Spitting into the wind

Let me try once again to explain economics in simple terms – although I am probably spitting into the wind since it has been proven that the facts do not matter because people are as set in their beliefs as they are set in their ways (see earlier post called “Just the facts, ma’am” – NOT).

Congressional Republicans have fought against enacting all kinds of economic reforms that would have curbed corporate abuse of consumers, shareholders, or workers. They have fought all attempts to curb excessive concentration of corporate political and economic power. They have been against any measures that would increase demand for goods and services. They have been against anything that would increase small business loans (until recently when two Republican senators defected so that the small business law would be enacted).

If you think things will get better with Republicans gaining power in Congress, you should think again. They have promised to reduce Social security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Healthcare Reform in order to “slash spending by $100 billion.” At the same time, they have promised to make the tax cuts for the wealthy permanent which will cost over $700 billion in the short term and over $2 trillion during the next decade. They want to dismantle the new bank regulations so that banks can once again gamble with taxpayer’s mortgages and deposits. But it is these Republicanized policies that got us into this Great Recession.

Republicans are falsely stating that if they do not make the tax cut permanent for the upper 2% of income earners, demand for goods will be hurt and the economic downturn will be prolonged. (Either they are liars or they very stupidly believe this insanity.) The rich already have an enormous amount of money sitting idle in corporate and personal coffers. And corporations have almost $2 trillion dollars sitting idle in corporate accounts at this time.

All doubt about Republicans using the economic downturn as a path to political power has been removed by recent legislative votes. Due to their actions, it is hard not to conclude that Republicans only desire to worsen the economic downturn so that they can win the next election and get their governmental power back. The Congressional Republicans seem to have decided that sabotaging economic recovery and employment growth is their best tactic for electoral gains in the November elections.

What Republicans say about tax cuts for the wealthy is NOT TRUE.Tax cuts at the highest marginal incomes brackets concentrate wealth and political power in the hands of the wealthy. The resulting political power by the very rich pushes government policy in directions that significantly cut into the percentage of the nation’s income held by middle class Americans – reducing the ability of most Americans to buy goods and services. As a result, the middle class has been slowly shrinking since the days of Reagan. The economy continues to unwind because the average American does not have enough disposable income to keep the flow of goods and services at a healthy economic level.

Economic concentration of wealth and income are currently at levels very similar to those just before the Great Depression in 1929. The only reason our current situation has not quite deteriorated to that of the Great Depression is that the Republicans have not been completely successful in undoing the reforms put in place as a result of the New Deal.

All of the Republican policies for the past 100 years have been designed to concentrate wealth and income in the hands of the very few. Every time they reach the economic concentration levels that currently exist, we have a serious economic downturn. The current downturn is a direct result of increasingly “Republicanized” governmental policies over the previous 30 years.

So let me once again repeat some well established, provable facts:

1. Deregulation allows corporations to charge excessive prices. Not enforcing anti-monopoly laws permits price gouging.

2. Not capping interest rates concentrates wealth in a few hands and reduces spending of the average American – which in turn further cripples the economy.

3. Outsourcing jobs to foreign nations reduces incomes. Americans have less money available to buy goods and services.  Therefore, our consumer based economy takes a plunge.  (Duh!)

4. Union-busting keeps wages and benefits down which undermines the purchasing power of workers, which, in turn, depresses the economy.

5. Privatizing government services such as Social Security costs Americans more in out-of-pocket expenses (in fees and penalties) for services once provided by government. And it puts their capital at risk of market downturns. This reduces disposable income for consumers. In addition, when employers reduce benefits and increase co-pays for health insurance, it increases the cost-of-living for workers. As a result, these workers have less disposable income to spend on goods and services.

6. Middle class tax cuts help the economy because they increase the disposable income of those members of society who spend the vast majority of their incomes. The money changes hands over and over again instead of setting idle. This is the multiplier effect in economics.

7. Extending unemployment benefits helps the economy because it has a huge multiplier effect that greatly helps the economy because unemployment benefits are so little that all of it gets spent on goods and services immediately, putting it right back into the economy.

8. Tax cuts for the wealthy create huge pools of money for the rich to gamble with investments but it does not create jobs. The Republican Right’s economic theory – that economic prosperity and employment “trickle-down from the wealthy” – has been proven to be WRONG by recent historical experience over the last 30 years. Jobs are not created by just having large pools of investment money sitting around. There must be the opportunity to invest in a business that will have customers who can buy the goods and services before the investment money flows into job creation activities.

Sound economics says government should run surpluses in good economic times (saving the surpluses for bad times) and run deficits, if necessary, during economic downturns. This policy is taught in the Bible, for heavens sake! Remember the story of Joseph helping the Egyptian Pharaoh put back enough supplies during the seven years of abundance to take care of the predicted seven years of famine? Following this advice helps reduce the severity of economic cycles. But under the Republican Presidencies of Reagan and both George Bushes, we did exactly the opposite. This is what created the current downturn and the debt crisis! The vast majority of our total national debt was created under these three conservative Republican Presidents. But Republicans will deny this fact.

I repeat: excessive concentration of wealth and income is what harms our economy! No, I am not advocating a Marxist theory of spreading all wealth out evenly. I do believe that the wealthy should be able to enjoy the fruits of their “labor”. But I also believe that with wealth comes the responsibility of giving a bit more to support the country that made it possible for them to create their wealth. What’s an extra $100,000 in taxes to a multi-millionaire or a billionaire? They still get to have their huge yachts, several mansions, expensive cars, etc.

I would like to remind the wealthiest among us that they did not acquire their wealth all by themselves. They needed competent workers (educated at public expense), transportation and communications networks, laws and regulations (yes, regulations, such as those making their rarefied air fit to breathe) ... and for this vast web of support, the rich do in fact have a greater debt to society than the poor or even the middle class. So stop whining, stop being so damn greedy, shoulder your responsibility to this nation and pay up!

But I am just spitting into the wind, aren’t I? The majority of Americans don’t get it. Even after reading this, they just don’t get it. And they will very stupidly vote Republicans back into power (against their own best interests) because the Democrats did not fix things fast enough to suit them – regardless of the fact that it was the Republicans who flushed the economy down the toilet in the first place.

American voters gave the Republicans years to ruin the economy but expect the Democrats to fix it in less than two years.

Sheesh….

Laughable pablum

While liberals have predictably slammed the Republicans' plan, unveiled Thursday, to fix the country, the pledge is getting mixed reviews from conservative pundits, some of whom argue the 21-page document is all bark and no bite.

Blasting the document for not providing specific, long-term solutions, conservative blogger Erick Erickson called the pledge the "most ridiculous thing to come out of Washington since George McClellan…. Yes, yes, it is full of mom-tested, kid-approved pablum that will make certain hearts on the right sing in solidarity," he wrote on his blog, Redstate.com. "But like a diet full of sugar, it will actually do nothing but keep making Washington fatter before we crash from the sugar high."

The pledge gathers together in one document familiar talking points for Republicans, such as cutting taxes and slashing government spending. It comes at a time when the GOP is gearing up for the midterm elections and hoping to gain majorities in Congress. Taking a page from the 1994 GOP playbook when the Republicans touted their "Contract with America," which offered a specific plan of action for a GOP Congress, Republicans hope to once again gain control of the House.

But the document has only broad statements and no real specifics.

Conservative commentator and former Bush speechwriter David Frum echoed Erickson's disapproval, "Did you seriously imagine that they would jeopardize the prospect of victory and chairmanships by issuing big, bold promises to do deadly, unpopular things?" asked Frum. He said he was not surprised by the weakness of the so-called pledge. He writes:

“The Pledge to America is a pledge to do nothing and even goes against what the Tea Party stands for. Tea party activists have been claiming all year that there exists in the United States a potential voting majority for radically more limited government. The Republican ‘Pledge to America' declares: Sorry, we don't believe that… Yet at the same time, we so-called RINOs can take no pleasure in this document. Yes, there is good in it. (Putting legislative language online 72 hours in advance seems Good Government 101.) ...The promise to cite specific constitutional language is an empty sop to those so-called constitutionalists who vainly hope to revive the John Randolph School of constitutional interpretation.”

This is not a document that will help to govern in the recessionary year 2010. Without an alternative modern Republican affirmative program, the GOP will be captured and controlled by special interests instead. Actually, the GOP is already captured and controlled by the lobbyists for rich corporations and wealthy individuals.

Of course, not all conservatives outright decried the pledge. Tony Perkins, president of the conservative, Christian lobbying organization, The Family Research Council, said the pledge is "not exceptional, but it is satisfactory. It does lay a foundation to build upon, and it moves congressional Republicans to a place of public acknowledgment that values issues are to be a part of the conservative way forward."

Again, quoting from Erik Erikson:
“The pledge begins by lamenting an arrogant and out-of-touch government of self-appointed elites" issuing mandates, "then proceeds to demand health care mandates on insurance companies that will drive up the costs of health care for ordinary Americans. The plan puts “government on the path to a balanced budget” without doing anything substantive. There is a promise to “immediately reduce spending” by cutting off stimulus funds. There is a plan to cut Congress’s budget, which is pretty much what was promised in 1994. …In 4 years did the Democrats really blow up the Congressional budget? No — the GOP did that.” 

The document combines old ideas, bad ideas, contradictory ideas, and discredited ideas. The Republican Party that lost control of Congress four years ago has had an abundance of time to craft a policy vision that offers credible, serious solutions. Instead, we are confronted with a document that can best be described as tired nonsense. This "pledge" is just meaningless stuff at which even the Senate GOP will ultimately turn up its nose.

It is laughable. 

Pablum.


Erikson: http://www.redstate.com/erick/2010/09/22/the-republicans-pledge-is-perhaps-the-most-ridiculous-thing-to-come-out-of-washington-since-george-mcclellan/  

David Frum: http://www.frumforum.com/a-gop-pledge-to-do-nothing 

Read the entire “pledge” here: http://pledge.gop.gov/

Smart move

Elizabeth Warren will be serving as an interim appointee to set up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Warren will be both a senior presidential adviser with direct access to Obama when she needs it, as well as a Treasury employee. In an administration dominated by those of the same vein as Clinton’s Secretary of Treasury Robert Rubin, Warren will literally be the first financial progressive with both a personal connection to the president as well as an independent power base.

Robert Kuttner, co-founder and co-editor of The American Prospect writes:

“This strategy is a win-win, on several grounds:

“It gives Warren full authority to set up the agency [consumer protection agency], without having to run the gantlet of confirmation hearings and a likely Republican filibuster.

“This way, Warren will be able to get the agency quickly up and running in a manner that serves both consumers and progressive politics. Early directives to bring greater simplicity and transparency to credit documents will be extremely popular. Politically, the carping [about Warren] by the banking industry and its Republican allies will remind the public which side the GOP is on.

“This will take a lot of the wind out of the Republican claim that they opposed the bailout [they were for it] and share popular backlash against Wall Street [they have been in Wall Street’s pockets]. It will belatedly put the administration vividly (and very publicly) on the side of regular Americans when it comes to banking issues.

“As Warren continues to be the remarkably popular champion of struggling families, it will become more difficult [for Republicans] to deny her the job on a permanent basis if she wants it. And it will be more costly, even for a more Republican senate in the next Congress, to make her their nemesis.”

Once the agency is set up, someone will need to be confirmed to run it on a long term basis. Simon Johnson, the MIT professor who is an unabashed Warren fan, writes:

“This step does not avoid a debate in the Senate – it merely postpones it to a more advantageous moment. Presuming that Ms. Warren is nominated as for a five year term as head of the CFPB, she would go before the Senate Banking Committee with a real track record of achievement as interim head. The debate would not be about what the agency could do, but rather what it has already done – and what it is set up to do next. These are exactly the right terms on which to bring out into the open all those who think that the financial sector only ever behaves well – or that enforcing sensible rules on lenders would somehow bring the economy to its knees.”

This is a smart move by the president. He went all the way around the Republicans to put the best person “temporarily” in charge of the new agency. And there is nothing they can do about it.

Hee, hee….

“Just the facts, ma’am” -- NOT

Democracy only works well when the citizenry is well informed. We are taught that if people are furnished with the facts, they will be clearer thinkers and better citizens. “Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government,” Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1789.

But humankind is uniquely susceptible to ignorance and misinformation – and too many of our citizenry are ill-informed. In 1996, Princeton University’s Larry M. Bartels argued, “the political ignorance of the American voter is one of the best documented data in political science.”

Over the last few decades, political science research has established that most Americans lack even a basic understanding of how their country works. A large part of the reason Americans are so ignorant is because certain segments of the media lie daily in order to push a political agenda – and the First Amendment legally allows it. A public who wishes to be entertained does not want to read facts. The public does not listen to or read those segments of the media who put out facts from good sources – pure information is boring. But even if they read the facts it would make little difference because facts do not necessarily have the power to change minds. Research at the University of Michigan has proven that facts have quite the opposite effect. People who are shown facts that go against their beliefs, even with inarguable proof, will all too often dig in and become more entrenched. It’s called backfire.

In a series of recent studies, researchers at the University of Michigan found that when misinformed people were exposed to corrected facts in news stories, they would refuse to change their minds. This holds particularly true for those who are political partisans. Instead, these people often became even more stubbornly set in their beliefs.

In 2005, amid the strident calls for better media fact-checking in the wake of the Iraq war, Brendan Nyhan, a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Scholar at the University of Michigan, and a colleague, Jason Reifler, devised an experiment in which participants were given mock news stories, each of which contained a provably false, though nonetheless widespread, claim made by a political figure: that there were WMDs found in Iraq (there weren’t), that the Bush tax cuts increased government revenues (revenues actually fell), and that the Bush administration imposed a total ban on stem cell research (only certain federal funding was restricted).

When Nyhan inserted a clear, direct correction after each piece of misinformation, and then measured the study participants to see if the correction took, for the most part, it didn’t. It backfired. The participants who self-identified as conservative believed the misinformation on WMD and taxes even more strongly after being given the correction. With those two issues, the more strongly the participant cared about the topic, the greater the backfire.

The effect was slightly different on self-identified liberals: When they read corrected stories about stem cells, the corrections didn’t backfire, but they chose to ignore the inconvenient truth that the Bush administration’s restrictions were not total.

Facts, the researchers found, were not correcting the misinformation, but, instead, could actually cause people to hold more strongly to the misinformation.

This suggests that once beliefs are internalized, they are very difficult to budge. The conclusion one can draw from these Michigan University studies is if the citizens are ignorant, facts will not enlighten them; if they are mistaken, facts will not set them straight. In other words, if the real facts do not agree with what you believe – you throw out the facts and cling to your own make-believe ‘facts’.

It appears that misinformed people, particularly conservatives, often have some of the strongest, yet inaccurate, political opinions. Most people vote based on their beliefs – which are seeped in emotion and objectively, provably false. Why? People tend to interpret information according to their views in order to find consistency. If we believe something about the world, we are more likely to passively accept as truth any information that confirms our beliefs, and actively dismiss information that doesn’t. This makes us more confident in said beliefs, and even less likely to listen to facts that contradict them.

“It’s absolutely threatening to admit you’re wrong,” says Brendan Nyhan, the lead researcher on the Michigan study. He said that the “phenomenon known as backfire is a natural defense mechanism to avoid cognitive dissonance.”

Back in 2000, James Kuklinski of the University of Illinois led an experiment in which more than 1,000 Illinois residents were asked questions about welfare – the percentage of the federal budget spent on welfare, the number of people enrolled in the program, the percentage of enrollees who are black, and the average payout. More than half indicated that they were confident that their answers were correct – but in fact only 3 percent of the people got more than half of the questions right. Perhaps more disturbing, the ones who were the most confident they were right were by and large the ones who knew the least about the topic. (Most of these participants expressed views that suggested a strong anti-welfare bias.) Kuklinski calls this sort of response the “I know I’m right” syndrome, and considers it a great problem in a democratic system. With FOX news or MSNBC to back you up, it has never been easier to believe you are right.

“It implies not only that most people will resist correcting their beliefs,” he wrote, “but also that the very people who most need to correct them will be least likely to do so.”

As a teacher (now retired), I am greatly alarmed by this. How could this be? I taught my students well. I reiterated – and did some fun things to help them remember facts. We also spent much time on how to think critically – how to look at both sides of an issue before making up one’s mind. But apparently, no teacher can change the mind of anyone whose brain is pickled with misinformation.

In an ideal world, citizens would be able to critically monitor the information they receive by looking up the facts. But doing so takes time and effort – and you have to discern whether your source is a good one – which in an overworked or stressed American can be exhausting. So we create shortcuts using emotional inference to cope with the rush of information we receive on a daily basis. Unfortunately, this causes too many people to be easily suckered by political falsehoods.

Political pundits who are out to get rich from the gullibility of Americans have become highly popular entertainment, while professional fact-checking operations, such as C-Span, are seldom watched (considered boring); and nonpartisan fact-checking websites such as Snopes and Fact-Check.org are considered to be an arm of the opposition. In other words, getting a politician or pundit to say that George W. Bush caused the 9-11 attack or that Barack Obama’s presidency is the culmination of a five-decade plot by the government of Kenya to destroy the United States is easy. Getting them to give straight facts is not. Those who do try to give straight, truthful facts are booed off the stage.

What about the interaction between the political ignorance of American citizens and our democratic ideals? Most of us like to believe that our opinions have been formed over time by careful, rational consideration of facts and ideas, and that the decisions based on those opinions, therefore, have the ring of soundness and intelligence. But, in actuality, too many Americans uncritically accept bad information that reinforces strongly held beliefs. They become more confident they are right, and are unlikely to listen to any new information.

In reality, a majority of Americans, particularly those who are on the far right, often base their opinions on personally held beliefs and emotions, which often has no basis in facts.

And then they vote.

If the citizens are ignorant, facts will not enlighten them; if they are mistaken, facts will not set them straight.

Sigh....

University of Michigan study:
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bnyhan/nyhan-reifler.pdf

University of Illinois:
http://www.uvm.edu/~dguber/POLS234/articles/kuklinski.pdf

James Kuklinski credentials:
http://igpa.uillinois.edu/person/james-kuklinski

Brendan Nyhan credentials:
http://www.sph.umich.edu/rwj/scholars.htm

Willful ignorance and mind control

“Having shed much of his dignity, core convictions, and reputation for straight talk, Senator John McCain won his primary on Tuesday against the flat-earth wing of his party. Now McCain can go search for his lost character…” (1) His character was lost somewhere before the 2008 presidential campaign. We did get a glimpse of it one time during the campaign: a woman with messy hair that stuck out in all directions rose to express her doubts about Barack Obama.

“I have read about him,” she said, “and he’s not… [not American being implied here] – he’s an Arab.”

McCain answered, “No, ma’am, he’s a decent family man, a citizen.” And he got knocked around by the Republicans and Fox News for that one decent slip of the tongue.

A recent Pew poll reporting the spike in ignorant people who are like that ill-informed, stupid woman – her head stuffed with fabrications from viral emails, Limbaugh, and Fox ‘News’ – now makes up more than a third of the Republican Party. That’s right – one third of the Republican Party does not think for themselves and chooses to believe the lies because it fits with their own belief system:

• Forty-seven percent of Republicans believe the lie that Obama is a Muslim;
• Twenty-seven percent think that the president of the United States is not a U.S. citizen;
• Half of Republicans believe falsely that the big bailout of banks and insurance companies under TARP was enacted by Obama, and not by President Bush.

Those who believe these lies say they got their information from the media, but no reputable news agency based in facts has spread such lies. One known source for the lies is radio talk show entertainer Rush Limbaugh, whose word is the gospel truth among Republicans. He easily manipulates his listeners by dropping seeds of deception in hints, noting that “people are questioning” things. His purpose is to make Obama un-American, foreign, not ‘one of us’. For example:

“Tomorrow is Obama’s birthday — not that we’ve seen any proof of that,” he said on Aug. 3. “They tell us Aug. 4 is the birthday; we haven’t seen any proof of that.” Of course, there is proof, go to www.factcheck.org for starters, one of many places posting Obama’s Hawaiian birth certificate. But then they ask, “where is the long form?” They do not accept that once everything is put into the computer system, Hawaii does not keep the long forms.

On the Muslim deception: “Obama says he’s a Christian, but where is the evidence?” Limbaugh said on Aug. 19. He has repeatedly called the president “imam Obama,” and said, “I’m just throwing things out there, folks, because people are questioning his Christianity.”

Once Limbaugh has planted a lie, a Republican politician will often pick it up and run with it. For example, Kim Lehman, one of Iowa’s two Republican National Committee members, went public with doubts on Obama’s Christianity.

The second media source for those who think that Obama is “not one of us” is Fox News and their star, Glenn Beck, whose parent company, run by Rupert Murdoch, “…has given $1 million to Republican causes this year but still masquerades as a legitimate source of news. Their chat and opinion programs spread misinformation, lies, half-truths, and innuendo daily. Their main purpose is to fill its viewers with anger toward the Democrats, especially President Obama. The founder of Politifact said the most popular items on its Truth-o-meter are corrections of Glenn Beck’s statements…. Glenn Beck tosses off enough half-truths in a month to keep Politifact working overtime.” (1)

We could say that the political lies that Americans choose to believe as the price of being a democracy – if they were harmless. It has been a part of our history. For example, hate-filled partisans swore that Abraham Lincoln was a Catholic [which in his day was as bad as being a Muslim today] and that Franklin D. Roosevelt was a Communist.

Is there any harm in the fact that 27% of Republicans believe the President is not an American? Yes. False beliefs by a large section of the public can cause our country to make grave mistakes – like the time the public was lead to believe Iraq held weapons of mass-destruction resulting in a war that raised our deficit by $1 trillion and killed nearly 4500 of our young troops.

What is most worrisome to me is that a growing number from the extreme far-right Tea Party segment of the Republican Party is poised to take several Congressional seats. These rabble rousers are backed by an electorate who refuses to comprehend the present … much less remember and understand the past. (And as a retired history teacher who did her best to help students understand the mistakes of the past and learn to think critically, this makes me cringe.)

Obama told Christianity Today in 2008 that he is a devout Christian. He said that he believes in the redemptive death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Muslims cannot publicly deny their faith by saying such a thing – it would condemn them in this life to have a fatwa (death sentence) issued against them by a mufti. They also believe that they would go to hell.

"Some Zanadiqa (atheists) were brought to 'Ali and he burnt them. The news of this event, reached Ibn 'Abbas who said, "If I had been in his place, I would not have burnt them, as Allah's Apostle forbade it, saying, 'Do not punish anybody with Allah's punishment (fire).' I would have killed them according to the statement of Allah's Apostle, 'Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him.'" Sahih Bukhari, Volume 9, Book 84, Number 57

Although Franklin Graham claims such, there is no such thing as a “seed” of religion. Obama was born to two non-practicing secular parents. Obama’s father, although raised Muslim in Kenya, had turned his back on Islam by the time he met Ann and was a confirmed atheist who considered religion to be superstition. Obama was brought up by his secular white grandparents. Obama came to Christianity like many other people: In his early twenties, he read books by writers such as Augustine, Nietzsche, and other theologians. He would often wander into black Christian churches on Sunday mornings and find the sermons and hymns to be moving. He accepted Christ as his savior and was baptized at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago by the controversial Reverend Wright.

“It is curious that any felon, drug addict, or recovering hedonist can loudly proclaim a sudden embrace of Jesus and be welcomed without doubt by leaders of the religious right. But a thoughtful Christian like Obama is still distrusted.” (1)

So, why do the followers of Limbaugh, Fox News, and Glenn Beck check their brains at the door, open up their heads, and let the lies pour in? I believe that the root of all this is partly because a Democrat is in office – this always happens when there is a Democrat in office. But I also believe a large part of the reason is race. Although Limbaugh and Fox don’t directly mention race, they use code words that do it for them. As a native of the south I understand what is meant by "States' rights." It is a code word for resistance to black advances clearly understood by white Southerners. "Doesn't reflect our values" is code for the n-word. "Presumptuous" and “arrogant” are code for “uppity ____”. It goes on and on.

Why doesn’t someone take these fear-mongers to court over the lies they are telling? They were taken to court. In February 2003, a Florida Court of Appeals unanimously agreed with an assertion by FOX News that there is no rule against distorting or falsifying the news in the United States. Fox editors tried to force two reporters to produce a distorted story. When they refused and threatened to report Fox's actions to the FCC, they were both fired. A jury unanimously found Fox News guilty of wrongfully firing them when they refused to broadcast (in the jury's words) “a false, distorted or slanted story.” But the Court of Appeals said that Fox News has a first amendment right to lie to the public.

Barack Obama and the Democrats could be going down hard in the mid-term elections because of an economic crisis that he did nothing to create but which he has failed to solve fast enough to suit an immature, attention-deficit electorate. These voters are ignoring the fact that the Great Recession belongs to Obama’s predecessors, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, who let Wall Street run wild. Congressional Republican support was universal for the radical deregulation of the financial industry that produced this debacle. This unbelievable level of willful ignorance by right-leaning voters was planned and initiated by Limbaugh, Beck, and all of FOX ‘News’ – and it has been aided by a media afraid to call out these liars.

Democrats may deserve to lose in November because they have been terrible at explaining to the public what they are doing and why. They may deserve to lose because they have been terrible at handling the minority Party of No (Harry Reid is no bulldozer – he is too soft spoken). But Democrats do not deserve to lose because low-information, politically unintelligent voters are manipulated by Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, and Glenn Beck into believing political lies.

Using coded messages to brainwash and control the willfully ignorant and intellectually incurious “we want our country back” minions is uncomfortably close to the theme in the book 1984 by George Orwell with its population under mind control.


Sources:

1. Building a Nation of Know Nothings by Timothy Egan
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/25/building-a-nation-of-know-nothings/?pagemode=print

2. About Obama becoming a Christian:
http://www.newsweek.com/2008/07/11/finding-his-faith.print.html

3. Obama not being Muslim: http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/muslimfaith.asp

4. About those lies and gossip: http://www.mediaite.com/online/report-conservatives-more-likely-to-forward-false-rumors-via-email-than-liberals/

5. Article from Psychology Today: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/over-simulated/201008/confusing-race-and-religion-is-dangerous

6. Hadith translation of Sahih Bukhari, Book 84:
http://www.usc.edu/schools/college/crcc/engagement/resources/texts/muslim/hadith/bukhari/084.sbt.html#009.084.057

7. Media can legally lie: http://www.thefreelibrary.com/The+media+can+legally+lie-a0126529447
Tags: lies, Fox News, Republican Party, Rush Limbaugh