Do You Think Americans Reject The Notion Of Spreading The Wealth?

In his weekly radio address this morning John McCain warned that Barack Obama wants to-- Heaven forbid-- spread the wealth around. He would tax-- at a rate even less than under the Clinton Administration-- multimillionaires like... well, like Cindy McCain who inherited a fortune from her gangster, bootlegger father, and use that money for the benefit of society as a whole. To the right, of course, that is the biggest sin on God's earth. McCain:

My opponent's answer showed that economic recovery isn't even his top priority. His goal, as Senator Obama put it, is to "spread the wealth around."

You see, he believes in redistributing wealth, not in policies that help us all make more of it. Joe, in his plainspoken way, said this sounded a lot like socialism. And a lot of Americans are thinking along those same lines. In the best case, "spreading the wealth around" is a familiar idea from the American left. And that kind of class warfare sure doesn't sound like a "new kind of politics."

Class warfare is what the wealthy and their puppets have been waging against the rest of us. One day, if unchecked, it will boil over and the McCains and Bushes and Cheneys of this country will learn what class warfare is-- like the French aristocracy did. Meanwhile, perhaps they could get a glimmer from the introduction to This Land Is Your Their Land, the fantastic new book by Barbara Ehrenreich. She writes that "we'll need a new deal, a new distribution of power and wealth if we want to restore the beautiful idea that was "America."

At the pinnacles of the wealth scale, extravagance reigned on a scale not seen since the late Roman Empire. Freshly fattened CEOs, hedge fund operators, and financiers hired interior decorators for their private jets, slugged backed $10,000 martinis at the Alogonquin Hotel in Manhattan, and, in one case, stage a $2 million birthday party in Sardinia featuring an ice statue of David urinating vodka.

There was a connection, as most people suspected, between the massive build up of wealth among the few and the anxiety and desperation of the many. The money that fueled the explosion of gluttony at the top had to come from somewhere or, more specifically, from someone. Since no domestic oil deposits had been discovered, no new seams of uranium or gold, and since the war in Iraq enriched only the military contractors and suppliers, it had to have come from other Americans. In fact, the greatest capitalist innovations of the past decade have been in the realm of squeezing money out of those who have little to spare: taking away workers' pensions and benefits to swell profits, offering easy credit on dubious terms, raising insurance premiums and refusing to insure those who might ever make a claim, downsizing workforces to boost share prices, even falsifying time records to avoid paying overtime.

Prosperity, in America, had not always been a zero-sum game. Early twentieth-century capitalists-- who were certainly no saints-- envisioned a prosperous people generating profits for the upper class by buying houses and cars and washing machines. But somewhere along the line, the ethos changed from we're all in this together to get what you can while the getting is good. Let the environment decay, the infrastructure crumble, the public hospitals close, the schools get by on bake sales, the workers drop from exhaustion-- who cares? Raise the premiums, reduce the wages, add new mystery fees to each bill, and let the devil take the hindmost. Only when the poor suckers at the bottom stopped buying and defaulted on their mortgages did anyone notice them.

That's how Ehrenreich starts her book, which I began reading today. Yesterday I finally finished Congressman Robert Wexler's Fire-Breathing Liberal and I'd like to juxtapose what we just read by Barbara Ehrenreich with how Wexler ended his book:

Rather than focusing on those issues that mattered to the everyday lives of Americans, the GOP built their political agenda around divisive social issues. The so-called wedge issues. Rather than working on improving our school system, they waged a battle against gay marriage. Instead of working toward universal health-care coverage, they passed legislation prohibiting Americans from playing poker online. Instead of tackling global warming, they rallied pro-life activists around the tragic case of Terri Schiavo. Instead of conducting judicious oversight hearings on the Iraq War debacle, they fought valiantly to protect Christmas.

In political terms, the Republicans moved the middle to the right-- and thus moved the mainstream closer to the conservative position. When Democrats regained the majority, we tried to govern from the middle, believing we could be passionate moderates or triumphant triangulators. This strategy, however, has achieved precious few results with an incorrigible Bush-Cheney White House blocking substantial progress. And it makes you wonder: If Republicans govern from the right and Democrats govern from the middle, when does the left get to govern? As a progressive, I fear my party has become more docile in the majority than we were in the minority.

We're trying to expand our relatively slim majority by being cautious. Instead, we should be galvanizing Americans behind a progressive agenda. The facts favor our side. Rather than blurring the differences between Democrats and Republicans, we should highlight them and fight for our principles.

By the way, you can read more about real class warfare in Ehrenreich's book online, an excerpt from The Nation. Coincidentally, Coleen Rowley sent me this incredible music clip last night from Minnesota singer-songwriter Peter Lang:

Comments

[barnybilt]

If You want to think of the redistribution of wealth, small Government, conservatism, and all the things McCain and the Republicans talk and complain about look directly at them. They have increased Government to the largest it has ever been, and made it work the least.. They have taken ours and our childrens money and distributed it to Iraq and Afgahnistan, as well as every banker stockbroker and corporation. They exported our jobs to other countries under their beliefs in free trade and open markets. They have allowed business to just do as it pleases with no controls and we see what that has got us. They have spent, borrowed, gave and stolen most of our countries weath and prosperity and drove most of us into deflation of our worth. How can they even mention conservatism when they don't have an idea what it means. How even Republicans can still drink the coolaid I can't see. It was their money wealth and future they gave away as well as ours.

[pr0metheus]

It is is only ever called wealth redistribution when the wealthy have to give up theirs to the poor. But when wealth flows from poor to the rich, that is seen as normal? Why should the taxes of the poor subsidize the rich? The rich have the most to gain from a government that allows them to be that wealthy and protect their ownership rights. Therefore they darn well better pay their fair share, and a premium to that as well.

[JonG345]

I look at republican ideology as more emotional thatn intellectual. They're being trained to hate elites and bankers, but they're not supposed to want to spread the wealth... Yet they encourage personal responsibility AND deregulation...

How does that all add up? It means you're completely on your own when dealing with evil greedy banks that can do whatever they want. That makes absolutely no sense.

[Acidreign]

"The wealth of this nation should be measured by the security and opportunity it affords to all. So, yes, John, I do want to spread the wealth. But are you really telling the American people you don't want increase their access to opportunity and security. That you want to hoard wealth, hoard opportunity. That doesn't sound very American to me."

Seven, eight, nine, ten, And the winner is Barrack Obama by a knockout.

[WritingFrontier]

Speaking of spreading the wealth around, get ready to spread some of yours. With a one trillion deficit on the way, here's how you're going to pay for it. See Writing Frontier's "Smarter than this" at

http://writingfrontier.com/2008/09/28/smarter-than-this/

[DemNSouthAL]

You know, i'm not asking for a hand-out. I just dont think it is fair for me to pay more taxes than people who make 10 times what i make!

[blindjester]

Besides, what Obama meant by "spread the wealth around" was to help more people be more prosperous, not just take money from one hand and put it in another.

He talks, as Bill Clinton did, about "growing the economy." The nation has more money in the end, and everybody does well.

[PDXKevin]

"My friends, I'm going to take on the greed and corruption on Wall St..." By lowering their taxes?

[HockeyMom]

Funny in a sad way.

Get out and vote, vote early, help others vote and stay positive.

[lisakaz2]

It seems we are heading for the "Let 'em eat cake" decadence of the few unless we all stop it. They will try to terrorize the population with the scare word(s) of socialism and/or marxism but really they are covering their own greedy hides. They look at a film like "Marie Antoinette" and think that should be their life and the rest of us should be invisible. We need to take back our country.

[apoyo]

The "scare words of socialism and marxism" might work if they had taken care of the school system and actually educated the people so they knew what those words meant.

[demfriend]

You know the very odd thing about this all is that I would dearly love for the wealth to be spread around especially if I get some! Why is that a bad thing?