We are facing the most important election of lives. Well not really, that was the stolen election in 2000, which hastened, and, in the minds of some, institutionalized the neo-liberal school of economics. Neo-liberalism? Just think of it as fundamentalist capitalism on steroids. No, no. Better yet. Let us call it what it really is, fascism. The merger of the state and corporations. It has been a thirty-year ongoing process that was hastened by the 2000 election and the subsequent disasters of Iraq and Katrina.
Unbridled capitalism has but one logical end. After time, all competition is squashed and all the wealth accumulates in the hands of a single entity. It is predictable, and foreseeable, and ultimately works against the best interests of all but the very wealthy. Roosevelt and his advisers knew this and put in place regulations and restrictions on banking, credit and finance and enforced rules that assured that workers had a place at the bargaining table and a voice in how things were to be administered.
From this came the middle-class. Hardworking people acquired, and collectively bargained with, marketable skills and produced goods and services which were the envy of the world. They used their hard-earned money to buy homes, build basement "rathskellers" and back-yard Bar-B-Que pits, and they saved and sent their kids to college so that they too would not "have to punch the clock" as part of the "daily grind". Health care was not a profit-centered commodity and was readily available to most through jobs and pension guarantees. And all looked forward to old ages of safety, security and dignity.
Yes, shamefully, even then there were some being left out. But, we attempted programs and policies to build on FDR's which would go after those problems and issues. We tried to bring about early education, to end hunger, to create meaningful jobs with fair incomes. And, at every step in the process, the conservations, using incipient racism, took every opportunity to derail, rabble-rouse against, stymie and make inoperable those programs.
Even that was not good enough for the selfish and dysfunctional conservatives. They were dedicated to developing a replay, a means to wind back the clock in order to undo and dismantle all the gains of the New Deal.
Milton Friedman and neo-liberal economics provided the vision and means that has seen a three decade attack on working Americans, the elderly, and the poor. In her book, The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein, tells us in a few short sentences the M.O.used by the neo-conservative politicians and their neo-liberal economic henchmen:
Using the distraction of natural and social disasters or upheavals they quickly move to (1) Aggressively deregulate, (2) De-fund and end social programs, (3) Privatize the legitimate functions of government paying private contractors using American tax dollars.
Here's a couple of quick examples:
Katrina. Instead of rebuilding public, and low-cost housing, private developers are using tax money to build lavish tourist attractions.
Iraq. Who provides security to civilians? Private security firms. Who feeds and waters our military? Halliburton contractors. Who interrogates captives? Private shadow organizations.
They have outsourced virtually every function of government and are intent on finishing off the public schools and all health care.
We can stop them with this election. If we win the White House and enough for a majority Senate we MAYBE can begin the very long road of recovery. If we do not, it is over, and the American dream, as once defined, is gone for ever!
And that, my friends, is only a part of why this election is so damned important. We lost 2000 and 2004 because we allowed election fraud and bullying to take the day. And, we have paid a dreadfully dear price!
It is not enough that you merely vote, or make phone calls, or drive people to the polls. We need you to convince at least one other person, an undecided, someone not likely to vote--at least one other person, to vote for Obama and whatever Democrats are on the bottom of the ticket.
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