Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." – Inigo Montoya, in The Princess Bride (1987)
So Willard "Mittens" Romney is going to try to distract voters from his characterization of half of them as lazy moochers who are dependent on government entitlement programs and are unwilling to “take responsibility for their lives” by going back to the well, once again, to portray President Barack Obama as a European socialist, an "other" who has "foreign" ideas, with a counter-attack built around the word "redistribution." Romney tries to change subject, says Obama favors resource ‘redistribution’. Even a deaf dog could hear that whistle.
The right-wing noise machine has for years used the word "redistribution" as code for socialism or communism. The reality is that governments from the beginning of time immemorial have engaged in "redistribution" of wealth — its called taxes. Hardly a new or foreign concept.
Greg Sargent writes at The Plum Line:
The Romney camp’s newfound emphasis on 14-year-old, thoroughly unremarkable Obama comments
about “redistribution” is only the latest example of this. Obama was
saying he favors redistribution in the sense that taxpayer money can be
used to create opportunity and help the vulnerable. Yet the new Romney campaign memo turns this into proof that Obama wants a “government-centered society.
"Socialist"! "Communist"! Dog whistle.
If Mittens wants to talk about redistribution of wealth, we should have this conversation about how faith based supply-side "trickle down" GOP economics for the past 30 years has resulted in the greatest transfer of wealth from the American middle-class to the plutocratic top one percent, of which Mittens is a member, resulting in the greatest income inequality in this country since before the Great Depression in 1929. How American Income Inequality Hit Levels Not Seen Since The Great Depression.
And we should have this conversation about how Romney's tax plan will redistribute wealth from the "have nots" that he holds in contempt to the "haves" even more. A Brookings Institution/Tax Policy Center study
found that Romney's plan to overhaul the tax code would produce cuts
for the richest 5% of Americans — and larger tax bills for everyone else. Romney's spending plans would substantially weaken the social safety net for you Lucky Duckies in the 47% of Americans who do not owe federal income taxes, and those of you who rely on that social safety net just to survive.
This Robinhood in Reverse — Romneyhood — wants to steal from America's middle-class to enrich his plutocratic rich friends, and he wants to talk about redistribution of wealth? Bring it on! This is the very definition of class warfare, and it is being waged by conservative plutocrats like Mittens Romney and his GOPropaganda machine against everyone else.
UPDATE: The Washington Post's fact checker Glenn Kessler slays Mittens. Romney earns 4 Pinocchios for 14-year-old Obama clip.