Wednesday, 25 July 2012 00:00 By Paul Krugman, Krugman & Co. | Op-Ed
“President Obama gets this exactly right: “When some people question why I would challenge [Mitt Romney’s] Bain record,” he told CBS News on July 13, “the point I’ve made there in the past is, if you’re a head of a large private equity firm or hedge fund, your job is to make money. It’s not to create jobs. It’s not even to create a successful business — it’s to make sure that you’re maximizing returns for your investor.”
“A country is not a company — and it’s definitely not a private equity firm.”
“I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America…” “The Pledge.” We used to say it all the time in grammar school, with our hands on our hearts; it was part of our education. I can still hear everyone reciting it, mostly in unison. So was the notion that when you came of age you had the responsibility, the right and the obligation to vote. I couldn’t wait to do just that, I’ve voted in most every election ever since. I’m sure there are a lot of Americans who had the same experience. I wonder what they’re telling the kids in schools today around those Republican controlled, state Public schools or perhaps Charter Schools.
Do they encourage their students to vote when they become eighteen? If they do the students are getting a mixed message. Outside class they will hear all the talk about hundreds of thousands of voters being disenfranchised because they don’t have a certain form of identification to show at the polling places. When these young people do turn eighteen they will need some sort of government ID or they will be turned away. It used to be people working the polls probably knew a good many people who came to vote every election. If you were new you just had to show something with your name on it showing you were a resident in that district. A utility bill would do. I’ll bet many poll workers still do know families and other people in the neighborhood or town.
So why are state governments with a Republican majority stripping voters from voting rolls? In Pennsylvania, about seven hundred and fifty thousand voters have been put in question. In Florida 150,000 proposed to be eliminated. Who are these voters? Well a close look shows that they are mostly Democrats, Independents, minorities, people with Hispanic surnames and students who have registered, voted before, but now are being taken off the roles for ambiguous reasons. Are any of these people being informed that they are no longer considered eligible to vote — no longer registered?
Republicans say they are trying to prevent voter fraud in their states, but they have very few cases of actual voter fraud to report. What they are trying to do is eliminate voters who might not vote for them. This is no different than voter suppression of African Americans in the southern states and other efforts over the history of the United States to steal elections. If anything is “fraud” it is what the Republicans are doing. If disenfranchising voters to win an election isn’t fraud it certainly is UN-American.
It is an American right to vote and every effort should be made in include, as many citizens as possible not eliminate them. Republican laws are demanding government ID’s, but many Americans do not have a government ID. They don’t drive, have a passport or in Texas a gun license. Student ID’s are not valid even if issued by a state college.
The Attorney General of the United States as stepped in to stop these new laws in a number of states, so the Republicans voted to hold him contempt of congress. This is a major abuse of power by these congressmen. The same individuals in congress voted thirty-one times to overturn the Affordable Health Care Act. This after they lost the vote the first time and the United States Supreme Court ruled that the law was constitutional. They have obstructed the administration of the duly elected President of the United States consistently since his first day in office.
If Republicans continue to get away with all of this we will have officially sanctioned minority rule just like in the Senate. Yes the Senate where the Republican minority can hold the Senate hostage to getting sixty votes instead of a simple majority of fifty-one to pass legislation. The majority of citizens in the United States voted for representatives who stood for the things they believed in. A minority of citizens are doing everything possible to impose their priorities on everyone else.
Voter suppression is illegal and UN-American. It needs to be stopped. The only way to do stop it is to vote Republicans out of office and elect Democrats including the President. Democrat or Republican voting is a right guaranteed by the constitution. Demanding special ID’s is the same as a poll tax. It is also a way to discourage people from even tying to vote. Everyone who is registered with mandated ID must vote and help those without that ID to get it, register and vote. Only by handing the right wing a huge defeat at the polls will this abuse of the system be halted.
Harvey Weinstein was a guest on the Rachel Madow Show on July 6, 2012. She interviewed him about being a fundraiser for President Obama and other Democrats. When asked about the big disparity in the amount of money wealthy Republicans have raised for Willard Mitt Romney, as compared with what has been raised by wealthy Democrats this election cycle, Mr. Weinstein offered an analogy from his experience in producing and distributing films . He compared two motion pictures made for the same amount of money one that did extremely well and the other “so-so.” His point was that you could spend twice as much money on the so-so movie, and it would still under perform the first movie because it lacked the spark that a hugely successful film needs. The point being that President Obama has the spark and quality to continue to be a successful President whereas the Romney movie just doesn’t have what it takes to make it at the box office.
Point well-taken Mr. Weinstein; I respect your expertise. But I also know that there is always that movie that everyone thinks is a bomb that somehow finds an audience for some reason. One of the worst films I have ever seen was The Blair Witch Project, which I hesitate to even call a film. Yet it did extremely well at the box office because of a novel and effective advertising strategy that built an audience before the picture even came out.
For three years the Republican Party and its agents have conducted a smoke and mirror negative campaign against President Obama. They have tried every possible ruse, lie, and political move to obstruct and destroy his Presidency; all of this at the expense of the American people and the economy. They are so currently entrenched in telling the “big lies” that they believe they can continue and the audience they have built will not notice. I notice and many other Americans who are not brain washed by propaganda and fear notice too. It is going to take more than noticing to counter the Republican money and propaganda machine against the reelection of President Obama. Democrats don’t understand this is a critical battle in an ideological war that has been going on for a very long time.
It seems like there is plan to destroy this democracy on the way to installing a corporate aristocracy which will rule over a totalitarian and possibly theocratic state. Okay, so this is starting to sound like some nut case conspiracy theory (By the way, I’ve have a script I’d like to offer you to read Mr. Weinstein); but something is going on when so much effort is being put into taking back the white house, senate and holding on to the majority in the congress. Not to mention the far right tilt in the Supreme Court.
The majority of lies and attacks against the President are accepted by part of the population because they want to believe the worst about the President for either political or racial reasons. They are the audience of Fox Cable Faux News Channel. They listen every day to unrelenting lies, distortion and misrepresentation by a self-proclaimed right wing propaganda organization directed by Roger Ailes, president. Ailes was previously a media consultant for Republican presidents, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George H.W. Bush.
The far right, neo-con corporate aristocracy has been working on this agenda since the days of the John Birch Society. They will not stop even when President Obama is reelected. The only way to slow them down is for the general public to not only reelect the President but to also vote for moderates and liberals of both parties. Governors of states who have gone along with this far right agenda must be replaced with moderates or liberals who will cooperate with the federal government. This is going to take a major informational advertising campaign. Meanwhile Blue Dog Democrats are running for cover instead on uniting with other Democrats.
Well meaning Judeo/Christian groups have been co-opted into supporting the far right against the very doctrine of their religions. This is done by taking fringe issues of interest to certain religions and inflating them in the minds of Americans. Issues like abortion. How many actual abortions are performed in relation to actual births in this country? I don’t think I’ve ever heard these numbers discussed. According to census data about four million births were projected for 2011; that is 1.98 children per woman in the United States. According to Guttmacher Institute about two percent of women have abortions for unintended pregnancies. The majority of these women in the US are Christian. Perhaps these religions and individuals against abortion should talk to their own constituents and families instead of trying to impose their beliefs on the entire population.
The most recent convoluted issue exploited was the protest of catholic bishops against the Affordable Health Care Act. Aided by Republicans in Congress the notion that employers needed to include birth control in their health insurance coverage became somehow an attack on religious freedom. Not of individuals, but of the Catholic church, in that they were against birth control and did not want it in the health care benefits for their employees even if they did not have to pay for it and even if the employees were not Catholic. The anti birth control posture of the Catholic Church leadership is not shared by its members. Even after it was negotiated that the insurance companies would cover birth control at no charge to these employers or employees the Bishops decided there was still an attack on their religious freedom. Religions freedom is about individuals and government being separate from the religious institutions. Religious Institutions and organizations, who pay no taxes, and corporations are not people.
The far right aided by a number of factors has pumped up the vitriolic rhetoric in anyway possible. They take any topic that comes along and try to turn it to a referendum against President Obama especially if it is actually a positive achievement like turning around the economy and creating 4.5 million jobs. It’s not enough, not fast enough etc. At the same time Republican Governors are laying off police, firemen, teachers and other public employees which creates more unemployment. Republican members of congress consistently obstruct bills that would create jobs. They use their majority in Congress to create chaos and then blame it on the President.
Getting back to Mr. Weinstein’s analogy, the Romney script has no story it does not allow you to “suspend disbelief.” No amount of money will make the movie worth watching. However, will enough hype and money promoting The Romney Projectfool people in going to the box office and buying a ticket? It worked for Blair Witch. Democrats, moderates, progressives and independents need to take this election seriously. There is too much at stake to take any chances.
Did you know that human heads have gotten smaller over time? Have our brains shrunk as well?
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J R Martin
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