There is something I have noticed recently. In the past, there have been times when people have become concerned that our government is overstepping its bounds or doing things that constrain our civil liberties, and I can recall certain letters to the editor. The letters I am thinking of always seem to occur when Republican/Conservative administrations are in office in Washington. They are letters from concerned citizens who have emigrated here from some harsh and oppressive place. They always say, "why are you complaining-you should be happy with the wonderful society you live in. If you had any idea of the repression and hardship my people had to face, you would realize that your little complaints are mere quibbles." It used to make me feel a little ashamed when I used to read letters like this. I wonder now whether those letters were planted, simply political propaganda.
Because I don't see letters to the editor like that these days. I can understand some of the reasons why people are so upset--the economy is bad right now. But some of the things that people are saying have no grounding in reality. I wonder if people actually believe that we live in a totalitarian country, a fascist society where you have no rights. I don't see this at all. If the political party that you root for in the same way you cheer on your favorite sports team feeds you some nonsense, you need to listen with a healthy scepticism. If you let them get away with misrepresenting and fabricating information, they will continue to do so. People have to have a filter.These days, angry people are jumping at conspiracies as though pundits were throwing powdered donuts at them. It's one thing to disagree politically with someone, but the level of divisiveness and rancor we have right before an important election is disconcerting to me. It goes beyond mere partisanship--it reminds of the childish "I'm taking my ball and going home" mentality of the playground.
So why are we not hearing from that concerned expatriate from Romania, or Serbia, now when people talk like they want to rewrite the Constitution because the wrong party is in power? Surely many of these protestations are a tempest in a tea pot. People wanted government to step up in the last election cycle. They
were tired of a jaded do-nothing government that sad idly while the economy imploded. The country was sick of the secrecy, the non-stop warfare, the cronyism, the arrogance, the indifference, the duplicity, the incompetence. Have we forgotten the nightmares of the Bush administration? Only people who want to forget the past have. It's strange that people are upset suddenly because government started trying to do its job after such a long layoff.
If you listen to the political ads, government spending is creating all the problems in the United States. And to a certain extent it may be true. We did severely hurt our economy by invading Iraq for no good reason by selling Congress and the American public a bill of goods, and spending trillions of dollars that could have been put to far better use. Plus, for the first time in our history there were tax cuts during combat. In order to avoid a national draft we fought the war using a huge amount of mercenaries at many times the cost of paying our troops. In truth, if you didn't have any clout, you had no representation in Washington. Cronyism reached unprecedented levels.
And if people complained, they were branded as traitors. I guess all depends on whose bull is being gored. Bottom line is, despite the sanctimonious declarations of the new fiscally responsible Republicans, they spent us into a deficit, and this recession occurred under the stewardship of the Bush Administration.
This election the Republicans seem to think that they are going to regain control of the Federal Government. Anything is possible. But after our economy crashed, I am pretty surprised that the old mantras are coming out again, the same political adages that they were saying before the crash. Do you really believe that tax cuts are a cure for all things? It seems that with the wealthy in this country, any shared sacrifice is unacceptable. I don't see how tax cuts necessarily create jobs--they might, but maybe they just go in someones bank account. I don't know how some people can still view trickle down economics as a valid argument after all that has happened. If tax cuts are going to create jobs, I want it in writing--tax cuts should not occur because they only might create jobs. It seems to me that tax cuts translate into end-of-year bonuses. A lot of our problems in government appear to be in lost revenue, and if tax cuts go to the poor and middle class, most of that money will be spent and will help get our economy recovering. Tax cuts in these cases need to be conditional, only paired with strong job development incentives.
Believe me, if the Conservatives get in, spending will continue. If you believe the campaign promises again you are naive. The point of difference is how the money will be spent. Its just a matter them wanting to run things again. And their solutions to our economic distress are vague and open ended. And they will ultimately deal with the jobs problem by ignoring it, because as they say, government doesn't create jobs, only businesses do. They will probably at some point start blaming unemployment on the unemployed, demonizing them just like they have demonized America's poor. They will blame them for not accepting jobs that do not provide living wages, and blame them for not being able to compete with third world nations that pay a fraction of what we do in salary with no safety nets. It will be just like when they tried to blame the real estate bubble entirely on the borrowers who were bilked, not the banking experts who advised them. And they will say that these things are beyond the scope of what governments role should be. But if you are a Republican client/donor, the scope of government hypocritically can become quite astronomical.
Maybe we will soon see departments that protect the public will be further diminished. Don't be surprised if essential services are contracted out to private companies at a higher cost, with no oversight. They think that if something is not being done for a profit, there is something wrong, and that should not be the be and end all of government. If Conservatives believe government is inherently bad, why do they want to get elected to public office? It makes you wonder. Conservatives don't want to have government act as an intermediary to help ordinary citizens. Its the same reason why the wealthy hate unions so much.
But things do need to change. Our society is a work in progress, it always will be. We have an administration that is seeking to address real problems, despite the complete opposition of the Republican minority. There is a tendency for these groups to try and categorize this economic catastrophe as a little glitch in an otherwise very healthy economy. Things can just go back to way they were. If you have not been paying any attention, that could be plausible. But I think most people know better. Regulation is necessary--markets are not self-regulating. The growing economic inequities in our society need to be addressed. If companies are too big to fail, something ought to be done about it. I was watching Timothy Geithner on Charley Rose last night, and he said that that under the new financial regulations passed, they could dismember a company if an economic disaster happened again. But that isn't planning, and the government probably wouldn't do it. I still find it hard to believe that people can buy that our problems exist today because government is too big and there is too much regulation. These problems occurred because government dropped the ball and let capitalism run wild, without checks and balances. Government needs to tend to everyone in our society, not just the pay to play cronyism capitalism that seems to be the only short sighted goal behind the rhetoric.
So my idea is, if companies are too big to fail, why not create an economic Superfund in the same way they created an Ecological Superfund, so that when the inevitable deregulated time bomb goes off 8-10 years from now, companies don't have to be bailed out with our tax money. Because that is as Paul Krugmann has said, ersatz Capitalism, i.e. Capitalism in name only. Market competition is supposed to drive an economy, and these groups derive unfair competitive advantage, over and above the advantages of economics of scale. The best thing to do would not have companies that large, but I doubt whether the political will is there. It would be great if we could put the brakes on some unhealthy trends, like concentration of media ownership in too few hands, and the reinstitution of equal time in news coverage. If money can control elections, it certainly can buy news coverage and create phony popular opinions.
Another thing on my wish list regards Keynesian Economics. Conservatives, after 8 years of deficit spending (beginning even before the war on terror), seem to find it amusing that Democrats are once again taxing and spending more than they are taking in. It doesn't seem prudent-after all it isn't practical for individuals to behave this way. But the Obama administration is trying to stimulate the economy so that we can recover from our recession and begin to create growth. This is only a temporary policy--I find it particularly duplicitous for people to claim that this is a permanent policy on government spending. And once this money enters the economy, it is spent and continues cycling through the economy--it is called a multiplier effect. Keynes was not a socialist despite all the rhetoric--he believed in markets. He just didn't believe they were magical, as some politicians and pundits are wont to believe. I don't think that the Obama administration is doing a great job in explaining what they are doing to jump start the ailing economy. In fairness, it is difficult to compete with catch phrases when the real issues are complicated. When people are just saying whatever it takes to get elected without worrying about little details like veracity, it is not a level playing ground.
I think its funny that I keep hearing that our country is incapable of doing so many things these days. They say National Health Care is an impossibility, Global Warming is just to big to tackle. Most developed countries have a National Health plan. The latter problem is simply to big to be ignored, whatever the costs may be. If people start dying enmasse, like the lobster population in Long Island Sound, we will be too late to change things. And these so-called Patriots seem to have given up. If you believe like I do, that we live in a pretty good place, we can take on any problems that we encounter. Mitt Romney believes that we aren't even strong enough to apologize.
But in the America I was raised in, that is just a simple matter of politeness. I can't help but hope that somewhere behind all the outrage and hysteria, there are people who are in general agreement with the
policies of the Obama administration. Despite intractable opposition from the Republican minority, much has been accomplished in two short years. Most of us might wish for more progress, better economic fortunes, but we have memories, and we must understand what the probable consequences would be if the Democrats lost their Congressional majority. And we need to be realistic in our goals, at least in the short term. Bottom line is people need to get out and vote or are going to go back to politics pre-2009. I know a lot of what I'm saying isn't original but it needs to be said. I am probably just one voice destined to be lost in the loud mantra of misinformation and conscienceless vitriol that is hammered into our national consciousness on an hourly basis.
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