Enough is enough is enough.

Paul Krugman has written another superb column in the New York Times about the futility of the approach being favored by the current crop of politicians - Democrats as well as Republicans. The idea that we must slash the national deficit and debt, no matter what that does to our citizens, is crazy. Krugman's piece lays bare all the fallacies in it and uses the example of Ireland and other European nations that have taken this path as evidence of why it is so crazy and self-defeating.

But it's also horribly inhumane. Sociopathic, even. One of his commenters pointed that out far better than I ever could, and I'm going to ask this gentleman's forgiveness for copying his rant in full. It is an impassioned statement, and crystallizes all of the frustrations that I've felt ever since this economic collapse was just a roaring noise over the horizon, in about 2006:

martin
Portland, Oregon
March 25th, 2011
1:35 am

I think we are going through a period of madness in this country. All across the nation, Republican governors have cut taxes for the rich and corporations and propose offsetting these with cuts in programs which benefit middle and working class Americans and the poor.


On the Federal level, Obama caved on extending the Bush tax cuts for the rich, and to prove his own credibility of being at least half insane,cut programs like heating subsidies for poor elderly Americans.

Are oil and farm subsidies being cut. of course not!

The working and middle class are the new scapegoats, particularly public workers. Now that outsourcing has taken care of the former manufacturing class, what is left are public employees like teachers, and their unions.

This madness has reached such a point that the Governor of Maine removed art murals from the state capital depicting the history of the labor movement. He said it disparaged business. Government censoring and removing art. We are rapidly moving past oligarchy, which is bad enough, but are racing towards American style fascism as I see it.


When politicians talk about deficits, they never talk about about ending farm subsidies or tax oil loopholes and subsidies, estate taxes, or raising taxes on the richest, a few percent. but propose cutting programs that benefit the sick, children, seniors, the poor, schools, health care and the middle class and poor in general.


This is beyond poor judgement. There is a contempt and almost hatred of the middle class and poor and a cult like lionization of the rich and corporations that defies reason, is at base nihilistic and inhumane and is reminiscent of fascist regimes the brutal dictatorship of Agosto Pinochet of Chile, who was greatly influenced by the University of Chicago economists like Milton Friedman and was a great friend of the Nixon regime and the foreign policy of Henry Kissinger.

This has become a fixated ideological vision for Republicans and they have no concern for who gets hurt by their policies as long as the rich and corporations benefit. They actually believe that wealth makes a person or entity more worthy and superior to ordinary Americans and that somehow by skewering the government totally in favor of the rich, the trickle down effect will benefit society as a whole. The fact that this thinking has failed both in America and abroad does not deter them because like all people wedded to an all or nothing blind ideological position, they are impervious to facts, history and reason. Also emotions like compassion, empathy and connectedness does not enter into their decision making. Ordinary Americans are collateral damage.

Not focusing of jobs leads to less money to spend on the part of ordinary Americans, which further depletes government revenues and demand in the private sector, which results in more unemployment and reduction in services and government spending which leads to a further depressed economy.

The fact is that this is what Republicans want. They want to government to be reduced to being a tool of the corporate class and to have most services that were formerly the domain of government to be privatized, therefor completing the transformation of our representative democracy into a corporate state who main function is to further the needs of an economic elite. Choose your term, but the result will be an American style oligarchy, which we almost are already, or fascism American style.

A corporate coup has taken place in America right under Obama's nose, aided by the Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court. Obama has lost the ideological war to Republicans. He has stifled dissent from progressives while Republicans went full steam ahead with their ideological war against the middle class,and their elevation of greed as our most worthy social value. Obama privately reads biographies about Regan, while Republicans champion his economic policies regardless of their value and efficacy. They have won...so far.

Our only hope as I see it is for Republicans continue to keep power and have ordinary Americans of all political persuasions realize the contempt that the have for them and that they really serve the needs of a small economic elite. Workers, unions and the middle class are starting to get organized, without the help of Obama, because Republican policies are directly attacking their well being. This will be the only way to defeat Republicans, because most Democratic leaders are too timid to take them on directly, the clearest example being the president.

Just like the draft helped end Vietnam and would have ended Iraq earlier or even prevented it had we had one because everyone would have had skin in the game, the current direct economic war on ordinary Americans might finally cause them to unify and organize to oppose Republican policies. This will happen in spite of the Obama's desire to stifle such a movement. No conflict..no change.

Well said, "martin."

This writer gets the MORAL injustice of what is happening. The protesters in Wisconsin got that. The editorial writers at the Chicago Tribune didn't - those writers who joined the throngs of good ol-boys and Chamber of Commerce types who kvetch that unions probably did this to themselves and hey, haven't they kind of outlived their usefulness anyway? And, you know, it's only public employees - who have it better than the rest of us - who feel entitled to this kind of protection. Pensions? Might as well ask for buggy whips. You will take this 401(k) and you will risk your future on the markets. Oh, and we'll charge you a nice fee to manage it. Hey, you can be a high roller like the big boys. Yeah, well, we all lost money the past two years. Them's the breaks. And sorry, you don't get a bailout like they did.

Anyone who joins that chorus should be ashamed of themselves. All you have to do is listen to the news. Some examples that struck me:

• A recent CBS News story by Katie Couric on the new hunger in America revealed that more and more middle class kids are going to school hungry because their debt-ridden parents lost their homes, are living in borrowed quarters, and can't afford groceries every week.  
• A recent BBC story repeats what we've been hearing on PBS Newshour (yesterday, as a matter of fact): The income inequality gap in the United States is higher than it's ever been, and is on a par with nations like Somalia.
• WTTW in Chicago reported this week on a team of doctors who had been traveling to Vietnam and other nations to provide free joint-replacement surgery to people who needed it. They realized this year that people in Chicago without health insurance were unable to get this surgery, and were living in pain and unable to function. The doctors decided to bring their mercy mission back home to their own city. When they did, none of he large teaching hospitals would host it. They found a smaller community hospital that was glad to offer the service to local residents.
• And, on a personal note: Our grocery bill regularly tops $200 a week for three people, which it never used to (I know because Jewel used to send us coupons for $15 off a $190 purchase and we could never reach that total six months ago).

So maybe we should look to someone who seems to have a firm grasp on the moral issues involved in all these developments, and can give us a moral reasoning basis for not knocking the life out of working people. I'll let him say it:

"In any case we clearly see, and on this there is general agreement, that some opportune remedy must be found quickly for the misery and wretchedness pressing so unjustly on the majority of the working class: for the ancient workingmen's guilds were abolished in the last century, and no other protective organization took their place. Public institutions and the laws set aside the ancient religion. Hence, by degrees it has come to pass that working men have been surrendered, isolated and helpless, to the hardheartedness of employers and the greed of unchecked competition. The mischief has been increased by rapacious usury, which, although more than once condemned by the Church, is nevertheless, under a different guise, but with like injustice, still practiced by covetous and grasping men. To this must be added that the hiring of labor and the conduct of trade are concentrated in the hands of comparatively few; so that a small number of very rich men have been able to lay upon the teeming masses of the laboring poor a yoke little better than that of slavery itself."

The writer? Pope Leo XIII. The year? 1891. (The title: "Rerum Novarum.")

Gee, our modern society is SO much better than the old days of the nineteenth century, isn't it?

I suspect that there's a reason that no one wants to take a hard look at the moral values that underlie our society and how we are part of the problem. There's no app for that. You can't get it on an easy payment plan. As the furniture commercial whines at us, "I want it all. And I want it now." So we'll let the Chinese make it for us and let the billionaires reap the profits, so we can have our cool furniture that will fall apart in five yeas, and our cool phones that will be obsolete in six months, and our streaming videos that aren't worth watching anyway.

We need to suck it up and take a stand and be willing to hold ourselves accountable. Then we need to hold these bozos accountable. How long are we going to keep believing lies??!

Concentrating wealth in the hands of those who already have it is not going to get our economy started. Deregulating our way to job creation is like charging our way to Capital One cash rewards. The price is too high and the benefits aren't going to happen.