Obama plan far from socialism
If you have strongly held opinions with regard to the issues raised in this column, either supporting or opposing, please take the time to add a comment. You may email me at jstillman@iqzero.net if you are inclined to expand on your rejection of ideas or facts presented herein. Please don’t bother suggesting that I am an idiot, spew excrement or a tool of enemy nations as I have already been told.
Bank in the day, bad people – that is, those with whom we disagree – were branded “communists” not because they necessarily followed, believed in or even understood the precepts of that social-economic viewpoint. Today, the curse word of those opposed to the newly freely elected president is “socialist”. Again, the word is shorthand for many proposals of the Obama plans to develop a plan for affordable, universal health care, a restructure of the tax system, a fostering of the development of alternate energy, a recognition that the deficit will, at least in the short term, increase and federal government participation in a variety of areas to which the Right opposes, from a guarantee of education, free availability of birth control and on and on.
Are there non-ideological grounds to be raised in opposition to the broad nature of the Obama “wish list”? Certainly. I would suggest that the President, in his wish to correct all of the matters ignored or mishandled by the past Bush administration, has failed to establish priorities. We have to reverse ill-advised policies from the past, but it must be acknowledged that it cannot be done immediately and simultaneously. It took many years to create the banking and financial market mess, to reduce this country’s prestige and influence in the world, and to sacrifice the essential liberties of our citizens; it is unrealistic and disingenuous to expect a 180° change in direction and result in weeks or even months.
On the other hand, one must acknowledge that President Obama has, every week and often every day, announced a specific program to correct ill-advised Bush-Rove decisions or to address specific concerns. Just this week a way to save millions of Americans from losing their homes through foreclosure was announced, and policy changes in awarding lucrative defense contracts to “friends” like Halliburton and Blackwater have been put into place.
It is in the area of suggesting priorities that a newly energized Republican party could play a role. Instead, GOP leaders seem intent to revert to a playbook that has been repudiated by the American people; there are two aspects of their plan, cut taxes and cut more taxes. Another “plan” is to brand those supporting the president as “socialists” in the hope, if not anticipation, that the public will be frightened sufficiently to cause the Democratic programs to fail.
Harold Meyerson, writing in The Washington Post, addressed the charge of “socialist”.
[In] the United States, conservatives have never bashed socialism because its specter was actually stalking America. Rather, they've wielded the cudgel against such progressive reforms as free universal education, the minimum wage or tighter financial regulations. Their signal success is to have kept the United States free from the taint of universal health care. The result: We have the world's highest health-care costs, borne by businesses and employees that cannot afford them; nearly 50 million Americans have no coverage; infant mortality rates are higher than those in 41 nations -- but at least (phew!) we don't have socialized medicine.
Give conservatives credit for their consistency: They attacked Roosevelt as a socialist as they are now attacking Obama, when in fact Obama, like Roosevelt before him, is engaged not in creating socialism but in rebooting a crashed capitalist system. The spending in Obama's stimulus plan isn't a socialist takeover. It's the only way to inject money into a system in which private-sector investment, consumption and exports -- the other three possible engines of growth -- are locked down. Investing more tax dollars in education and research and development is a way to use public funds to create a more competitive private sector. Keeping our banks from speculating madly with our money is a way to keep banking alive.
So let’s stop all the silly stuff about the Obama plan a blueprint for socialism or communism or any other “ism”; rather possible solutions for the problems now being faced should be the topic of the day. In future posts, some of these issues and possible ways to correct them will be discussed. While readers are free, of course, to continuing to comment on my diminished mental capacity, a more fruitful discussion would result from suggesting specific ways to meet the challenges.
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Obama plan far from socialism
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