Atheists, welcome. Socialists? Not so much.
by Steve, January 20th, 2009I should be thrilled, as an atheist, to be on President Obama’s short list: “Christians and Muslims. Jews and Hindus — and non-believers.” Seriously. For all the God goin’ around today (some of it a tad — ahem — intolerant), I was surprised to get an atheist shout-out. (As for my Sikh, Buddhist, Wiccan, Pagan, Confucianist, Shintoist, Jainist, Bahá’í, and agnostic brothers and sisters, they may not feel so special being grouped in with us non-believers.)
Less surprising was President Obama’s ode to the market and its “power to generate wealth and expand freedom.”
Well, it’s sure provided the idle rich with a lot more wealth and freedom over the past 30 years, but any student of economics knows the market doesn’t create wealth. It merely distributes wealth, which is created from capital and raw materials by human labor. The market has proven itself very adept at the upward redistribution of wealth from those who create it to those who finance it.
Obama’s proposed trillion dollar (we all know it’ll get there) stimulus plan is a bastard child of New Deal-style public works investment and Reagan-era trickle down (better-termed “shovel up”) economics.
Them rich capitalist bastards don’t need any damned retro-active tax breaks. In fact, we need to levy a wealth tax on their accumulated capital, and use it to finance even more public investment. The kind that not only builds roads and schools, but also reinforces our tattered social safety net with universal cradle-to-grave health care.
Don’t get me wrong, folks. I’ve been doing the happy dance all day, ‘cuz George W. Bush went riding off into the sunset today, and the election of Barack Hussein Obama II is undoubtedly one of the most important milestones in our nation’s history. His suspension of the kangaroo court at Gitmo is a significant ray of hope, even as he continues the jingoistic talk of being “at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred.”
(The notion of a “war on violence” is more ironic than a “war on terror” is risible, and equally absurd, isn’t it?)
January 22nd, 2009 at 8:15 pm
While I was glad that Obama included atheists (sort of) in his speech, I was not satisfied with the choice of the word “non-believers.” It’s certainly not the word of choice of any atheists and agnostics I know. I think the gesture was sincere (if motivated by serious recent pressure from Newdow and others), but I think the term has a negative connotation (as I believe “atheist” did until it was reclaimed by “non-believers”).