Republicans have it all wrong.
The utter wrongness of the Republican view of America right now.
I am struck by the tone, tenor, and the actual message of American Republican style politics these days. I guess being young I do not understand the basic assumptions behind the role of government and the basic premise that republican politicians are espousing. It seems to me that America and Americans wanted to be seen as paragons of hope and the moral harbingers of a better future based on truth justice and the American way. It seems to me that we have gotten away from optimism and community bulding and development and the new formulation is that we are all individuals deserving of our own private liberty but owing nothing at all to the greater good of our neighbors. Wether it be here in America or our "enemies" overseas.
Newt Gingrich who is running for president always talks about how the problem with poor people are their lack of work ethic and lacking of a basic fundamental ability to understand the mechanisms of work. This is why he advocates making poor kids become janitors in public schools. This is not only amazingly condescending it also has the added benefit of not being true. On April 12 2011 Mcdonalds had a hiring day in which they wanted to hire over 50,000 . They had one million applications. This one simple story obliterates the basic premise of Gingrich's theory. How does making kids become janitors help any of the people trying to get a job at McDonalds that day? How does cutting off their food stamps help? Maybe if we gave them more tax breaks hey could hire more people you say. Well Mcdonalds posted a profit of 2.1 billion dollars last quarter. What social responsibilty is there for a company that shows this kind of profitablilty in spite of a world wide recession and global downturn? According to republican orthodoxy none. Their only responsibility is to their shareholders and in a macro sense capitalism. The market will help all of those people who applied to Mcdonalds.
How did we become a country that values profits before people? Why are our heroes now Apple or Exxon mobile instead of General motors. Apple is considered a hero because of the amount of money it earned and general motors is considered a failure because it promised its people a great salary and benefits and lifted multiple generations out of poverty and helped create the greatest middle class in history. MItt Romney who is running for president, is someone who greatly benefiited from the largess of Detroit and the auto industry was against the governmet intervention into the auto industry. According to him the American government has no role in preserving American industry. They should have been allowed to fail. So our government should stand by and let one of the largest creators of the American middle class wither and die out of principle or an irrational belief in a system.
The problem with Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich's world view is that they have fundamentally mistaken the role of the government in society. The government is not an abstract entity in place to ensure capital markets. The government is a group of people that we elect to do things we cannot do alone. Therefore if we cannot fight a war ourselves government. If we cannot feed ourselves government. No other company has the legacy cost of U.S. automakers you say. Well no other company has to pay for healthcare or the exorbitant retirement cost of U.S. workers. They have protected markets and zero legacy cost. If we had universal healthcare free college admissions and a real social safety net we would instantly level the playing field. Republican orthodoxy values capitalism over progressive governance. We place our reliance on the benevolence of Exxon mobile and become surprised when they value profits over people.
Once America get back to valuing people over profits I think their will be a new awakening and a restoration of progressive principles.