Looks like someone in the GOP finally broke and made it clear what the stragey is for 2012 and beyond.
Conservative columnist Matthew Vadum is just going to come right out and say it: registering the poor to vote is un-American and “like handing out burglary tools to criminals.”
“It is profoundly antisocial and un-American to empower the nonproductive segments of the population to destroy the country — which is precisely why Barack Obama zealously supports registering welfare recipients to vote,” Vadum, the author of a book published by World Net Daily that attacks the now-defunct community organizing group ACORN, writes in a column for the American Thinker.
“Encouraging those who burden society to participate in elections isn’t about helping the poor,” Vadum writes. “It’s about helping the poor to help themselves to others’ money. It’s about raw so-called social justice. It’s about moving America ever farther away from the small-government ideals of the Founding Fathers.”
As most news-watchers already realize, World Net Daily is a joke of a publication. It’s birther central, and therefore actually quite popular among activist Republicans. These kinds of large-scale attacks on a growing class of Americans are going to get worse. This idea, that lack of wealth is a personal failing, is one that has been ingrained in the psyche of this country for some time. Realize, at its founding, you had to be a wealthy white male to vote in this country.
Some see the changes we’ve made since that time as progress. These people are generally called “progressive”. There are, however, those who would like to see this go back to way things “were supposed to be”, and exclude the poor, women, and minorities from voting. Laws were recently passed in states with Republican legislatures designed to do just that (we are now up to 7).
The hope by the GOP and one that is bearing fruit, is that through further concentration of wealth through tax cuts to the wealthy and service cuts to the poor, *ever more people* will be driven to the ranks of the poor and encouraged to view this as a personal failing.
To wit…
“America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves. To quote the American humorist Kin Hubbard, ‘It ain’t no disgrace to be poor, but it might as well be.’ It is in fact a crime for an American to be poor, even though America is a nation of poor. Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by the American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters… Americans, like human beings everywhere, believe many things that are obviously untrue. Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and, therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves. This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class since, say Napoleonic times. Many novelties have come from America. The most startling of these, a thing without precedent, is a mass of undignified poor. They do not love one another because they do not love themselves.”
Kurt Vonnegut
It is under this mindset that we see poverty rates rising…
Government figures released Thursday provided a new window on the deep pain inflicted by the recession, with the U.S. poverty rate rising to its highest level in 15 years in 2009 and a record 43.6 million Americans officially labeled poor.
The Census Bureau, in its annual report on income, poverty and health insurance, said the poverty rate hit 14.3 percent in 2009, the third consecutive annual increase and the highest percentage rate since 1994. The number means that one in seven Americans was classified as poor in 2009.
While at the same time billionaires running media companies that routinely break the law, lie about the effects of tax cuts, and mislead millions of people about science….well…they get their just desserts…
Rupert Murdoch, the chairman and chief executive of News Corporation, received a $12.5m (£7.7m) cash bonus for the last financial year, while his total remuneration rose 47% to $33m, according to the company’s annual statement to shareholders.
His son James Murdoch – who is deputy chief operating officer, with responsibility for News Corp’s business in Europe and Asia – was awarded a $6m cash bonus as part of an $18m pay package – a 74% rise on his 2010 take-home pay.
When lying and criminality are rewarded in such a blatant and obvious manner, is it any wonder our nation is in decline?
You haven’t even heard the punchline yet…one of the biggest things Fox (and WND) loves to tell its viewers is how superior the Right-Wing is in this country for their embracing of Christian ideals. You know…like how he constantly ragged on the poor.
Robot Pirate Ninja 