2008 Election a Defeat for Ideology of Greed

[pberq]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/11/05/2008-election-a-defeat-for-ideology-of-greed/

2008 Election a Defeat for Ideology of Greed

by Tula Connell, Nov 5, 2008


Even in his concession speech, Sen. John McCain got it wrong. Telling his supporters gathered at the ritzy Biltmore Hotel in Phoenix on Tuesday night that it’s natural to feel some disappointment in the loss of his campaign, he went on to say:

"We fought — we fought as hard as we could. And though we fell short, the failure is mine, not yours."

Not so. Despite a badly run campaign, McCain’s defeat is not a personal failure but a massive, popular rejection of eight years of Bush-Cheney mismanagement, corruption, malfeasance and aggressively anti-worker policies that McCain embraced throughout his years in the Senate. The message that McCain voted 90 percent of the time with Bush struck a chord of horror among those whose economic livelihoods have been decimated by what economist Jamie Galbraith calls the “predator state.” That is, a government run by individuals beholden to corporations who shower the largesse of federal spending on rewarding corporate greed, rather than on building a sustainable future for America’s workers and our future generations.

McCain’s defeat is the rejection of a government that rewards the rich at the expense of the rest of us.

McCain’s defeat is the repudiation of extremist economic policies that have resulted in 3.6 million home foreclosures, unaffordable health care, a worsening unemployment rate and the proliferation of jobs that don’t support families.

(more at link. . .)