Tag: Middle-class

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Observations Politics

BLAME GAME

BLAST FURNACE US STEEL 1984 – WRAPPED IN STEEL DOCUMENTARY FILM

I read a post this morning that blamed the decline of a working class neighborhood on the Southeast side of Chicago on “the progressive socialists.”  I have no idea who these “progressive socialists” are, but let’s continue.  These progressives, many of whom appear to be minorities, are somehow responsible, as far back the 1980’s, for the closing of the steel mills by their corporate owners like US Steel, who closed their mill in South Chicago, and started buying steel from China, while investing in Marathon Oil.  All of this, the post claimed, is the fault of immigrants and minorities who feel “entitled” to things not named. “Things” that the writer of the post believes that minorities and immigrants are not entitled to get. Seems like the same kind of rhetoric used in the 2012 elections.

During the recent Presidential election the twisted mantra of entitlement, in some form, was promoted by all the right wing Republican politicians, which means the entire Republican Party.  A party now pretending to try  to figure out why  they lost the election  so badly. Pretending to want to reinvent itself to appeal more to Latino and Asian immigrants (they don’t seem to mention African American citizens very much). They talk  about how they can get their message over to people, sugar coat it, so minorities and others will vote against their own best interests. Republican surrogates talk about having Senator Rubio, the Cuban American Senator from Florida, go out to pitch Hispanics, as if they were some monolithic group who would automatically vote Republican because there was one Latino politician pitching them.

Republicans, including Ronald Reagan, have used the technique of turning working class white people against minorities of all persuasions. First they take away jobs that white working class people have and then blame minorities and immigrants for taking those jobs. Republicans promote racial and ethnic animosity to Americans who are predisposed culturally to this tendency. Republicans have taken over a block of southern states building on the civil rights movement that did away with segregation.  The voting rights act was used to  further anger white southerners who had been suppressing minority voting up to that point. Midwestern and Northern working and middle class whites have been taught to fear minorities.

Democrats may have won the majority of the battles in the current election cycle. But as far as the Republican party is concerned this is just one battle in a war that has been going on for a very long time. For Republicans and their plutocratic puppeteers this is a war of attrition. Plato must have had Republicans in mind when he wrote about a cave where prisoners are chained to a wall so they can only look in one direction,  unknowingly seeing only shadows, cast in front of a fire by puppeteers they cannot see. The prisoners perceive the shadows cast on the wall as reality.

Democrats must organize and prepare for the next election cycle. Credible candidates need to be found to run against tea party and far right leaning  obstructionist politicians in the senate and congress. Democrats should help the President explain the Affordable Heath Care Act and other achievements of Democrats and the administration.  The  Republican propaganda machine is at work every day trying to win over anxious and frustrated Americans in any way possible.  Democrats need to counter this with a campaign that promotes facts and reality to counter the propaganda and lies.

The Republican Party of today is not the party of moderate conservatives it once was.  It seems many of those moderates have become “Blue Dog Democrats” or centrist, conservative Democrats.  Even though the cable news pundits don’t talk about it, the coalition that elected the President for both terms, included a sizable number of middle and working class white voters.  This includes men, women and younger voters. The President and others down ticket could not have been elected without white voters. The press and others by failing to describe the Democratic coalition of voters properly are playing into the hands of the far right who will make it seem that the Democratic party is the fabricated reality of “minority and immigrant progressive socialists.”

by J R Martin

 

Categories
Observations Politics

IT’S NOT “THE ECONOMY STUPID”

Article and Photograph by J R Martin

The “economy” is where it is today because of factors that began in the Bush/Cheney administration over an eight year period causing a budget surplus to turn into a huge deficit, unemployment to rise, and involved the country in two wars. The United States  sank into a major financial depression triggered by banking industry malfeasance. In 2012 the economy is slowly healing despite the unyielding efforts of the Republican Party far right radicals, Neo-Cons and others to obstruct any policy that would help the country heal faster.

President Obama has succeeded despite this adversarial, partisan climate to not only avoid a long term depression in the US, but to also create over four million jobs, save the US auto industry, reduce unemployment and end one of the wars. His landmark achievement, a progressive bill to reform healthcare, has been totally misrepresented by the far right and then used against him.

Opponents of the Affordable Health Care Act and other accomplishments of President Obama have adhered to the propaganda axiom that recommends taking someone’s strengths and turning them against them. In recent months the radical right, the Romney campaign, Fox Fake News and Republican politicians have even tried to take the elimination of Osama Bin Laden under Presidents watch and turn it against him using alleged leaks about the mission afterward.

The attack on the President is amplified by “framing” positive accomplishments in a negative light. Of course this makes it difficult for the person being attacked to showcase his administrations accomplishments. Every trick in the book has been used to destroy not only the economy but the President himself with countless personal attacks, overt and “dog whistle” racism, not to mention demeaning rhetoric never used against a President of the United States.  The President is essentially a moderate Democrat but his adversaries try to “frame” him as “socialist” who is somehow foreign. Everyone knows the President was born in the US but the Republicans support “birther” nonsense to spin the Presidents credibility in a negative way.

Is the economy as bad as it’s made out to be?  Is the “economy” the only standard by which we judge the success of our democracy? Should we take to heart all the predictions of gloom and doom put out by economists who all have different theories of what is needed and what should be done “to turn the economy around?  The “economy” is turned around and making slow by steady progress against the head winds of partisan obstructionism. We don’t have a “do nothing congress,” we have “do nothing Republicans” stopping congress from doing anything. Now we have a presidential candidate who’s only plan is to go “back to the future” and repeat what didn’t work before? A candidate who is getting advice from Dick Cheney!

As far as the barrage of negative predictions and reporting by media pundits and bombastic radio personalities there is a self-serving tendency to stay negative in order to prove themselves right. Even when there is positive news it is spun or framed to favor their point-of-view. For example, when a “Jobs Report” comes out stating the fact that say, 250,000 new jobs were created, it is reported as ONLY 250,000 jobs were created. It could also have been reported as ” 250,000 new jobs were created, continuing the trend of new job creation each month for the past 24 months.” There is very little original thinking in the media industry. A new development reported in the New York Times, ends up being reported or misreported by Broadcast, Radio and Cable shows. The negative spin on all economic and political news is like a virus that has reached epidemic proportions.

We live in an era of instant gratification. We want everything to happen now. We are told that what took eight years to destroy should take a year or two to recreate. Progress is being intentionally held back by forces who don’t give a damn about the economy. billionaires are set for life, why would they care if the economy is bad while they achieve goals that have to do with ideology, power and control? Goals that in the long term will make them even richer.

Using all sorts of fear tactics the billionaires backing Romney have convinced a large number of people that the government is their enemy except when the billionaires candidates are in power. But the actual reality is that in every State where the Republicans gained control in 2010 they have enacted laws in which their state governments restrict the rights of citizens in many areas including the right to vote, women’s health issues and the rights of working people, especially in the public sector. They campaigned on creating jobs. In fact they have eliminated jobs, refused federal stimulus money and hampered commerce in their own states.

This upcoming Presidential election is not about the economy it is about whether the United States will remain a democracy of and by the people, with majority rule deciding issues. It’s about the middle-class surviving and flourishing or being reduced to working for minimum wages.

We voted for President Obama because the Bush/Cheney polices that favored the very rich were hurting the country. Bush/Cheney wars and tax cuts ruined the economy. Cheney’s “crony capitalism” (connections with Haliburton and the oil industry) gave billions of dollars away in government contracts which often didn’t deliver the goods as ordered.

Now we have Romney the  “vulture capitalist” who is too arrogant to release his tax returns running on a Bush/Cheney platform. In the words of Romney’s wife, “…you got all you need to know,” this after one year worth of taxes were partially released.  But it’s more than arrogance, Romney is quite possibly hiding the fact that he’s a billionaire. It’s likely that he has stretched he limits of ethical financial behavior and the tax laws. That the tax returns for certain years may well prove he has been lying about his involvement in Bain Capital from 1999 to 2002.

Moderate and Independent Americans of all persuasions have only one choice.  Give the current administration four more years and a clear majority in the house and senate. The economy will continue to improve. Employment will increase. The deficit will be reduced. College graduates will find jobs again. Teachers, firefighters, policemen and public sector workers will be able to do their work again. The war in Afghanistan will end. Our troops will come home. There will  not be another war like Iraq started in Iran. Veterans will get the kind of aid they need in all areas.  Social Security will not be destroyed. Medicare will not be turned into a voucher program. Students will not be dropped from their parents healthcare policies.

This country and working middle-class  does better when Democrats have control of the government. FDR brought the country out of a major depression, created jobs, and enacted Social Security. Under the Clinton Administration a surplus was created — there was no deficit until Bush/Cheney. President Obama has been systemically obstructed in his efforts to create jobs and move the economy by Republicans. Since 2010 the Republicans have had control of the House of Representative and have done nothing but obstruct progress. Republicans in lockstep have voted to repeal the Affordable Health Care act thirty-one times but have not created one stimulus bill for the economy.

The choice is clear move the country forward, save the American way of life or let the ultra conservative billionaires create a country with only two classes, the super rich and the poor.