There’s a Palpable Fear Amongst Kansans, All Across That State, That the Farm Subsidy Levels They Love, and Cherish, and Honor, Will Be Reduced or that the Program Will Be Eliminated. (Or, in light of their senior senator’s comments earlier this week, there should be.)
Post has been cut-and-paste-typo-corrected. 9/28 at 11:43 a.m.
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There’s a palpable fear amongst Kansans, all across this state, that the America that we love, and cherish, and honor, will not be the same America for our kids and grand kids. And that’s wrong. That’s very wrong.
As a result, unfortunately, people are losing faith in their government. And turn it around: Government is losing faith in our people. That is a bad situation to be in.
And I will tell you that one of the reasons—I’m not [edit: my initial transcript did not include ‘not’ because I misheard Roberts, which makes this even funnier] going to get partisan here—but one of the reasons I’m running is to change that. To change that. There’s an easy way to do it. I’ll let you figure it out. But, at any rate, we have to change course, because our country is headed for national socialism. That’s not right. Changing the culture, changing what we’re all about.
Some political reporters and pundits kinda wondered whether this 78-year-old man, who unlike, say, most thirtysomethings, surely knows that “national socialism” has a very particular meaning—and knows what that particular meaning is—actually meant to invoke that particular meaning. The Washington Post’s Philip Rucker, however, figured that Roberts really meant to call Obama a socialist rather than a Nazi. So Rucker asked him yesterday whether he actually thinks Obama is a socialist. To which Roberts responded, um, yes.*
Or, precisely:
I believe that the direction he is heading the country is more like a European socialistic state, yes. You can’t tell me anything that he has not tried to nationalize.
Actually, you can tell him that there are a few things that Obama has not tried to nationalize. Farming, however, is not amongst them, since that was nationalized around the same time as low-level retirement benefits were nationalized: The mid-1930s.
Get your government hands off my farm subsidies!
Yes, there probably is a palpable fear amongst Kansas, all across that state, that the America we love, cherish, and honor, will not be the same America for their kids and grandkids.
Some of them may fear a permanent return to the Dust Bowl days–although the ones now enjoying that socialized pension program and the socialized healthcare program for the post-65 crowd enacted when they were in their 20s and 30s may not cherish and honor the Dust Bowl era all that much.
Some of them may fear collapsing infrastructure, and a failure to construct needed additions to existing infrastructure.
Some of them should have feared the repeal of the Depression-era banking-regulation laws, such as the Glass-Steagall act, when it might have mattered, but now would like to see those laws reenacted as a step toward returning America to the one they love, cherish, and honor.
Which, not coincidentally, also was the America that funded its national government through far more progressive taxation than the one that Roberts claims is the America that Kansas love, cherish, and honor.
It also was the America that funded its local governments through means other than outlandishly disproportionate fines and fees, and that had not yet privatized–a comically accurate description, if ever there was one–government functions and services.
And it was the America–not at all coincidentally–whose income and wealth inequality had not yet spiraled completely out of control.
It was, in fact, a pre-Reagan Revolution America. An America whose political system was not yet thoroughly in the chokehold of the likes of the Koch brothers—who are Kansans who do have palpable fears, but not necessarily the ones that a majority of Kansans all across that state have. Or even across the Wichita metropolitan area, where the Kochs live.
Maybe sometime before the election, some reporter will ask Roberts whether there should be a palpable fear amongst Kansans, all across that state, that the farm-subsidy levels they love, and cherish, and honor will be reduced or that the program will be eliminated. And then ask a similar question about Social Security and Medicare.
And then they should ask–clearly, specifically, outright–what exactly it is that Republican politicians promise a return to. And what it is that Americans who want to return to the old days really want America to return to.
There’s a palpable fear amongst progressives that no reporter will ask these questions, though.
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*Paragraph cut-and-paste-typo-corrected (finally). Aaaarrrgghh. 9/28 at 11:43 a.m.
If the official Democratic Party is going to wait for the media to ask the relevant questions then its leadership ought not complain when some damn fool of a Republican bullshit artist gets elected to office. Yes, the media should be directing tough questions at the political class jokers, but that’s not how elections are won. Unless, of course, there is a media outlet that has a political agenda beyond the facts of a matter. But protagonists from an opposing party can just as readily ask those questions through a variety of forums available to them. Yes, even a press release with an aggressively retort to a deceitful political hack would get press attention. And of course there are a host of media people who walk the edge of the line that separates journalism and politics like James Carville who could be speaking a little more loudly.
Let’s end socialism in the farm belt now. Stop farm subsidies. And corporate welfare socialism. Stop tax abatement to strategies. And stop socialism in government. Require that all elected officials have the same health care coverage and retirement benefits as all public employees within the same governmental jurisdiction. Wealthy socialists are the worst kind. They define the me first generation.
Not me. Someone else do it.
Like the Marines that served in Iwo Jima, I’ve served my time in hell.
Someone needs to have the guts to take on the “government is the problem” mantra, and the corollary notion that the government just wastes money. We need something as simple as Reagan’s memorable slogan. A general idea that could break the right-wing logic is that the U.S. government is the world’s biggest customer. If it reduces its purchases of goods and services at the same time that businesses and consumers do, who is going to add jobs? Maybe “Rebuild Our Country” to capture it all?
The deficit? Answer: “We’ve had worse deficits before and brought them down them with economic growth. The number one priority has to be getting everyone back to work.”
The national debt? Answer: “The chicken littles who tell us the sky is falling because of the national debt want everyone to forget that it doesn’t have to be paid off at one time. We pay debts when they come due, so it”s spread over many years. We’ve carried a national debt for 230 years and we have never defaulted on an obligation. Never will, either if the Republicans don’t try to shut down the government again. The first priority has to be getting everyone back to work.”
Beverly-You’ve got to get over to Rolling Stone and see the article on the Koch brothers. You’re going to love it!
What republicans say and what republicans do are two,very different things. They complain about socialism while loving socialist government programs. Sorry. You can’t have it both ways.