Romney’s selection of Paul Ryan as his VP removes all doubt: the class war has begun, and Republicans plan to win the war by destroying the Middle Class. Well, what's remaining of the Middle Class. Ryan has pledged allegiance to Ayn Rand (see quotes below). Ryan’s/Rand’s brand of unfettered, greed-driven capitalism has ruled this country since Reagan… and the results of 30 years of war on the Middle Class is inarguable: The income of the richest 1 percent soared 275 percent, and more recently (2005-2010) Middle Class wages stagnated and median household net worth declined 35 percent! (ABC News, Oct. 26, 2011 and June 18, 2012). Lost in these stats: the rich already had three mansions each before the 275 percent soaring of income; the Middle Class was already struggling before the housing debacle and economic crash (a crash caused by Wall Street’s greed). In sum: the Middle Class does most of the work and receives all of the screwing, and Ryan and Romney want more of the same.
They’ll come after the poor later. Romney admitted, “I'm not concerned about the very poor.” The “very poor” don’t have the resources to stop the Fourth Reich of the Rich; only the Middle Class does. So if elected, R & R will beat down the Middle Class (this strategy is well underway with the destruction of labor unions), and only later remove the social safety nets for the poor. Tax cuts and loopholes will continue for the upper class, as government and military continue to cater to the needs of corporations (“Corporations are people, my friend,” Romney famously said), and what’s worse, these two men who claim to be Christian will wrap themselves in the atheistic philosophy of Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman, who call Greed a Virtue. There is is absolutely no doubt that Rand and Friedman’s philosophies are diametrically opposed to the teachings of Jesus. If there is anything worse than being robbed, it is to be robbed by a self-righteous robber who tells you HE is the virtuous one. Such is Ayn Rand. Such is Paul Ryan. And Ryan will rob us while smiling... and blaming us for the “class warfare.” But in the words of Billionaire Warren Buffett, “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”
(Continue reading to see quotes and supporting references.)
~Rev. Dr. Lance Moore is a Southern parish pastor whose latest book, A Monkey Could Do It: How Wall Street Robs Main Street, is available at www.Sky-Fy.com and at www.createspace.com/3811658
Don’t take my word for it. Republican-darling and rightwing Christian minister Charles Colson publicly chastised his fellow conservatives, warning that Ayn Rand’s philosophy is the “antithesis of Christianity” and that her followers are “undermining the Gospel.” Or read Rand’s own words: “Capitalism and altruism are incompatible....The choice is clear-cut...” and she chose “a new morality of rational self-interest,” a morality of selfishness. Rand confessed elsewhere that her God was herself: “I am done with the monster of ‘we,’... I now see the face of god, and I raise this god over the earth.... This god, this one word: ‘I’.”
A definition of irony is that most outspoken Christians are rooting for the non-Christian candidates! I get email’s daily from Christian extremists who claim Obama, a self-professed Christian, is a secret Muslim, yet they ignore the fact that Mormonism is called by their own ilk a “heretical cult,” and that Paul Ryan is a devotee to an atheistic philosophy rooted in self-centered greed: “The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand,” Ryan said in a 2005 speech (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, April 2009). In a speech to The Atlas Society, Ryan stated: “I grew up reading Ayn Rand and it taught me quite a bit about who I am and what my value systems are, and what my beliefs are. It’s inspired me so much that it’s required reading in my office for all my interns and my staff.” In 2005, Ryan invoked and cited Rand’s writings when he told an audience, “Almost every fight we are involved in here on Capitol Hill... comes down to one conflict: individualism versus collectivism.” Ryan sides with the wealthy, successful “individual” against the less fortunate “collective” rest of society—with the one notable exception of favoring corporations over individuals.
In response to Warren Buffet’s proposal for billionaires to pay more in taxes, Congressman Paul Ryan cried “class warfare” and claimed progressives are “sowing social unrest and class resentment.” From where does that unrest originate? Not from progressive propaganda, but from the realities most working people face: since 1980, we in the Middle Class have seen wages stagnate, but our healthcare costs skyrocketed and the cost of college tuition has tripled... and Ryan’s answer is to discard healthcare reform and gut student loans. Yet Ryan claims his Catholic Christianity is consistent with his Randian greed. He tried to make this claim in a speech to the Catholic/Jesuit Georgetown University, but 100 of the faculty and administrators sent a letter to Ryan, telling him that his budget is anathema to Christian values: “We would be remiss in our duty to you and our students if we did not challenge your continuing misuse of Catholic teaching to defend a budget plan that decimates food programs for struggling families, radically weakens protections for the elderly and sick, and gives more tax breaks to the wealthiest few.”
R & R will paint this election as a choice between moral capitalism and immoral socialism. Hypocrites! It is a moral choice, but the choice is between self-centered, unregulated greed versus a sharing and caring society with “justice for all.” Frankly, they have made it a war of the ultra-rich against the rest of us... and by the way, the Scriptures make it clear which side Jesus is on.
~Rev. Dr. Lance Moore is a Southern parish pastor whose latest book, A Monkey Could Do It: How Wall Street Robs Main Street, is available at www.Sky-Fy.com and at www.createspace.com/3811658