Pop quiz: Who asked this question, "Is capitalism really about the ability of a handful of rich people to manipulate the lives of thousands of other people and walk off with the money?" Lenin? Lennon? Commissar Obama? Eugene Victor Debs? Wavy Gravy? (you will know how old you are in direct proportion to how many of these you can identify).
It was none of the above. It's yesterday's insight from Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich and it is rich material indeed. Here are yesterday's responses to Newt...
The Out-of-Touch Republicans Defending Romney:
-- Rick Santorum: "I'm not making it a liability, I believe in the private sector."
-- Rush Limbaugh: Mr. Gingrich was "out of bounds for those who value the free market."
-- The Chairman of the Club for Growth, Chris Chocola, "disgusting."
Republicans Who Smell The Coffee:
-- Jon M. Huntsman Jr.: "It may be that [Romney's] slightly out of touch with the economic reality playing out in America right now."
-- Ron Paul: "The wealth is taken from the middle class and it goes to the select few, who are the insiders."
It seems that Occupy Wall Street has just landed in the middle of the New Hampshire primary, with the same kind of lasting impact it's having everywhere. Apparently leading Repulicans are willing to speak publicly about income inequality and the Wall St 1%ers. No longer are Republicans allowed to pretend that the real problem is the shackles we've put on Donald Trump, Enron and Bank of America.
Are you with the 99% or with the 1%? Leave it to the very smart Newt Gingrich to find the hole in the Romney facade and drive a truck through it.
This toothpaste won't go back into the tube. Republican voters know that their candidates became the Party of the Koch Brothers and Wall Street while the New Wave was creating itself at Zuccotti Park. No candidacy can succeed in today's America without addressing the questions of income inequality and power inequality that OWS defined and dramatized.
And this is just the beginning. If Gingrich is right on either the politics or the merits (and he is), then whole sections of the Republican catechism go out the window. Are financiers "job creators" or do we actually give that encomium to entrepreneurs, people with ideas and energy who build them into companies?
Should our tax code and our economic development policies remain fixated by supply-side subsidies to corporate America, or is it time to return to demand-side policies which help average people buy things and stimulate economic activity?
Is there an unwholesome connection between concentrated wealth and concentrated power that should offend a true conservative? Is a corporation really a person in the conservative world? If you scratch many a "social conservative" will you find the corporate apologist?
There's no end to where this debate takes the Republican Party and the nation. OWS wins again. Remember the critique that the movement didn't have an agenda? This is better than an agenda, it's a change in consciousness. Thanks, Newt.
Follow Richard Brodsky on Twitter: www.twitter.com/richardbrodsky
 |
 |
|
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Electoral Votes (270 to win) |
332 | 206 |
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Total | 65,899,660 | 60,932,152 |
| Percent | 51.1% | 47.2% |
| Democrats* | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Current Senate | 53 | 47 |
| Seats gained or lost | +2 | -2 |
| New Total | 55 | 45 |
| Democrats | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Seats won | 201 | 234 |
OWS has already achieved a great victory in this regard.
Of course this will never happen because the Newtster is not disciplined enough, nor capable of sufficient focus to pull it off. I am sure I will wake up tomorrow and he will be off spouting some repulsive nonsense and tilting at some other windmill, but, but what if he could?
A current and obvious example is the Iranian threat to block the Strait of Hormuz. Economic sanctions against them come with a price, namely them fighting back with a weapon capitalism gives them...Speculators.
Just the threat of a blockage gives profiteers an excuse to make more money by rasing the price of oil. Increased prices in oil causes pressure on our economic recovery, and causes pain and discomfort in your, and my, everyday life.
Not one less barrel of oil is flowing to market, yet the price goes up. Political pressures to confront them does what, raise the price even more. Iranians are not stupid enough to start a war, but they are smart enough to let free markets do the work for them.
So, some will become even more wealthy, others will score political points for elections, but the victims, the 99%, will pay the price. A conversation about the damage done by speculators is anti-business. A conversation about the cost to the 99% is class war. Really.
Now we need to Occupy Congress by removing the Lawyers, Businessmen, and Trust Fund Babies. It is time for Congress to be representative of the people with common men being elected to these offices and wealth not being the deciding factor.
Campaign reform is needed so that common people that make less than 50 thousand a year have just as much chance of being elected as the guy that runs Bank America.
We should not let money rule our country but wisdom.
One wise leader is worth all the billionaires put together when it comes to running our country.
And as for the criticisms about us not having an agenda: they're right. Because agenda's are things you do sneakily behind closed doors to enefit yourself while lying about your motivations. We didn't have an agenda - we HAVE a mission to help the American people come to their senses and realize that it is NOT their fault that the economy is collapsing. There is, obviously much more to our mission, like encouraging all people to stand up and work for a better world for all of us. Also, holding crooks and liars accountable, especially for the TRILLIONS that the federal reserve claims they don't even know where it went. We don't have an agenda to line our pockets or make sure we keep out power base in the next election. We are every day people who want to see a better world and a future for every single person on this earth, not just the fatcats on WallStreet who've swindled the American people time and time again so that they could keep getting richer and richer.
Also: Newt has a 500,000 $ limit at Tiffany's and yet wouldn't pay child support after his first divorce. HE has an agenda and is using wealth inequality to further that agenda.
No, Newt is not attempting to address the inequities of the U.S. corporatocracy; he's just trying to punish Mitt for assailing Newt's precious pride.
The fact is however he had to recognize the truth of OWS in order to use the statement against Mitt. Newt knows that OWS has a truth that the public agrees with and he used it to embarrass Mitt because he knew Mitt couldn't argue against that truth. The Republicans have been emasculated, they don't know how to fight the fact that the Rich are swindling America and Americans for their own profit and power.