Republicans believe government must be smaller, that it feeds off the public, and that it reduces the self-sufficiency of families. They believe government steals our money through taxes, and its touted hostility toward businesses sends those jobs overseas and previously middle class families suffer deprivation.
Democrats believe government has grown too weak to regulate the biggest business sectors like banks, energy and health. They believe capitalism has gone cutthroat and lost Adam Smith's bottom line—the common good. They believe the middle and working classes have lost jobs, homes, and lives due to corporate greed. They also feel that millions of American families suffer deprivation as a result of high prices.
The leadership of both parties—read Romney and Obama—have
left unchallenged the false notion that business and government are separate
and in competition, like they used to be when our free enterprise system
functioned. They aren’t separate anymore; the assumption they are separate is
the biggest lie. Big business is now in bed with government more than ever
before. Government is governed by big money more than ever before. Republican
and Democratic leadership are the same flock of turkeys, noisily competing with
each other over taxpayer morsels by the $billions. That flock has infiltrated the
private and public sector so extensively that politicians/business execs easily
and quickly exchange identities and claim exaggerated loyalty to us the people
where there is none. So the real story, yet untold, involves politicians from
both camps competing over billions of dollars in spoils from the dying middle
class. Could the weekly political
crises, promoted for media outlet profit and fueled by people’s frustration,
actually be contrived to divert people from this issue?
I was reminded of our current dilemma yesterday, as my family's flock of turkeys followed me around the fields. My granddaughter, Hannah, taught our seven baby turkeys how to scratch and peck last spring. Now this August, they are perfectly capable of fending for themselves, as they range the farm. However, they much prefer that I catch insects for them. I gave in to their begging yesterday, mostly because they're so darn cute, and offered up a large grasshopper for their consumption. I was quickly overwhelmed with the demand for more, as turkeys began pecking at my buttons and eyeglasses. At that moment, those little creatures seemed to really believe that their existence depended on me, even though they had the skills to feed themselves. Of course, they really do need me to help them out of a jam, like when they get caught on the wrong side of the fence and lose their freedom to range where they want.
I wonder how we can get back to a philosophy of working together to help each other in times of genuine need, without creating systems of dependency. Is there a way to back out of our current all or nothing thinking regarding the evils of government or the evils of the corporate take-over of America? I wonder whether we all find ourselves believing the same big lie, that government and industry are easily distinguishable enemies.
Those hating "Big Business" want to keep their social security payments and medicare benefits as a safety net for retirement. Those distrusting government programs want the business sector to guarantee retirement benefits and health care insurance. Either way, we fall prey to the lie that the two have not become one. They have. In the meantime, we have a big mess with our economy, class warfare is threatening, and basic freedoms are falling by the wayside. Families who have gone broke or suffered human losses from inadequate health care have little hope since Obamacare and Romneycare, and whatever either winner might regurgitate after November 11, will be caught in the same confusion.
Witness the turkey gathering around Medicare, Medicaid and social security, the big cash cows congress and investment banks have conspired to peck into for a century. Says Romney on CBS, "There's only one president that I know of in history that robbed Medicare, $716 billion…" Yet that's precisely the Congressional Budget Office estimate of the savings to this country under Obamacare. Further, the GOP plan keeps that Obamacare savings plan intact. Yes, Romney and Ryan are reasonable enough to know Obamacare is right for America, so their plan duplicates the savings of $716 billion.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2012/aug/15/checking-facts-700-billion-medicare-cut/
So why do these turkeys so badly misrepresent reality? Why are Republican leaders sold on Obamacare's central plans to slow the growth of Medicare over the next decade, eliminate overpayments to private insurers, reform provider payments for greater efficiency, tie reimbursements to improvements in economic productivity, and set up programs to reduce fraud and abuse? Because it puts a useful band-aid over the bleeding of America, while keeping in place the confused network of myriad conflicts of interest between government and the private sector, involving trillions of our American dollars to be gobbled up. Some turkeys.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2012/aug/15/checking-facts-700-billion-medicare-cut/
Perhaps we could start by restoring the clear separation of government and business so that we, the people, can again clearly monitor what's going on between them. That's what our founding fathers believed. It's what President Eisenhower warned us about. It's what the Glass Steagall act was designed in the '30's to remedy. It's what the Roosevelt trust busting program was about. And it's what Republicans and Democrats conspired together to mix up and confuse in the last half-century.
David Graber
Hardin, MT 59034
graberdb@gmail.com
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