A LIBERAL VIEW OF THINGS: Spinning away to oblivion

Things must be getting desperate for the Republican caucus in Washington and state capitals across the nation.

While the GOP leadership stomps their Gucci-clad feet against anything President Barack Obama or the Democratic caucus present as plans or ideas to solve the jobs crisis, the deficit crisis and the foreign policy crises, the people are waking up to the facts and realities all sentient citizens have: We need to get back to work as a nation.

Unemployed people pay no taxes, thus reducing revenue even more so than the rich who have lawyered their way out of paying them. Our once world-class manufacturing base is all but gone. We are losing the ability, as a nation, to put people to work.

Obama’s jobs plan receives a 45 percent approval from the people while only 32 percent say otherwise. I guess the other 23 percent don’t care. Regarding the people’s opinions on who should be paying more taxes, the numbers truly are startling, even for a jaded progressive.

Eighty percent of moderates want the rich to pay more taxes and have loopholes closed for corporations. Sixty-eight percent of independents feel the same way. The big surprise:  Fifty-one percent of Republicans think the rich should pay more taxes. Maybe those Republicans, who are not as wealthy as they’d like to be, or who have seen their dream of becoming rich is not going to happen anytime soon, are coming to their senses. Maybe they have begun to see we are indeed all in this together and that the cuts-only mantra of the tea party and other extremists is not the way to row this boat.

Meanwhile, we have the spinners in Congress saying really nasty, disrespectful things about our working-class families. Speaker of the House John Boehner, the third in the line of succession to be president, said providing more unemployment compensation for the long-term unemployed was like giving more cocaine to a cocaine addict. Wow. How’s that for respect? I wonder how those hardworking families feel about being lumped in with criminals and sloths.

Boehner’s accusation about Obama’s plan to reduce the deficit as “class warfare” is ludicrous. Have you noticed it’s only class warfare when the rich are asked to pay their fair share? This is nothing new. The rich screamed bloody murder when President Franklin D. Roosevelt raised their taxes to help pay for that little disturbance on the opposite side of the world — World War II.  Do you think the poor, the chronic underclass and the downward-spiraling middle classes are saying it is class warfare for everyone to pay their fair share?

In the strictest sense, it always has been about class warfare. After the Civil War, carpetbaggers went south and tried to get rich off the chaos. The Robber Barons went to work as the industrial revolution kicked into high gear to squeeze every dime they could from the working classes to enrich themselves. They sneered at the “rabble” of the working people. The ivory-tower boys are still trying to get rid of unions, because “they” are the problem with competitiveness. Maybe that’s why corporate America continues to sit on $2 trillion instead of creating jobs. Class warfare.

Putting spin on the growing economic inequities in the country by demonizing “redistribution of wealth” as if it were the vortex to hell is simply irresponsible demagoguery of the worst kind. It isn’t socialism when the government provides a safety net for those less fortunate, especially when those most fortunate have caused the problem in the first place.

It isn’t socialism to have single-payer, government-sponsored health care — like the rest of the civilized world — especially when we rank in the 30s for health quality. It isn’t socialism to have public assistance programs that help people develop skills and abilities so they can work and support their families.

The spinners seem to think their idea of socialism is evil. They missed the point about what made and makes our nation great. It’s called taking care of one another and showing initiative instead of greed. Otherwise, oblivion is our final rotation from this right-wing spin.

Turner is a retired teacher and industrial engineer who lives near Marble Falls. He is an independent columnist, not a staff member, and his views do not necessarily reflect those of The Tribune or its parent company. "The Voter’s Guide to National Salvation" is a newly published e-book from Turner. You can find it at www.barnesandnoble.com/ebooks. He can be reached by email at vtgolf@zeecon.com.