PUTNEY — As the 2012 election campaign starts rising on the horizon, expect more of the blame-the-victim propaganda being churning out to cover up the corporate attack on democracy.
Across the country now, this propaganda campaign blames everyone from Occupy Wall Street protesters to government policy for our economic distress. In some cases, it even paints Wall Street firms as victims.
Part of this propaganda attempts to obfuscate the history that just a dozen years ago, we were a country enjoying peace and prosperity, with a budget in surplus.
History shows the circumstances that took us from a balanced budget to debt and deficit.
While the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 challenged our country, the Bush-Cheney reaction was two horribly expensive wars, tax breaks for the wealthy, and a drug benefit written to benefit primarily pharmaceutical manufacturers.
None of these policies were paid for.
These ”borrow and spend” policies have made our federal budget radioactive. Combined with bailout money for those entities “too big to fail,” recovery is now being choked by the born-again debt-and-deficit chicken hawks who had no such compulsion to rein in the deficits of the Bush-Cheney years. Perhaps they were spurred on by Cheney's advice that “Reagan proved deficits don't matter.”
And how does this affect Vermonters who have been reasonable in their discourse and effective with their stewardship of the economy and governing, from town to state levels?
At the recent briefing for the upcoming legislative session, economist Tom Kavet listed one critical factor to sustained national economic recovery: ”reasonable political compromise” in Washington.
Let us hope the same fundamentalist bent - which almost put the economic ship of state on the rocks during the last debt ceiling crisis - can be reasonable and put country before the interests of party or corporations.
Vermont can be a leader in health care and energy policy, and the state can serve as an example of moderation in the debate.
However, we might not be able to withstand the scare tactics and blame-the-victim propaganda that enables corporate attacks on democracy and the world economy, all of which do affect our economy here.
Unless reasonable heads prevail, Vermont and our nation might struggle even more to return to that same peace and prosperity we enjoyed just 12 years ago.
We all deserve better.