Does Romney think that America is full of rich people?

[pbrower2a]

I don't even like the use of the word 'liberalism' because it becomes completely meaningless.  

More meaningful than 'conservatism' given the FACT that its democratic capitalism's one - and only - hegemonic ideology. Furthermore, there is nothing Burkean, even remotely rational, about the contemporary GOP

Exactly my point! you are talking about Classical Liberalism which is probably a good way to describe my ideology - (in part anyway...complexities).  FDR was perhaps the antithesis of Classical Liberalism.  Thus, 'Liberalism' starts meaning nothing and everything and it's a junk loaded word.  You can't call Thomas Jefferson and Fidel Castro "Liberals" it drives me nuts.       

Classical liberalism did not end slavery, the last vestiges of serfdom, the subordination of women to men, child labor, monopoly power, racism, militarism, or the subjection of working people on its own. Classical liberalism may have been a huge improvement over the elitist statism that preceded it, but it never presented itself as a point at which all progress could end. Classical liberalism provided the tools of later progressive movements that Recognized the necessity of civil liberties, checks and balances, and competitive politics.

... By destroying democracy such people as Fidel Castro, Ayatollah Khomeini, Moammar Qaddafi, Hugo Chavez, and Robert Mugabe are not liberals any more than Adolf Hitler and Agosto Pinochet.     

[pbrower2a]

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Nope. From:

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to:

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Keep in mind that no "facts" had been provided. Now we're here and there's a definite increase in the quality of your conversational skills.

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Historically, yes.

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Besides parts of it being struck down, I'm guessing we won't see eye to eye on what the anti-union bill in your state does. I think we can agree, however, that it certainly eliminated the brilliantly mainstream Republican majority in the Senate. Here's a total of four bills (three anti-abortion, one anti-contraception) that Walker just signed this week.
 

Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona, Ohio, Indiana, and Florida have become laboratories for extremist ideology in liberal-to-moderate states. Perhaps Virginia is next.  The GOP in those states operates with different methods, but put them together and one can just imagine what is untended when the potential for repressive power is imposed upon the states slower to adopt the Hard Right as the ideology of the day. The difference between them is emphasis so far, but don't let that fool you. The techniques are being refined for making places like San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, and even New York City unable to stand up to the power of a Hard Right that has contempt for due process, liberal tradition, and rule of law.  

It's for cheap labor, a high birth rate, the degradation of workers' rights, the fire sale of the public sector to rapacious profiteers, the transformation of public schools into propaganda mills, the peonization of the middle class, and the gutting of local control. I have yet to see militarism, racism (except in Arizona), or destruction of civil liberties as objectives... but I wouldn't trust the current GOP with those if it got the majorities with which to impose Constitutional mischief.    

I certainly hope that I am wrong -- but I can imagine a new version of Apartheid imposed upon America based upon where one's politics lie, and in which the job of a policeman or schoolteacher -- or for that matter an accountant ... let alone having a chance to attend school that allows one to learn what it takes to be middle-class in America -- depends upon being a political hack.    

[pbrower2a]

Back to the question... The contrast merits making.

I am satisfied that Barack Obama learned some things as a community organizer. He met lots of people who did hard blue-collar work for a living. He dealt with people like schoolteachers and social workers. He met cops and parole officers. I am sure that he figured that the criminals who mugged grandmothers  for social security checks  were not so much misguided souls in need of help as they were predators as untrustworthy as big cats on the loose. He recognized that drugs degraded such humanity as addicts had.

For a liberal politician he has no bleeding heart. This is just as well. Having an excessively optimistic view of human nature could have made him into another Jimmy Carter and a political disaster.  

.......

It's easy for those brought up in privilege to have a distorted view of reality. The only poor people that they meet frequently are their domestic help whose poverty is hidden on the job through uniforms. They may interact with corporate bureaucracies, but with much insulation from people who struggle to make ends meet. They meet financial analysts and directors of accounting -- not accounting clerks.  As a rule they were not themselves small businessmen who had to deal with customers and working staff. If they encounter waiters they encounter those in the most expensive places and can tip generously. A 20% tip on $500 in meals and drinks is $100, which is a very high amount of income for a waiter even if that must be shared with  bus staff.  

The separation from working-class reality begins early with expensive boarding schools that effectively price out all but rich kids. Thy are unlikely to see fellow students born out of wedlock or kids raised by parents who aren't certifiable adults by behavior. They won't see the kids of such people as farm laborers, salesclerks, assembly-line workers, fast-food counterpeople, bank tellers, or for that matter, teachers, cops, fire fighters, letter carriers, or traveling salespeople.

The only time in which people of privilege can be sure of meeting people in all walks of life is when they are drafted into military service or enlist in the intention to avoid becoming "light infantry" (a/k/a cannon fodder), in which case,

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(Irving Berlin)

But those lyrics didn't apply to him.


He has been dealing with the so-called political and economic 'experts' who suggest the same solution for economic woes -- cut taxes for the rich, weaken unions that interfere in profits, make it easy to shift work to the places with the cheapest labor, and gut regulation of business. This is not what one would expect of someone struggling to make ends meet -- who might find a job in the public sector far preferable to cashiering in a dollar store soon after graduating from college with a substantial student loan.    

 

[pbrower2a]

Politico's unsubtle racism never fails to amuse!

No such thing.

My point was that these constant, unwarranted attacks on Romney are going to backfire to such a degree that Barack Obama will be viewed about as nicely as people viewed Marlo Stanfield (Or Bill Rawls, if you prefer) while following The Wire. Team Obama needs to proceed carefully with their negative attack ads. He is a popular guy, but Obama will incur enormous backlash if his team continues to throw unwarranted mud against Romney, like people are doing by saying the Romneys are snobs who know nothing about struggling folks (not true, as you will find out once the details leak about all of the volunteer activities done by the Romneys over the past forty years). You heard it here first.

"Out of touch with reality" and "doesn't have a clue" are two of the most effective themes of a negative campaign. Negative campaigns are appropriate against extremists, failures, and sell-outs. Mitt Romney stands now for the intensification of what has gone wrong with America over the last thirty years or so with the consequences of severe inequality, vanishing opportunity, and an ineffective public sector. How bad is inequality in America? We have greater gaps in income than Mexico, a country long infamous for disparities between the rich and poor.

Trickle-down economics is predicated on the idea that if the super-rich get even more rich they will have more cast-offs to give to the non-rich. We know how that works. The alternative that the Right occasionally allows is a speculative boom, most likely in real estate, in which people buy into a bad investment that allows quick profits for a few with the government eventually being saddled with the losses. If such isn't a disaster, then what is?

As I have said before, winning politicians run on their record and win; losers run from their record and lose. Mitt Romney has run from the stances that he won on in Massachusetts. He might have won as a RINO against a President that the Hard Right believes has gone too far.