Over at Vox they have a story up on Ted Cruz sounding a bit like Elizabeth Warren on inequality and the 1%.
We are witnessing a tactic the Right has done very well, co-opting issues and language for the purpose of perverting the discussion. Charles Koch rants about crony capitalism as if it is a phenomenon present only in the Beltway; his energy companies use the rules and regulatory capture quite to their advantage.
Grabbing the issue of inequality as a Trojan Horse to advance laissez faire and libertarian agendas is something the Left must combat.
Well the right has been apoplectic enough about Obama’s proposal to nudge up some taxes on the extremely wealthy to benefit the rest of us and I think even the GOP’s average voter will understand that the right has no interest in equal anything–opportunity, rights, income, wealth etc.
No, if the Right co-opts the language the average voter won’t understand. If that was the case we likely wouldn’t have millions voting against their own economic interest, there would be significant popular support for things like Dodd-Frank, “right to work” wouldn’t have been perverted into an anti-labor cudgel.
For at least forty years, at least since the Powell memo, the Right has intentionally and quite studiously gone about co-opting political language. Orwell was quite clear about the dangers and consequences of that.
The Left cannot continue to smugly believe that simply presenting facts and reason will be enough to overcome lies and misdirection. Statements like the one Cruz recently made regarding inequality cannot be dismissed as ludicrous. They must be challenged at every opportunity. Otherwise, especially in light of big medias penchant for false equivalency, they will take root.
“….about Obama’s proposal to nudge up some taxes on the extremely wealthy to benefit the rest of us….”
When are we going to stop using this worn out and wholly inaccurate political trope. It plays right into the hands of the wealthiest participants inn our economy who fight with tooth and claw to prevent their being taxed in accordance with the wealth benefits that they accrue from that economy. Those who benefit most from our political economy should be expected to pay a greater share of the cost of maintaining that political entity because of the greater benefit that they receive. It is not a matter of one sector paying more so that another can pay less. That’s the propaganda of the right and the wealthy, one in the same all too often. If one takes a bigger sliced of the pie then one needs to pay for the bigger share and for the right to take that bigger share because it comes at the expense of the others who need to share the pie.
Answer me this. Does wealth creation occur independent of wealth transfer? If so, how so? Or, is wealth like matter? It cannot be created or destroyed. It can only be rearranged or transformed. When the wealth “creators” do their thing where is the wealth coming from? Are they creating or are they simply transferring what was the wealth of others?
Show me a wealth creator and I’ll show you a rent extractor. Sometimes an extortionate one.
Meanwhile the corporate overlords at IBM are destroying the wealth of a once proud company. Estimates of 25% workforce reduction are credible (about 100K heads). All while keeping the financial scams going, no change in stock buybacks, dividends etc.
The layoffs and bailouts will continue until they bring the promised growth!
entertainment clips(well, sort of)
“Looney” from “Let it Ride”, or as my wife calls it, the “red dress movie”.
Oh, and why it is the “red dress movie”
Over at Vox they have a story up on Ted Cruz sounding a bit like Elizabeth Warren on inequality and the 1%.
We are witnessing a tactic the Right has done very well, co-opting issues and language for the purpose of perverting the discussion. Charles Koch rants about crony capitalism as if it is a phenomenon present only in the Beltway; his energy companies use the rules and regulatory capture quite to their advantage.
Grabbing the issue of inequality as a Trojan Horse to advance laissez faire and libertarian agendas is something the Left must combat.
Well the right has been apoplectic enough about Obama’s proposal to nudge up some taxes on the extremely wealthy to benefit the rest of us and I think even the GOP’s average voter will understand that the right has no interest in equal anything–opportunity, rights, income, wealth etc.
No, if the Right co-opts the language the average voter won’t understand. If that was the case we likely wouldn’t have millions voting against their own economic interest, there would be significant popular support for things like Dodd-Frank, “right to work” wouldn’t have been perverted into an anti-labor cudgel.
For at least forty years, at least since the Powell memo, the Right has intentionally and quite studiously gone about co-opting political language. Orwell was quite clear about the dangers and consequences of that.
The Left cannot continue to smugly believe that simply presenting facts and reason will be enough to overcome lies and misdirection. Statements like the one Cruz recently made regarding inequality cannot be dismissed as ludicrous. They must be challenged at every opportunity. Otherwise, especially in light of big medias penchant for false equivalency, they will take root.
“….about Obama’s proposal to nudge up some taxes on the extremely wealthy to benefit the rest of us….”
When are we going to stop using this worn out and wholly inaccurate political trope. It plays right into the hands of the wealthiest participants inn our economy who fight with tooth and claw to prevent their being taxed in accordance with the wealth benefits that they accrue from that economy. Those who benefit most from our political economy should be expected to pay a greater share of the cost of maintaining that political entity because of the greater benefit that they receive. It is not a matter of one sector paying more so that another can pay less. That’s the propaganda of the right and the wealthy, one in the same all too often. If one takes a bigger sliced of the pie then one needs to pay for the bigger share and for the right to take that bigger share because it comes at the expense of the others who need to share the pie.
Answer me this. Does wealth creation occur independent of wealth transfer? If so, how so? Or, is wealth like matter? It cannot be created or destroyed. It can only be rearranged or transformed. When the wealth “creators” do their thing where is the wealth coming from? Are they creating or are they simply transferring what was the wealth of others?
Show me a wealth creator and I’ll show you a rent extractor. Sometimes an extortionate one.
Meanwhile the corporate overlords at IBM are destroying the wealth of a once proud company. Estimates of 25% workforce reduction are credible (about 100K heads). All while keeping the financial scams going, no change in stock buybacks, dividends etc.
The layoffs and bailouts will continue until they bring the promised growth!