I saw this "great" editorial cartoon recently that showed a fat old white guy, standing on a beach with a Mai Tai, wearing a skirt/sarong entitled "Wall Street Wheeler Dealers" waving goodbye to a raft of "everyday folks" with a sail that said "Lost Jobs, Lost Homes, Lost Pensions."
The folks on the raft were saying "Why are WE voted off the island? HE is the one who burned down the village!" And a little GOP elephant replied, "He OWNS the island." And that just about sums it up, doesn't it? Let a black man steal a TV and by god he'll go to jail, but let a bunch of Wall Street fat cats destroy the lives of millions, and, well, they'll just get a bigger bonus!
Saw another one with CA Gov. Jerry Brown being asked "What about the 800 pound gorilla in the room?" to which he responds "Which gorilla is that?" as he's surrounded by several large gorillas, with labels like "Politics," "Prop 13," "Public Pensions," Prisons/Guards," "Initiative System," and "Voter Ignorance."
Personally, I think that last one sums it up and of course leads to all the rest. When Glen Beck is validated as a "news source," we're doomed to government of the ignorant, by the ignorant, for the ignorant.
In the meantime, it's not hard to see the long, thoughtful planning of the eternally-selfish Republicans: deregulate everything, then when business people destroy the economy, use the new crisis to say stuff like "We can't afford environmental protection! We can't afford unions! Or public broadcasting! Or renewable energy! Or trains! Or heating assistance! Or Americorps! Or legal aid! Or health care! Or or or whatever all else we never liked!"
While I like to paraphrase and borrow other folks' nice points, I have to quote at length here from a recent piece by Robert Reich (Clinton's Labor Secretary), as I think he sums it up pretty well:
The truth is that while the proximate cause of America’s economic plunge was Wall Street’s excesses leading up to the crash of 2008, its underlying cause — and the reason the economy continues to be lousy for most Americans — is so much income and wealth have been going to the very top that the vast majority no longer has the purchasing power to lift the economy out of its doldrums. American’s aren’t buying cars (they bought 17 million new cars in 2005, just 12 million last year). They’re not buying homes (7.5 million in 2005, 4.6 million last year). They’re not going to the malls (high-end retailers are booming, but Walmart’s sales are down).
Only the richest 5 percent of Americans are back in the stores, because their stock portfolios have soared. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has doubled from its crisis low. Wall Street pay is up to record levels. Total compensation and benefits at the 25 major Wall Street firms had been $130 billion in 2007, before the crash; now it’s close to $140 billion.
But a strong recovery can’t be built on the purchases of the richest 5 percent.
The truth is, if the super-rich paid their fair share of taxes, government wouldn’t be broke. If Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker hadn’t handed out tax breaks to corporations and the well-off, Wisconsin wouldn’t be in a budget crisis. If Washington hadn’t extended the Bush tax cuts for the rich, eviscerated the estate tax, and created loopholes for private-equity and hedge-fund managers, the federal budget wouldn’t look nearly as bad.
And if America had higher marginal tax rates and more tax brackets at the top — for those raking in $1 million, $5 million, $15 million a year — the budget would look even better. We wouldn’t be firing teachers or slashing Medicaid or hurting the most vulnerable members of our society. We wouldn’t be in a tizzy over Social Security. We’d slow the rise in health-care costs, but we wouldn’t cut Medicare. We’d cut defense spending and lop off subsidies to giant agribusinesses, but we wouldn’t view the government as our national nemesis.
The final truth is, as income and wealth have risen to the top, so has political power. The reason all of this is proving so difficult to get across is the super-rich, such as the Koch brothers, have been using their billions to corrupt politics, hoodwink the public, and enlarge and entrench their outsized fortunes. They’re bankrolling Republicans, who are mounting showdowns and threatening shutdowns, and who want the public to believe government spending is the problem.
They are behind the Republican shakedown.
These are the truths that Democrats must start telling, and soon. Otherwise the Republican shakedown may well succeed.
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