Too Much News

It is difficult to know where to start. The democratic movements in the mid-east have spread like a virus. The most dangerous situation is in Libya, which has rapidly moved from demonstrations to a full and violent revolt. This is far too likely to result in a radical regime. The thing is that nobody can blame the people in Libya or this region for their discontent or the movements that are taking place there. If the movements are like those that toppled the Soviet Union they could be beneficial. This could result in modernization and a better economic relationship for everyone. In this regard what is taking place in America is a very poor example for us to set.

The fact is that the rich in this country have greatly increased their wealth at the expense of everyone else. The income of the rich has increase a hundred fold while the income of the middle class has remained flat. If you are talking about real wages, meaning the amount of goods and services you can purchase with your income, the wages of the middle class have actually dropped considerably. In earlier posts I said that the Republican Party’s enrich the rich schemes that did so much to create the current deficit and helped to create our current recession should result in a political disaster for the Republican Party. As a result of voter apathy and pure stupidity, however, the Republican Party was actually rewarded for blocking the Democratic Party’s efforts to get us out of this Republican recession and for telling the big lies about death panels and just about everything else. Inexplicably, the voters actually gave the Republicans control of the House of Representatives and elected quite a few Republican governors.

Now drunk with power, the Republicans are mounting an all out assault on the social and economic progress this country has enjoyed for many decades. Instead of trying to deal with economic issues, the Republicans are attacking Roe v. Wade and virtually all reproductive health care for women by defunding Planned Parenthood and proposing legislation to prevent private insurance companies from funding abortions regardless of the reason for those abortions. It would be tempting to say that the Republicans are doing this in an effort to distract voters’ attention away from the Republican Party’s attack on the middle class. I think their motive is even more cynical. I think they are pandering to the right wing extremists and are firmly convinced that the majority of the voters are too inattentive or stupid to realize the threat this poses to a woman’s reproductive health.

The Republicans are every bit as arrogant when it comes to the economy. They say it is about jobs, jobs, jobs, but their focus is not on creating jobs. Instead they are trying to convince us that the deficit and the high unemployment are the caused by the same thing. And how do they want to solve the deficit problem? Their answer is to take the money out of the hides of the poor and the middle class by doing away with services and aid that help reduce the suffering caused this Republican recession, and they want do this while increasing the already outrageous incomes of the wealthy and the incomes multi-national corporations that are already raking in record profits. If President Obama is smart he will not let the Republicans define the issues. If they want to shut the government down unless their proposals to reduce the deficit are accepted, he should counter with his own proposals. He should propose eliminating subsidies for oil companies, redefining small businesses so that companies worth billions of dollars, such as the Koch brothers, are not receiving the same tax breaks and subsidies as actual small businesses. He should propose reducing farm subsidies, and cutting more of the waste out of defense spending. He should propose raising revenue by charging a royalty on the oil major oil companies are sucking out of gulf. Let the voters decide who is right and who is irresponsible based upon the alternatives offered.

Not being content to ream the middle class while enriching the rich, the Republican governors have mounted an all out attack in an effort to crush labor unions and eliminate a major source of funding for the Democratic Party. This is a coordinated effort supported by the Koch brothers and other large businesses. I am not comparing the Republicans to Hitler, but their strategy is similar to Hitler’s strategy when he said all he wanted was the Sudetenland. The Republicans are hoping that their attempts to destroy the public employee unions will be seen inconsequential by the voters. The Republicans are hoping that blue-collar workers will not realize this is only the beginning of what will be the destruction of collective bargaining, and what this will mean to those workers. If you do not think this is an effort to destroy all unions just ask yourself why the Koch brothers and other major businesses are behind it. Labor leaders know what is at stake here. It is a life and death struggle between the workers and the greedy plutocrats who want to take us back to a time when they exploited their employees with impunity. It is because of labor unions and collective bargaining that blue-collar workers were able to join the middle class. This is a very high stakes game the Republican Party is playing on behalf of its wealthy masters. If labor leaders are able to make white, male, blue-collar workers realize what is at stake, those workers will abandon the Republican Party in droves.

What the Republican Party is doing is what they are always accusing the Democratic Party of doing. The Republicans are engaging in a very brutal class war. If they want to accuse me of that here is my answer: When you steal my crops and export them then set my house on fire with predatory loans there is no question about whether I am at war. The only question is when will I fight back, and why did I wait until you stole my crops and set my house my house on fire!