Gil says: As an aside on Mike's post, I'd like to comment on two code phrases in Bob Dole's "Republican response" to Clinton's proposal. They're interesting because one hears them a lot from right-wingers these days, and in taken in tandem they contradict each other in substance. 1) "Politics of class war" As in, Clinton's intention to avoid [further] tax cuts for the rich to go with tax cuts for the middle class promotes the politics of class warfare, which we statespersonlike Republicans wish to avoid... Translation: yeah, we know that the very richest got obscenely richer, and the poor poorer, during the Reagan-Bush era (in significant part due to Reagan's tax "reforms"), and that the US has the most unequal income and wealth distributions of all developed countries. But that's fine with us, so let's not talk about it anymore. ___________________________ No Gil! I think he means "that's why we call it America", and he wants you to be proud of it. America is for the people who want to "make it" so why tax them when they make it. Tax the poor who betrayed the "American dream". There is no class war fare, life is a race in which some win and some lose. And the loser should be appropriately punished. Cheers, ajit sinha _________________________ 2) "Return education to state and local control" As in, we statespersonlike Republicans want to get the Federal government off your backs and out of your wallet, so that you can have your children educated as you see fit. Translation: yeah, we know the US spends the smallest percentage of GDP (or close to that) among the developed countries on public education, the largest percentage on private education, and maintains the largest disparities in per-pupil spending. And that's fine with us (notice the absence of education provisions in the Contract on America, e.g.), so let's take steps to perpetuate these trends. In other words--let the class war roll! Gil Skillman
