Using what you don’t know to define who you think is fact.
Tuesday, November 02, 2010
Monday, November 01, 2010
The American Left Is A Phantom
"The American left is a phantom. It is conjured up by the right wing to tag Barack Obama as a socialist and used by the liberal class to justify its complacency and lethargy. It diverts attention from corporate power. It perpetuates the myth of a democratic system that is influenced by the votes of citizens, political platforms and the work of legislators. It keeps the world neatly divided into a left and a right. The phantom left functions as a convenient scapegoat. The right wing blames it for moral degeneration and fiscal chaos. The liberal class uses it to call for “moderation.” And while we waste our time talking nonsense, the engines of corporate power—masked, ruthless and unexamined—happily devour the state." - Chris Hedges
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Friday, October 29, 2010
Mid Morning Matters with Alan Partridge Trailer
New Alan Partridge series in UK. "Mid Morning Matters with Alan Partridge". Trailer is amazing.
The Challenge Of Overcoming Ignorance
Public perceptions aren't even close to reality -- by a 52% to 19% margin, for example, likely voters think their federal tax burden has gone up over the last couple of years, even though it hasn't. Indeed, Democrats approved one of the largest middle-class tax cuts in American history, and the public has no idea that it even happened.
"I've long considered one of President Obama's better qualities is his reluctance to talk down to voters. But it's possible his assumptions about maturity and the public discourse are simply too generous -- leaders can't assume the electorate has the wisdom to ignore nonsense when the evidence to the contrary is overwhelming."
The Cult Of Beck
According to publicly available documents filed in federal court, a cousin of Charles Wilson -- a Washington man sentenced to prison last week for repeatedly threatening to kill Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) after she voted in favor of health care reform legislation -- said Wilson's "fears were grown and fostered by [Glenn] Beck's persuasive personality.
via mediamatters.org
Glenn Beck is a clown. A former morning zoo DJ. But when you spoon feed his propaganda to his mentally dim, "room-temperature IQ" base, clearly, bad things can happen.
Can We Handle The Truth?
SavingPaper
By a 2:1 margin, likely midterm voters believe taxes have increased, the economy has shrunk, and TARP lost money it’ll never recover. None is true.
Bill Schools Sarah
"She got a big laugh when she said, how’s that hopey changey thing working for you now? What I want you to think about is something way more important. How’s that trickle down thing working for you for a long time?"— Bill Clinton on Sarah Palin and Republican economics
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Everyone Gets A Piece
Of course, it's a simplification to see government as a big pool of money. Distributional conflict has many guises. The money in the pool has to come from somewhere, so the battle is waged just as much over who is forced to pay into the pool and under what circumstances.The middle class doesn't like to get welfare checks, so instead it gets tax credits and deductions for doing things middle-class people generally do anyway. It's six one way, half-a-dozen the other.
via economist.com
But welfare is so much easier to demonize. The "welfare queen driving a Cadillac" Reagan loved to lie about. No one seems to notice it's a '67 Cadillac rust bucket with no wheels.
Understatement Of The Day
“A majority of Tea Party members, I suspect, are not fans of Islam," - Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips, when questioned about an email he sent to supporters urging them not to vote for Congressman Keith Ellison (D-MN) in part because he is Muslim.
"I suspect"? I suspect Judson knows a thing or two about identity politics.
The Republican Fear Campaign: Example #952
“Let me make sure I understand this. The ad’s contention is that seniors are going to be forced out of Medicare and into a ‘government-run health care’ program?”
| — | Steve Inskeep, on Morning Edition, discussing a campaign ad from Indiana GOP Senate candidate Dan Coats against Democrat Brad Ellsworth. Bill Adair, editor of PolitiFact.com, ranted Coats’ ad “pants on fire.” |
Republican Talking Point DEAD
via brooklynmutt.com
“This is a president that we know less about than any other president in history.” - Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Obama: A Rare Breed - The Philospher President
Harvard historian James T. Kloppenberg on Obama:
“The reason, he explained, is his conclusion that President Obama is a true intellectual — a word that is frequently considered an epithet among populists with a robust suspicion of Ivy League elites.
In New York City last week to give a standing-room-only lecture about his forthcoming intellectual biography, “Reading Obama: Dreams, Hopes, and the American Political Tradition,” Mr. Kloppenberg explained that he sees Mr. Obama as a kind of philosopher president, a rare breed that can be found only a handful of times in American history.
“There’s John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and John Quincy Adams, then Abraham Lincoln and in the 20th century just Woodrow Wilson,” he said.
via nytimes.com
It gets hard when the opposition is a few major steps below the Cliff Notes version of intellectualism. A once-a-generation pragmatic President is met with the proud ignorance of Palin, Beck and O'Donnell.
This Is The World That Fox Has Created
One young man insisted that Holder is "the most anti-gun attorney general this nation has ever had." When Rachel asked how he arrived at this, he had absolutely no idea why he believes what he believes. He referenced Holder's "voting record beforehand," which made no sense, since Holder has never held elected office. Asked what it was, exactly, that Holder did on gun policy he didn't like, the Miller supporter -- who, remember, feels so strongly about this issue that he brought it up -- replied, "I, uh, I honestly, uh, I don't know enough about him to answer that truthfully."
So, Rachel moved to the next voter who's mad about Holder, and who also brought up the subject. "He's anti-gun," the woman said. Asked what he'd done that's anti-gun, the Miller support replied, "I don't have all the facts, but I know that he is."
Pining For The Good Ol' Days: Get Your Facts Right
"When the Tea Partyers get around to identifying how America has changed and to whose benefit, however, they get it almost all wrong. In the worldview of the American right -- and the polling shows conclusively that that's who the Tea Party is -- the nation, misled by President Obama, has gone down the path to socialism. In fact, far from venturing down that road, we've been stuck on the road to hyper-capitalism for three decades now.
The Tea Partyers are right to be wary of income redistribution, but if they had even the slightest openness to empiricism, they'd see that the redistribution of the past 30 years has all been upward -- radically upward. From 1950 through 1980, the share of all income in America going to the bottom 90 percent of Americans -- effectively, all but the rich -- increased from 64 percent to 65 percent, according to an analysis of tax data by economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez. Because the nation's economy was growing handsomely, that means that the average income of Americans in the bottom 90 percent was growing, too -- from $17,719 in 1950 to $30,941 in 1980 -- a 75 percent increase in income in constant 2008 dollars.
Since 1980, it's been a very different story. The economy has continued to grow handsomely, but for the bottom 90 percent of Americans, it's been a time of stagnation and loss. Since 1980, the share of all income in America going to the bottom 90 percent has declined from 65 percent to 52 percent. In actual dollars, the average income of Americans in the bottom 90 percent flat-lined -- going from the $30,941 of 1980 to $31,244 in 2008.
In short, the economic life and prospects for Americans since the Reagan Revolution have grown dim, while the lives of the rich -- the super-rich in particular -- have never been brighter. The share of income accruing to America's wealthiest 1 percent rose from 9 percent in 1974 to a tidy 23.5 percent in 2007." -- Harold Meyerson
Middle Class voters struggle to tell friend from foe. From 1980 on, the Right has convinced them Government sending is bad, even though the Middle Class benefits the most.
"In short, for 30 years, people who struggling to keep their heads above water have been told not to trust life-preservers if they're paid for with public funds."
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