Why Edwards scares the NY Times Media see fairness as class warfare, and don't understand why they lose readers
http://www.mytown.ca/zepp 6/10/07 Alone among all the candidates for President in this curiously indeterminable campaign, John Edwards talks about poverty. Some, although not all of the Democratic candidates pay lip service, and certainly none of the Republicans. Edwards alone talks about it seriously. Alone among all of the two dozen or so candidates, only Dennis Kucinich isn't a millionaire, and in a country that once prided itself on being the home of the Common Man, most of the candidates were BORN millionaires. But Edwards is the only one talking seriously about it and being heard. It might well be that others, like Gravel, Kucinich, and Paul are, but the corporate media can ignore them and so it does. But Edwards is a Name candidate, and the media, torn between defending the wealthy and boosting ratings, grudgingly have to cover him. The New York Times did so this weekend, and did so with strong efforts to sabotage, beginning with a few clucks over the fact that he was running at all with an ailing wife at home and going on to describe his campaign as "arduous, even joyless." Well, when you have your news as entertainment, and candidates talk about policy instead of Paris Hilton, that will annoy the toy reporters. They will happily chatter about Edward's haircuts instead, and hope that nobody asks how much the television personalities paid to criticize Edwards for the hair jobs have invested in their own coifs. Edwards wants to end poverty in America by 2037. We came close in the late 70s to that incredible goal, reducing poverty from about 33% in 1932 to 15% in 1967 to 11% by 1978. But then the country lost its mind and veered to the far right, and the poor have been losing ground (and gaining members) ever since. Now, even as America Overall, which is NY Times-speak for Wall Street and the top 1% of income, is richer than ever before, poverty includes 18% of the population. The attacks on Edwards from the trash right, the propagandists who feed their poison to Rush Limbaugh and Matt Drudge and the bozos at Free Republic, are especially vehement about Edward's "hypocrisy." They note that he's a trial lawyer, and millionaire, and so has no business talking about the poor. They fail to mention that solely among all those millionaires running for office, Edwards made his money by helping poor people get justice. He took up the battle of common people against major corporations, at personal and professional risk, and beating some very long odds, prevailed. But if we learned anything over the past twenty years, it's just how artificial the moral outrage of the trash right is. They aren't seething at Edwards because they think he's not sincere. They are seething at him because they fear that he is. In a rational political atmosphere, Edwards would be considered a centrist. In fact, by 1968 standards, he would be considered downright Republican. He wants universal health care, but like every other candidate who even admits there's a problem, he wants forced insurance coverage, thus ensuring that the main source of the problem the domination of the insurance industry in medical affairs remains in place. Nor is he a wild-eyed utopian leftist on the economy: he favors a progressive tax and a balanced budget. He talks about housing vouchers for the poor, but stops short of ensuring that there is going to be low-cost housing available. Nor, despite the frantic concerns of the Free Republic and the Birchers, is he out to eat the rich. He argues on a theme of "trickle up" economics, the idea being that you will get far more economic activity if you give one hundred million people an extra $500 each in discretionary spending than you would if you give one hundred people an extra $500 million extra to spend. To use a favorite cliche of economics courses, if you give one man in the community a million dollars extra, he might celebrate by buying an extra pair of shoes. If you spread that money evenly around the entire community instead, thousands of people would buy shoes. Trickle up economics. And of course, in the deeply dysfunctional model of the "free marketeers," there would be cheap shoes available in that community after the one lucky individual got that money, but only because the individual set up a shoe factory in Vietnam and pays peasants a dollar a day to make shoes in unsafe working conditions. Only shoes don't sell in Shoetown because the local shoe factory closed, and all the people who had jobs making shoes are now unemployed. Edwards takes a centrist and commonsense approach to the economy, and recognizes that helping the poor doesn't have to mean punishing the rich, and that punishing the rich isn't desirable. Politics and government in America these days are rich man's toys. The system is rigged so only millionaires can run for high office, and even then, the system of legalized bribes ensures that, once in office, they are pressured to kowtow to the needs of the richest one percent. It's why nearly all the candidates are millionaires, and why the puppy dog media attacks or ignores any candidate who either isn't rich, or who doesn't reflect the party line. Most Americans these days live paycheck to paycheck, one capricious employer away from being impoverished. Millions know that they are only one injury or illness away from financial ruin, and many more wonder if their insurance company will cheat them when misfortune strikes. They look at New Orleans and wonder if the free marketeers will come and help them when a natural catastrophe strikes and no place is safe from natural catastrophe. So when the New York Times and the rest of the puppy dog media try to dismiss a candidate who is talking seriously about how needlessly widespread the precariousness of financial life is in America as being "arduous, even joyless," and invite you to vote for a FUN candidate who believes in the free market and globalization, ask yourself if anyone in your family needs shoes. Ask yourself which ones are actually talking about keeping your children safe, not from the illusory terrorist bogeyman, but from predatory corporations and a society without a safety net. And then decide if you want a fun candidate but an "arduous, even joyless" life, or an "arduous, even joyless" candidate, and a life in which you can earn a modicum of security. *** Oh: for the folks who are worried about GOP outrage over Edward's haircuts, here's a little trip down memory lane, from back in 1981: Getting a White House trim http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,922941,00.html Nationally, the blow dryer and the unisex salon threaten to replace the barber pole, but the Reagan Administration, true to its campaign promises, is seeking a return to traditional values. Back in 1977 Jimmy Carter evicted the White House barber from his basement quarters and replaced him with beauticians. But Ronald Reagan, said his Chief of Staff James Baker, is "a President who likes to have his hair cut by a barber." The upshot: Barber Milton Pitts returned to snip White House personnel on Tuesdays and Thursdays (Reagan gets clipped alone every two weeks), while Beauticians Yves and Nancy Graux coiffed on Wednesdays and Fridays. Unfortunately, this arrangement left everyone with emotional split ends. Beauticians and barber feuded over customers' chairs; maintenance workers had to move a different one into position each day. Against the Grauxes' wishes, Pitts had the shampooing sink lowered two whole inches. The Grauxes, meanwhile, suspected Pitts of watering down their shampoo and demanded better locks for their cabinets. That was all the snipping the White House could bear. Said Baker last week: "We think there ought to be a facility for men to get haircuts and women to get their hair done. So we're going to see to it that there are those two facilities." The Grauxes will be moved next door into the Old Executive Office Building; a salon will be refurbished there at a cost of $9,000. For taxpayers, it was just another trim. 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