Political Myths

The left is the wold's most effective promoter of myths. The two greatest myths - the Republican Party is the party of racism and fat cats while Democrats are the party of equality and the people. The truth is the polar opposite.

I have blogged before on the fact that the Democratic Party and the far left are the repositories of most of racism and sexism to be found in America today. See here and here. Kevin Jackson, who runs The Black Sphere blog, has blogged recently on how Tiger Woods is now experiencing the "racism of the left" for his serial adultery - more specifically, that he didn't engage in any adluterours relationships with black women. It a double whammy - amoral and racist. This from Mr. Jackson:

There has been much discussion about Tiger’s choice of mistresses, and the fact that none of them were black. I found this laughable at first, thought that people were joking. They were not. So as I pondered the Left’s ability to demagogue race in all circumstances, I concluded that the Left is showcasing their racism yet again. Tiger has been left by the Left; dangling on that flimsy limb, yes, all because none of his mistresses were black. . . .

You can read his entire post here.

As to the second myth, the truth is that in fascist societies, big business does extremely well. And there is little more fascist then our modern day far left - a fact many of our largest companies have recognized and are positioning themselves to take very lucrative advantage. As Jonah Goldberg explains:

. . . The notion that big business is “right wing” has always been more sloppy agitprop than serious analysis. It’s true that historically, big business is against socialism and Communism — and understandably so. Socialism and Communism were once close to synonymous with expropriation of wealth and the nationalization of industry. What businessman or industrialist wouldn’t be against that? But many of those same industrialists saw nothing wrong with cutting deals with statist regimes. For example, the Swope Plan, put forward by Gerard Swope, president of General Electric, laid out the infrastructure for much of the early New Deal.

Yet the debate is always framed as if the choice is between “government intervention” on the one hand and free-market capitalism on the other. From 30,000 feet, that division is fine with me. My objection is the glib and easy association of big business with the free-market guys. (Milton Friedman was no champion of public-private partnerships and industrial policy.)

This identification allows self-described progressive Democrats to run against big business when they are in fact in bed with the fat cats.

For instance, the standard line from the Democrats is that the plutocrats and corporate mustache-twirlers oppose health-care reform because, in President Obama’s words, they “profit financially or politically from the status quo.” That sounds reasonable, and in some cases it is reasonable. But it makes it sound as if Obama is bravely battling “malefactors of great wealth.”

But that’s not really how it works, as Timothy Carney documents in his powerful new book, Obamanomics. In 2008, Obama raked in more donations from the health sector than John McCain and the rest of the Republican field combined. Drug makers gave Obama $3.58 for every dollar they gave McCain. Pfizer gave to Obama at a 4–1 rate, as did the hospital and nursing-home industries. In 2008, the insurance industry gave more money to House Democrats than House Republicans. HMOs give to Democrats over Republicans by a margin of 60 to 40.

So far, the health-care industry has mostly been trying to cut insider deals with the government, not fighting to defend the status quo. Discussions between Big Pharma and the White House have been more like pillow talk than a shouting match.

This pattern is hardly unique to health care. The U.S. Climate Action Partnership, led by GE, includes many other Fortune 500 companies, including Goldman Sachs — the company that has profited mightily from Obama’s brand of hope and change. CAP is an aggressive supporter of the Democrats’ climate-change scheme. Why? Because GE and friends stand to make billions from carbon pricing, thanks largely to investments in technologies that cannot survive in a free market without massive subsidies from Uncle Sam. GE chief Jeffrey Immelt cheerleads big government as “an industry policy champion, a financier, and a key partner.” . . .

As Goldberg goes on to say, the right need to relearn the lesson of defending free markets, as opposed to being "pro-business." But as to the left, their brand "for the people" economics is both, one, corrupt, and two, anything but in the interests of the common man.