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By A. Alexander The Progressive Daily Beacon
It is interesting to observe Republicans and the corporate-owned media as they attack the rare wealthy person who dares attempt to help America's poor and impoverished. According to Republicans, wealthy people that try to help America's poor, even those like John Edwards who came from a working class background, are to be publicly humiliated ... to be treated as though they have committed a crime. What crime? The crime of helping the poor while being wealthy.
Though Republicans and the corporate-owned media might attack the concerned individual, their assault is really against America's poor. After all, when Republicans and the media attack the cost of a haircut for those trying to help the poor, the reason is about more than simply hoping to undermine the person's credibility; ultimately their goal is to undermine the cause.
For the last 40 years in the United States, any person that dared take on the cause of the poor and disenfranchised has been roundly attacked, belittled, marginalized, intimidated into complete surrender, or murdered (i.e. Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr. etc.). The reason for this is simple: Republican philosophy dictates that any of the hard-earned taxpayer dollars returned to, or used to improve the lives of common citizens is a waste of money. However, giving the taxpayer's revenue to the wealthiest Americans and corporations is money well spent. In other words, welfare for the poorest among American society is bad; welfare for the wealthiest among American society and corporations is good.
And what is best of all? Spending most of working America's tax dollars on building bigger, better, and deadlier bombs!
It might be tempting to consider this analysis as being a bit harsh on Republicans. However, a recent scenario illustrates the point perfectly: Every reputable study and organization has found that there are currently some 9 million American children without health insurance. Congress was seeking to address the issue and determined it would cost about $10 billion dollars per-year to cover 6 million of the uninsured children. Suddenly, the Bush administration released a "study" that concluded, despite all previous evidence and studies, that there are supposedly only 5 million American children without health insurance.
This finding, of course, came from an administration that has literally made it impossible for government researchers to make public information and studies that contradict Republican ideology. However, the moment Congress decided to address the lack of health insurance among America's poorest children, and the Republican administration suddenly produced a study that undermines the need for helping poor children. Better, perhaps, to state that the administration's "study," if taken seriously, would effectively ensure that only half the original funds of $10 billion would be spent on helping America's poorest children gain health insurance.
A political party that can see no problem with spending $700 billion per-year on senseless and endless warfare and that gladly provides billions of dollars in annual tax cuts for corporations, but can find no reason to spend a mere $10 billion in an effort to help poor children is as unconscionable as it is unfathomable. Is it unreasonable to question their humanity?
In the end, however, Congress did pass child health care reform ... and Mister Bush and his administration immediately issued orders to states that made it impossible to administer the program.
Maybe the only explanation for the Republican perspective is greed. The less money possessed by the poor, leaves more money for the wealthy.
As for why the corporate-owned media and Republicans so viciously attack the rare wealthy individual who dares speak out on behalf of the poor? Well, they know that only one of their own would have the power to make a difference. After all, isn't it obvious that the poor are powerless to overcome the wealthy forces arrayed against them? If they weren't, poverty would have been extinguished long ago.
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