[I]t takes some temerity for a Republican to charge Obama with divisiveness, given the GOP’s willingness to promote or countenance assaults on the president as “a socialist,” as someone not even born in the United States, as a supporter of “death panels,” and on and on…. But what’s most instructive is that Ryan would not have given this speech if the Republican Party were not so worried that it is losing control of the political narrative. In particular, growing inequalities of wealth and income — which should have been a central issue in American politics for at least a decade — are now finally at the heart of our discourse. We are, at last, discussing the social and economic costs of concentrating ever more resources in the hands of the top sliver of our society.
Not so very long ago, Occupy Wall Street was viewed by the media with dismissal and disdain. The few Americans who had even a passing knowledge of the movement tended to consider the movement unserious- a collection of lazy, unwashed, disaffected young longhairs too damned lazy to get a job. Funny how time can change things, isn’t it?
Once upon a time, in a land that looks very much like our own, phrases like “income inequality” and “economic justice” were wholly owned by the Far Left and roundly ignored by most everyone else. Now those phrases have moved to the forefront of our national consciousness. Think what you will of Occupy Wall Street (and the movement does have some significant issues and shortcomings), they’ve succeeded in creating a discussion about unequal distribution of wealth and inequality of opportunity. And, gauging by the fact that Republicans feel the need to respond, it seems clear that Conservatives are running scared. By trotting out Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) to address a subject that the Right has traditionally ignored as not worthy of consideration, it seems clear that political momentum has changed. And how have Conservatives chosen to fight back? By…wait for it…blaming the poor. Yeah, if only the poors paid their fair share, eh??
Stay classy, y’all….
And here’s something nobody could have seen coming: you have to know that economic justice is becoming the cause of the moment when the Catholic Church decides to weigh in.
Well, yes, and no. Yes, the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace issued a strong and thoughtful critique of the global financial system this week that paralleled many of the criticisms of unchecked capitalism that are echoing through lower Manhattan and cities around the world.
The report spoke of “the primacy of being over having,” of “ethics over the economy,” and of “embracing the logic of the global common good.” In a knock against those who oppose government economic regulation, the council emphasized “the primacy of politics — which is responsible for the common good — over the economy and finance.” It commented favorably on a financial transactions tax and supported an international authority to oversee the global economy.
Of course, the Vatican, never renowned for reactionary Liberalism or anything that might smack of Liberation Theology, soft-pedaled any possible connection to the Occupy Wall Street movement or anything similar. Still, the fact that economic justice and income inequality is on the Vatican’s radar means that the issue is not going to be easily propagandized into oblivion.
When Rick Santorum acknowledges that income inequality is a problem, I can only assume that one of two things are happening. One, Santorum went off the reseration, forgetting the GOP’s carefully crafted talking points on the issue. Two, the GOP is still trying (and, so far, failing) to get out in front of this issue and spin it to their advantage. In another time and place, perhaps the GOP message meisters may have been able to rhetorically bludgeon income inequality into so much white noise. When not even Paul Ryan, the party’s patron saint on economic issues, can issue a credible defense of the status quo, it seems clear that this issue is beyond the GOP’s control.
There’s simply no way to defend the status quo when it involved an ever-widening gap between the “haves” and “have nots.” When the most organized Conservative response to date has been to whine about the “need” to tax the poor in the interest of making the tax burden “more equitable”…well, the words “moral bankruptcy” quickly and easily leap to mind. The GOP, as skilled in the black arts of propaganda and public opinion manipulation as any organization extant today, has nothing. That should tell you all you need to know right there.
WE DESERVE BETTER.