Patriotism and the Bastards of Privilege, by Mike Gold – Brainiac On Banjo #304 | @MDWorld

December 3, 2012 Mike Gold 14 Comments

One thousand packaging and marketing experts could not come up with such a catchy name if they were locked in a room for a month. But there’s an awesome reality behind The Fiscal Cliff, and it’s not financial apocalypse. It’s patriotism.

For the purpose of conversation – and the politicians aren’t denying it as of yet – let us assume that going off the fiscal cliff is possible and that’s a bad thing. This is not a reach: it’s certainly a bad thing for what little is left of the middle class, as their taxes will skyrocket and that will have a very negative impact on their spending and, therefore, on the economy. It’s certainly a bad thing for the unfortunate, the destitute, and the unwell – you know, the Americans the Republicans think of as lazy moochers – as their gossamer-thin safety net will go bulimic. I think of this as the Republican death panels.

So we have these Republicans saying they’ll push us off that cliff if we dare install even the most minute of tax increases on the smallest fraction of Americans who can afford it the most. They continue to perpetuate the astonishing lie that these superrich are job creators and that if their taxes go back up to the level it was when America was a prosperous nation – a couple of percentage points – then these “job creators” will be forced to fire even more people.

Their greed overwhelms their sense of humanity. Granted, some of these Bastards of Privilege never had much to begin with. It contradicts the rule of democracy: if the election told us anything, and I’m sure these gilded liars think it did not, its that the President of the United States of America was elected on the platform of restoring the top tax rate to what it was before the last Republican administration. You know, the administration that tanked our economy. The majority did not vote in favor of reducing Medicare or social security; they voted to get those who can easily afford it to pay their fair share.

By hiring the Republican Party and its hack leader John Boehner to protect the cream of their financial salve even at the cost of the destruction our economy, they have shown themselves to place their excessive wealth over the welfare of this nation. They claim to be patriots. In fact, they are traitors to democracy.

Democrats: show some guts and call their bluff. Let’s see just how patriotic these Bastards of Privilege really are.

My guess: the Washington Blues don’t have the spine. And the Washington Reds don’t either. So they’ll just kick the can further down the road and pass a six-month delay. It probably won’t be as long as a year because that cuts it too close to the next Congressional elections and the Republicans don’t want to exacerbate the gains the Democrats made last month in the House.

Blue wimps and red traitors.  That’s what we’ve got running this joint.

Mike Gold performs the weekly two-hour Weird Sounds Inside The Gold Mind ass-kicking rock, blues and blather radio show on The Point, www.getthepointradio.com , every Sunday at 7:00 PM Eastern, rebroadcast three times during the week (check the website above for times) and available On Demand at the same place. That same venue offers us the weekly Great American Popcast, co-hosted with Mike Raub. Gold also joins Martha Thomases and Michael Davis as a weekly columnist at www.comicmix.com where he pontificates on matters of four-color.