Give me liberty, give me hollow rhetoric, Part Two

Forrest Johnson

Denial was once again on parade as the vastly uninformed New Conservative Neanderthal Party and its many candidates gushed over tax cuts for the rich and spending cuts for the rest of society in order to stimulate the economocracy.  True to the head-in-the-sand philosophy of the neo-patriotic and neo-Christian, union-busting, family value climate change deniers, the free market disciples and self-styled protectors of the rich, the trumpeted cuts hold true to principles developed over the years by right wing fear mongers like Karl Rove and the billionaire Koch Brothers, silent partners in the Tea party movement.
The mere notion that a nation and its people can cut its way to growth is ludicrous. Nothing cuts its way to growth. The idea is an oxymoron.
Put a flag pin on your lapel and you’re in.
This is a game on a grand scale, pure and simple and the electorate is the pawn, the feudal servant.
For decades the right wing ideologues have commandeered the puppet strings, enhancing the vast military-industrial complex and the top few percent of income earners, swathed in a Christian hue while praying to the gods of empire.
Let’s see, if elected aforementioned candidates and their minions will try to repeal the health care law and block Medicaid and food aid for the poor, eliminate the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, do away with AmeriCorps, restrict funding for the 2010 financial reform law, cut back on environmental regulations for clean air and water.
All of the moves mask the intent to further de-regulate industry and fail to hold American financial and manufacturing companies at least partly responsible for the dismantling of the American middle class.
According to Harold Meyerson, yes, an avowed lefty but his facts hold up, there is a new reality to our economy.
“As corporate profits skyrocket, even as the economy remains stalled in a deep recession, Americans confront a grim new reality: Our corporations don’t need us anymore. Half their revenues come from abroad. Their products, increasingly, come from abroad as well. With each passing year, America’s leading corporations grow more and more decoupled from the American economy. Their interests grow increasingly detached from those of our workers, our consumers—and our economic future. That’s why the current downturn is different from it’s predecessors: Unlike any recession in American history—including the Great Depression—this one has come at a time when America’s leading employers can return to profitability without rehiring large numbers of American workers.”
I have long said that we are failing to engage in the real discussions that impact our nation. Our most expensive health care system got right where it is under the watchful eye of the thinly regulated free market. Our economy crashed at the hands of the unregulated derivatives housing market, again under the watchful eye of the free market. Our manufacturing base has departed under the watchful eye of the free market.
Right now the binge of rhetoric is on to encourage job growth and hiring. To the New Conservative Neanderthal Party that means letting loose the reins of any semblance of corporate or citizen responsibility for the shared costs of civil society. Using the rhetoric of victimization, the righties say the burden has fallen unfairly on the shoulders of business owners and the top two percent of income earners and any notion of taxation only hinders the effort to create jobs. The right has complained that the business community is encumbered by some of the highest taxes in the developed world.
The tax rates may appear on the books but what is finally paid is a far different number if the company finance director has any say.
So we’ll ignore the mess the finance industry and Wall Street made of our economy, the decades long fleeing of businesses from these shores in search of cheap labor, and protect the rich from tax increases.
In Minnesota, the righties play victim and say the top income earners will flee the state for lower tax havens if the legislature doesn’t act to lower the tax burden.
Flee the state! And they’ll take their jobs and dollars with them they claim.
The top few percent of income earners are hurting? I’m sorry but the pain just isn’t the same pain that’s being felt by the other 95 percent of the state’s income earners plus the Army of the Unemployed and Underemployed.
Flee the state? So long, take a hike I’ve always said.  
The denial continues. The blind eye to fact continues. Give me liberty, give me hollow rhetoric!