Look at Southern history: From the War Between the States onward through the 1960s, the South was solid for the Democratic Party. Then, within a few years, it became solid for the Republican Party. What happened to elicit this change? The Democratic Party in the 1960s openly pushed civil rights for blacks, whereas the Republican Party did not. Hence, southerners became Republican in opposition to civil rights for blacks. Pure racism at its best. Today this racist motive is not as openly visible, but it is there all the same. The Republican Party is the vestige of white, old men desperately trying to forestall America’s new demographic future. It and they ultimately will fail, but they will do irreparable harm to America before they do.
The Republican Party seems hell-bent on dismantling the American way of life for the common man / middle class as rapidly as possible. This includes privatizing Medicare / Medicaid so the common man ends up paying a greater and greater share of his elderly health care, busting unions to reduce the power of the common man in getting fair treatment at work, privatizing public education into a charter school system using government vouchers which won’t cover the cost so that getting an education cost more for the common man, ending programs that help the common man send his children to college so that getting a college education becomes harder and harder for the common man, destroying programs that aid primarily the welfare and lower working classes, such as HeadStart and Planned Parenthood, shorting and reducing unemployment benefits for the jobless, ending funding for the arts and music programs, on and on. All the while, the Republicans want to give more and bigger tax breaks and subsidies to corporations, including oil companies raking in billions and billions in profits, and to never raise taxes of the wealthiest millionaires / billionaires, i.e. the elite richest, top 5% of Americans.
I understand why the corporations and the billionaires like the Koch brothers support these Republican plans. However, why does the working / middle class support these plans that ultimately will take the American dream away from their children and grandchildren? It seemingly makes no sense. Until you examine the demographics of the Republican Party: the majority of its members are largely white, above the mean in age and income, i.e. “old white men.” They frequently claim they want to “take back America”, i.e. return to the 1950s when all the power rested in the hands of white men. The Republican Party appeals to white men who long for the good old days when they called all the shots. The reports that within three to four decades whites will become the minority in the U.S. with Hispanics, Blacks, and Asians being able to dominate politics scares these white men to death. They cling to the Republican Party as their only hope to somehow forestall the upcoming loss of control by the white population. The working / middle class supports the Republican Party because consciously or unconsciously they are responding to subtle racism. In some cases, like in Arizona, the racism is overt and heavy-handed.
The Republican Party will probably wither away over the next few decades as Hispanics, Blacks, and Asians take charge of the government. And with it will go the white man’s hope of keeping control of American politics. So, if white hopes are almost certainly doomed, what better than to have placed most of the control of the country’s economy into the hands of corporations and the richest elite, where white men will still dominate. Let the Hispanics, Blacks, and Asians take charge of the government some day. What they will inherit control over will be a third-world America. The white man will have won a Pyrrhic victory of sorts. As I see it, the working / middle class supports the Republican Party’s economy plans through racism and impossible dreams of keeping a white-controlled America forever. Why else do they support a party that is actively seeking to gut the working class?
Showing posts with label Republican Party. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Republican Party. Show all posts
Monday, May 16, 2011
Saturday, May 14, 2011
The Republican Party and the Middle Class
The Republican Party is hell-bent on putting the common man (working people including the shrinking middle class) in as weak and powerless position as it can while vesting more and more power in the hands of corporations and the elite richest class.
The corporation-bought Supreme Court justices repaid the corporations for their largess by voting to treat corporations as individuals (how ludicrous can they be!), which allows corporation to spend unlimited amounts (literally hundreds of millions of dollars) to try to buy elections. This allows the Koch brothers and the variety of conservative front groups such as those Rove funds and directs to buy congressmen and governors, resulting in what we see now in states like Wisconsin, Ohio, Florida, etc. (Why do the Koch brothers and power brokers like Rove hide behind their conservative front groups trying to make it appear their ads and support represent millions of supporters instead of being honest about where the vast majority of the funding actually comes from? Would that make it all too obvious that the elite rich are running the conservative movement for their own benefit, like removing EPA regulation over companies they own to increase their profit in the name of smaller government?)
These Republican–led state governments have declared war on the common man. They want to bust unions, privatize schools in favor of a national for-profit charter school business, sell off prisons to private corporations, force Medicare to be turned over to private insurance companies to run (which will cost more than the proposed government stipend to be paid to individuals so that individuals will have to pay more for their health care … but the private insurance companies will rake in untold billions of taxpayer dollars), allow financial Wall Street advisers/firms get their hands on Social Security and charge fees for their services (fees and more fees), cut unemployment payments to those who cannot find jobs, and on and on. At the same time these Republicans are hurting the common man, they are giving more tax breaks to the corporations and to the richest elite class.
I understand why CEOs of corporations and millionaires/billionaires vote Republican. It lines their pockets with more and more money. But, for Heaven’s sake, why do middle class Americans vote to put Republicans in office when doing so is cutting their own throats economically? Why on earth would working-class Republicans want to give Republicans control of the national government? I think I have figured this out. I’ll explain it in my next blog.
The corporation-bought Supreme Court justices repaid the corporations for their largess by voting to treat corporations as individuals (how ludicrous can they be!), which allows corporation to spend unlimited amounts (literally hundreds of millions of dollars) to try to buy elections. This allows the Koch brothers and the variety of conservative front groups such as those Rove funds and directs to buy congressmen and governors, resulting in what we see now in states like Wisconsin, Ohio, Florida, etc. (Why do the Koch brothers and power brokers like Rove hide behind their conservative front groups trying to make it appear their ads and support represent millions of supporters instead of being honest about where the vast majority of the funding actually comes from? Would that make it all too obvious that the elite rich are running the conservative movement for their own benefit, like removing EPA regulation over companies they own to increase their profit in the name of smaller government?)
These Republican–led state governments have declared war on the common man. They want to bust unions, privatize schools in favor of a national for-profit charter school business, sell off prisons to private corporations, force Medicare to be turned over to private insurance companies to run (which will cost more than the proposed government stipend to be paid to individuals so that individuals will have to pay more for their health care … but the private insurance companies will rake in untold billions of taxpayer dollars), allow financial Wall Street advisers/firms get their hands on Social Security and charge fees for their services (fees and more fees), cut unemployment payments to those who cannot find jobs, and on and on. At the same time these Republicans are hurting the common man, they are giving more tax breaks to the corporations and to the richest elite class.
I understand why CEOs of corporations and millionaires/billionaires vote Republican. It lines their pockets with more and more money. But, for Heaven’s sake, why do middle class Americans vote to put Republicans in office when doing so is cutting their own throats economically? Why on earth would working-class Republicans want to give Republicans control of the national government? I think I have figured this out. I’ll explain it in my next blog.
Monday, May 9, 2011
Republicans Bush/Cheney Caused the Current High Deficit
The Unwisdom of Elites
"These days Americans get constant lectures about the need to reduce the budget deficit. That focus in itself represents distorted priorities, since our immediate concern should be job creation. But suppose we restrict ourselves to talking about the deficit, and ask: What happened to the budget surplus the federal government had in 2000?
The answer is, three main things. First, there were the Bush tax cuts, which added roughly $2 trillion to the national debt over the last decade. Second, there were the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which added an additional $1.1 trillion or so. And third was the Great Recession, which led both to a collapse in revenue and to a sharp rise in spending on unemployment insurance and other safety-net programs.
So who was responsible for these budget busters? It wasn’t the man in the street.
President George W. Bush cut taxes in the service of his party’s ideology, not in response to a groundswell of popular demand — and the bulk of the cuts went to a small, affluent minority.
Similarly, Mr. Bush chose to invade Iraq because that was something he and his advisers wanted to do, not because Americans were clamoring for war against a regime that had nothing to do with 9/11. In fact, it took a highly deceptive sales campaign to get Americans to support the invasion, and even so, voters were never as solidly behind the war as America’s political and pundit elite.
Finally, the Great Recession was brought on by a runaway financial sector, empowered by reckless deregulation. And who was responsible for that deregulation? Powerful people in Washington with close ties to the financial industry, that’s who. Let me give a particular shout-out to Alan Greenspan, who played a crucial role both in financial deregulation and in the passage of the Bush tax cuts — and who is now, of course, among those hectoring us about the deficit.
So it was the bad judgment of the elite, not the greediness of the common man, that caused America’s deficit."
by Op-Ed Columnist PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: May 8, 2011
New York Times
The Opinion Pages
This is so true! The Republicans caused the current financial deficit to soar to to the current high. They are to blame! Yet, now they are trying to pass the blame off on the "Tax and Spend" Democrats &/or the public. They are like a child when caught having screwed up: What? Not me! It's that guy over there.
"These days Americans get constant lectures about the need to reduce the budget deficit. That focus in itself represents distorted priorities, since our immediate concern should be job creation. But suppose we restrict ourselves to talking about the deficit, and ask: What happened to the budget surplus the federal government had in 2000?
The answer is, three main things. First, there were the Bush tax cuts, which added roughly $2 trillion to the national debt over the last decade. Second, there were the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which added an additional $1.1 trillion or so. And third was the Great Recession, which led both to a collapse in revenue and to a sharp rise in spending on unemployment insurance and other safety-net programs.
So who was responsible for these budget busters? It wasn’t the man in the street.
President George W. Bush cut taxes in the service of his party’s ideology, not in response to a groundswell of popular demand — and the bulk of the cuts went to a small, affluent minority.
Similarly, Mr. Bush chose to invade Iraq because that was something he and his advisers wanted to do, not because Americans were clamoring for war against a regime that had nothing to do with 9/11. In fact, it took a highly deceptive sales campaign to get Americans to support the invasion, and even so, voters were never as solidly behind the war as America’s political and pundit elite.
Finally, the Great Recession was brought on by a runaway financial sector, empowered by reckless deregulation. And who was responsible for that deregulation? Powerful people in Washington with close ties to the financial industry, that’s who. Let me give a particular shout-out to Alan Greenspan, who played a crucial role both in financial deregulation and in the passage of the Bush tax cuts — and who is now, of course, among those hectoring us about the deficit.
So it was the bad judgment of the elite, not the greediness of the common man, that caused America’s deficit."
by Op-Ed Columnist PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: May 8, 2011
New York Times
The Opinion Pages
This is so true! The Republicans caused the current financial deficit to soar to to the current high. They are to blame! Yet, now they are trying to pass the blame off on the "Tax and Spend" Democrats &/or the public. They are like a child when caught having screwed up: What? Not me! It's that guy over there.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
The fragility of the U.S. economy scares me!
I am truly worried about the next couple of years' U.S. economy. I watched The Bill Maher Show on HBO Friday night, and two U.S. Representatives said on national TV that most Americans do not realize just how close to national bankrupty our national economy is, that it is very "fragile" at present. I also read that several of our country's largest financial institutions/banks were insolvent, according to the NY Times. They will either have to declare bankrupty or be nationalized by the federal government. Then just today I read where Citibank is trying to negotiate for the federal government to become 40 % owners. Wall Street investors are bailing out of the market, according to the headlines, causing it to fall to its lowest point since 1997. The government acts like they are surprised that investors have not responded better to the recent bailout. Well, from what I read and have heard on 60 Minutes, the bankers do not even know for certain just how big a deficit/loss is involved with the big banks because no regulation means they never have had to report their exact deficit figures to any government agency and even the banks have no clear idea of the total figure. Some estimates are upwards of forty to fifty trillion $$. Insiders have no confidence that the bailouts can save many institutions because $1+ trillion from the government to these banks is a mere drop in their deficit bucket, and the government cannot possibly afford to give them 40 trillion $$$. Plus there will still be hundreds of thousands of jobs lost in the coming year, maybe more if several national banks and the Big-3 car manufacturers go bankrupt. Then there is still the housing crisis, with millions of foreclosures impending. Plus the health care costs for those now unemployed and uninsured. On and on, the economic picture for 2009 is dismal at best. And what if China and other foreign countries that have been allowed to buy up America suddenly demand payment on all the loans given to U.S. companies, etc. The U.S. dollar would become virtually worthless in international trading. Heaven help the U.S.A.! I don't think the average American has yet realized how dire the current economic crisis truly is.
I will quite interested to see what President Obama has to say in his national TV address tonight. I hope he tells it like it is.
The Republican rebuttal will be given by Piyush Jindal, who calls himself "Bobby", the current governor of Louisiana. Jindal is so busy running for President in 2012 that he seems to be out of state more than in-state. He is the Republican heir-apparent, so designated by the true Republican Party leader Rush Limbaugh, that ex-druggy hypocrit. Jindal is pure ambition; he will do or say anything the party leaders want him to since he is trying so hard to win the presidential nomination. Watch his mouth move with the Republican leaderships' hands up his back.
I truly do not understand the Republican Party. First Bush ruins the economy and has the first huge multi-billion $$$ bailout for the bankers, who then turn around and give billions of $$ in bonuses to bank company executives, remodel offices, take lavish trips, etc. since no accounting or regulations were included on how the money must be spent. Bush's bailout was certainly the first step toward nationalizing the banks and toward going down the road to socialism. But now, the Republicans are acting like they did not cause this economic disaster but somehow it belongs solely to Obama and the Democrats. What short and selective memories these Republicans have! Rather than try to help save millions of jobs, prevent home foreclosures, and rebuild America's failing infrastructure with the Obama bailout, all the Republicans in Congress save three Representatives from the Northeastern states voted NO, trying to block it. I guess it is okay with Republicans to bail out bank executives but to hell with working people across America. A good Republican should be rich enough not to need government help, I guess...unless he is a multi-millionaire banker. The Rupublican Party cares not one whit about this great country of ours. All they care about is hoping Obama's efforts fail so they will have a stronger campaign issue come the 2010 Congressional elections and then the 2012 Presidentail election. They are willing for America to suffer, maybe collapse economically, just so they can get returned to power. All I have to say is "Shame on the Republican Party!" I hope most Americans see them and what they are doing for what it is. They spit on Obama's gallant efforts at bi-partisanship. They are willing to spit on the American working class. Wake up, America! Don't let those..uh, gentlemen, get away with turning their backs on bailing out jobs, homes, roads & bridges, etc. Remember their votes and actions well this next year while America's economy suffers and falters. They will be smiling in glee watching it. Remember them in the coming 2010 & 2012 elections. It will be your turn to vote NO on them.
I hope everyone watches President Obama's speech tonight!
I will quite interested to see what President Obama has to say in his national TV address tonight. I hope he tells it like it is.
The Republican rebuttal will be given by Piyush Jindal, who calls himself "Bobby", the current governor of Louisiana. Jindal is so busy running for President in 2012 that he seems to be out of state more than in-state. He is the Republican heir-apparent, so designated by the true Republican Party leader Rush Limbaugh, that ex-druggy hypocrit. Jindal is pure ambition; he will do or say anything the party leaders want him to since he is trying so hard to win the presidential nomination. Watch his mouth move with the Republican leaderships' hands up his back.
I truly do not understand the Republican Party. First Bush ruins the economy and has the first huge multi-billion $$$ bailout for the bankers, who then turn around and give billions of $$ in bonuses to bank company executives, remodel offices, take lavish trips, etc. since no accounting or regulations were included on how the money must be spent. Bush's bailout was certainly the first step toward nationalizing the banks and toward going down the road to socialism. But now, the Republicans are acting like they did not cause this economic disaster but somehow it belongs solely to Obama and the Democrats. What short and selective memories these Republicans have! Rather than try to help save millions of jobs, prevent home foreclosures, and rebuild America's failing infrastructure with the Obama bailout, all the Republicans in Congress save three Representatives from the Northeastern states voted NO, trying to block it. I guess it is okay with Republicans to bail out bank executives but to hell with working people across America. A good Republican should be rich enough not to need government help, I guess...unless he is a multi-millionaire banker. The Rupublican Party cares not one whit about this great country of ours. All they care about is hoping Obama's efforts fail so they will have a stronger campaign issue come the 2010 Congressional elections and then the 2012 Presidentail election. They are willing for America to suffer, maybe collapse economically, just so they can get returned to power. All I have to say is "Shame on the Republican Party!" I hope most Americans see them and what they are doing for what it is. They spit on Obama's gallant efforts at bi-partisanship. They are willing to spit on the American working class. Wake up, America! Don't let those..uh, gentlemen, get away with turning their backs on bailing out jobs, homes, roads & bridges, etc. Remember their votes and actions well this next year while America's economy suffers and falters. They will be smiling in glee watching it. Remember them in the coming 2010 & 2012 elections. It will be your turn to vote NO on them.
I hope everyone watches President Obama's speech tonight!
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