John McCain’s drowning campaign has grasped at the straw of “socialism” to try to smear Barack Obama’s economic proposals. The dirty little secret is that socialism is much more characteristic of McCain’s policies than Obama’s. But it’s socialism for the rich.
It has been an explicit tenet of Republican economic policy since at least Ronald Reagan that the rich need more money and that it is the essential job of government to make sure they get it.
As the most serious economic crisis in
80 years rolls across
the planet, financial panic has shoved
food shortages, public-health emergencies, and ecological disasters
into the
background. With fantastic fortunes at
stake, the number-one priority of governments and businesses must be
economic
growth; those "green" initiatives announced not long ago with such
fanfare have
already been deferred or forgotten.
Dear Spencer, Sarah, and Brooke:
First, I must tell you once again that I love you dearly. And the same was and is true of my two children who are, with their spouses, your parents. But in their case, I was fairly confident I would be there to protect and guide them through tough times -- as well as to celebrate the many good times. And luckily, so far, there have been far more good times than bad.
The last
question in the final presidential debate between John McCain and
Barack Obama had to do with what moderator Bob Schieffer suggested
might be the most important issue of all: education.
John McCain clearly thought he'd found a winning issue
last week when Barack Obama was caught on tape defending his plan to
tax the rich and "spread the wealth around."
Gotcha! For days,
the faltering Republican nominee relentlessly harangued Obama for
saying such a thing, championing "Joe the Plumber," whose confrontation
with Obama had provoked the remark.
Of course, many were surprised when Joe the Plumber turned out to be neither a real plumber nor a guy named Joe.
According to the Republican candidate for U.S. president, John McCain, whose family wealth exceeds $120 million, and who owns eight houses and thirteen cars, Democrat Barack Obama poses a grave threat to our democracy and economy because he will, as he told a voter in Ohio, "spread the wealth around."
The Republican Party that Nixon invented melded the moneyed classes of
the Northeast with the white evangelicals of the South. This odd couple
went on to simultaneously steal from and oppress the rest of us. The
moneyed classes were happy to let the New Puritans impose their
stringent morality, since they could always just buy any licentiousness
they wanted, regardless of the law.
Last week, I participated in a day-long downtown Indianapolis fast and demonstration asking Senator Bayh to join Senator Lugar in co-sponsoring the Global Poverty Act and Jubilee Act. By committing the U.S. to help reduce extreme poverty and cut the debt burden of struggling countries, these two pieces of legislation would address the obscene fact that 16,000 children die each day simply because they are poor.
This year marks the 160th anniversary of The Communist Manifesto and
capitalism--a k a "free enterprise"--seems willing to observe the occasion
by dropping dead. On Monday night, some pundits were warning that the
ATMs might run dry and hinting that the only safe investment left is
canned beans. Apocalypse or extortion? No one seems to know, though the
populist part of the populace has been leaning toward the latter.
