Spreadin' it Around

So the end now is finally in sight. There really can be no acceptable reason for such an endless Presidential campaign season. In case you missed it, a little more than 2 weeks ago Canada held national elections, approximately six weeks after Prime Minister Steven Harper called for the new vote. Imagine that, a campaign in six weeks, what a concept. Almost no time to sling the mud, just enough to lay out a program and let the voters decide. And in Canada you have more than two choices, and even the "minority" parties will have seats in parliament, and a real voice in the affairs of government, not so in the USA, where our politics has essentially been reduced to a vote for Dweedle Dum or Dweedle Dumber.

Moreover, after almost a years worth of campaigning recent polling suggests that perhaps as many as 7% of Americans are still undecided with regard to the Presidential race. Undecided?? How can anyone still be undecided about this race? My question to the undecided is along the lines of, what are you waiting to hear? What is it that would push you off the fence? Will it be the last 30 second distortion of a campaign ad that you hear before going to the polls? Will it be a last minute "gaffe" from one of the candidates? A coin flip?? In my opinion, anyone still "undecided" at this point should probably do the rest of us a big favor and not bother voting, since it would seem likely that their vote in the end is likely to turn on some ridiculous bit of minutiae or spin.

With such a long campaign there is that much more time for those so inclined to truly sink into the depths. The McCain campaign has arguably set a new standard for debasing a campaign; trotting out all the most despicable aspects of human nature in its last ditch effort to win at all costs. After this campaign, McCain should never again be allowed to even whisper the terms honorable or maverick in reference to himself.

What would appear to be their last hope has been to try and label Obama a socialistic "spreader of the wealth." This charge is so ridiculous, so devoid of substance, so pathetic, that it has had virtually no effect on the race, but it does serve to highlight the nature of Republican campaigning these days. Having literally "wrecked America," this crowd has no substantive issues to run on, so their tactics are reduced to name calling. The logic is this, Obama must be defeated at all cost, therefore, he is a socialist. No evidence is required for a Party driven by dogma and ideology. So, what is the ostensible "evidence" that Obama is a closet Marxist? Apparently it is his tax plan, that proposes to raise the tax rate on those incomes above about $250,000 by, wait for it, a Leninistic 2-4%, while modestly cutting taxes for the remainder of the citizenry. So, Obama's plan cuts taxes for upwards of 90-95% of Americans, and marginally raises rates on the top 5% of the income distribution, this "proves" without a doubt that obviously he must be a commie. The new higher rate is essentially the same as that pre-Dubya, under that obvious Marxist Bill Clinton. Based on these charges it becomes crystal clear just who McCain and Co. think are "real Americans," that would be those in that top 5% of incomes, a very small fraction of the total population, but clearly part of the Republican base!

Even more astonishing is the irony of McCain, and Republicans generally, charging Obama and Democrats with being "spreaders" of the wealth, when Republicans have engineered arguably the largest transfer of wealth in the nation's history, but this transfer has been from the bottom up rather than the top down. From the Bush tax cuts for the rich, to no-bid contracts, to corporate welfare and tax loopholes the rich have essentially robbed everyone else to the tune of many hundreds of billions of dollars. Then, we can consider the work of Governor Palin in her home state of Alaska, which each year cuts a check for several thousand dollars to every resident derived predominantly from tax revenues on oil companies operating in the State. In her own words Sarah Palin described this little socialistic redistribution thus, "we're set up, unlike other states in the union, where it's collectively Alaskans own the resources. So we share in the wealth when the development of these resources occurs." Share collectively in the wealth eh, so we see that none other than right-wing ideologue Sarah Palin herself is at heart a socialist too, how wonderful. Based on this we know exactly where to put all these Republican charges of "socialism" against Obama, in the toilet where they belong.

Of course much of good governance is about collectively using resources for the benefit of the nation and society as a whole. All modern democracies have long since reached this conclusion, as it is grounded in fundamentally basic human values, but apparently not yet the politically Neanderthal Republican Party and its right-wing, Cro-Magnon apologists. Consider just one example, the Social Security program, all workers pay into it in order to guarantee at least a minimum level of retirement support and other benefits for the population, and Americans seem to think this is just fine, Social Security being one of the most well-liked government programs ever enacted. Just imagine if George Bush had gotten his way and succeeded in privatizing the Social Security system, and tying the retirement incomes of millions of Americans to the whims of financiers and the stock market. Can you say mega-disaster? I knew you could.

I live in Maryland, a state that will very likely go heavily for Obama over McCain. Nevertheless, I am often bemused and perplexed by the numbers of McCain/Palin lawn signs that I see. So, I will close this pre-election post with my satirical take on the standard McCain lawn sign. As they say, vote early, and vote often (if the past eight years have challenged your funny bone, that was a joke). In case you haven't guessed, I will be voting for Barack Obama, I hope many others will be doing the same.