Robert Reich likely finds President Obama's endorsement of same-sex marriage as hunky-dory as I do. But he reminds us that bedroom morality is the smokescreen Republicans use to keep our minds off the cause of America's real problems: boardroom immorality:
We're not in trouble because gays want to marry or women want to have some control over when they have babies. We're in trouble because CEOs are collecting exorbitant pay while slicing the pay of average workers, because the titans of Wall Street demand short-term results over long-term jobs, and because of a boardroom culture that tolerates financial conflicts of interest, insider trading, and the outright bribery of public officials through unlimited campaign "donations."
Our crisis has nothing to do with private morality. It's a crisis of public morality &ndash of abuses of public trust that undermine the integrity of our economy and democracy and have led millions of Americans to conclude the game is rigged.
What's truly immoral is not what adults choose to do with other consenting adults. It's what those with great power have chosen to do to the rest of us [Robert Reich, "Of Bedrooms and Boardrooms," blog, 2012.05.09].
Some screwing is none of our business. But screwing by business for business is.
The Displaced Plainsman bumps the record player at the party with his cantankerous suggestion that the President himself may want to distract supporters from his numerous other policy failings. Citing Conor Friedersdorf, LK notes that the President has played Lucy with the football on medical marijuana, war in Libya, war in Iraq, whistleblowers, immigration reform, signing statements, and indefinite detention.
I don't want to minimize the importance of the President's recognition of equal rights in marriage. But Reich, LK, and Friedersdorf all make clear that once we get everyone married up to their preferred partners, we still have a lot of work to do to fix America.
The problem is, just like in Afghanistan and Iraq, we're fighting a war on two fronts. While many Republicans and Democrats, I think, are definitely just trying to distract us, I Think many others genuinely have a problem with this pesky equality and free speech thing, and people like Santorum just opened the floodgates for all these people to start pushing for what they want.
I mentioned the President flip-flopping on gay marriage for the sake of political expediency in your other thread, and I do think that it has quite a bit to do with distraction.
The thing is, the Republicans are digging themselves into a hole on both fronts. Socially and economically they're going to the extreme right and alienating voters, so they can do whatever they please. However, Obama's financial policies aren't exactly left-wing, and I think (or at least I hope) that people are beginning to understand that, and so he feels the need to distract from it.
As usual, he's timid. He doesn't want to fight the big controversial things. Gay marriage opposition might be big in the south, but the real important people, the corporations, are much more likely to be upset by things like redistribution of wealth, and that's what would take votes from Obama and give them to Romney, in the end, I think.
There's still part of me, as always, hoping that Obama will change his stripes when he's reelected (this is inevitable, I think), but I feel safer assuming he'll continue to be the consummate politician he's proven himself to be thus far.
Cory: you and DM are fast becoming my newest heroes.
Well, for once I agree completely with Robert Reich. I've followed his fashion sense for so long, I guess that I might as well follow his common sense now and then too.
Framing political corruption and corporate greed as immoral?
What a concept! Who'da thunk it?
Reich is entirely right.
Rock on Robert Reich!
I see where Big Wheel Bobby drove by the mount today to spout his hatred. How long will it be before he peddles by Madville?
The boardroom is broken and it is breaking us,US.
The Blindman
Dithmer, I wonder if Bob Ellis would be willing to tell us how old he was the year he chose to be straight instead of gay, and what his thought process was.
Was it a long, indecisive, internal, moral struggle? Did he choose as he did out of fear and trepidation of eternal damnation? Is he acting against his own natural instincts out of fear for his immortal soul?
Or did he just know? And there wasn't a darn thing he could do about it one way or the other.
If the latter, why does he think he should get to be his natural self but other peole should not?
And if the former, perhaps he should rethink it.
That kind of repression isn't healthy.
I'm just sayin'.
Wow Fleming thats deep. I just thought he got scared of the sheep. Ba Ba Ba Ba Bob moron.
Man Im sorry about that. I just got through listening to the Beach Boys and Mason Williams and his "Them Poems" and I guess my mind is a little on the dark side tonight.
Bob please except my insults in the manner in which they are given, straight on with no mention of "The Church Of Bill" where we will take everyone, gay, lesbian, bi, and any combination of those. What would your Jesus really do?
This is just a guess but I think he would say "Forgive Bob Lord for he knows not what he does."
DE I dont mean to offend you when I talk to Bob. I respect what you are and the way you treat others that might not believe the same as you do. As for Bob, he has to be ready to turn the Big Wheel around when the gate is closed and coast on down with the rest of the bigots.
The Blindman
Cory thanks for letting me give a PSA for The Church Of Bill
VOID WHERE PROHIBITED BY LAW
I've been watching the news and papers, but so far I haven't seen anything about heterosexual couples being dragged naked out of their bedrooms into the street by gay activists. With all the fear mongering, I am surprised there aren't dozens of such reports. Perhaps the fear of the Bob Ellis types was a might bit unwarranted perhaps.
"After passing a groundbreaking gender identity law on Wednesday, Argentina, which became the first Latin American country to legalize same-sex marriage, now leads the entire world when it comes to trans rights.
But in most places in the world—and in the U.S.—trans people must show proof of a medical diagnosis and often major interventions, like surgery or hormone therapy, before they can get that legal recognition." Feministing.
Robert Reich is brilliant. When he speaks people listen. The only thing keeping President Obama from going full steam ahead attacking Wall Street is that he is dependent on Wall Street money for his campaign. If Wall Street abandoned President Obama totally for Willard Romney then it would free Pres. Obama to do what needs to be done.
But those executives who siphon off the value of corporations for themselves rather than for stockholders or employees (regardless of performance of the company or the executive) are a smart lot. Those Wall Street brokers who bundle portfolios full of bovine dung and market it to non-elite investors as filet mignon know what they're doing. All those folks who have finagled themselves lower tax rates than working people pay and loopholes that may eliminate their taxes altogether know how to work the system they helped create. They have to donate to both parties to keep the party going. And after the meltdowns and taxpayer bailouts, those folks continue on with their shenanigans unabated and untroubled.
I like Argentina, even though the world media can't decide if they want to call the president Cristina Fernandez or Cristina Kirchner.
Regardless, they seem to be heading down a nice, comfortable path. Except for that whole Falklands Islands thing.
"What’s truly immoral is not what adults choose to do with other consenting adults. It’s what those with great power have chosen to do to the rest of us "
Isn't buying products from corporations consent? No body is holding a gun to your head saying you have to buy gasoline, right?
The real problem is the big government is "controlling" the fascism that we should be concerned about. The government is also pushing the immoral sex worshipping New Age Theology in their schools "contolling" how kids think. Typical for the media to try and put it into a "us versus they" way so that we can be divided. That is the distraction that causes us not to realize that we are being controlled.
Reich is right. Not much more to say than what he and a few others have said.
Uruguay poised to legalize cannabis: Reuters.