Obama, the Socialist and Other Misappropriations of Reality

Today, driving back from school, I listened to Rush Limbaugh.  I was in the car, driving home, and it's been a bad, bad week.  So, why not? I like to hear how radical conservatives "think."

Yet, today, it was particularly grating.  He's gotten progressively more radical since his heyday in the 90s, before he the talking heads at FOX managed to outparanoid him.

Today, he spent considerable time attacking moderate Republicans, like Olympia Snow, who actually did vote for the last attempt at an unemployment extension.  Moreover, he spent much of his time speaking about the so-called "opportunity" of this November and 2012 because of Obama's so-called "socialism." To Rush, Obama's policies are something like "low-hanging fruit".  Never mind that 2012 is two years away and people are losing allof their income now, that people are being thrown from insurance roles because they can't afford unsubsidized COBRA premiums, or that state and local governments are looking at drastic cuts (meaning more unemployment) and, in some cases, actual bankruptcy without federal aid.  Never mind that our great nation is on the verge of collapse precisely because Democrats and Republicans can't play nice.   Rush's prognostications were unabatedly rosy.  And, for him, for Rush Limbaugh, personally, why shouldn't they be?  The economy, according to Paul Krugman, has begun a deflationary period, meaning money (not debt, not commodities) is becoming increasingly valuable.  Rush has access to a sizable chunk of cash money, to T bills, etc.  More, if he can time his machinations well, he's well poised to enter the commodity market at or near the body, so the gentleman with a loud mouth could make a killing by, for example, dabbling in Florida real estate.

By contrast, my wife and I are . . . trying to be hopeful.  We have consumer commodities whose value is decreasing daily because the second-hand goods market is naturally flooded.  Do we care?  Sure.  But do we care enough not to sell such stuff . . . uh no.  We don't have the luxury of choice.  So essentially, Rush's fear and anger-mongering in pursuit of something he calls "freedom" has done him well. That same "freedom" for us . . . well, it's non-existent.  Unfortunately, in this country, there's an egregious conflation of economic policy with national pride and, oddly, notions of what "freedom" and "democracy" mean.  For many, freedom and democracy is equivalent with capitalism.  Capitalism, though, let me be clear, is only a system.  It's a system like any other that's both subject to abuse and capable of remarkable things.  It is not, however, the sole and only methodology for organizing social life that allows people to live their lives, make decisions for their own good (or ill), and not be subject to statism.  In fact, it's not difficult to imagine a pro-big business administration spying on and detaining its citizens without writ of habeas corpus.  In fact, you don't have to look very far into your history books to find such challenges to real and actual "freedom" under the guise of pro-business ideologies.

But this isn't a problem I can solve.  So I'll concentrate on Rush and his glaring misappropriation of terminology that has a long, long history of loaded rhetorical stylings among politicians. Yes. Today, Rush did get me thinking more than the usual "what an ill-informed blow hard."  He got me thinking: what if Obama really were a socialist?

So let's dream for a moment or two. Here, I think, is what would have happened if all those meaningless attacks on our president were true:

Step 1, temporary nationalization of all troubled banks(and AIG, etc.) rather than the hefty & costly propping up of financial institutions.  Nationalization, though politically untenable, might have had the following impacts: A) allowed for immediate and thorough understanding of the depths of the derivative disaster. B) allowed the federal government to ensure that those banks continued to lend money responsibly to other institutions, and more importantly, corporations and small business. This would have prevented the deflationary pressures we're starting to see now.  c) allowed the federal government to have seized "worthless" assets (i.e., homes) that could have been used in the interim and sold at a profit once the money and housing markets stabilized.

Step 2: Nationalized healthcare.  Though costly, this would have insured that state and local-level cuts were not implemented in the suddenly redundant medicare and medicaid systems.  More, this would have eliminated the need for extremely costly subsidies to the insurance industry via COBRA.  Subsidies that have now been eliminated to the severe detriment of millions.

Step 3: A federalized jobs creation program wherein the government could temporarily hire millions of people for public works rather than following the outsourcing model currently being used.  This could have injected billions directly into economy, and provided enough money (in a way that unemployment does not) to multiply via the banking system. In other words, a bottom-up approach would have done far, far more work than providing those moneys directly to banks and auto manufacturers has done.

Step 4: Ending tax cuts for the rich and unfair subsidies (such as those that agribusiness and oil companies receive to maintain exorbitant exponential profits). This step would have to wait until the economy stabilized, but given steps 1, 2, and 3, stabilization would have been more likely.  Herein is where the deficit might be partially recaptured & eventually, it's possible, entirely recaptured. I personally would pay a significantly higher tax rate, particularly given my current tax rate.

Of course, upon reflection, I'm not sure this is "socialist," so much as "not-third-way Democrat". But for now, our nation seems doomed to such politicking by people who stand to benefit in very real ways from the suffering of millions.