As usual Robert Reich is dead on in his assessment of the situation in Washington.
Obama is losing the message war to the GOP and Democrats are afraid to stand up for basic Democratic principles- that we are all in this together and are socially obligated to each do their fair share and help each other when age or misfortune falls….
This used to be called Christian Duty- a term which I prefer not to use in a multi-cultural, multi-religious society. I also hesitate to use this term because Christianity is now viewed as a hard and unforgiving religion by so many thanks to the Religious Right and their role in GOP Politics…
Instead, I prefer to think of this as Societal or Social Duty. It is our duty to contribute to the overall good of the nation- not to make this a a dog eat dog world/country where the motto is “I’ve got mine, screw you.” That is the GOP vision…
The Democrats need to call this out and fight for the middle class, the elderly, the poor, minority and women’s rights, children and those who work hard but pay more taxes than the idle rich…
Reich calls it out in the Huffington Post:
Obama must show America that the basic choice is between two fundamental views of this nation. Either we’re all in this together, or we’re a bunch of individuals who happen to live within these borders and are mainly on their own.
This has been the basic choice all along — when the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution, in the Civil War, when we went through World War I and World War II and the Great Depression in between, during the Civil Rights movement and beyond.
The president needs to remind us that as members of the same society we have obligations to one another — that the wealthiest among us must pay their fair share of taxes, that any of us who loses our jobs or homes or gets terribly sick can count on the rest of us, and that we have collective obligations to our elderly, our children, and the rest of the planet.
This is why we have government. And anyone who wants to shut it down or cut it down because they say we can’t afford it any longer is plain wrong. We are the richest nation in the world, richer than we’ve ever been. We can afford to remain a society whose members are in it together.
via Robert Reich: Paul Ryan’s Plan, the Coming Shutdown, and What’s Really at Stake.
Lost in the 21st Century 