Heaven forbid

Decided voters have gone early to the polls but it will not be till the official day of U.S. elections, on November 6, when all ballots will have been cast. In a week’s time, we could be seeing President Barack Obama getting a second term, much to the chagrin of die hard Republicans. But heaven forbid, we could also see a new president in the next four years or more, in the Republican standard bearer, Mitt Romney.
That’s how tight this race is. And that explains the obscene amount of money in hundreds of millions, out of billions of dollars raised, never before seen poured into any other election but this one.
This massive flow of cash is largely due to the SCOTUS ruling that allowed corporations to donate an undisclosed and unlimited amount of cash into Super PACs. In turn, these Super PACs flood the networks, print media and campaign outlets with ads in favor of or against a candidate.
Today, just a few days before election, and after Republican Karl Rove’s Super PAC dumped millions of dollars in ads in Massachusetts, Nevada and Virginia, polls are tipping slightly in favor of Republican candidates thereby threatening the Democrats’ slight majority in the Senate. With the Republicans in control of both the House and the Senate and heaven forbid, the White House as well, there’s no telling the course this government will take except protect the interests of the super rich and the giant corporations in Wall Street at the expense of the middle class and the working poor.
When the wealthy rule, they create a very tiny Aristocratic elite class and widen the already enormous disparity between those with wealth and those without. And with government leaders in the pockets of their wealthy donors, no one’s left to champion the rights of the hardworking middle class and poor majority.
Right wing Conservatives will call this piece a form of class warfare or advocacy for entitlements for the lazy and irresponsible poor. What else is new? That’s how low their regard has always been for people outside of their class. Didn’t Romney’s infamous comment behind closed doors about the 47% reek of disdain and prejudice against the poor? No amount of sugar-coating or flip-flopping after the fact could erase the ugliness of that remark.
So, if Republicans want to call it class warfare, so be it. Class warfare it is, and here is why.
When the have mores use their wealth to vilify, disenfranchise and cheat the have nots, yes indeed, that’s class warfare.
When a U.S. corporation earning over half a billion dollars still decides to take away the jobs from their employees to make even more money in China, that is class warfare.
When government leaders cut taxes for the rich, provide subsidies for billion dollar corporations and increase military spending for the benefit of wealthy producers of military arms and the like but have no qualms about cutting social programs, healthcare and funding for education, policemen and firefighters in the guise of cutting the budget deficit, indeed, that is class warfare.
It is incomprehensible how so many people outside of this elite group could even think they’d be better off under a Romney presidency. Think again.
Leaders who call Social Security a Ponzi scheme and Medicare and Medicaid an entitlement will never have your back. We were once saved from the Bush/Republican plan of privatizing Social Security. Imagine how that nest egg would have been wiped out as a consequence of the economic downturn had Social Security been privatized? Imagine, too, how millions of Americans can lose their Medicaid under the Ryan plan when they get elected?
Be careful what you wish for. One of yours, if not yourself, could one day need that Medicare or Medicaid you so detest.