My impression of him, prior to catching this from Big Government (via Ed Driscoll), was that he was just the slightly eccentric Governor Moonbeam, who got the nickname from a plausible (though slightly unusual) suggestion that California launch its own space program.
I wasn’t at all aware, though, that he’d compared his opponent’s campaign rhetoric to Nazi propaganda (HT Amy) but it completely boggles my mind that the Democratic party nominated, for governor of the largest state in the country, someone who’s said the things that Jerry Brown said on the radio.
He’s tried to pass them off as “brief excerpts” designed to “provoke debate and lively discussion, not craft legislation”, and stopped mentioning his radio show on his campaign website, but the Internet is forever. Including this collection of statements he made on welfare. Some real gems in there:
What we have here is a separation by class and often by color. One class of people is treated like dirt; another class is treated like demi-gods. The class that has access to the levers of power-the police baton, the surveillance through wire tapping, search and seizure, the power of government through the legislator’s ear-they are reaping the rewards! The lawlessness on the part of the police, the judiciary, is viewed as a management of the poor, of the homeless, of those who don’t fit in this New World Order. That excludes tens of millions of surplus people.
I know some of you say it’s just the-good-for-nothings who are not availing themselves of opportunity, but jobs are not available to millions of Americans. Why? Because economists like Milton Friedman say that if unemployment goes below 6% there will be more people working and spending money; more people spending money will send prices up; more people will have to be hired; then wages will rise. That’s called “inflation.” The people who invest in bonds don’t like that. When the rate of unemployment falls below 6%, the Federal Reserve Board increases the interest rate to put people out of work. Six percent of 120 million Americans-by the time you count the discouraged who are not counted in the official number-are 10 million Americans kept out of work. That is the policy of the land in the name of productivity, corporate efficiency. It’s rotten to the core. It’s killing the moral fabric of America. It’s the death of justice.
Anybody who says, “Go get a job,” should understand if you get that job, somewhere another person will lose a job; or the Federal Reserve Board will jack up the interest rates. That is the dirty little secret of modern capitalism: creating unemployment through the central bank and maintaining it at extremely high, unconscionable levels. This is nothing less than class warfare: the unjust distribution of income, the abandonment of cities, and the trashing of almost one fourth of the American children. Little by little, democracy is reduced, diminished, minimized, while the autocracy of the profit-making, giant transnational company is given more and more authority over us in a private system of power that’s unaccountable, uncaring, and inhuman.
The conventional viewpoint says we need a jobs program and we need to cut welfare. Just the opposite! We need more welfare and fewer jobs. Jobs for every American is doomed to failure because of modern automation and production. We ought to recognize it and create an income-maintenance system so every single American has the dignity and the wherewithal for shelter, basic food, and medical care. I’m talking about welfare for all. Without it, you’re going to have warfare for all. Without a universal health care like every other civilized country, without a minimum level of income, this country will explode. You can’t blame the guy at the bottom forever. At some point there’s a reaction and we’ll see that the real criminals are those calling the tune, making the rules, and walking to the bank. We have the money, we have the brain power. The United States now has the highest measured wealth of any nation ever in the history of the world. We could rebuild our cities, we could create the kind of buying power and community well-being that will provide for peace. The guaranteed income is one way. Another way is to have always the availability of work in a nonprofit, in community service. A third is to start giving people training to develop skills where they can be self-supporting. You could come up with a cash supplement. Even conservatives have suggested a negative income tax to cut out the bureaucracy. If we were smart, we’d get rid of welfare and give people a family assistance like they do in Europe.
Seriously, California Democrats couldn’t have nominated someone who wasn’t possessed by Jeremiah Wright?
Moe Lane
Dan Spencer
Dan McLaughlin
Jeff Emanuel
