Remember Gordon Gekko, that character from the Charlie Sheen/Michael Douglass movie, "Wall Street?" The guy who, according to Charlie's buddy at the brokerage firm, "had an ethical bypass at birth?" As we count down to election day, Mitt and Gordon are starting to resemble one another. Both are Ayn Rand types in that each firmly believes in completely unrestricted, no holds barred, winner-take-all, "let the people eat cake," capitalism. This disturbs me. And here's what bothers me the most.
In her book, "The Fountainhead," Rand writes of her main character, Howard Roark, "Howard Roark saw no one. For him, the streets were empty... it was only that he made people feel as if they did not exist." Neither Mitt Romney or his fictional counterpart, Gordon Gekko, really see people. And the ability to see people, I mean really to see them as real flesh and blood with real flesh and blood struggles and sufferings and joys and loves and concerns; that, to me, is one of the fundamental principles of ethics. When I hear Gov. Romney set forth his positions, I get the feeling he doesn't see me, my mother, my kids, whole groups of people but most especially those caught between the rock and the hard place. He makes me feel as if I don't really exist.
By one estimate, Gov. Romney's plan to turn Medicaid into a block grant program administered by the states, would, within a decade's time, deny health care to thirty-million kids. Does Gov. Romeny really see our children?
Under the Ryan budget, which Gov. Romney supports, a single mother of two earning minimum wage would pay $1500 more in taxes since he proposes to drastically slash the child tax credit. Does Gov. Romney see the that single mother?
What about the unemployed, the under employed? The Romney/Ryan plan, according to the Economic Policy Institute, would destroy 4.1 million jobs. Do either of these candidates really see the unemployed? Hell, have either one of these guys ever experienced, even for a week, what it's like not to have a job when you really want one and will pretty much take anything you can get even if it's flipping burgers to keep a roof over your kids' heads and a box of mac-and-cheese on the table?
Speaking of the poor, David Stockman, Ronald Reagan's budget director, points out that the Romney/Ryan plan would end up cutting as much as 3 trillion (yea, the "t" is correct) from programs for the poor. "It's ideology run amok," says Stockman. The ideology of Ayn Rand. The ideology of an economic war of all against all where the participants never truly see those less fortunate than themselves where the rich get tax cuts and the poor are left destitute.
Tim Dickinson, writing in "Rolling Stone" a couple of weeks back, summed up this mess pretty well. The Romney/Ryan plan "would roll back clean-air protection, gut both medicare and medicaid, lavish trillions in tax cuts for billionaires while raising taxes on the poor, and slash everything from college aid to veteran's benefits." Do the Republican candidates really see any of these people? Or are we merely abstractions, statistics on a balance sheet?
Message to Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan: Neither I, my parents, my neighbors, my children, nor any of the rest of us working stiffs are mere abstractions, and we will not be reduced to statistics. And we are not invisible. We will be seen.
And come November 6th, we will also be heard.
The Jawbone
