February 20, 2012 -- Calling Rumpelstiltskin! We are said by some to have a problem. A social fabric problem. One would think that if there was anyone who could sew up holes in fabric, social or otherwise, it would be the one who could sew straw into gold as Rumpelstiltskin did.
We hear a lot from social conservatives now, and especially the Crown Prince of all social conservatives, Rick Santorum, about the decay of “family values” and the dissolution of the family unit as the root of all of our problems. It makes for good sanctimonious rhetoric, but I have difficulty swallowing it whole. I feel like I am sitting here listening to Robert Preston as the con Music Man singing about how we “got to keep them moral after school.”
It was interesting to see how two columnists for the same newspaper, The New York Times, viewed the sharp decline of marriage rates of people in the prime working years. Economist Paul Krugman wrote that this is not due to some “mysterious moral collapse;” but to a drastic reduction in the work opportunities available to less-educated men. Without a job at a decent salary there isn’t much incentive or resources to marry. And people being how we are, we end up with children born out of wedlock at 40 percent and rising. And more one parent families. “Come be my love and we shall all the pleasures prove” on food stamps.
Krugman also quotes these statistics: “Adjusted for inflation, entry-level wages of male high school graduates have fallen 23 percent since 1973 … In 1980, 65 percent of recent high-school graduates working in the private sector had health benefits, but, by 2009, that was down to 29 percent.” On the job subject, it should be noted that the Economic Policy Institute points out, we started 2012 with fewer workers employed than in January 2001, zero growth after 11 years, even as the population, and therefore the number of jobs we needed, grew steadily. (Krugman: “Even at January’s pace of job creation it would take us until 2019 to return to full employment.”)
Krugman writes that the idea that we are a classless society is a myth. “Among rich countries, America stands out as the place where economic and social status is most likely to be inherited.” He adds “Social changes taking place in America’s working class are overwhelmingly the consequence of sharply rising inequality, not its cause.”
About a week later his fellow NYT columnist David Brooks, without naming Mr. Krugman, took issue with those who say economics has anything to do with the “weakening of our social fabric,” calling it “to a crude materialism that has little to do with reality.” Oh, that “bourgeois paternalism.” I always respect the erudite Mr. Brook’s opinions although I disagree with him most of the time, but here he reminds me of listening to my father’s generation decry how the youth of their day had just gone to hell. “Smoking pot in high school classrooms” they cried. When I got there I looked around but darn it couldn’t find any. I get the Brooks Tsk. Tsk. part but not how he thinks we got into it or how to get out of it.
Rick Santorum, who wants to be our Holy President accuses “radical feminists” of “succeeded in undermining the traditional family and convincing women that professional accomplishments are the key to happiness.” Or at least he did in a book he coauthored in 2005 which he now says he does not remember. The old Rush Limbaugh “feminazi” thing. Haven’t you noticed all of those black booted women marching round the country shouting Sieg Heil?
So wait a minute. Step back and ask yourself how bad is it, really, that everyone does not live as the “traditional American family?” Is society really hurting because we aren’t? Just how? What does that actually mean? Of course it would be ideal if we were all June and Ward Cleaver but life is not like that. Society evolves.
At the risk of being stoned for blasphemy I say while a two-parent family is ideal, divorce is better than “staying together for the sake of the children” where everyone is miserable, even the children who will pick up on mean spirited conflicts (just ask any family lawyer who deals with divorces). I say if a woman has an intellect as they do in the same proportion as their male counterparts it is society’s loss as well as hers if she does not put it to good use. Does everyone have to have a family just because their biological clock is ticking? Better when there are two parents, but good child care is available, you see this every day, and I don’t see the country falling apart because of it. It is a matter of economics and instead of wringing our hands and bemoaning a loss of a fantasy world would be to concentrate on building a strong, stable economy the fruits of which can be enjoyed from the bottom rung of the economic ladder on up. Stop already with the “family value” yammering.
Rick Santorum wants to attack the perceived problem b by making divorce more difficult and providing “fatherhood training programs.” Divorce more difficult? I am old enough to remember when Reno found out how to make big bucks, before Nevada turned to gambling and whoring, by granting divorces unlike the rest of the country after short residences, finally as low as six weeks. Only rich women could afford divorces then and besides, at lower economic levels, there were no jobs women could take to support themselves. They stayed in marriages no matter what, even when abused. Should we return to that?
By the time I reached my twenties in my little community what kind of a life a young woman could look forward to depended strictly on how successful the man she married turned out to be. And spinsterhood was tough. It made the dating game pretty sticky and a guy could get a guilt complex by dating someone when he knew he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, marry them. Santorum, would you have us go back to that? These days a woman should not feel compelled to marry if she is happy with her lot. And if necessary, either parent can be the prime care giver for offspring. But it is a matter of economics. There. I have said it. Now June Cleaver can send me to stand in the corner for time out.
I will say this about David Brooks, bourgeois tough I may seem in his eyes, since he offered this take on Santorum as having a “black or white view of politics. Everybody is either on God’s side or on Satan’s side.” Well, weren’t the old June and Ward Cleaver shows in black and white, or did I just not have color then? The plight of the bourgeois.
Would Rumpelstiltskin make a good Republican?
In the fairy tale Rumpelstiltskin was doing his sewing in order to take advantage of a maiden, demanding her first born. That does not say much for his regard for women. He qualifies.
The Progress Report did a summary of where the four Republican nominee hopefuls stood on issues of concern to women, in chart form with links to source material. In essence, all four are opposed to, or hold negative views on, these eight topics:
1. insurance covering birth control
2. breast cancer screening
3. coverage for maternity and newborn care
4. women paying the same for insurance as men
5. closing the donut hole for prescription drugs
6. women under 26 from staying on parents insurance
7. screening for diabetes
8. eliminating domestic violence as a presiding condition
We almost have a Letterman Top Ten there, and probably could fill it out if we worked at it. Here, for example is Rick Santorum on the Pentagon’s announcement that more women in the military will be put in combat roles. Santorum said to do so “could be a very compromising situation, where people naturally may do things that may not be in the interest of the mission because of other types of emotions that are involved.” Santorum might want to check with Israel about those “emotions” since their female fighters have racked up a fine record in a military that has certainly had no problems aggressively winning battles. It is surprising that he did not use the occasion to bring up those “radical feminists” again.
Wonder if Santorum would consider Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins radical feminists? The two senators from Maine are female, and both signed on to the White House compromise on providing contraceptives with no co-pay under health insurance. Their male Republican colleges still want no part of it despite endorsements by the Catholic Health Association, University of Notre Dame, The Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities, Catholic Charities USA, and according to various polls the majority of the public.
Free birth control products? Let’s examine that word “free.” Nobody is standing on a street corner handing such things out. If you say (1) that a woman’s reproductive system is subject to health issue like all of the other body parts, then (2) wouldn’t you want to make the appropriate medical products available just like all other such items available with no co-pay? Take one and call me tomorrow.
Republicans came up with a counter plan that would let just about anybody, any state, opt out of provisions in the Health Care Reform act which would effectively kill it. It’s a wonder Republican legislators haven’t invited a catholic exorcist to come on the floor of the House or the Senate to perform the rite to expunge the thing they see s so evil from our society. Yes, by orders from the Pope every catholic diocese has an official trained exorcist. Maureen Dowd had a lot to say about that in her column in The New York Times this week. She reminds us that Father Gabriele Amorth, the exorcist for the diocese of Rome, has complained that yoga and Harry Potter are evil. Not as evil as “Obamacare” Republicans would have you believe. After all, as she quotes exorcist Father Gary Thomas as saying: “Demons are always looking for people who have broken relationships and no relationships. Demons don’t have corporeal bodies like we do. They can travel faster, are far more intelligent and have a much keener sense of free will.” For a moment there I thought he might be talking about the Republican leadership, broken relationships yes but no corporal body? Move faster? No, the demons must remain virtual.
Frayed Social Fabric? How About Hole in the Safety Net?
Our social net prams are under obvious stress and no matter what they promise those who would take us on a drastically austere spending program on the current European model could make no dramatic reductions without chopping holes in it. Has the net grown under the current administration? No, it’s basically the same but more people are falling into it. So at a time when we need it most is when we are most apt to shrink it.
But Atlas shrugs. Representative Paul Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, requires that staffers read Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, “in which heroic capitalists struggle against the ‘moochers’ trying to steal their totally deserved wealth, a struggle the heroes win by withdrawing their productive effort and giving interminable speeches” as Paul Krugman points out. The austere Ryan plan has been heartily embraced by Mitt Romney, not a latter day Saint, but a latter day John Galt.
This should not surprise us. Political scientists who use congressional votes to measure such things find that the current G.O.P. majority is the most conservative since 1879, which is as far back as their estimates go. There seems to be a longing for a “land of traditional values, where people don’t eat Thai food and don’t rely on handouts”, writes Krugman. Land of milk and honey? Well, the First Lady is keeping bees at the White House and producing honey. She actually is. So she is doing her part.
In Europe where austerity programs like Ryan’s proposal have been put in place things are just awful. You read headlines like this” “Euro Zone Economy Shrank in Fourth Quarter of 2011, Britain's Central Bank Expects Scant Economic Growth” And this: “For London Youth, Down and Out Is Way of Life” from the New York Times. The news report goes on to say: “The lack of opportunity is feeding a mounting alienation and anger among young people across Europe, threatening to poison the aspirations of a generation.” Better bring back Fitzgerald to write about another “lost generation.”
The choice was immediate draconian cut backs or judicious reductions combined with investments for growth, the same choice we are about to make with or choices in the election this year.
Next Up: Michigan, February 28th
Michigan, where the two leading candidates for Republican presidential nomination are trying to explain to voters why both think it would have been better if the government had let “big auto” go bankrupt. And “Restore Our Future”, a pro-Romney "Super PAC," is trying to restore it by committing $470,000 in ads that started Tuesday in Michigan. No way Santorum forces can come anywhere close to that. Let us not, however, let Santorum get away with playing the poor-boy card. There are reports that since he left Congress he has taken in over $3 million as a lobbyist. He released four years of his tax returns which showed incomes of a little over $900,000 to $1,000,000 in each. He did pay more taxes than Romney, 29.4% vs. 13.9%.
On to glory March 3 and March 6
The Washington State primary is the third of March, then comes Super Tuesday on the sixth, when ten states hold primaries which should sew things up unless the unlikely happens and Republicans end up with a brokered convention. What will we do then? We’ll have to go back to watching the TV sitcoms rather than the unreal reality shows that passed for debates.
The seas parted, the sky turned blue again
This week Congress voted to extend payroll tax cuts and unemployment. The House and the Senate voted to extend the payroll tax cuts and unemployment benefits (House Speaker Boehner managed to whip his Tea Party bad boys in line) and sent the legislation to President Obama. Each party claimed an election year victory. Bipartisan means you have to split the chips.
Two other parties are going to have to learn how to work with each other according to the Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson with these words: “For decades to come, the United States and China will be the world’s two biggest economic powers. We’re stuck with each other, like it or not. If we are to thrive in a changing world, singing “America the Beautiful” isn’t enough,” slipping in a little dig at Mitt Romney. And the competition gets even worse now that Jeremy Lin of the Knicks has shown us that Chinese can jump. The occasion is a visit from Xi, not a beer but the VP of China slated to be the next president. He called the U.S.-China relationship “an unstoppable river that keeps surging ahead.” If we are going to have to cope with all of those Chinese names I wish we would put the key for “X” in a more convenient place on the keyboard.
A few discarded Valentines
Karl Rove once advocated political operatives sneak around and root out documents in the trash of political opponents that could be used against them. Valentine’s Day has come and gone, but suppose we look for cards now discarded by some of the political figures now in the news, or at least some that might have been but are figments of our imagination.
A RICK SANTORUM VALENTINE
Will you be my Valentine and give your love to me?
I’ll return your love if you’re not an LGBT.
MITT ROMNEY SENDS A VALENTINE
My gift to you this Valentine’s Day is to get someone to hire you.
Unless you have a job then there is no way I can fire you.
GREETINGS FROM NEWT GINGRICH
We Catholics pray that you’ll succumb not to temptation.
Don’t love your Valentine unless for procreation.
HOUSE SPEAKER JOHN BOEHNER PLEADS
Tea Party wayward legislators you’ve got to hold the line
You’ll have to follow me if you’re to be my Valentine
FROM PRESIDENT OBAMA
My gifts are economic plans
If Congress just enacts a few
Sweet Valentine’s for all to share
If we’ll allow a tiny tax or two
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