Mitt Romney — NOT the Man for President

Even without Obama’s excellent record (see Reason to Vote for Obama — His Record), he still would be a better pick for President than Mitt Romney.

Voting for President for me is not a party thing, but a person thing. “Vote for the man!” I always say (“man” here is the generic term for any human qualified; I happen to think we are not far away from a woman President.); do not vote for the party.

One way to decide is to line up the ones who have a chance to win, and for decades now that has been just two candidates. Then, ask the question which one is closest to being like Thomas Jefferson, or Andrew Jackson? Jefferson, the principal author of the Declaration, fought before, during, and after his own Presidency for the American ideal of equal justice and opportunity for all — for the ideal of the educated electorate, for power being in the hands of the people. Jackson, the first President from the “common people” set the standard in his Presidency of just how to carry out that fight as President of all (except the Indians, unfortunately) the people.

Obama is so much closer to these two than Romney, it is a no-brainer! Romney is an elitist, someone who cannot relate to the 99% of Americans who do not earn as much as he. He is rich, and, like Donald Trump, far from being the sharpest knife in the drawer. He reminds me of Ronald Reagan, a self-made puppet ready to morph into anything the party needs, or, better, ready to morph into anything that will help him win. Romney, like most Republican candidates for President, needs to be that compliant “man of the party,” willing to do whatever the party wants, regardless of his own personal views; Republican candidates overwhelmingly to me are “not their own man.” Obama is his own man.

He (Mitt) reminds me, unfortunately, of most Republican candidates, for, since the death of Lincoln and the advent of the post Civil War Radical Republicans bent upon punishing the South, the Republican candidate has been the dedicated mouth-piece of the economic elitists of this country, and an elitist himself. Consequently, I have never voted for a Republican Presidential candidate in my life, a fact by which I have been erroneously labeled a Democrat.

Republican candidates of late have been the “business candidates.” I have been in a back-and-forth blog with someone I’ll just call Jack, who, apparently, sincerely believes that a good businessman would be a good President. A “good businessman” is assumed to be a successful one, and a successful one is synonymous to being a rich one. In the economic history of this country, being rich usually means being an economic elitist, like Alexander Hamilton. Economic elitists fought for and those today fight for an economic class structure (There have been far, far too few exceptions to this rule of thumb, unfortunately.) — a structure not unlike the one we broke away from as colonies of Great Britain by way of the American Revolution. Economic elitists, therefore, work against our American ideals of democracy, equality, and egalitarianism; they work toward an American aristocracy. Hence, they are polar opposites to the likes of Jefferson and Jackson.

The philosophy of economic elitists is often the “great man” theory of history, as opposed to the “great idea” theory of history. Hence, the elitist rich are comfortable with great kings, aristocrats, military officers, and, of course, CEO’s and autocratic bosses. Rich people of the “great idea” theory tend not to be impressed by individual leadership, and avoid the pitfalls of cults of personality that emerged from strong, selfish leadership. Economic elitists have over time fallen prey to follow autocrats, dictators, and despots of all types, or, given in to the temptation to become one of those themselves.

Our country was founded upon great ideas, not upon the deeds of great men. The philosophy, therefore, of the economic elitists, the “good businessmen,” if you please, is out of “sync” with the ideals of the United States. Economic elitists, usually, are not good for the United States as governmental leaders. They struggle enough with so much money, and don’t have the skills to humanely handle power.

My site administrator and friend, Jim McDonald, recently reminded me of the dark side of economic elitism. I, of all people, should have the dangers of economic elitism before me at all times, for, after all, I read William Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich before I graduated high school. I tended to forget about the economics of Nazi Germany; it was boring compared to the military history and political history.

Fear is a poor reason to vote one way or another, so I am not trying to put fear and dread into anyone. I am just saying that Jim reminded me that the dark side of economic elitism is fascist economics. Empowered economic elitism was the economic system of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperialist Japan. (They lost WWII, by the way, so no fear there.) Full support of an autocratic governmental bureaucracy backs usually large corporations that gained influence and tax breaks helping them to, in turn, support the government. The government dictates what the economy produces, and the economy flourishes to greater and greater profits and production under the protection and exclusive support of the government. Leaders in government and leaders in industry in a fascist regime morph into each other back and forth, making money and gaining power with each change. Dick Cheney, in my opinion, has done just that in our country; he has personally behaved as if we are in a fascist economy!

A fascist regime has industry and government pulling the same way, with money collecting at the top (like our so-called “1%”). Exploiting the people’s sense of patriotism, outside dangers are conjured (exploiting the people’s collective fear) to pick a fight (war) with enemies possessing resources or geographical coordinates the 1% would like to place under their influence and direction to keep the economy growing at the expense of the “enemy.” And war is fought under the guise of a “cause” of the people, when, in reality, the war is an effective way of diverting the people away from their being victims of the exploitation of the “military-industrial complex” giving them instructions, directions, and marching orders. The Vietnam War was a war waged by a fascist-like military-industrial complex operating under the name of the United States of America.

We have fought, similarly to the Vietnam War, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Back in his day, Reagan tried to foment a war with Guatemala so we could economically exploit them. The reasons we went into Iraq are pretty oily, even though it is nice to be rid of Hussein, and what makes us think we could do better than the Soviets in Afghanistan, even though it is nice to be rid of bin Laden? Does the sabre rattling done by conservative Republicans at Iran seem like a familiar pattern? It should. Fascist economies need to expand and exploit their neighbors to cover their exploitation of their 99%.

It takes unscrupulous businessmen to run a fascist economy, to, among other things, make the guns to keep the wars going (and the blood flowing). It takes a President just as unscrupulous or, really, really dumb in the White House to back a fascist economy in the United States, sometimes by doing nothing more than giving big tax breaks to the rich economic elitists or turning a blind eye to how industrial outsourcing of jobs is hurting the US economy. (At least the Republicans outsource (foreign slave labor) and do not resort to in-house slave labor, like the Nazis did!)

Believe what candidates do, not what candidates say. By his actions, Mitt seems both unscrupulous and dumb. He either doesn’t mind being another puppet of the Republicans (because of all he can personally gain by being so) or he doesn’t think he is. He can’t be all the latter, for that is as dumb as George W, and I don’t think Mitt is THAT dumb! But he is economically an unscrupulous American, with links to all that outsourcing, all those foreign bank accounts, and the cowardice of not taking ownership of a pretty good State universal insurance plan that shows the way this country ought to go in reaching what the American people deserve — universal health care.

I need to insert here that I am, like Obama, NOT anti-business. The overwhelming majority of businesses, when you include the small ones, are honest, hard-working enterprises doing as Adam Smith envisioned. Thank God for this majority! I am just suggesting that just as absolute power corrupts absolutely, money above a certain amount corrupts predictably in the pockets of most people. What did Scripture say — it is easier for a camel to enter the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven? What Jack calls a good businessman, like he calls Romney, is double-speak for the unscrupulous businessman, such as pervades the 1%. In other words, when you get rich enough, you can “afford” to be unscrupulous.

We suffered economically the stupidity and greed of the 1% in 2008. If America had fallen into a depression, then that would be a step in favor of a stronger fascist economy. Thanks to Obama, we did not do that. But, with this gridlocked Congress we have, which, in my opinion, is preventing the creation of jobs, conditions are again in the favor of a US version of a fascist economy, thanks to the stupidity and stubbornness of half our legislature, the lobbying paid for by the 1%, and the mindless noise made by the Tea Party (like the brown shirts of Nazi Germany). (Check history to see how the Nazis-coming-to-power worked to gum up the works of the Reichstag desperately needing to do something about the German economy in the late 20’s and early 30’s. They probably had a hand in burning the place down, blaming it on the Communists.)

Note Romney talks of creating jobs but he does not say how he is going to do it. He says he has created jobs in his business career, but can’t shake ties to companies that destroyed jobs here by outsourcing. Obama knows how to create jobs and get to working on repairing our infrastructure. FDR (a rich American who was not an economic elitist) showed the way. We need a Congress, regardless of party affiliation, willing to get things done and work with the President. We need companies that spend no money on lobbying or fat bonuses to upper management and spread their wealth to their workers; we need companies whose workers own as much stock in the company as management.

Romney shows, in my opinion, he is part of the unscrupulous 1% — one of Jack’s good businessmen — when he refuses to show no more than two years of his income tax returns, just as John McCain refused to do. (I wonder if Romney knows how many houses he owns, as McCain did not seem to know about the number of his properties.) MSNBC just recently revealed one of the many reasons why he cannot “afford” to report too much. It has come to light Romney has in his IRA tens of millions of dollars! Given the maximum annual contribution to IRA’s most of us have to live under ($6k), that means he has been building up his IRA for thousands of years! Wow! Not even Mormon miracles can get him out of that! Speaking of the Mormons, revelation over the years of his contributions to the Mormon Church, as if he was helping the poor, needy, and destitute — all for a tax write-off, cannot be good for him also. When you look at the opulence, grandeur, and gaudiness of the Mormon temples, it looks as bad as giving “offerings to the poor” into the coffers of Vatican City! It’s like Scrooge giving money to spruce up the lobby of his bank, claiming that as a “contribution” to the poor, needy, and destitute.

My friend Jack, mentioned above, seems to be an economic elitist; he has developed delusions of grandeur outside his profession of engineering; he fancies himself a prophet and a self-ordained Christian minister; he flaunts his wealth, and is further self-deluded into thinking people line up in cyberspace to eagerly lap up his latest advice and pontifications; his “latest” consists of insights like having Senators not elected by the people anymore, but, rather, be appointed by governors or State legislatures like they were over 200 years ago! Can you say “fascist economic elitist”?

Guess who Jack enthusiastically supports for President? — you guessed it, Mitt Romney.

We need to re-elect President Obama. (And also elect a cooperating Congress eager to get to work with the President.)

RJH