September 16, 2008


IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY


BACK TO THE REAL ISSUES


Suddenly we don't have to read about the Great Depression anymore because we're seeing the Great Depression II developing. For years now, most of us have experienced flat-lining wages, increases in health care costs, longer periods of unemployment, and seeing jobs outsourced to other countries. We saw a despicable bankruptcy law that makes debt slaves out of us. We saw the Bush administration push through a huge gift for the pharmaceutical industry. Now, thanks to the right wing's beloved concept of deregulation, we're seeing a meltdown of the financial industry. Names like Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Freddie Mae, and Fannie Mae are becoming household words. The stock market plummeted over 500 points yesterday. But John McCain and right-wingers tell us the economy is "fundamentally sound." For whom? This column by E. J. Dionne is at www.washingtonpost.com:

All of a sudden, the culture war seems entirely beside the point, an unaffordable luxury in a time of economic turmoil. What politicians actually believe about the economy, what fixes they propose, whether they side with the wealthy few or the hurting many -- these become the stuff of elections, the reasons behind people's votes.

And nothing more exposes the hypocrisy of financial elites riding the coattails of those who revere small-town religious values than a downturn that highlights the vast gulf in power between the two key components of the conservative coalition. Even cultural conservatives will start to notice that McCain's tax policies are geared toward the wealthy investing class and Obama's toward the paycheck crowd. Even the most ardent friends of business have begun to argue that a re-engagement with sensible regulation is essential to restoring capitalism's health.

For some time, McCain's strategists figured they could deflect attention from the big issues by turning Palin into a country-and-western celebrity and launching so many ill-founded attacks on Obama that the truth would never catch up. The McCain strategists' approach reflected a low opinion of average voters, and some Obama supporters began worrying that their opinion might be right.