yesterday we, along with an incredibly eclectic group of new and old friends, attended the barack obama rally in manchester. throughout the event i was impressed by obama's focus on progressive policy, detailed comparisons of his proposals and mccains' and the hopeful, positive tone of the whole event.although i don't talk politics on the blog much, i am definitely an obama backer. though the polls are tight right now i think obama has the wind on the economy, the war and resource development. for those reasons, in my better moments, i believe that the american public will eventually decide to arrest the elevated entropy of our nation by voting the neo-con edition republicans out of office.
that being said, my one concern with obama's platform, and with contemporary american politics in general, is that our leaders constantly promise significant change that requires little or no sacrifice from ordinary citizens. that is why i completely agree with jeff jacoby's opinion that the change we need cannot simply be funded by increased taxes on the top 1% of americans. in order to bring economic stability to the nation and provide the innovative resource development and sweeping access to health care that this nation needs, we will need not only to tax the rich and strategically retreat from economic blunders such as the iraq war, but we will also need for the middle class to sacrifice by rolling back the bush tax cuts and so requiring the investment of ordinary citizens in the redevelopment of our beleaguered nation.
of course, that's only my opinion. i could be wrong.
4 comments:
What's up Gentry - you political hack :)
Of course politicians aren't going to ask people to sacrifice! That is why I got a check for 1500 dollars this summer. Politicians try to buy votes with other people's money at election time. That is why crappy arguments about taxing the top 1 percent always work. What people don't realize, because they don't beyond their own classism and pocketbook is that the top 1 percent includes their bosses, the owners of the stores that they shop at, the distributers of the gas that they require, and the venture capitalists that are able to help fund their ambitions. In other words, they are the people that really grease the economic machine. So sure, why wouldn't we continue to over tax them and give the money to a terribly corrupt and inefficient bureaucracy? But they sure do make convenient political punching bags come election time.
don't get me started on the refunds. money from the chinese to spend on chinese products. stupid.stupid.stupid.
it's frustrating that the politicians in this country on the left and the right have forgotten the art of the ask when it comes to taxes. regardless of the country chooses we'll need more revenue to get there. i think that true "patriots" should be willing to fiscally support the policies they select. but that's just me.
maybe one of these days we'll have a political candidate that actually proposes policies that make fiscal sense. let's hope but not hold our breath.
Agreed, but I'm pessimistic especially in the newsertainment culture we live in. Everything is mindless spin.
Every small thing is so freaking urgent that we make unsound decisions based on the news cycle while every big thing is so big that we couldn't possibly come to a reasonable decision. So we end up doing nothing on the big things like social security reform or inner city education, but we can take weeks to talk about steroids or what the meaning of "is" is.
the news-entertainment industry troubles me as well. i am convinced that television and, to a lesser degree, internet news doesn't influence our ideology as much as it elevates our stupidity.
i still think that traditional newspapers and long form magazines such as the atlantic, the economist and harpers are the best source of information. but i'm also a bit hypocritical insofar as i bemoan the impending death of newsprint yet refuse to alter my consumption patterns accordingly.
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