Lies... and Truth

I have been thinking that I would make a proposition to my Republican friends... that if they will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them.

    ~ Adlai Stevenson, campaign statement in Fresno, California (10 September 1952)

I don’t want politicians who are 'above politics,' any more then I want a plumber who's 'above toilets'.'
— Ta-Nahesi Coates

You cannot get someone to understand a foreign language by shouting.

A friend sent me a link to a marvelous article: What if a collapse happened and nobody noticed? I agree with the beginning, about what a collapse looks like. It's awesome. You should read it. I stopped agreeing when the author started blaming Peak Oil. It's easy to blame an outside force. It's easy to blame "others". It's a method used by leaders for millenia: when internal troubles can't be solved, attack someone "outside", someone "not us". Change the focus, at least until the leaders are out of power, or dead. Reminds me of Louis Whatsizname of France, and "after me, the deluge."

What I see as the current political/economic problem is an inability to see that a program doesn't work. I don't care if it's a low-level after school program started by the local women's club, or international economic policy. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. There are those who still claim trickle-down works, except for those nasty people who get in its way. In other words, in real life, it *does* *not* *work*. Get over it and move on. Austerity programs are not working. So what will? There are a lot of ideas getting tossed around. Some ideas work locally, some in larger regions, some internationally. No one idea works for all things, although people in power try to make it so. "Don't force it. Use a bigger hammer."

Unfortunately, far too many people are emotionally invested in their own ideas, and will *not* change, even in the face of creeping collapse. Too many people invested in the belief that the unemployed are lazy, no-good, and all they have to do is find a job. These true believers can't seem to see there are no jobs. They point to "see, that one company is hiring 50 people" and miss the fact that *500* people applied. People complain about "all that money being spent on space" and fail to see that the jobs, the manufacturing of equipment and parts, are *here* on this planet. There are no piles of Franklins on the Moon, Cassini does not carry gold as cargo. The area around Cape Canaveral is facing severely increasing unemployment, now that those who worked on Space Shuttle launches are unemployed. Those in charge cut that program as an austerity measure, thus decreasing those paying taxes: those no longer working for NASA, those families no longer buying at local stores, those stores that close because few are buying, those who used to be store employees in their turn not buying at other stores. None of them are now paying taxes, thus increasing the need for more austerity. Sounds like a nasty spiral down, doesn't it?

The article's statement "Of course they could just as easily come clean with all this..." Dude! What world are you living in? You seem to think all people in positions of power even recognize there's a problem. You assume they are all deliberately withholding information, when in fact they are blindly hanging on to beliefs that do not reflect the real world. It falls in the "all you have to do is..." thinking, which is just as bad as "of course it works, if people would stop interfering." It's not malice, at least not for most of them. It's just plain old ordinary willful blindness. We all suffer from it in various forms.

I have blind spots that I'm willing to have exposed, but only if the person exposing them shows me the numbers/data as they are *in* *real* *life*, not what they should be under ideal circumstances. We are humans, not ideals.


You cannot get someone to understand a foreign language by shouting.
You cannot solve a problem if you won't see the current "solution" doesn't work.

Political perspective? True then, true now

I created this post in 2010, and then forgot to publish it. I find the arguments as appropriate now as they were two years ago.

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I have added a certain amount of emphasis

There are a number things the public "knows" as we head into the election that are just false. If people elect leaders based on false information, the things those leaders do in office will not be what the public expects or needs.
Here are eight of the biggest myths that are out there:

1. President Obama tripled the deficit.
   Reality: Bush's last budget had a $1.416 trillion deficit. Obama's first reduced that to $1.29 trillion.
2. President Obama raised taxes, which hurt the economy.
   Reality: Obama cut taxes. 40% of the "stimulus" was wasted on tax cuts which only create debt, which is why it was so much less effective than it could have been.
3. President Obama bailed out the banks.
   Reality: While many people conflate the "stimulus" with the bank bailouts, the bank bailouts were requested by President Bush and his Treasury Secretary, former Goldman Sachs CEO Henry Paulson. (Paulson also wanted the bailouts to be "non-reviewable by any court or any agency.") The bailouts passed and began before the 2008 election of President Obama.
4. The stimulus didn't work.
   Reality: The stimulus worked, but was not enough. In fact, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the stimulus raised employment by between 1.4 million and 3.3 million jobs.
5. Businesses will hire if they get tax cuts.
   Reality: A business hires the right number of employees to meet demand. Having extra cash does not cause a business to hire, but a business that has a demand for what it does will find the money to hire. Businesses want customers, not tax cuts.
6. Health care reform costs $1 trillion.
   Reality: The health care reform reduces government deficits by $138 billion.
7. Social Security is a Ponzi scheme, is "going broke," people live longer, fewer workers per retiree, etc.
   Reality: Social Security has run a surplus since it began, has a trust fund in the trillions, is completely sound for at least 25 more years and cannot legally borrow so cannot contribute to the deficit (compare that to the military budget!) Life expectancy is only longer because fewer babies die; people who reach 65 live about the same number of years as they used to.
8. Government spending takes money out of the economy.
   Reality: Government is We, the People and the money it spends is on We, the People. Many people do not know that it is government that builds the roads, airports, ports, courts, schools and other things that are the soil in which business thrives. Many people think that all government spending is on "welfare" and "foreign aid" when that is only a small part of the government's budget.

This stuff really matters.
If the public votes in a new Congress because a majority of voters think this one tripled the deficit, and as a result the new people follow the policies that actually tripled the deficit, the country could go broke.
If the public votes in a new Congress that rejects the idea of helping to create demand in the economy because they think it didn't work, then the new Congress could do things that cause a depression.
If the public votes in a new Congress because they think the health care reform will increase the deficit when it is actually projected to reduce the deficit, then the new Congress could repeal health care reform and thereby make the deficit worse. And on it goes.

If given the truth...

I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts.
     --- Abraham Lincoln

That's the real key, isn't it? "If given the truth... "

Masters of our fate

the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.
    --- Abraham Lincoln

YES WE CAN!!

And now the real work begins!

I couldn't choose just one...

Ninety-eight percent of the adults in this country are decent, hard-working, honest Americans. It's the other lousy two percent that get all the publicity. But then - we elected them.
     ...Lily Tomlin

It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly American criminal class except Congress.
     ...Mark Twain

If we ever pass out as a great nation we ought to put on our tombstone, 'America died from a delusion that she has moral leadership.'
     --Will Rogers

Smaller government

White House Office of Management and Budget estimates government spending will grow to 20.6 percent of gross domestic product in 2006 from 18.5 percent when President George W. Bush took office in 2001.

Isn't the Republican Party the party of smaller government?

Not bad for a Texas oil promoter

Question posed by Jack Cafferty of CNN: What does a federal judge's ruling that the National Security Agency spying program is illegal mean for President Bush?

It means a clean sweep for President-King George III: He ignores and violates the law as stated in the Constitution. He ignores and violates the law as stated by the Congress. And now he can ignore and violate the decision made by the judiciary. (And on other issues, has ignored and violated international treaties signed by the U.S.) Not bad for a Texas oil promoter.