What I Learned

From Being Direct

To the Editor:

I was never a fan of George W. Bush, but I believe his bluntness (“I am a war president.”) served a purpose. But I do prefer the word, “direct” .... It just sounds more honest, and less hostile.

Romney/Ryan is not representative of the Republican Party most of us are familiar with. That group has been co-opted by an extreme and reactionary ideology; to be direct — it’s a dangerous ideology. According to Rolling Stone Contributing Editor Tim Dickinson: “From abortion rights and gun laws to tax giveaways and energy policy, it’s far worse [than Bush].” He continues, “Measures that have already sailed through the Republican House would roll back clean-air protections, gut both Medicare and Medicaid, lavish trillions in tax cuts on billionaires while raising taxes on the poor, and slash everything from college aid to veteran benefits.” The article quotes David Stockman (Ronald Reagan’s budget director): “Ryan takes out the ax and goes after programs for the poor — which is the last thing you ought to cut...It’s ideology run amok.”

Examples from Dickinson: “Republicans in Congress...for more than a year...refused to put President Obama’s jobs bill up for a vote, even though projections show it would create nearly two million jobs without adding a penny to the deficit. The reason? The $447 billion bill would be entirely paid for through a surtax on millionaires.... From February through April 2011,” Dickinson writes, “the economy had been adding 200,000 jobs a month. But during the uncertainty created by the congressional impasse, job creation was cut in half for every month the standoff continued.” According to the Economic Policy Institute, “the immediate spending cuts required by the debt-ceiling compromise are likely to shrink the economy by $43 billion this year, killing nearly 323,000 jobs.”

But Romney/Ryan hammer Obama on this, ignoring the facts, and their party’s complicity; to be blunt, they are lying to us. Much of the Obama “failures” they allude to have come from his efforts to “reach across the aisle.” Senate Minority Leader, Republican Mitch McConnell, said, in essence, that the number one objective of the Republican Congress was to make Obama a “one-term president.” Is that what our legislative branch is meant for? Partisanship over people?!

 There are too few words in this format to mince any. The recent comments by Colin Powell’s former chief of staff, Retired Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson (a Republican), “Let me just be candid: My party is full of racists, and the real reason a considerable portion of my party wants President Obama out of the White House has nothing to do with the content of his character, nothing to do with his competence as commander-in-chief and president, and everything to do with the color of his skin, and that’s despicable.”

Not only do I believe that to be true, I am also positively baffled why anyone who is not a CEO, extremely wealthy, misogynistic, military-minded, a war hawk, a religious fanatic, naïve, ignorant, in denial or delusional, would put that party back in power. That’s as direct as I can be.

Michael Luzzi

173 Boggs Hill Road, Newtown October 31, 2012