Thursday, July 1, 2010

THE TRIUMPH OF HYPOCRISY AND/OR MASS HYPNOSIS

How well the "conservatives" have manipulated the media and sold their "big lies" like:

The problem with the economy is the deficit. We must make cuts to save the economy! [When economists whose track record of being correct I respect (like Paul Krugman) present solid evidence arguing it is too soon to start cutting and if we do the rescue of the economy that the stimulus package helped generate will be for naught, but government will be slashed until it is even weaker and less regulatory and supportive, which is the conservative agenda in the first place, so it's win/win for them and lose/lose for the rest of us.]

Or:

We care about small businesses and working people and those being impacted by the "oil spill" and/or the recession! [But not enough to extend unemployment benefits, which the Republicans voted solidly against, using the deficit as their excuse and a distraction for the media, while people without jobs or help from the government can't buy things which means less economic activity and therefore more job loss etc.!]

Or:

The "oil spill" is Clinton's fault, or Obama's! [And not the last administration's which gutted the agency that regulates drilling in the gulf and was in the breast pocket of the oil corporations! et-endlessly-cetera!]

But the one that always riles me the most is their flip flopping on "states rights" and any kind of "local rights" depending on whether or not it lines the pockets of corporations or their own. Like the rightwing dominated Supreme Court's decisions in case after case in favor of states against anything the federal government tried to do in terms of regulations and practices etc. until the 2000 election when Florida's Supreme Court ruled to continue counting votes and was overruled because suddenly the federal position trumped states rights.

Or too many other cases to list here, so I'll end with one of the latest, that local municipalities and states have no right to limit access to firearms or write laws limiting them because the NRA trumps elected officials and common sense.

Et-incredibly-cetera.

5 comments:

Robert G. Zuckerman said...

Any ideas on how to change it, improve it, end the nightmare? When your kid goes to the local barbershop or shoe store and his classmate has the 9mm that his dad gave him to protect himself on a sunny saturday afternoon, and he's just spent the week watching people murder each other on tv, including saturday morning kiddie cartoons and 300 years in the future star trek. We're all "comfortably numb" while the sh_t is hitting the fan.

Jerome said...

What's especially troubling: early on in the current crash, the Financial Times/UK said that the stimulus package wasn't big enough to sustain a recovery (it would have had to be about triple what it was). Looks like they were right. Yet, all the pressure/propaganda in U.S. political rhetoric now is for cutting back on even the little stimulus there is. Consequences seem dire...

Lally said...

There's the self-fulfilling aspect of it all too. The right says government's always the problem (except for the military) and the solution is less of it (except for the military) then makes sure whatever gov they have any sway over (the previous administration, etc.) protects the profits of their corporate masters—big oil, big pharma, defense contractors etc.—and when the sh*t hits the fan, they blame it on big government and get more benefits for corporations etc. etc. etc. Even their philosophy of every one for themselves (and the Xtian fundamentalist idea of "the end is near" "armegeddan" "the rapture" so it's all inevitable and only they win etc.) leads to the same laisse faire attitude they push for the economy, which leads to more privitization which leads to less democracy and more outsourcing, including the military etc. etc. etc.
Maybe the answer's the same as it was for Civil Rights and the Peace Movement and so on, i.e. organizing until there's enough of us to change the framing of the issues and the votes. Obama's campaign did it but then didn't capitalize on that, unfortunately. And as far as I'm concerned that's on Emmanuel mostly, but Axelrod too.

Ed Baker said...

what America needs RIGHT NOW is a good enema!

and more kids going into the trades as apprentice-journeymen
all of our Master Plumbers are getting too old to do much more than to flush the toilet

Tell me. Quick! Can you set a toilet? or are you
still shoveling dreck from one pile to another?

we've been in the shit so long we can no longer smell the stink

Anonymous said...

The federal government is required by the Constitution to make money by regulating and promoting commerce while spending money protecting the nation from all enemies foreign or domestic.

The Left constantly cuts military funding and when we need our military all we are left with is surplus from the last war.

It ain't the defecit, it's the DEBT.

The thinking on the LEFT has surpassed the insanity phase. From embracing illegals to asssiting Islamic extremists. We have given so much to the Third World that we are falling below them economically. This country was built on Hudeo-Christian principles, yet the LEFT only attacks the Christians.

Rights granted to us by the Constitution cannot be infringed upon at any level of our government.

Any right not granted are left to states and localities.

Right wing , Right wing, Right wing. The Left are like the Islamic terrorists in that they shed their robes and switch to the other side at will.

God Bless America !!!

and a Happy Independence Day to us all