Just wrote a post about Herman Cain's awfulness--had to share:

[vixengrl]

A Grand Unified Theory of Inequality: or, Herman Cain is just Awful

Addressing the various statements by Herman Cain is like evaluating a pigeon based on the Rorschach test of the patterns made by its poop. What you have to say about his pronouncements regarding whether he is pro-choice or pro-life, or whether he would negotiate with terrorists, say more about you than about the candidate, because, let's be honest: he's making some of this shit up as he goes along, not unlike a pigeon. And you are trying to make sense of it all, rather like a person trying to make sense out of pigeon poop patterns. This says a great deal more about you than it ever could about him. Because of some of his recent statements, his rapidly-rising stock may see a deflation in the next polls with the Christian Right, who would look at a seeming pro-choice position as anathema to their own views, and maybe if he had any foreign policy wonks at all supporting him, they might by now know better: He has no clue.

The one thing Herman Cain does come with as a fully-fleshed out policy is his admittedly gimmicky 999 plan, of which he himself has said--he doesn't know how it works. But it probably works well-enough for his short-term goal of being a GOP also-ran for the purpose of selling books and being a motivational speaker. It was apparently crafted by his very good friends at Koch Bros. How much better does it need to be?

Well, it could be better at not providing a far greater benefit to people who already have oodles of money, while taxing the bejesus out of the poor. It exacerbates inequality, while doing nothing to stimulate business or hiring--if anything, it would kill it. And when this is pointed out, he comes up with something even more awful--so-called economic "opportunity zones". Oh, my. In these areas annoying things like the minimum wage and union protection would be thrown out. In other words--it's an economic opportunity for even more inequality. His economic advisors might call them "opportunity zones". To me, they look like ghettos where poverty would be reinforced. These areas are like little petri dishes to incubate every conservative bad idea since forever--

But there are very good reasons to expect that sort of thing from Herman Cain, by now. Cain was introduced to the political realm by his lobbying work against the Clinton Administration's attempt at getting universal health care--but that isn't all the lobbying he's done. He's also lobbied for a lot of other corporatist causes against the public good.

Among his more absurdly wrong positions has been support for former president George W. Bush's Social Security privatization scheme. He likened the payment into Social Security to "involuntary servitude" and repeated the canard that African Americans do not receive the same benefits from Social Security as whites do due to lower life expectancy. This is despicably inapt and racialist hyperbole. There is no comparison between applying for a job, getting it, and working for a living at a job one can quit, without being hunted down by dogs and even hanged for deserting, and simply paying a tax for the general welfare--and the involuntary servitude that he intended to invoke with his rhetoric. Workers in the factories, retail outlets and business complexes of the US are not whipped for their infractions against company policy, nor are they owned. They can seek other employment, or even go to work for themselves. If they must pay into Social Security--it is so that they receive a benefit from the program in return.

But back to his nonsense canard about African Americans not receiving an equal benefit due to lower life expectancy--is that Social Security's fault? If there were some scheme afoot that kept African Americans from access to affordable health care, that insured that they continued to work long hours for shitty pay, and that disregarded their health care needs--my research has not discovered a single instance of Herman Cain ever trying to rectify it. It's as if he assumes that African Americans simply don't live, statistically, as long as whites because they don't, without ever addressing the word--racism. Which would be a systematic flaw in our "market-driven" society based on purely irrational human biases--which many people have entirely experienced as too sadly real. And no, I am not prepared to accept the systematic flaws that affect African-Americans, for example, or people who aren't college-educated, and render them less-employable, as their own fault.

Is Social Security racist for trying to ameliorate poverty--which for whatever reason, is a side-effect of discrimination in this country? I'm not seeing it, but then again, Social Security kept indigent poor people in my white family alive so maybe I'm just biased by the privilege of knowing that government programs can be beneficial to some people, sometimes.

I'm white, college-educated, and employed, and I appreciate the social safety net, my union protections, and I can easily understand why they are not just important to "others", but are necessary for me to feel that I have not just security of a sort, but greater freedom (such as blogging right here and now). I don't think that a system that reinforces inequality does anything to reinforce my sense of being secure--on the contrary, it reinforces my insecurity because in his world, there is no safety net. There is only more inequality.

But for what it's worth, he's doing rather well in current GOP primary polls, and Rick Perry is even following his lead in crafting a flat tax type plan. His brand of economy-killing policies are leading the GOP debate.


Most of my points have links to actual facts and stories at my blog ( http://vixenstrangelymakesuncommonsense.blogspot.com/2011/10/grand-unified-theory-of-inequality-or.html )

[vixengrl]

1. Or I could be wrong--so I might like responses, too.

Is Social Security racist?

Is contributing to Social Security a form of involuntary servitude?


Is Herman Cain a serious candidate for president?


What does it say about Rick Perry that he wants to make his own 999 type plan, after it was savaged in the last GOP debate. Is he totally stupid--or what?


Is Herman Cain the anti-Romney--was Tom Friedman right on Bill Maher's show when he suggested Cain seened mere "authentic"? What is authenticity, and should it ever apply?


Is Michele Bachmann toast yet? If not, why not?


Talk to me--Santorum--is he a VP contender or should he just fuck off and start a woman/gay-hating cult already?

[Onlooker]

2. Great post

You did a good job summing up the idiocy of Herman Cain, and underscoring his hypocrisy and dishonesty. In some ways he's like Romney, such as his vacillating positions on abortion and his own 999 plan. Another way he's like Romney is that he did nothing for black civil rights (except lied and claimed he was only in high school during the Civil Rights era, when for the last few years he was in college). When the Mormons voted to allow blacks in the Tabernacle in 1978, the only thing Romney did was cry (as rather ambiguous claim on his part).

I think your point about Cain with social security is right on the money. Cain's politics of race is absolutely disgusting. He also said that blacks have been brainwashed by the Democratic Party, i.e., they can't think for themselves. His positions have no integrity, but how can they given that he's a black man struggling to win the vote from a racist Tea Party movement. He's a sad character in history.

But, the scary thing is that our nation elected Bush and Reagan twice. Despite the garbage that spews from Cain's mouth as policy positions, the American people might very well vote for him.

[Enthusiast]

3. Kicked and recommended!

Excellent!

These idiots that want to dismantle social security have nothing to replace it with -only greater suffering. Their theory is if we get people suffering enough they will work harder for less thus providing economic opportunity for the 'job creators'. Cain is just a mouthpiece for the Koch Brothers he doesn't have an original thought.

[Empowerer]

4. The argument about Social Security being "racist" because blacks have lower life expectancy is bogus

Yes, life expectancy for blacks is lower than that for whites when measured at birth is considerably lower. However, as one approaches retirement age, the numbers even out and life expectancy for blacks and whites is almost the same (17.6 years for whites v. 15.6 years for blacks).

And, in the meantime, people with lower life expectancies also benefit from Social Security since their survivors receive payments from the program.

So, that argument is pure bull.

[vixengrl]

5. Exactly right.

Think Progress does a pretty good job addressing that in their coverage of his position on Social Security and race ( http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/10/21/349901/herman-cain-compares-social-security-to-slavery/ ) which pretty much underlined the hypocrisy for me: Is he just repeating the talking point about inequality for African Americans and claiming that it's an outrage--without looking into where the true inequality actually lies? If so--how concerned could he really be, that he doesn't bother to get the facts right?