Stimulation

For all you ill-informed citizens who think that the New Deal didn't save us from the last time Republican policies had been carried out for too long, listen up.

I know, you like to say that World War II brought us back from the brink of disaster. And y'know what? You're actually right about that. It was that great war that pulled us up out of the depths of Republican depravity.

But those nay-sayers who like to trash Roosevelt while making the case that President Obama's plans won't get us out of the mess they got us into are missing one teeny-tiny little point. Just what was it about World War II that allowed us to recover economically?

World War II was one gigantic stimulus plan. If there hadn't been a Pearl Harbor, if Hitler hadn't tried to take over Europe, Roosevelt's New Deal would have continued -- and succeeded as well as the war did -- because we pumped money into the economy and put people to work.

And while we're at it, it was all a little bit of socialism, that word that so terrifies the unwashed masses and their well-heeled masters in Washington and on the airwaves. Columnist Don Williams:

Face it. Nothing is more socialistic than the military culture, where you have men and women living in government housing, driving government jeeps, tanks, planes and boats, shooting government guns, eating government food, wearing government clothing and partaking of government healthcare. Everyone’s pay falls within well-defined boundaries, so the staggering inequities in pay — the kind dragged into the light by so many Wall Street scandals -- scarcely exist in the military.

Privates and generals make a guaranteed annual income and salaries are capped by the government. Everyone who signs up for service is treated to goodies at taxpayer expense for the rest of their lives. Government counseling, medical care, pensions, disability payments, education and so on are provided for by a grateful public all too willing to be taxed in order to support the troops.

...

I bring this up not to advocate turning America into a military welfare state, but just for clarity’s sake. The chief point is that anyone who says Roosevelt’s big-spending policies didn’t end the Great Depression has no leg to stand on, not even one of those expensive titanium legs our government hires doctors to provide wounded troopers. Roosevelt spent more, not less, after the war started.

So whether it was the New Deal or World War II that ended the Great Depression, the chief engine of change was a massive infusion of federal dollars into the American and global economy for more than a decade. It’s a transfer on the order of what Obama intends as he retools the grid, healthcare, education and transportation infrastructure.

To those who say it can’t work, I have two words.

Prove it.

I have two other words. Make that four: Shut the fuck up. You so clearly don't know what you're talking about. Stop saying we can't spend our way out of this recession/depression/whatever it is, because it's only way we're going to get out of it.

And hopefully, we can do it without the "benefit" of spreading our ridiculous and illegal wars any further than they've already spread, because that was one damned bloody and deadly way to jump-start the economy.

So far, though, Bush's wars haven't done much with the economy except drain it, and that may have been his point all along.

But we do know this for sure: The "loyal" opposition is decidedly disloyal, now trying to hedge their treason by saying they don't want the president's policies to succeed instead of saying they don't want him to succeed. It's the same damn thing. Treason.

They only want to keep doing what they've been doing for the past 30 years, no matter how much Mitch McConnell says the GOP can get better now without that GW albatross around their necks.

Well, Mitch, old buddy, why didn't you act like he was a fucking albatross during those eight years you marched in lockstep with him on every damn thing he wanted done?

Oh, that's right. Because he's only an albatross now that you've finally figured out the American people hate him and what he stands for, and you need to do something to try to persuade us that you're really different.

But that's a big, fat lie, Mitch. Just like the one about how the New Deal didn't get us out of the Great Depression.



News Writer
AWOP Political Contributing Editor
Author of Stop the Press Blog

Cross-posted at Stop the Press!

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Peace Y'all