Ignorance is not bliss it is dangerous! It is not the dumb asses who listen to the likes of Rush Limbaugh or watch the Fox disinformation factory that frustrate me. The percentage of people who are that stupid is small but constant. What I find so frustrating is a much larger percentage of ignorant people. The ignorance Jay Leno reveals when he Jay walks is not an aberration. MSNBC revealed a similar ignorance when they asked randomly selected people to name the Speaker of the House of Representatives. A very large percentage of the people asked could not answer that question. They had absolutely no idea who John Boehner is. The thing is that people get so caught up in their daily struggles that they fail to recognize many of the factors that are making those daily struggles more difficult. It took a great depression to make an earlier generation understand how much the government or lack of government impacts our daily lives. When this earlier generation finally figured it out, they re-elected Franklin Roosevelt three times.
The elections of 2008 made me think that people were finally paying attention. That was foolish on my part. The truth is that they did not have a clue. They gave the Democratic Party a resounding victory because they quite correctly blamed the party in power for the economic meltdown. Their reaction, however, was emotional rather than cerebral. When the economy did not turn around quickly enough the voters punished the Democratic Party without giving any thought to the fact that the Republican Party was using the filibuster to prevent the Democrats from doing any more to stimulate the economy. In doing so the voters gave the obstructionists still more power by giving them control of the House of Representative. As a result of this foolishness we now have the budget battles, the cutting of badly needed government services, and a continuation of the policy of enriching the rich at the expense of everyone else. If we have not already reached that point, we are quickly moving toward an oligopoly, meaning a society where all of the wealth and power is concentrated into a very few hands.
A budget deficit by definition is caused when revenue does not equal spending. The Republicans want you to believe that the deficit is caused by spending only. They want you to believe this because if you look at revenues you will want to do away with tax loopholes that allow major corporations to avoid paying any taxes, and you will insist on the rich paying a fair share of the taxes. You will also understand that it is the creation of the oligopoly that is the root cause of our economic problems. So how do we make independent voters understand this? How do we make them pay enough attention to look at the facts?
In their opposition to health care reform the tea party grabbed the attention of the independent voters by telling the big lies, disrupting meetings, and demonstrating. But you do not have to lie in order to be dramatic enough to draw attention. The people demonstrating against the reactionary Republican Governors who are attacking collective bargaining are doing a fine job of getting the attention of the independent voters in those states. The time to raise the debt ceiling in order to keep this country from defaulting on its debts and sending the world’s economy into a tailspin is fast approaching. The Republican Party already used the budget to try to dismantle Planned Parenthood and gut the Environmental Protection agency. The Republicans also used the budget to attack many vital government services. They will undoubtedly use raising the debt ceiling to renew those attacks. Their attacks are outrageous and potentially disastrous. Women’s groups and environmental groups should be demonstrating for all they are worth. They should be screaming, “Liars and Shame!” President Obama should also be screaming Shame! He should castigate the enrichment of the rich schemes in the strongest possible terms.
We must take this battle into the streets! We must shake the independent voters out of their slumber and show them what the Republican Party is doing to them! The Republican agenda will cost jobs, and it will place a disproportionate burden on the most vulnerable members of our society, the old, the ill, and the unemployed.
No comments:
Post a Comment