My wife has some Republican tendencies. As a result, she's made a big deal of the fact that Obama recently had the single largest, in terms of money, campaign fundraising event ever, and that Obama spent far more than McCain in '08. The angle of attack is that Obama isn't any representative of the common man but a tool of wealthy interests. I can always tell when she's been watching Faux News.
There are major flaws with this line of thinking. First, Obama's spending in '08 was from large numbers of small donations, not big spenders. Kind of had to be, then, as Citizens United hadn't been decided yet. The campaign money spiggot that's now open was closed then. So nowhere near as much money could even come into the campaigns unless it was from a wider base of sources, which dilutes the influence of the large money donors.
This is the flaw in the thinking behind Citizens United. Well, one of the flaws. By equating money with speech, the Supreme Court decided that the speech of the wealthy is more important than the speech of the non-wealthy. Everyone has an equal right to spend as much money as he or she wishes on campaign electioneering that's not directly controlled by a candidate, but the wealthy easily shout down all those who don't have the disposable cash to spend on TV, radio, and newspaper ad buys, as well as internet ads, come to think of it.
Anyway, back to the point. The fact that Obama raised the most money at one event isn't nearly as significant as how much money is raised over the course of a camaign. Romney is quickly overcoming Obama there with all the unregulated money of wealthy donors, which is another vast difference between the two campaigns. While only something around 16% of Obama's donations come from those making the maximum contributions, Romeny's percentage is around 80%. The huge number of dollars coming in to Obama are from small donators, giving what they can. Obama manages to get a few larger contributors together at one event, but that's nothing compared to the many large donations coming in to Romney.
Who does Faux News think it's kidding (other than the obvious answer of my wife)? They helped lobby for this fucked up system that Citizens United has wrought because it provides diproportionate benefits to the few that their party represents. Now they try to portray this free money system as benefitting the very man they targeted by this effort.
Showing posts with label class warfare. Show all posts
Showing posts with label class warfare. Show all posts
Monday, June 25, 2012
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Wealthy Wage Class Warfare
One of the great victories of the GOP is that it has mastered the manipulation of language to bamboozle people into voting GOP when there's no rational economic reason to do so. I've mentioned previously how the GOP has sold the public on the idea that benefits that only benefit the wealthy are really good for everyone else because we might all be weatlhy someday, despite the statistical improbablility, if not impossibility, of that.
A corollary to that sale is the mantra of "class warfare," and its sister econimic pejorative, "socialist state." Despite a three year track record of supporting business development and expansion Obama is still pasted with the socialist label by the GOP and its many minions of moronic mouthing.
But class warfare is my favorite of the moment. Everytime the wealthiest of the nation are asked to contribute more to the weal of the broader population, a population entirely necessary for their success, large numbers of these wealthy cry "class warfare" (with the exception of your occasional Warren Buffett or George Soros).
Which is fine, I suppose, in so far as greed is fine. Because, really, what's being asked of the wealthy wouldn't even be one luxury car for them and none are being asked to subject themselves to penury. But the amazing thing is how many people who are not weathly and aren't likely to be wealthy will carry their standard and fight their peers in these things.
Look at Wisconsin. The recall vote for governor was based on anger over public employees losing collective bargaining rights, which is the same thing as not having unions, seeing as that's what unions do. Governor Walker's solution to a declining Wisconsin economy, industrially based as it once was, was to convince people who lost their own union benefits when the industrial jobs went away to vote to deprive their fellow workers in the public sector of the same benefits they once had. The GOP has turned worker against worker and used them to push worker benefits further downward.
Of course, the irony in this is that most of the benefits that are so costly, the ones related to health care, would be entirely unnecessary if the United States had universal health care. Businesses would have much more flexibility, and workers, too, if there was no worry about paying for health care. That's a big write-off the business books if health insurance isn't necessary. It particularly benefits the small business that can then hire more talented workers who might otherwise go to work for the bigger companies who can afford health coverage with the greater spread of the cost in more employees.
The GOP supposedly is the stalwart of small business but has worked consistently at keeping small business down by driving costs on to small business that ought to be born by the larger society. Once again, it's war waged on the lower earners, and using lower earners to fight the battle for them.
The GOP has for some time been the representative of irrational thinking, whether it's evolution or economics, but it's getting worse all the time. Now the presidential candidate of the party is a guy who has blatantly changed positions solely to run for the office, cannot even lie with a straight face about his bullying behavior as a youth, and is quite obviously running primarily as today's Steve Forbes, a man who wants to hoard as much money for himself as possible, silver spoon providing the leg up for each. It's no wonder Donald Trump is a Romney supporter. He's as big an ego maniac as we're likely to find in the celebri-business world and Romney is just the same, only with better hair.
A corollary to that sale is the mantra of "class warfare," and its sister econimic pejorative, "socialist state." Despite a three year track record of supporting business development and expansion Obama is still pasted with the socialist label by the GOP and its many minions of moronic mouthing.
But class warfare is my favorite of the moment. Everytime the wealthiest of the nation are asked to contribute more to the weal of the broader population, a population entirely necessary for their success, large numbers of these wealthy cry "class warfare" (with the exception of your occasional Warren Buffett or George Soros).
Which is fine, I suppose, in so far as greed is fine. Because, really, what's being asked of the wealthy wouldn't even be one luxury car for them and none are being asked to subject themselves to penury. But the amazing thing is how many people who are not weathly and aren't likely to be wealthy will carry their standard and fight their peers in these things.
Look at Wisconsin. The recall vote for governor was based on anger over public employees losing collective bargaining rights, which is the same thing as not having unions, seeing as that's what unions do. Governor Walker's solution to a declining Wisconsin economy, industrially based as it once was, was to convince people who lost their own union benefits when the industrial jobs went away to vote to deprive their fellow workers in the public sector of the same benefits they once had. The GOP has turned worker against worker and used them to push worker benefits further downward.
Of course, the irony in this is that most of the benefits that are so costly, the ones related to health care, would be entirely unnecessary if the United States had universal health care. Businesses would have much more flexibility, and workers, too, if there was no worry about paying for health care. That's a big write-off the business books if health insurance isn't necessary. It particularly benefits the small business that can then hire more talented workers who might otherwise go to work for the bigger companies who can afford health coverage with the greater spread of the cost in more employees.
The GOP supposedly is the stalwart of small business but has worked consistently at keeping small business down by driving costs on to small business that ought to be born by the larger society. Once again, it's war waged on the lower earners, and using lower earners to fight the battle for them.
The GOP has for some time been the representative of irrational thinking, whether it's evolution or economics, but it's getting worse all the time. Now the presidential candidate of the party is a guy who has blatantly changed positions solely to run for the office, cannot even lie with a straight face about his bullying behavior as a youth, and is quite obviously running primarily as today's Steve Forbes, a man who wants to hoard as much money for himself as possible, silver spoon providing the leg up for each. It's no wonder Donald Trump is a Romney supporter. He's as big an ego maniac as we're likely to find in the celebri-business world and Romney is just the same, only with better hair.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)