No Sherlock, Mitt

[babylonsister]

http://www.politicalgarbagechute.com/no-sherlock-mitt/

No Sherlock, Mitt

October 5, 2012
by James Schlarmann


Want to know how you can tell even Mitt knows his debate performance was a day late and a dollar short?

He’s apologizing.

snip//


Of course what Mitt said was completely wrong, even though for once, the “facts” seem to be on his side. The “completely wrong” part comes in when you start to pick apart who is in that group. It’s seniors, living on Social Security that they already paid into before they retired. It’s the working poor, who literally do not make enough money to pay income tax. It’s single parent households, just barely scraping by, and worst of all, its soldiers. Soldiers who are only on the battlefront because his party voted twice to do so. It’s “completely wrong” not because statistically it’s incorrect; it’s completely wrong because it’s the sort of thing rich assholes say to each other when they’re discussing what’s wrong with the country. In their mind, it’s not that we’ve devalued education and labor for decades. It’s not that we haven’t invested in our country’s future. It’s not that we’ve collected all our money at the top and despite what fiscal fairy dust-laden mythology they believe in, it’s not trickling down now, or any time soon. To them, it’s those damn “freeloaders.”

Ultimately, the reason that video is so pivotal is because it perfectly encapsulated everything this election is about. It really never was a referendum on Obama’s job. The fact is that the economy has been recovering, if sluggishly. But I believe the Republicans made a drastic tactical error when they openly declared war not on the busted economy, but on the man in the White House. They put the country on notice that politics would come before country, and the 47% video proved to those of us in the middle what we’ve sort of expected all along. The rich really do see us as parasites. They really do see us as being the problem.

They don’t understand just how hard it is in the Middle Class. They call us moochers if we use state or Federal programs to supplement our wages so we can afford health care or food or shelter for our families. They call us freeloaders if we say “Working one job should be enough, but working two jobs is most definitely enough.” They say no matter what, we should just keep taking on more and more work, rather than ask that some of our tax dollars that we all pay in the form of payroll taxes, use taxes and sales taxes, be set aside not for more bombs for brown people, but to help us when we need it.

Yes, there is probably some fraud and abuse and even laziness involved with some that take assistance from the government. But it’s “completely wrong,” to borrow a phrase from Mitt, to characterize everyone who needs help in that light. It doesn’t serve any good to create a false sense of hysteria about assistance programs or entitlements. The plain truth is that when Democratic fiscal policies are in place, the Middle Class thrives, and when the Middle Class thrives, guess what becomes less necessary? Those very same programs that Conservatives rail against. And therein lies the bitterest of ironies. As much as they claim the opposite to be true, the fact remains that it’s Conservative, Supply Side, Trickle Down economics that pulls everything up top and leaves the rest to depend on outside help, be it from the government or elsewhere.

And that, Mittens my boy, is why you, and every one of your peers in the room that night was “completely wrong.”