I am still totally agog at the fact that Romney used the battleship the USS Wisconsin as the backdrop for his grease, gab and stroke fest with his new buddy Paul Ryan. Why? After the squig...
The USS Wisconsin was launched on 7 December 1943, the second anniversary of the raid on Pearl Harbor. You know, during World War II. Why is this important? Because the Wisconsin, her sister ships, and all the other billions of tons of munitions and weapons built for the war effort were funded not by private equity, not by private corporations, and not by individuals*, but by the United States Government. The war effort was, without a doubt, the single greatest period of job creation this country has ever seen, or will ever see.
The war effort created jobs for millions upon millions of Americans; it pulled many millions of these same people out of desperate poverty; it effectively ended the depression; and trained millions in new manufacturing skills that they otherwise would never have had the opportunity to acquire. The War effort created the middle class as we know it, bringing the fabled prosperity of the '50s.
And all of this was government spending. The War effort was the single biggest "stimulus package" the world has ever seen. The government opened its wallet and dumped money into this country, and everybody got richer. (And the really bad fuckers of The Axis got their asses kicked.) And one of the many ways the Federal government gathered the money for this stimulus was by raising taxes on the wealthy.
The USS Wisconsin is a beautiful symbol of what only government can do--big Government, with lots of money to spend, collected through taxes. And Rmoney and Ryan, those anti-government schmucks, thought it was a fine symbol of what they stand for. Romney, dude, you and your rich fucking buddies DIDN'T FUCKING BUILD THAT. It's not irony that you chose a symbol of the War effort as your back drop, it's idiocy.
(* in case someone brings it up, yes, individuals and corporations helped to build weaponry, etc, through the purchase of war bonds, but only the Federal Government could issue war bonds. So there. Don't pick nits.)
This here is my first diary after years on the site. I just couldn't let this buffoonery go by without commenting, as no one else seems to have diaried it. So here I go...
[UPDATE 11:08 EST 8/12: Rec list?? For my first diary? Holy crap! I went to sleep last night and the diary had 15 or so positive comments, and a score of recs and I was all "well, that was nice, nobody yelled at me or told me I was a moron, so that's good." And wake to find I'm on the rec list! Thank you, thank you thank you!]
