Steven L. Goldstein The Sun-Sentinel

March 6, 2011

Steven L. Goldstein
The Sun-Sentinel
200 E. Las Olas Blvd
Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33301

RE: It beats a hair shirt! – Some comments on your column this morning about the coming of corporate Fascism in this country. If only we elected Obama.

My dear Professor,

First things first.

I’m giving you up for Lent. Again.

It’s like crop rotation. I’ll give you some time off to search for new shibboleths with which to assault reason and History. I must say that I admire your ability never to allow an absence of facts deter you from making an argument. That they are universally and uniformly specious is not germane. That’s why it is so easy to deny your major premise. To wit:

“The first Big Lie: Government should never raise taxes in a bad economy and always give tax breaks.” [Emphasis yours]

Rush Limbaugh and Marco Rubio believe this but they were not the first ones to say it. John Maynard Keynes said it first. Honest. Keynes is more quoted than read but I assure you he said it. Look it up.

You may remember that candidate John Kennedy ran for President in 1960 on 2 big issues, #1 – He would close the “missile gap”. #2 – He would “get the country moving again”. He took care of #1 with the Polaris missile. He took care of #2 by cutting taxes. Honest. Look it up.

“The first Big Truth: The government is the true engine of economic stimulus.” The United States government created 15,000,000 jobs once. Good jobs, competitive salaries, great benefits, learn new skills, ample travel opportunities. It was called World War 2.

I suppose if we invade Libya, Egypt, and Somalia, if we invade Mexico to clean up that mess, if we finally Free Tibet, if we liberate North Korea, if we forcibly retire Mugabe we’ll be back at full employment, right? Venezuela needs a bit of the boot also. On the way back from Caracas we can take care of some unfinished business in Cuba also. These are all “shovel ready” jobs, aren’t they?


If the government is the “true engine” of business why does the Post Office remind me of a 3 legged table? Lord Barack the Beneficent “created” 200,000 jobs by borrowing $1,000,000,000,000 – I hope I have enough zeros – from Uncle Wong, our Cheshire Cat Chinese banker. The problem is they all work for the government. Maybe they are new recruits for the 47 year old war on poverty. That’s 16 years more than the Athenians and the Spartans went at it. We still have a way to go to match the English and the French but we’re gaining on it.

If the government spent our money well wouldn’t Detroit be like Xanadu?

The highest school spending per pupil in the United States is in Washington, DC. Why aren’t the President’s daughters in public school there?

You say, in prototypical modern American Liberal fashion, that “Governor Scott and his tea party cohorts need to be made to understand…” [Emphasis mine]

In the end the dirty little secret of modern American Liberals is that they all wear brown shirts when no one is looking. They all have a pair of hob nailed boots in the closet. No sense wearing a tutu when you are trying to get people, free people, to see the errors of their ways. That way it’s easier when someone “needs to be made to understand” anything.

You probably won’t find Horst Wessel at any Tea Party conferences. He’s in Madison, Wisconsin doing what he does best.

You’re on your own ‘til Easter.

Miracles have been known to happen.




Kevin Smith