cross posted on
BOR
As we move from the primaries into the general election, our focus shifts from internal dissention regarding what it means to be a good Democrat to how we differ from our opponents. I believe this is the year to rather than string the Republicans up, running the potential risk of putting off voters with yet another vitriolic campaign so soon after what were some truly nasty primaries, to allow the Republicans to hang themselves. Our jobs will be to make sure the voters see them swinging.
Some of the major bills that have been recently passed as well as the stances our opponents have taken on many issues fly in the face of their mantra promoting an ownership society. I believe our candidates should contend that ownership implies a certain level of choice, the current administration is taking away choice at every turn.
We can start this debate with money. Americans have less money than they have had in decades (with the exception of a privileged few). The cost of living is higher than it has ever been. When individuals are working at or slightly above minimum wage, they can not make the
choice to
buy a home or
invest in their futures. While the congress has sided with the big credit card companies in the bankruptcy bill, taking away people's right to discharge their own debt even in the case of serious emergency situations, they are strapping the American people with the largest national debt in history. Americans are being driven into a multi-generational cycle of unimaginable debt, this is debt that all Americans own, but only a few Americans have
chosen to create.
In terms of health and healthcare choices are again limited. Certainly the fact that some states have determined to take away a woman's right to a legal abortion is highly problematic, this is however far and away not the only or even primary area in which choice in health and healthcare is threatened. When we refuse to educate our young people about reproductive health, we are limiting them in their ability to make responsible choices regarding family planning and their reproductive health.
When individuals can not afford healthcare, they do not have the choice to participate in preventive care, or to seek treatment for medical problems before they become emergencies and more expensive or impossible to, treat.
The new Medicare plan D bill takes away from pharmaceutical companies the right to give their drugs away free of charge to anyone who either participates in Medicare part D or who refuses Med. D but qualifies for it. In this case choice has been taken away from the companies in who they may or may not give their product to, and from individuals in how they choose to obtain their medications, often resulting in them having to actually choose a more expensive option. Paying anything is more expensive than free.
Allowing single companies to monopolize media outlets takes away Americans choices in what they see, hear or say. The monopolization of media outlets has taken away our choices in what we see or hear by allowing a small number of individuals to censor our available choices. It additionally takes away freedom of speech by eliminating individual's ability to distribute a message to large numbers of people by barring them from broadcast.
Finally we move to education, currently the major limiting factor in choice in this country today. Participation in an ownership society society requires an understanding of ones options and how to exercise them. You can't build an ownership society from the ranks of the ignorant and uneducated. Ownership society implies ownership not only of your financial life, but your intellectual life, your reproductive life, your religious life. An ownership society implies choice. If you are handed your life by the government, even in a de facto manner, by reducing opportunity and choice, then you do have an owner ship society. What you have is more akin to the society like the one they had on plantations (you know what I'm talkin' about) sorry I couldn't resist. But in all seriousness, what the Republicans are building is not an ownership society, but an owned society; one where the few who are wealthy enough to educate themselves make the laws for and own the lives of the masses through the legislative process.
By keeping people ignorant, they reduce dissention, stripping the people of their rights, and their choices. This I believe makes education or the lack thereof the single most important issue facing us today.
The ownership society is a myth perpetuated by the Republican party in order to facilitate their ability to make people feel responsible for their own problems and their own lives; lives which they have less and less ability to control due to a decided lack of choice.