BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE

ODE TO A BLEEDING HEART-2008

The one factor that has contributed more than any other to the downward spiral of American standard of life was allowing the Republican Party to seize control of the political rhetoric. For over forty years the Democratic Party has allowed conservative zealots to run rampant in spreading distortions and misrepresentations regarding liberalism with impunity. As a direct result, two generations of Americans have come of age with a distorted view of what it means to be a liberal, which in turn, has undermined their ability to determine what is in their best interest, and what is in the best interest of America.

By failing to address this issue in a vigorous and forthright manner, the Democratic Party is not only doing a gross disservice to the honored memory of great Americans, but they're allowing the reckless distortion of fact to both blur our history, and gradually chip away at the fabric of this great nation. And by simply sitting back, without rebuttal, and allowing themselves, their constituency, and their agenda to be redefined in the eyes of the American people, they've allowed the term "liberal" to become a bad word in the political lexicon.

When you consider how methodically the conservatives have gone about mounting their assault on the liberal agenda, you can't help but recognize that it was a stroke of genius. Ironically, the Conservatives took the Democratic Party's primary strength and made it a political liability. First they took the party's penchant for being concern with the plight of the downtrodden and coined phrases such as "bleeding heart liberals" and "tax and spend Democrats." They then played on the frustration of the middle class by tying civil rights legislation, welfare, and crime into one neat bundle as the source of middle class woes; then they attributed all of these problems to what they called the Democrat's tendency to be " bleeding heart liberals". Then once the connection was made between minorities, welfare, crime, and the liberal agenda, it was just a matter of repeatedly hammering the message home.

The conservatives have used such tactics as spitting out the word "liberal" as though they were saying rapist. In this way they not only implanted a negative attitude toward liberalism in the mind of the voter, but it was said in such a way that the implication was made that it went without saying that all the negative stereotyping of liberalism was true. Their attitude seems to suggest, "I could substantiate what I'm saying about liberals, but I don't think it's necessary, since we all know what they're like." And in the election that spawned the "Republican revolution" the voters said, yes, we do, while the Democrats said absolutely nothing.

Through these strategies conservatives accomplished three goals with one ingenious stroke--they define minorities as slovenly criminals, they define liberal Democrats as "soft on crime", and they allowed themselves the freedom to place these thoughts in the American psyche wit

Hout having to substantiate their facts. Moreover, they accomplish all this in every sound bite, and without seeming to be racist, with the use of just one word--"liberal." In fact, conservatives have been so thorough in their disparagement of liberalism that at this point the word "liberal" is treated like vulgarity, and simply referred to as "the L word." one would think that Democrats would have been up in arms in defense of their great liberal tradition. It would seem that they would be falling all over one another in an attempt to debate this issue. But instead, they fell over one another trying to put distance between themselves and their own tradition. Much of the misery this nation has gone through over the past forty years might have been avoided if just one Democrat would have said, wait a minute, people! Read your history! It was the "bleeding heart liberal" policies of Franklin Delano Roosevelt that brought this country back from the brink of disaster!

History is clear. In 1921--eight years before the great depression--Republicans took over the helm of this nation for 12 years. During that time there were three Republican administrations, the first of which was the administration of Warren G. Harding. History remembers Harding's administration for one thing more than anything other--scandal. It was during Harding's presidency that the Teapot Dome Scandal erupted. His administration was considered the most corrupt administration in the history of the United States--until Nixon's, then Reagan, and now Bush's administration.

Next, in 1923, came Calvin Coolidge, the president that Ronald Reagan is said to have most admired. Coolidge's policies of large tax cuts, allowing business a free-rein, and his encouragement of stock speculation contributed greatly to the impending stock market crash and The great depression that was to come.

Then in 1929 Herbert Hoover came to power. During his administration the stock market crashed, starting the great depression. In spite of the fact that by 1933 the unemployment rate was at 33.3% with 16 million people out of work, Hoover, the Republican, just sat, thinking that the economy would eventually rejuvenate itself. He felt the economy was fundamentally (Sound familiar?). Also during his administration 15,000 WWI veterans marched on Washington demanding that they be paid what they were owed by the government. Hoover responded by calling in federal troops to throw these ex-servicemen off government property.

Finally in 1933 Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a liberal Democrat, was elected overwhelmingly. After his election he immediately went about the business of developing a" New Deal" for the working class people of this country.

The New Deal had two components--one to help the economy to recover from the effects of the great depression, and a second component to give relief to the American people and to insure that they would never be placed in a position of total destitution again. To help heal the economy Roosevelt created programs that regulated business, controlled inflation, and brought about price stabilization; to bring relief to the people he signed The National Labor Relations Act , which guaranteed workers the right to collective bargaining, and he created the Social Security Administration to guarantee workers some sort of income once they became too old to work. He also signed the Fair Labor Standards Act which protected workers rights, and set a minimum wage to prevent workers from being exploited.

With his New Deal in place Franklin Delano Roosevelt, this "bleeding heart liberal", not only ledthis country out of the worst, Republican generated, crisis that this country has ever faced, but went on to lead the free world in victory over Hitler in WWII. He then ushered in the most sustained prosperity that the world has ever known.

One would think that conservatives would have seen the light at that point, but their passion to further enrich the wealthy at the expense of the middle and lower classes seemed to supersede all logic. Thus, from the moment that the New Deal went into place, conservatives have been determined to dismantle it. The closest they've come to succeeding started during the Reagan Administration with Supply-Side Economics, or, "Reaganomics"--and the battle is currently raging in Washington D.C. as we speak.

It started with Supply- Side Economics. That was a scheme hatched by U.S.C. economist Arthur Laffer and the Reagan crowd which was supposed to cut the deficit and balance the budget. The theory behind this sheme, came to be known as "Reaganomics," was ostensibly, if you cut taxes for business and people in the upper tax brackets, and then deregulated business of such nuisances as safety regulations and environmental safeguards, the beneficiaries would invest their savings into creating new jobs. In that way the money would eventually "trickle down" to the rest of us. Then, the resulting broadened tax base would not only help to bring down the deficit, but also subsidize the tremendously high defense budget. When the plan was first floated, even George Bush Sr, Reagan's vice president to be, called it "voodoo economics."

Reaganomics, for the most part, sought to undo many of the safeguards put into place during the Roosevelt era and create a business environment similar to that which was in place during the Coolidge Administration. What actually took place, however, was even more like the Coolidge era than planed. Instead of taking the money and investing it into creating new jobs, the money was used in wild schemes and stock market speculation. One of these schemes, the leveraged buy out, involved buying up large companies with borrowed funds secured by the company's assets, then paying off the loan by selling off the assets of the purchased company. This practice cost the citizens of this country an untold number of jobs. In addition, the bottom fell out of the stock market. On Monday, October 19, 1987 the Dow-Jones Average fell 508.32 points. It was the greatest one-day decline since 1914 - 15 years before the Great Depression.

We must also not forget that during the Reagan era our good Senator John McCain played a leading role in undermining the public trust, and economy, as part of the infamous Keating Five. He was a leading player in the Lincoln Savings and loan scandal in 1987-a scandal that bears an uncanny resemblance to the one that's currently playing out on Wall Street. He was one of a group of senators dubbed "The Keating Five" involved in a scandal by the same name.

In 1976 Charles Keating moved to Arizona to run the American Continental Corporation. In 1984, shortly after the Reagan era push to deregulate the savings and loan community, Keating bought Lincoln Savings and Loan and began to engage in highly risky investments with the depositors' savings. In 1989 the parent company, which Keating headed, went bankrupt, and it resulted in over 21,000 investors losing their life savings. Most of the investors were elderly, and the loss amounted to about 285 million dollars.

After having received over a million dollars from Keating in illegal campaign contributions, gifts, free trips, and other gratuities, the Keating Five--Senators John Glenn, Don Riegle, Dennis DeConini, Alan Cranston, and Sen. John McCain--attempted to intervene in the investigation into Keating's activities by the regulators. Later, they were admonished to varying degrees by the senate for attempting to influence regulators on Keating's behalf. Charles Keating ended up being convicted for fraud, racketeering and conspiracy, for which he received 10 years by the state court, and a 12 year sentence in federal court. After spending four and a half years in prison, his convictions were overturned. But prior to being retried, he pled guilty to a number of felonies in return for a sentence of time served.

Then in 1988 another prominent Republican name pops up in the Silverado Savings and Loan collapsed, costing the taxpayers another $1.3 billion. It was headed by Neil Bush, brother of George W. The investigation alleged that he was guilty of "breaches of his fiduciary duties involving multiple conflicts of interest." The issue was eventually settled out of court with Bush paying a mere $50,000 settlement. So while the Republican Party continue to tell the American people that they are best equipped to handle our economy, the same Republican names keep popping up repeatedly in connection with economic incompetence, scandal, and disaster-and each time, it takes the Democrats to come to the aid of the American people.

And what about Ronald Reagan's promise to balance the budget and lower the deficit? By the time he left office he was not only the most prolific spender of any president in the history of the nation, but he also added more to the deficit than all of the other presidents from George Washington to his own administration combined. And what did the Republican Party propose to do about that? One of the Republican proposals in their "contract with America" was again, a capitol gains tax cut--for the rich.

So now, once again, a generation later, Republican, George W. Bush has come along and convinced the American people not to believe their lying eyes. And once again, he convinced America that we could create jobs by selling Gucci bags in a homeless shelter. Once again--even though we're still waiting for the "trickling windfall" from the Reagan era,-he sold us on the fact that all we had to do was give Gucci a big enough tax break and he would create jobs.

But the laws of supply and demand are immutable--in the absence of resources, demand must come first , then supply. So just as in the Reagan era, if the people in the homeless shelter don't have the money to purchase the handbags, it doesn't matter how big a tax windfall we give Gucci, he's not going to hire more workers to make handbags that he can't sell.

But in their greed, the Republican Party and its business constituency refused to accept that simple principle. They said, we'll loan them the money to by the bags. But again, due to the boundless greed of the business community, instead of hiring the homeless consumers that they'd loaned the money to as workers to make the bags, they tried to squeeze every penny of profit out of the deal by hiring cheaper labor overseas. As a result, when the bill became due, not only did the homeless default on their loans, but the elaborate house of cards built on selling the valueless loans also collapsed-and guess who's now holding the "bag?" And now, all of a sudden, as McCain's position clearly demonstrates, the very same free-marketers who paid millions of dollars to keep the government out of the "free market", sees 800 billion reasons for government intervention.

Thus, history is clear. Conservative Republicans don't mind spending money, they just don't wantto spend it on those who need it--us; and they certainly don't mind government intervention in the free market-as long as it's on their behalf.

When dealing with the Republican Party we must always remember, they're the party of Alexander Hamilton, one of this nation's founding fathers who believed that only those who owned property should even be allowed to vote. He was the quintessential elitist-and with regard to the theme of the current election, firmly against change. He also said:

"All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and wellborn, the other the mass of the people.... The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right. Give therefore to the first class a distinct, permanent share in government. They will check the unsteadiness of the second, and as they cannot receive an advantage by a change, they therefore will ever maintain good government."
Debates of the Federalist Convention (May 14-September 17, 1787).

So, let's set the record straight. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, that "bleeding heart liberal", not only brought this nation back from the Great Depression, while saving the world from Hitler and imperialist Japan during his life, but his "New Deal" for the American people gave us the greatest prosperity we've ever known. It also allowed him to reach back from the grave, through the person of Bill Clinton, to save the nation from Ronald Reagan 50 years after his death. Now he's poised to do it, yet again, through Barack Obama, if the American people will simply open their eyes.

That isn't to say that the liberal Democratic philosophy corners the market on what is in the best interest of the nation--it is clear that both parties have had illustrious moments in the past. But this is one of those defining moments in American history that will determine whether this is to be a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, or a government where the citizens or nothing more than disposable resources for big business.


Eric L. Wattree

BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE

John McCain accused Barack Obama of being an elitist. He then trotted out "Joe the Plumber" to symbolize that he, unlike Obama, stood in solidarity with the American middle class. That made for great theater, but like John McCain himself, it soon became clear that Joe the Plumber maintained a strained relationship with truth.

In an October 11 encounter with Barack Obama, Joe the Plumber, or Joseph Wurzelbacher, told Obama that he was a plumber who was about to buy the business from his employer. He said the business generated between 250 and $280,000 a year. It turned out, however, that none of that was true. Wurzelbacher's scenario was contrived in an attempt to show that Obama's tax plan would hurt those in the middle class who were struggling to improve their plight.

The fact is "Joe the Plumber" has neither a plumber's license, nor has he ever served an apprenticeship as a plumber. The United Association of Plumbers, Steamfitters, and Service Mechanics Union indicated that he applied for an apprenticeship in 2003, but never completed the program. It was also revealed that he only made $40,000 a year, and thus, probably not in any position to buy a business. In fact, he's currently in debt to the government for $1182.92 in unpaid taxes.

In another case, Ashley Todd, a 20 year old college student and one of McCain's paid organizers, reported that she was robbed and assaulted by 6'4" Black man. She claimed that she was at an ATM when a Black man came up behind her and put a knife to her throat. She said she gave him $60 and started to walk away, but then the man saw a McCain sticker on her car and hit her in the back of the head, knocking her down. According to Tood, the assailant said, "You're going to be a Barack supporter," as he kicked and beat her. Then he said, I'm going to "teach you a lesson for being a McCain supporter." He then held her down and scratched a "B" on her right cheek.

It was a graphically compelling story. There was only one problem-it wasn't true. The "B" that was scratched on Todd's face was what probably gave her away-it was backwards, as though done while looking into a mirror. Todd later admitted that she made the whole thing up.

Both Joe the Plumber, and Ashley Todd, are perfect metaphors for the lying, hypocrisy, and lack of integrity that's been a pervasive part of the McCain campaign-and the campaign seems to recognize that. The "straight talk express" notwithstanding, the McCain campaign seems to be made up of two separate camps-one supporting McCain, and the other supporting Palin-but in their wisdom, both camps seem to have enough sense not to trust the other.

It has become clear that truth, character, and integrity, to both McCain, Palin, and many of their supporters, represents whatever they can get away with. They're like a den of thieves, whose only loyalty to one another is in pursuit of their unconscionable ambition and greed. They've become so desperately engrossed in their rampant thirst for power that they've lost all perspective on political, or any other kind of reality.

Even as the McCain camp was criticizing Obama for what some surrogates characterized as the arrogant extravagance of using his campaign jet to fly to the bedside of his gravely ill grandmother, McCain's vice-presidential running mate, Sarah Palin, was strutting the catwalk in her new $150,000 wardrobe that had been purchased by the campaign. They had completely lost touch with the fact that such extravagance wouldn't play well while they were trying to align themselves with Joe the Plumber's middle class. How could they possibly claim that they were in touch with the plight of the middle class, when they spent $23,500 more on Sarah's clothes than Joe the Plumber had on his home? And beyond that, they paid Sarah's stylist $23,800 for just two week's work. Now, who's the elitist?

And now that they've been caught with their skivvies around their ankles, the only thing they can think of is to cry sexism. They're contending that if Sarah was a man clothes wouldn't be an issue.

How elitist and out of touch can one group be? They must think the American people are so stupid that we don't realize that clothes are not the issue here. The issue is their recklessly vulgar spending while Americans are losing their homes. And besides, how can they reconcile their claim of sexism in light of all of the fuss Republicans made over Sen. John Edwards' "designer haircut"? Was that sexist as well?

Elitism is defined by the American Heritage Dictionary as follows: "The belief that certain persons or members of certain classes or groups deserve favored treatment by virtue of their perceived superiority, as in intellect, social status, or financial resources." I'd say buying Sarah a wardrobe that cost over $23,000 more than many of your supporters' homes easily meets that standard. I'd also say, spending $23,800 to have Sarah's hair done for two weeks meets that standard as well.

And beyond that, how can a man whose father, and grandfather, were both admirals in the navy, thereby, giving him a free pass through the naval academy-in spite of severely "challenged" academic qualifications-call a man who had to struggle through life, and get through college on scholarships, an elitist? Superior intellect alone doesn't make one an elitist-the lack of humility is an indispensable component. On the other hand, having to refer to your staff to find out how many homes you own, and calling $250,000 "pocket change" puts you right there in the ballpark.

So just the thought of McCain calling Obama elitist is ridiculous, and it clearly demonstrates two things-first, we've allowed Republicans to redefine the word; and secondly, McCain is so elitist himself that he thinks the American people are stupid. And you know what? To a very real extent we are.

We've allowed the Republican Party to convince us that intellectual curiosity, and the active pursuit of excellence through knowledge is elitism. We've also allowed them to teach us that in order to be good Americans, we have a moral obligation to remain stupid, and anyone who isn't should be suspect. They would have us believe that anyone with an ounce sense, couldn't possibly be "one of us."

Eric L. Wattree

wattree.blogspot.com