Why the poor love the rich and other political mysteries
October 28, 2008 by Julia King
My teenage daughter has been texting up a storm with a neo-conservative classmate. As my husband and I sit in the living room talking with friends, she rushes in with the boy’s latest declaration. “Obama’s a SOCIALIST. That’s what he’s saying now!” she says.
It’s a familiar charge, this “socialist” catch-all tossed at Obama. As a canvasser, I’ve heard it before, mostly from people who can’t explain why they want John McCain to be our next president. The fascinating thing about the charge is that it comes from people living out modest lives in modest homes in modest neighborhoods.
After a string of strangers made the accusation against Obama on an afternoon of door-to-door, an acquaintance (who lives in a trailer) followed-up by asking me in earnest about the dangers of “class warfare.”
“Isn’t it class warfare to make someone pay more taxes just because they’re rich?” She asked with puppy-dog eyes. I asked if she thought it might be class warfare for the owner of a company to take home millions while his lowest paid employees don’t take home enough money to pay rent or purchase healthcare. She said she hadn’t really thought about that.
So, how is it that kind-hearted people are compelled to champion hard-working multimillionaires but not hard-working janitors or hotel maids? What is the political Right doing right that the Left is doing wrong?
How and why does one simple (yet highly complex) word — “socialism” — manage to whip the masses into line? Should all forms of socialism pack the same punch? Are there scary kinds and not-so-scary kinds? Do tell, people. Do tell….
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Another irony here is that Obama is simply talking about allowing the current law to remain in effect, restoring the tax rate to where it was before Bush’s “tax cuts for the wealthy.” Are McCain/Palin asserting that we had socialism until those tax cuts came?
Also, tax rates for the wealthy were higher during the Reagan administration than they would be under Obama’s plan. Was Reagan also a socialist?
Most people flare up the moment they hear the world “Socialism” because cold war indoctrination has trained us to do exactly that whenever we hear that word or the dreaded “Communism.” All this stuff is still with us — when you apply for citizenship in U.S., they STILL ask you if you have ever been a Communist. Are they seriously still worried about “The Reds” infiltrating our government?
Socialism, Communism, Capitalism, Democracy — all these words have definitions that you can look up in the dictionary but can rarely apply to any working example. IE China is ruled by the Communist Party but practices aggressive Capitalism. America is Capitalist yet we subsidize all kinds of things — like the already bloated Military Industrial Complex, which could probably annihilate multiple Russias — or Chinas — or Earths. There comes a point when you’re not defending your country, you’re just lining the pockets of government contractors with taxpayer dollars — isn’t that a kind of Socialism?
This latest bank bailout (just one on a long list — see Business Week’s
“Corporate Bailouts Through History”)
http://images.businessweek.com/ss/07/12/1217_bailouts/index_01.htm
is an example of a disturbing trend of Privatization of reward, and Socialization of risk. That is, when Joe Millionaire makeS profits, he pockets them . But when he tanks the company, that’s on Joe the Plumber. While it may be true that shoring up (name your floundering company) will save jobs — wouldn’t it make more sense not to drive the company into the ground to begin with? If financial risk is mitigated by the American taxpayer, how much reserve and good judgment are the CEOs going to show? That’s a gambler’s paradise.
If we’re going to move forward, maybe we should remove altogether the labels “Socialism” and “Capitalism” and just stick to specifics. Should taxpayers pay for Congress’ health care? They already do, so maybe Taxpayers should also pay for Taxpayers’ health care. Maybe not, I don’t know . Let’s discuss, but let’s not get our fur up every time something gets branded with a word that carries more emotional meaning than literal meaning.