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Tuesday, June 12, 2012

True Patriots Must Rise and Defend Our Nation Against Corporate Tyranny








In political campaigns there are hardly any statements that are not carefully measured to engender support among the voting public. Republicans have staked out a position that government is bad, and there are few agencies that have been spared from their wrath as draining resources that could be better allocated to the wealthy under the guise of deficit reduction and fiscal responsibility. After Willard Romney’s statement that the American people got the message from Wisconsin that there are too many police officers, firefighters, teachers, and construction workers rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure, the Republican message became perfectly clear; Americans’ tax dollars are being squandered and could be better spent on more tax cuts for the rich and corporations.
Yesterday, Romney surrogate John Sununu defended Romney’s position and claimed “there’s wisdom in the comment” and that indeed, Americans want fewer police, firefighters and teachers because there is less need for employees on the public payroll. The Republican Party leader, Rush Limbaugh also weighed in with the party line assailing public employees like law enforcement and fire fighters as a drag on the economy because they work for the government and not the private sector. Now, Limbaugh is not an economist, but even his addled brain comprehends that firefighters, police officers, and teachers spend every penny of their incomes in the private sector contributing to the economy and creating jobs, but his point was not an economic argument, it was ideological to persuade his audience that Republicans are correct in demeaning government employees as wasting taxpayer dollars on public safety and education instead of supporting the wealthy with more tax breaks and government privatization.
In this column the past two days, it was explained in simplistic terms that public employees contribute to economic growth and job creation in the private sector. Yesterday, Paul Krugman, a real economist, reiterated the point that “the real story about this economy is that this cutback at the public sector are what’s hurting recovery” and that “there is like 1.4 million jobs that we should have had in the public sector, and of course, those are translated to more private sector jobs too.” The point Krugman failed to make is that the Republican agenda is turning over operation of public sector jobs to private enterprise to enrich big business, break unions, and giving Americans’ tax dollars to the wealthy with tax cuts.
Republicans are, finally, exposing their real objective in winning big in this election and it has nothing to do with fixing the economy, creating private sector jobs, or helping Americans struggling in the economy they created. It is a blatant attempt at creating an oligarchy and destroying the government and American way of life now and the distant future. It is true Republicans want to destroy unions that typically support Democratic candidates and their agenda, but their real goal is destroying the foundations of American governance and replacing it with corporate rule. They will have plenty of support from racists and anti-government teabagger types, but it is unknown if the public at large understands the repercussions of eliminating the government and replacing it with a theocratic plutocracy.
Republicans typically support small government, but the drive to satisfy Libertarians and anti-tax champions like Grover Norquist and the Koch brothers portends a country of peasants struggling to survive a truly Draconian agenda. That Willard Romney, Rush Limbaugh, and their sycophants in Congress and state legislatures have made this election about eliminating police and fire protection is telling, but it is not shocking when considering that Republicans across the country have been dismantling government programs and offering private sector alternatives as America’s economic salvation. For example, in the Paul Ryan Path to Prosperity budget, veterans’ benefits were cut by $39 billion and Romney proposes giving them healthcare vouchers that will not only causes undue economic pain to “America’s heroes,” any savings will go to tax cuts for the rich and profits to the healthcare industry.  All of the Republican plans add to the nation’s deficit now and in the future, and they are unfazed that their tax cuts for the wealthy will add trillions to the nation’s debt as revenue dries up and tax cuts are funded with borrowed money that George W. Bush made popular. In fact, Romney and  Ryan’s proposals cut across the government except for the military and wealthy’s tax cuts, and it is pure Libertarianism as promoted by the Koch brothers in the literature from their secret policy meetings.
This election is not about fiscal responsibility, reducing the deficit, or creating jobs; it is about changing America into a private enterprise. Willard Romney has made it clear that in his administration, all the focus will be on turning over as much of the government as possible to private enterprise to enrich corporations, or as Willard refers to them, people. However, the real people, poor, minority, middle class, and elderly people are left to fend for themselves as their pensions, Social Security, healthcare, education, fire and police protection are eliminated to fund new tax cuts for the rich. In the Libertarian vision of America, only the economically strong survive as all taxpayer-funded government expenditures go to the military and the wealthy. If any American thinks for a second that a Libertarian government will not turn the military on the citizens, they underestimate the resolve of greed. When people are hungry, frightened, and see no alternative other than taking to the streets to demand accountability and government by the people, the ruling class will unleash the military on the populace with extreme prejudice to maintain their hold on power.
The Republican Party, in their drive to alter America’s government, is precipitating a Constitutional emergency with every attempt at minimizing government by the people and replacing it with a plutocracy, and Romney is at the forefront of fulfilling the Libertarian dream that ends government as we know it by dismantling it agency by agency. When Romney talks about “getting government out of the way,” he means getting rid of government and allowing corporations and the wealthy to take over. It is the Koch brothers agenda that “free enterprise is more than an economic system-it is a moral imperative and we must defend it at all costs,” and Romney and Republicans are dutifully making their play to protect the Koch’s moral imperative that “smaller government means a vision that goes beyond lower taxes and economic efficiency, “ it means “making a new case for liberty that appeals to all Americans, rich and poor.” The Koch brothers Libertarian vision is an America with no middle class and it explains Romney’s drive to eliminate public sector jobs and reduce America to a peasant class and the wealthy elite.
It is a sad commentary indeed that one of the two major political parties is campaigning openly on dismantling the government and replacing it with a plutocracy, and yet that is the Republican Party’s agenda for this election. That Republicans are lining up behind Romney’s attack on public employees further informs that their goal is not creating a vibrant economy or creating jobs, it is eliminating the government agency by agency until it is small enough to drown in a bathtub. What is tragic, is that there are truly stupid Americans whose hatred of an African American man as President is facilitating this country’s demise and that their bigotry, religious fervor, and anti-American zeal will undo over 230 years of democracy in one anti-government election.