It has been so easy lately for anyone who disagrees with anyone else in politics to label them as radically as possible. In the past week or so, for instance, I’ve heard Obama, with his handling of the Economy and his goals for healthcare and education, called a “socialist”, a “communist”, a “fascist” and other things, some too nasty to mention.
Both parties (the major, parties, that is… the hundreds of mini-parties, those single-issue groupings of certain individuals, are prime offenders at name calling, but have relatively little effect) are guilty of this kind of stuff… and they do it to themselves as well as the other side (just look at what Republicans are doing to Michael Steele and what Paul Krugman is pumping out about Obama.)
Perhaps we should look at what “Socialism”, the big bugaboo, would really be… with extremely high taxation funding government management of just about everything… then let’s look at what Obama is intending to do. And maybe we should divorce concepts like “single-payer” healthcare from “socialized medicine”… it’s not. It doesn’t exist as socialism in Canada, or Europe, or even in England where it once came closest of all.
But lets get beyond the Socio/Political issues. Do any of the politicians know what they are talking about?
I’ve been watching lots of C-Span lately, seeing Congressional committees interview Secretaries and Generals and consultants about Iranian missile intentions, North Korean atomic plans, getting more heavily involved in Pakistan and Afghanistan (and ignoring our continuing, and highly expensive, presence in Iraq) and I hear questions coming from former mayors who are now Representatives who feel some kind of informed responsibility for letting one country have atomic power and another being denied it. And underneath it is no knowledge.
And yet we fill the television and radio and net and paper press with more and more of this stuff. It is soooo depressing.
