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Fraggin'

By Bill Shunas

Debts. Deficits. The nation defaulting. The political talk this past summer brought out the weirdos on these subjects. The rhetoric on the Republican side was either ill thought out, opportunistic, or just plain ignorant. How can you, all at the same time, (1) balance the budget, (2) not raise taxes and (3) not hurt people who rely on Social Security and Medicare? And say all this with a straight face? And Obama and the Democrats went along with this charade which let the Republicans and their Tea Party set the terms of the debate.

Occupy Wall Steet protest 10/5/11. New VVAW national coordinator Brian Mattarese stage far left.

Watching all this reminded me of Joseph Goebbels, propaganda honcho for Hitler and the Nazis. I'm sure Goebbels didn't invent the concept of the Big Lie, but he knew how to use it. Say something often enough and loud enough and it becomes accepted as a given (if not the truth).

The Big Lie about this summer's debate was not that one side or the other is going about it wrong. The lie was the debate itself which assumed that eliminating the debt and (coming close to) balancing the budget is the cure for what ails this doddering country. That was said over and over again by Tea Partiers and was accepted by all others as the terms of the debate. And the liberal media went along dutifully, leaving the whole mess unquestioned.

It's not nice to have as big of a debt as the US has, but fixing that should be seventh or eighth on the list of things to do. Rich people are not stupid. (Okay, maybe sometimes.) They aren't going to use their Bush tax cuts to help produce things that people aren't going to buy. Money needs to circulate among the people who will spend. These people are the poor, the working and the middle class. The economy needs to be stimulated — one way or the other, either through a growth industry such as we had with the railroads in the 19th century or auto in the 20th, or it can be stimulated by government spending. The stimulus could be in the form of the often talked about money used for the needed improvements of infrastructure. There's a word for stopping government spending during recessionary times. The word is "stupid."

Fascism was a political/economic theory that was around before World War II. Then it took the form of Hitler, Goebbels, and the German Nazis, who were so abhorrent that nobody called themselves fascist any more. That doesn't mean the idea died. It becomes evident now and then. It can take the form of Assad in Syria or any other dictator who kills off a couple of thousand labor leaders, human rights advocates and other reformers and socialists, while transferring the wealth to the ruling class and eliminating any safety nets Ronald Reagan wished for.

You don't always need to pile up the bodies. Fascism can be more genteel — like the Tea Party. Financially backed by right-wing wealth, they attack support programs for minorities and the poor. They attack unions. They support the eroding of civil liberties. They do these things while unabashedly supporting the wealthy. They speak against big government when their whole purpose is to become that government and put the rest of us in our place.

I do think that some Tea Party supporters are fine people. They're just afraid and looking for simple answers. Their good instincts have been sidetracked by what they've seen from the government. It's not that the problem is "government" or "big government." The problem is who runs the government. More precisely, who government runs for. The government is sold and bought by the wealthy whose interests are contrary to most of the rest of us including the rank and file of the Tea Party.

Is there an answer? Maybe not, but you can always try. Why not cut back on this world leader thing. It costs lots of money that could be used for economic stimulus and restoring some of the services that have been disappearing over the last couple of decades. Fighting two wars and several smaller actions is no longer affordable. Pursuing peace may not be sexy and won't create a job for everyone, but freeing up military expenditures for more productive use is a good first step.

And why not do something about corporations which use their overseas subsidiaries to avoid US taxes? Doing so will not hurt job creation. It's not the job-creating mid-size and small businesses that have a branch in Luxembourg where they choose to pay less taxes. The big corporations spend more money on lobbyists to buy off Congress to keep their tax havens than they do in taxes paid.

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How about a shout out to the late George Aiken, former US senator. During the time the Vietnam War was going hot and heavy with no light at the end of the tunnel, he was credited with suggesting the idea that we should declare victory and bring the troops home. He actually didn't use those words, but he was close enough to be given ownership of that concept.

I thought of Senator Aiken when the US Navy Seals found and killed Osama bin Laden. Back in Vietnam time there wasn't really a political basis for declaring victory, but in 2011 with bin Laden dead, we could have declared victory in Afghanistan and started the final withdrawal of troops. Bin Laden's death provided justification. There's hardly any Al Qaeda left there, and the symbolic reason for fighting the war was dead. Alas. Obama missed the chance.

Then a drone strike in Pakistan killed Al-Rahmin, Al Qaeda's number two man, and CIA director Petraeus made noises about the success we're having in eliminating Al Qaeda top leadership. If we kill off one or two top Al Qaeda leaders can we declare victory and leave Afghanistan? Hell, Al-Rahman, like bin Laden, wasn't even in Afghanistan. So we must have already won in Afghanistan.

It's time.

Bill Shunas is a Vietnam veteran, author and VVAW member in the Chicago chapter.