"Government does not create jobs! Government does not create jobs!" ~~ Willard Mitt Romney at the second 2012 Presidential debate.
When Governor Romney made this claim, he was clearly about to lose his composure. Of course, it was already weakened due to President Obama's calling him out on several statements Romney had made during the debate. But I have to wonder if he failed American History when he was in high school, since it's clear that he really believes that government doesn't create jobs.
Clearly he's forgotten about the causes of the Great Depression, as had the previous three Republican Presidents: Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush. If they'd remembered, they would never had pushed the "trickle down" theory of economics. Or maybe they were just so beholden to their corporate masters sponsors that they didn't care. And Romney wants to double down on Bush's policies, in spite of the fact, as Obama pointed out, that those policies are what caused the financial collapse in the first place.
Yet that's just the recent background filler. Let's go back to the Depression. When Franklin Roosevelt won the Presidency, he had a plan to get the economy back up and running. That plan included putting people back to work who had lost their jobs. And part of that strategy was for the government to be the employer of last resort. There was the Public Works Project, as an example of this. Government creating jobs. And as part of the overall strategy, it worked very well.
But that's not the only example of government creating jobs. There are a whole slew of government agencies, staffed by civil servants to fill the positions created by those agencies. Guess what? Government creating jobs.
Post office jobs. Park ranger jobs. Police officers, firemen and women, teachers, administrators, judges, and military personnel. The list goes on and on. So Gov. Romney's claim doesn't hold water at all.
But wait, there's more! The governor said in that secretly filmed dinner that he doesn't care about 47% of the people because they're NOT GOING TO VOTE FOR HIM ANYWAY! So maybe he thinks that those government-created jobs don't exist, because for him, the little people who hold those jobs don't exist.
So the question now for our consideration is this: Can we, the voters, in good conscience, knowing the facts and hearing the lies, actually vote for this man, Willard Mitt Romney, to be the President of these United States?
My answer is a resounding "NO!"
© 2012 Donald C. Rice Jr.
People have different reasons (or excuses) for their political choices. In this Presidential election, there are a number of factors why so many still cling to the far right notion of government.
The largest of these, I think, is the racial issue, although the vast majority on the right will deny this.
Next up, are the people who have always voted one way and always will, regardless of facts and truth.
Following that are those that believed every word out of Obama's mouth 4 years ago, and are disappointed that he hasn't fulfilled every last campaign promise he made then. They generally refuse to give credit to the almost total obstructionism of the Congressional Republicans, or the fact that they were joined in that obstruction by what we so lovingly refer to as "blue dog Democrats".
And last, there are those who begrudge Obama's efforts at compromise. They think that he should have gotten down to business with them after the first six months to a year, rather than continuing to try to find a middle ground.
Personally, I tend to agree with that last group, but not to the extent that many do. I refuse to abandon Obama for a couple reasons.
First, even though he has made his mistakes, how many of us haven't? After all, he's only human, and I think he's shown that he does learn from those mistakes.
Second, I think he's on the right track on most issues, and he has the intelligence to find ways to follow through, with or without cooperation from the right.
Third, he has shown, time and time again, that there is a better way to engage in politics than to constantly be attacking this, that and the other. He has, time and again, taken the high road, the civil and civilized path to his goals. He had consistently refused to wallow in the muck and mire of the extremists on both sides of the political spectrum.
And finally, there is the issue of his "foreign-sounding" name. Having travelled a good part of the world, visiting several countries and engaging in discussion on a variety of topics with people from countries I haven't been to, I have no fear of the different, the "other than me". I've come to know that, as the song says, "We all know ... that people are the same wherever you go." (Thank you, Sir Paul McCartney!)
On the other hand, I've come to see the near-total idiocy of the right which culminated in the Romney/Ryan ticket. Neither of these "gentlemen" have any sense of what is needed to get this country back on it's feet. They downplay or ignore the successes of the Obama administration. And they flat-out lie about so many things it's become something of a comedy of errors. And that's not even counting the inumerable flipflops of the Republicans' chosen standard-bearer.
So, even though Barack Hussein Obama isn't perfect, he is, in fact and in truth, the best candidate for the job. And that is why I will vote to re-elect this black man ...
No. That is why I will vote to re-elect this MAN that so many are afraid of to another term in the office of the President of these United States of America.
Namaste',
Donald Charles Rice Jr.
