Of
course, I don’t find it amazing or appalling; I am not dumbfounded,
nor am I astounded. America does what it does
out of sheer stupidity or self-interest (which could be
one in the same). In this highly critical election year,
just the thought that the general populace could elect a
regressive president and label it “good for the country”
is simply par for the course.
Observing
the nation’s political twists and turns for more than one
score plus some, and how those twists and turns affect the
everyday lives of citizens, I know that many voters will
be turning cartwheels in the voting booth (those not disenfranchised
by discriminatory voter ID laws). A choice will be made
between the possibility of progress and a return to failure
and personal indebtedness.
It
has been publicly documented that I am not the most pleased
minion with President Obama’s policy positions over the
past two years (although year one was a beast!). I, like
many analysts, see that despite corporate greed, government
corruption and stalemated legislative change, our country
is coming out of the worst fiscal position that we’ve been
in since the Great Depression. Unemployment rates are slowly
decreasing, the GDP is growing and consumer confidence and
spending are up. Even consumer protections are taking hold.
In the face of a recalcitrant Congress, it takes a strong
chief executive to make any progress.
Strangely
enough, there is a wagonload of Americans that desires a
different direction. Note, I didn’t say “new direction,”
but a different direction. Many want to “take their country
back” - both literally and figuratively. But, back to what
exactly?
Glad
you asked… It is imperative that we not forget how we got
into the huge budgetary deficit in which we find ourselves.
Under the leadership of “compassionate conservatives” who
exercised “fiscal responsibility,” we ended up with the
greatest national debt in proportion to our GDP, simultaneous
wars and a crashed economy. For the everyday working person,
that amounts to stalled wages, unemployed family members
and peers, more of one’s income paid in taxes and for consumer
goods and greater uncertainty about the foundation of one’s
quality of life. We know, as a general rule, leadership
charts the course for changing a bad situation - and feeling
positive enough to endure a bad one.
We
conveniently forget that past Presidential administrations
have implemented policies that have crushed the poor and
working class and enriched the highest income earners. With
the Republican nominee shaping up to a choice between former
Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney - among the richest among
us, and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum (whose
eyes are on disenfranchising anyone not defined as a citizen
under the original Constitution), the victor will give us
a choice between himself and President Obama. For progressives,
it’s often seen as a choice between “the devil and Satan.”
Unfortunately, none of us have spent the past four years
building at least a third alternative, so we’re stuck in
this two-party debacle.
Sure,
one can elect to not elect. One can choose to sit it out,
but as I said in my new book, As a Condition of Your
Freedom, you cannot sit it [the next Presidential election]
out.” Anyone not blind can see that Romney plans to ingratiate
the richest Americans (can you say “$10,000 bet”); Santorum
seeks to strip all minority classes of their individual
rights (can you say “invasive ultrasounds,” a prerequisite
for an abortion, which is a legal service?).
Obama,
as an incrementalist, stirs my ire, but what I know is that
my choice between backward and forward is clear: No matter
how slow my brother is, he’s still my brother. I always
want to hold my brother accountable for his actions - or
inactions - but I am eternally assured that my brother will
be more likely care for my interests, more so than others
who openly oppose me. The story has been told on several
occasions when recollecting the policies of prior administrations:
Conservatives don’t change. They will be as deceptive in
secret as they are overtly. One of Richard Nixon’s infamous
minions, John Dean, who had a front-row seat to lies and
deceit, laid it out. David Stockman, Office of Management
and Budget Director during the Reagan Administration, eventually
revealed that the budget deficits caused by Reagan’s tax
cuts had been a deliberate effort to create a budget crisis
that would lead to a slashing of entitlement spending, especially
programs for the poor. It worked, as we are now in the throes
of the long-term, strategic aftermath of Reaganomics.
It’s
a two-fold proposition: Make the rich richer by cutting
taxes for them (then allow them to hoard the savings), and
keep the poor poor by cutting any aid and assistance that
might bring them out of poverty. This proposition keeps
America
in two distinct camps, as opposed to uniting our nation.
What
we all can agree on is that during the two terms
of the Bush Administration, his tax cuts did not create
more jobs, nor did they grow the economy; they had just
the opposite effect. So why would we vote for someone -
Romney or Santorum - who pledges to follow in Bush’s footsteps
- pledging to do what failed to work? It is disingenuous
for us to “fail to recall” our nation’s sordid past simply
because the faces are new. Our past of inhumane, deliberate,
and deceptive policies has driven citizens into poverty
and keeps them there, and thus, a permanent underclass is
sustained. The inconvenient recollection of the Republican
Presidencies of Nixon, Reagan, Bush I and Bush II reminds
us NOT to walk ourselves off the plank - again.
BlackCommentator.com
Columnist, Perry
Redd, is the former Executive Director of
the workers rights advocacy, Sincere Seven, and author of
the on-line commentary, “The
Other Side of the Tracks.” He is the host of the internet-based
talk radio show, Socially Speaking in
Washington,
DC.
Click
here to contact Mr.
Redd.
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