"Free Market Republicanism" versus American Values

[welshTerrier2]

republicans like to talk about "free market" economics ... "those evil bureacrats in Washington are interfering with business and hurting the American economy" ...

but what they really mean by a "free market" is to allow American companies to ignore their obligations and do whatever they please ... in doing so, they fail to recognize their responsibilities to comply with the values of the American people ...

do republicans want a market "free" to ignore the environment?
do republicans want a market "free" to ignore the health and safety of American workers?
do republicans want a market "free" from liability when business produces unsafe products?
do republicans want a market "free" to obtain American government contracts when they are exporting American jobs overseas?

the sad answer to all these questions is "YES" ... that's exactly what they want because republicans put profits for corporate shareholders ahead of the values of the American people ...

the "free" market sought by republicans is a market that thumbs its nose at a century of progress reigning in corporate abuses of the American society ... corporations are designed to act in their own selfish interests ... they will never act in the best interests of the American people unless regulations and enforcement exist to ensure they do so ... corporations will not do the "right thing" in a free market ... they will do the "wrong thing" ...

here's some proof ... check out this report from a group called OMB Watch:


WASHINGTON - September 15 - An analysis of four key federal agencies charged with safeguarding the public's air, water, food, health, transportation and workplaces reveals consistent and widespread obstruction, neglect and weakening of protections. The report attributes the pattern to a pro-corporate bias of the Bush administration and appointed agency heads favoring narrow special interests over the public good.

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"When our government abdicates its responsibility to provide us the protections we need, people suffer," said Robert Shull, the report's lead author and Senior Regulatory Policy Analyst with OMB Watch. "It weakens our nation and has long-term implications for generations to come."

"Since 2001, key regulatory plans have been abandoned, and those few major rules that have been undertaken favor corporate over public interests," said Gary Bass, OMB Watch Executive Director. "Statistics show a pattern of neglect, but not how the few rules being done decidedly favor industry."

This report updates and expands our May 2004 report, "Special Interest Takeover: The Bush Administration and the Dismantling of Public Safeguards," which OMB Watch and Center for American Progress produced for Citizens for Sensible Safeguards (CSS). Download both reports and background at www.ombwatch.org/regs

[21winner]

1. The "Free market" is self destructive.

Its a steam engine with a boiler. The cry for more bursts the boiler and kills,injures and ruins everything.

[Cats Against Frist]

2. There's nothing wrong with the "free market"

Only that GOP-style government doesn't know the first thing about it.

Here's what the free market is NOT:

1. CEOs of Big Business: Frist, Cheney, Bush et. al., in high governmental positions, making the laws in FAVOR of big business.

2. A regressive, government engineered "trickle down" economic program that shifts the bulk of the tax burden to the middle class.

3. Boosting economic numbers while running on war deficits.

4. Giving the corporation human status.

5. Limiting the power of the consumer -- a. threatening to arrest those shopfronts that buy prescription drugs from Canada and b. taking away the consumer negotiation a la the Medicare Pharmaceutical Handout

6. Corporate Bailouts and Corporate Subsidy

7. Using the military as a stabilizing force to open markets in other parts of the world -- or using the military to secure the natural resources of sovereign nations.

8. Banning everything the Christian Right doesn't like from abortion procedures to pornography to indecent television to prostitution and drug use.

9. Allowing multi-jazzilionaires to get the leg up on the average Jane by allowing politicians to get elected by how much kitty they can drum up.

10. Paid lobbyists, pork, and business incentives given by the government by the politicians who are owned by the corporations.

11. No-bid contracts.

There are more things the free market is "not," but in the interest of brevity -- I'll stop with the big ones.

The "free market" and "capitalism" get a bad rap -- but built within this system is the power to make it just -- if the dipwad consumer can get his eyes off of Britney Spears long enough to realize that his genetically engineered food is being made by a 9-year-old girl in Bangledesh, by a company that can't lower itself to pay taxes to the country that gives it the freedom and infrastructure to peddle its material bullshit.

I've said this before -- we, on the left, think we're doing some great just thing by rescuing the "poor and exploited." I don't see it that way. I think most of our pet causes are simply a piecemeal way of saving millions of middle class consumer idiots from themselves.

The free market, in a free country, would do well if there were scrupulous politicians that realized that there are simply a few things that should be more important than money. "Free Market" doesn't mean "Free for All."

[Iris]

3. kick

This is an interesting thread; I can't believe there are only 2 replies.

[welshTerrier2]

6. me neither ...

you know, there was a time that conservatives wanted to:

conserve the environment ... now they want to drill up the national parks and cut down the trees ...

conserve American jobs ... now they want to let business export them ...

conserve public tax revenues ... now they've run up the largest budget deficit in history ...

conserve our Constitutional freedoms ... now they want to peek in your windows to look for terrorists ...

you think bush and his friends are conservatives ??? take a hint, Kerry is far more conservative than bush ... it's probably too late in the election cycle to sell this theme to the voters but that's the truth ...

Kerry wants to preserve the environment ... he wants to preserve American jobs ... he wants to preserve tax revenues and work towards a balanced budget ... he wants to preserve our civil liberties guaranteed by the Constitution ...

there you have it ... bush is a radical ... and Kerry is, well, he's a preservative (sorry, couldn't resist ...)

[Cats Against Frist]

8. Let this reply be a kick

No joke -- it seems to me that this is one of the major "disconnects from reality" that the electorate should wake up to.

I cringe at the thought of all those zealous militia people who were on "high alert" during the Clinton years, rolling over like bitches, while the GOP takes a corn shit on the Bill of Rights. It makes me suspect they were never "freedom fighters" at all -- just blackshirts, all along.

The GOP hides all the time behind "liberty" and "the free market," and their constituency (and ours, too) is too dumb to know it, or call them out on it. People are so busy ripping on the "cold free market" or waxing nostalgic over the "fix-all free market" that they don't even realize that it shouldn't even be a part of the discussion.

What we have is the marriage of our "government" and corporate lackeys. One of the basic definitions of fascism.

[annabanana]

4. "free market radicals"

are very bad for the body politic!

And I have always wondered about #4 above... How the hell did they ever get away with that? corporations aren't individuals

[welshTerrier2]

5. hmmm ....

a bio-political pun ...

good one though ....

[dogman]

7. If Rethugs believe in free market, ask them why

their is a shortage of nurses and nurses are underpaid.

[porkrind]

9. Slash and Burn

Republicans like simple black and white phrases. This is one that perfectly describes the RW "free market"...

Slash and Burn :nuke: Slash and Burn :nuke: Slash and Burn :nuke: Slash and Burn :nuke: Slash and Burn :nuke: Slash and Burn :nuke: Slash and Burn :nuke: Slash and Burn :nuke: Slash and Burn :nuke: Slash and Burn :nuke: Slash and Burn :nuke: Slash and Burn :nuke: Slash and Burn :nuke: Slash and Burn :nuke: Slash and Burn :nuke: Slash and Burn :nuke: Slash and Burn :nuke: Slash and Burn :nuke: Slash and Burn :nuke: Slash and Burn :nuke: Slash and Burn :nuke: Slash and Burn :nuke: Slash and Burn :nuke: Slash and Burn :nuke: Slash and Burn :nuke: Slash and Burn :nuke: