It's Main Street's fault, too

Beneath Americans' perfunctory disapproval of government deficits lurks an inconvenient truth: They enjoy deficits, by which they are charged less than a dollar for a dollar's worth of government. Conservatives participate in this, even though deficits fuel government's growth by obscuring its cost.

The people can emulate the government because credit has been democratized. Democratization of everything is supposedly an unquestionable good, but a blizzard of credit cards (1.5 billion of them, nine per cardholder), subsidized loans and cheap money has separated the pleasure of purchasing from the pain of paying. Furthermore, the entitlement mentality fostered by the welfare state includes a felt entitlement to a standard of living untethered from savings.

Populism flatters the people, contrasting their virtue with the alleged vices of some minority -- in other times, Jews or railroad owners or hard money advocates; today, the villain is "Wall Street greed," which is contrasted with the supposed sobriety of "Main Street." When people on Main Street misbehave by, say, buying houses for more than they can afford to pay, they blame the wily knaves who made them do it.

sodbuster wrote:
I just thot it fair to point out what appeared to be her tendency to be sloppy with her facts.

Gaffes
While running for re-election in 2004, Kaptur compared Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda's religious extremism to that of Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys. [1][2]

In January 2008, during Ben Bernanke's House testimony, Kaptur confused the Fed chairman Ben Bernanke for Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to have been a former CEO of Goldman Sachs. Just as she quickly realized that Paulson was the former CEO of GS, Mr. Bernanke corrected her and said he was "the CEO of the Princeton Economics Department"[4]

Marcy Kaptur appeared on GMA on Sept. 30th concerning the financial crisis. She refuted proposed legislation by saying Hank Paulson was a "day trader" and "not a banker." Paulson was previously CEO of Goldman Sachs, an investment bank, having risen through the ranks as an investment banker.

Kaptur is the target of a witch hunt

The right wing has sunk to a new low with its recent attack on Marcy Kaptur. The fact that media and local Republicans have managed to extract that Ms. Kaptur compares Osama bin Laden to our Founding Fathers from her comments in The Blade only highlights the narrow focus of their crusade. Can we say "witch hunt?"

Ms. Kaptur was merely pointing out that the motivation of modern terrorism is the same as that which supposedly led to the American Revolution. That motivation is and was religious belief. That is a fact that our history books have been spoon-feeding generations of U.S. school children. It would take only a modicum of reason for her attackers to realize that making that point was in no way an endorsement of the tactics employed by the bin Ladens of this world.

Americans tend to have a blind spot on all things American. Why is it such a stretch to believe that if our founders employed terrorist-like tactics in defeating the Native peoples of this land with war, starvation, illness, and outright theft of their land, that other factions would use the same methods to make their causes known?

Terrorism is wrong, no matter the ideal being enforced. Ms. Kaptur has been a staunch defender of this country and an outspoken critic of terrorism for her entire political career.

It worries me that Larry Kaczala considers Ms. Kaptur's citing of documented history "outrageous and sick." To distort her comments and question her loyalties is the only outrageous part of this controversy.

Threat of war spurs U.S. soul-searching
Mix of politics, religion is strong, Kaptur warns
By DAVID YONKE
BLADE RELIGION EDITOR

Before launching a military strike against Iraq, Americans should consider their own history to remember how powerful the mix of religion and politics can be, U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D., Toledo) said.

"If you think back to our founding as a country, we are a country of revolution," Miss Kaptur said in an interview this week.

She and the Rev. Jim Bacik, pastor of Toledo’s Corpus Christi University Parish, will speak at a workshop Friday for local Catholic leaders titled "Preaching and Teaching Peace in the Face of War."

When America "cast off monarchical Britain" in 1776, it involved the help of many religious people who had fled repression in other countries, the 11-term Toledo congressman said. Among the nontraditional American revolutionaries were the Green Mountain Boys, a patriot militia organized in 1770 in Bennington, Vt., to confront British forces, she said.

"One could say that Osama bin Laden and these non-nation-state fighters with religious purpose are very similar to those kind of atypical revolutionaries that helped to cast off the British crown," Miss Kaptur said.

In Iraq and other Arab nations where revolutions are potentially brewing, religious fervor will play a vital role in shaping political events, she said, and the United States must be careful "not to get caught in the crossfire."

"I think that one thing that people of faith understand about the world of Islam is that the kind of insurgency we see occurring in many of these countries is an act of hope that life will be better using Islam as the only reed that they have to lean on.

"I think that people of faith understand that for many of the terrorists, their actions are acts of sacred piety to the point of losing their lives. And I think that people of faith understand that there is a heavy religious overtone to the opposition."

If the United States ousts Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and seizes the land, it would not resolve the underlying problems leading to political and social upheaval, she said.

"Even if we take the ground, we do not share the culture," she said, "and in the end we have to learn to coexist in a world with religious states that we may not agree with and find ways to cooperate."

Miss Kaptur, a lifelong member of Toledo’s Little Flower Catholic Parish, said her political and moral views were influenced by her family’s tradition of Roman Catholicism and service in the U.S. Marine Corps and Army infantry.

"Our tradition is to exhaust all reasonable means before one goes to war because our family, like so many others in our area, knows the price of war," she said.

The standards of the "Just War Theory," developed by Saint Augustine in the 4th Century, are not clearly defined in the present U.S.-Iraq showdown, Miss Kaptur said.

"I think that’s why there is so much angst and division over this because we’re in the gray area here," she said. "People of religious tradition are making their voices be heard very loudly on this one. I think there’s sort of an instinctual sense that something isn’t right here, and while they know there is a problem they are not sure that war is the solution."

The Catholic tradition calls for embracing the poor and the dispossessed, Miss Kaptur said. Rather than initiating military action, the United States should try to counter the poverty and repression that breed terrorism in the Mideast.

"I think food and education will help stem the poverty of the young people who are being drawn into terrorism every day," she said.

"The reason I think this is such an important moment in history is because the United States cannot become the target of the anguish of the dispossessed in the most undemocratic region of the world."

sodbuster wrote:Beats me.

I wasnt referring to the green mt. boys statement.


I'm sure she is a nice lady.