Waiting for Superrich-Man

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.truth-out.org/waiting-superrich-man66124

The Rich Victim - the Penthouse Punk, fighting the evil, totalitarian government on behalf of the common man - has been the symbol of the new, "counterculture" Republican Party amid the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Paul Krugman shines a spotlight on the "Angry Rich," who see government regulation as tantamount to a Nazi takeover - literally. He tells us the story of billionaire, Wall Street magnate Stephen Schwarzman, who compared Obama's proposal to close a tax loophole to the "the Nazi invasion of Poland." And, as the New York Magazine article "The Wail of the 1%" points out, Schwarzman is not alone in playing Poland, as many of the rich on Wall Street who bankrupted the economy feel that they have been "mugged" by Obama's modest government intervention.

In Gibson's rant, and in the Republican "message machine," as cognitive linguistic George Lakoff dubs the well oiled, well funded, neoconservative media complex, we hear echoes of Schwarzman - that the government, in collecting taxes from the wealthy, is a tyrannical thief. Joe Barton, a Republican representative, referred to the $20 billion BP fund as a "shakedown," much like those on Wall Street, who said they were "mugged" by the closing of tax loopholes. And while Barton later apologized, other prominent Republicans, like Rand Paul and Sarah Palin, have unrepentantly asserted his position. In an ABC interview this summer, Paul castigated Obama as "really un-American in his criticism of business" after the BP disaster. Similarly, Palin defended BP in a Tweet, in which she passed along a blog by Thomas Sowell, a National Review writer and conservative, think-tank, Hoover Institute fellow. Sowell argues that the Obama administration has committed a "totalitarian" power grab by setting up a fund for BP to ensure they pay out those damaged by the volcano of oil washing onto Gulf shores. In "Is the US on a Slippery Slope to Tyranny," Sowell, like Schwarzman, uses the analogy to Nazi Germany, arguing that forcing BP to pay into the fund is in essence an attack on constitutional democracy.

A month before the Republican rout of Congress, Newt Gingrich - who compared Obama to Adolf Hitler - distilled the same anti-government, pro-billionaire message down to a bumper-sticker friendly format: "Paychecks or Food Stamps." As a central tenant in this "closing argument," Gingrich advises candidates to hammer on the tax reform, to point out that increased taxes will directly decrease employment and that this slogan - when repeated again and again - will resonate with average Americans on a "personal, emotional level."

And resonate it did. Not only did the Republicans win the Congress through Gingrich's strategy, but many in the bottom 99 percent are true believers that the super wealthy are our benevolent patrons, and that hurting them, hurts us all. According to a September PEW poll, nearly 40 percent of Americans say "that allowing Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy to expire at the end of this year would hurt the economy." And as Obama signed the bill to law this Friday, a bipartisan majority of the public (60 percent) supported it, according to another PEW poll.

More at the link --

[Dawson Leery]

1. k/r

[PhillySane]

2. Interesting

When the corporations are being regulated, the government is a Nazi dictatorship. What do they call the government when they're getting bailed out by the taxpayers? Suckers?

[Thav]

3. The best government money can buy.

[SpiralHawk]

4. Penthouse Punks. How very republicon

and undoubtedly Republicon chickenhawks as well, since that is so typical...