Robert Reich on Romney, the New Gilded Age and More

[Bill USA]

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Robert-Reich-on-Romney-th-by-Joan-Brunwasser-120905-480.html

OpEd: My guest today is Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at UCal Berkeley, Robert Reich. Welcome to OpEdNews, Robert. You've been writing a lot lately about the many shortcomings of Mitt Romney. Your latest piece essentially calls him out for his constant lying. All candidates exaggerate and stretch the truth. Aren't you being a little harsh?

Reich: To the contrary, I may not have been harsh enough. While every presidential race is guilty of exaggeration, to some extent, and some have told half-truths, I'm aware of no previous presidential candidate or campaign that has told such brazen lies -- which the media have reported as false -- and yet continued to tell them even after having been outed. Romney's and Ryan's repeated claims that President Obama ended the work requirement in welfare, and that the Affordable Care Act reduces Medicare payments to beneficiaries -- to take but two examples -- are outright lies. They've been called "falsehoods" by the New York Times, "misstatements" by USA Today, and "wrong" by numerous non-partisan fact-checking organizations and sites. But Romney and Ryan continue to tell them, and use them copiously in their ads.

OpEd: So, how do they get away with it? Once, such lying that could have precipitated the downfall of a candidate.

Reich: They're getting away with it because the GOP has figured out how to bypass all neutral fact-checkers, the mainstream media, and any other trusted, non-partisan source. They've done this by, first, raising a huge amount of money through a network of super PACs and political nonprofits that's being spent on negative ads -- so many ads that the public can't differentiate between truth and falsehood; second, by discrediting the mainstream media in the eyes of many Americans; and third, by using a disinformation industry composed of Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and his various wanna-be's, the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, and the right-wing blogosphere to legitimize their lies or at least give them a patina of respectability.
<more>

[gateley]

1. "To the contrary, I may not have been harsh enough". Right out of the chute! Excellent!

[xchrom]

2. du rec. nt

[gateley]

3. More great stuff:

 "... Romney isn't a businessman; he's a financier. The world of private equity is part of Wall Street -- and it depends on the same combination of debt financing coupled with tax loopholes (in this case, the so-called "carried interest" loophole that allows private equity managers and hedge-fund managers to treat their earnings as capital gains, taxed at just 15 percent). The reigning economic philosophy during the Gilded Age was social Darwinism -- a bastardized form of Darwin's thinking about evolution. The thinking was that the wealthy should get special preferences because they strengthened society, while the poor shouldn't get any help at all, because they weakened society. This is, in essence, Romney's and Ryan's economic approach. Finally, the Gilded Age was an era of hugely concentrated wealth, and political corruption. The lackeys of the rich literally placed bags of money on the desks of legislators, in order to get legislation that would favor the wealthy. Here again, the parallels are stunning. The Republican platform comes out explicitly and forcefully against any limits on campaign spending, or any constraints on contributions. Romney not only represents the new Gilded Age, and casino capitalism. He IS our economic problem."

[1StrongBlackMan]

4. Posted to for future viewing.