has become a region of the country that routinely votes Republican in large numbers

Red staters love their tobacco and high fructose, fatty foods. A 2006-07 National Surveys on Drug Use and Health showed that those age 12 or older in 6 of the states in this region had a higher rate than the national average of 8.1 percent of people who had used an illicit drug in the last month. That region’s high school graduation rate was a full 8 points below the national average of 74.9%

Based on the latest U.S. Census Bureau estimates, the national average for uninsured people was 18.4 percent in 2010. Half of the states in the South including Texas and Oklahoma had higher rates, with my home state of Texas leading all others at 25% – 1 in 4 Texans have no health care coverage. These rates will likely improve over time thanks in part to that “socialist” legislation Republicans are trying to repeal and derisively call “Obamacare”. The Congressional Budget Office projects that 32 million more people will have insurance by 2019.

What jumps out and grabs me the most in all of this is how this region of the country consistently votes against their own self-interests. In sheer numbers, these states draw in the larger share of public assistance programs than any other region.

In a NY Times article earlier this year, data revealed that “the share of Americans’ income that comes from government benefit programs, like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, more than doubled over the last four decades, rising from 8 percent in 1969 to 18 percent in 2009.” Take a look at the map below to see where the greatest concentration of these needs are located.

The darkest areas are where the highest concentrations of social welfare beneficiaries reside

Click on image to interact

It quickly becomes clear that those areas of the country that routinely vote Republican are most dependent on welfare assistance; benefits that Republican elected officials routinely vote to reduce or eliminate altogether

Voters in this region also elect politicians that favor legislation that enriches corporations while ignoring matters that would reduce the effects of obesity, smoking, drug use and health insurance coverage. Regulations aimed at mollifying the ill effects of poor diets, smoking and pollution are always cited as government overreach by GOP representatives, often ignoring how the consequences of their actions are leading to the advanced death rates of those least-educated whites.

By getting these voters to support legislation and policies that diminishes their chances of survival, the Romneys of our age, the modern day Scrooges, have surreptitiously collaborated in reducing that surplus population who rely on Social Security and Medicaid/Medicare benefits; benefits they are entitled to.

Do the Grover Norquist loyalists think in terms of reducing this population to advance their own income status? Are they really unaware that these low and middle-income people who collect these benefits in most cases are part of that work force that enabled the 1% to acquire their fortunes? Without a labor force that earns a living wage there would be far less demand for the goods and services that businesses rely on to make a profit. Depriving them of the means to enhance their lives and become productive members of society is a short-sighted effort by those who actively seek to eliminate safety net coverage, vital resources for retirees and those who lack adequate health coverage. Such a strategy is bound to come back and bite the Scrooges of the world on the butt and ultimately pick their own pockets.

[T]he United States has experienced an upward redistribution so profound that it affects far more than incomes. Whole sectors of the economy and regions of the country have been decimated by these economic changes. The descent in all manner of social indexes is most apparent among poorly educated whites. Conservative commentator Charles Murray has documented in his new book the decline in marriage rates and family stability within the white working class. … While other Americans’ life expectancy has advanced, the life expectancy of whites without high school diplomas has declined since 1990 — by three years among men and five years among women.

The market is not just redistributing income in the United States, then. It is redistributing life. - Harold Meyerson

The two gentlemen who confronted Scrooge for a charitable donation were not buying into his statement that he was unaware of the deplorable conditions in the workhouses

“But you might know it,” observed the gentleman.

“It’s not my business,” Scrooge returned. “It’s enough for a man to understand his own business, and not to interfere with other people’s. Mine occupies me constantly. Good afternoon, gentlemen!”

It is only later, when confronted with his own mortality that Scrooge concludes that mankind is indeed his business more than he is willing to concede. We also discover that his assets are far greater than he had led us to believe as he gives generously to these two men later as well as to the Cratchits and his own family. What Scrooge learned was that accumulated wealth may indeed be an individual right but it doesn’t permit us to cut ourselves off from the rest of humanity.

Believing that we are independent of each other and that our success is based solely on our own actions is a bogus premise. Believing too that an unfettered free market is the sole answer to our economic survival ignores the lessons of history where human greed will always prevent a fair shake to allow a rising tide to lift all boats.

When the system fails, and it will because mankind has yet to create a singular equitable system, we need to allow those public resources to fill the voids where charities and local efforts alone can’t. No one should plan their life around the charity of others or rely on a public safety net to catch them when the economy falters. Common sense however tells us that inevitably there will be conditions that require some kind of system in place that can address this failure.

But neither should we have to fear that opportunities exists only for the fortunate ones who inherited their wealth or are a member of an advantaged group. The revered notion of an American dream does not mean we will all share equally in the wealth that free markets generate but it should ensure that mechanisms are in place to provide the necessities for good health and security without being an undue burden. Corporate interests must put people, especially their employees on a level plain with their profits. They are not mere objects for venture capitalists like Romney to dispose of in order to maximize their bottom line.

Until we can find a better economic substitute for the free market system, it will fall on the wealthiest amongst us during tough economic times like these to make necessary sacrifices. Not the 47% who Romney wants to ignore. These are usually the people who get squeezed the most, making it even more difficult to sustain a reasonable measure of security and good health. There are no throwaway human surpluses. Only those who are kept down by soul-less people who have contrived a misguided premise that we ” are all on our own.”

Posted by lbwoodgate in 2012 Presidential Elections Tags: 19th century workhouses, Charles Dickens, Christmas Carol, emergency room care, Grover Norquist, Mitt Romney, no tax pledge, poor laws, Scott Pelley, Scrooge, self-serving policies of GOP, the 47%

17 comments