Intro: "The debt deal will hurt the poorest Americans, convinced by Fox and the Tea Party to act against their own welfare."
President Obama leaves the podium after speaking to reporters about the debt deal, 8/02/11. (photo: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)
Anger, Deceit and a Billionaires' Coup
02 August 11
Anger and deceit has led the US into a billionaires' coup. The debt deal will hurt the poorest Americans, convinced by Fox and the Tea Party to act against their own welfare.
here are two ways of cutting a deficit: raising taxes or reducing spending. Raising taxes means taking money from the rich. Cutting spending means taking money from the poor. Not in all cases of course: some taxation is regressive; some state spending takes money from ordinary citizens and gives it to banks, arms companies, oil barons and farmers. But in most cases the state transfers wealth from rich to poor, while tax cuts shift it from poor to rich.
So the rich, in a nominal democracy, have a struggle on their hands. Somehow they must persuade the other 99% to vote against their own interests: to shrink the state, supporting spending cuts rather than tax rises. In the US they appear to be succeeding.
Partly as a result of the Bush tax cuts of 2001, 2003 and 2005 (shamefully extended by Barack Obama), taxation of the wealthy, in Obama's words, "is at its lowest level in half a century." The consequence of such regressive policies is a level of inequality unknown in other developed nations. As the Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz points out, in the past 10 years the income of the top 1% has risen by 18%, while that of blue-collar male workers has fallen by 12%.
The deal being thrashed out in Congress as this article goes to press seeks only to cut state spending. As the former Republican senator Alan Simpson says: "The little guy is going to be cremated." That means more economic decline, which means a bigger deficit. It's insane. But how did it happen?
The immediate reason is that Republican members of Congress supported by the Tea Party movement won't budge. But this explains nothing. The Tea Party movement mostly consists of people who have been harmed by tax cuts for the rich and spending cuts for the poor and middle. Why would they mobilise against their own welfare? You can understand what is happening in Washington only if you remember what everyone seems to have forgotten: how this movement began.
On Sunday the Observer claimed that "the Tea Party rose out of anger over the scale of federal spending, and in particular in bailing out the banks." This is what its members claim. It's nonsense.
The movement started with Rick Santelli's call on CNBC for a tea party of city traders to dump securities in Lake Michigan, in protest at Obama's plan to "subsidise the losers." In other words, it was a demand for a financiers' mobilisation against the bailout of their victims: people losing their homes. On the same day, a group called Americans for Prosperity (AFP) set up a Tea Party Facebook page and started organising Tea Party events. The movement, whose programme is still lavishly supported by AFP, took off from there.
So who or what is Americans for Prosperity? It was founded and is funded by Charles and David Koch. They run what they call "the biggest company you've never heard of", and between them they are worth $43 billion. Koch Industries is a massive oil, gas, minerals, timber and chemicals company. In the past 15 years the brothers have poured at least $85 million into lobby groups arguing for lower taxes for the rich and weaker regulations for industry. The groups and politicians the Kochs fund also lobby to destroy collective bargaining, to stop laws reducing carbon emissions, to stymie healthcare reform and to hobble attempts to control the banks. During the 2010 election cycle, AFP spent $45m supporting its favoured candidates.
But the Kochs' greatest political triumph is the creation of the Tea Party movement. Taki Oldham's film (Astro)Turf Wars shows Tea Party organisers reporting back to David Koch at their 2009 Defending the Dream summit, explaining the events and protests they've started with AFP help. "Five years ago," he tells them, "my brother Charles and I provided the funds to start Americans for Prosperity. It's beyond my wildest dreams how AFP has grown into this enormous organisation."
AFP mobilised the anger of people who found their conditions of life declining, and channelled it into a campaign to make them worse. Tea Party campaigners take to the streets to demand less tax for billionaires and worse health, education and social insurance for themselves.
Are they stupid? No. They have been misled by another instrument of corporate power: the media. The movement has been relentlessly promoted by Fox News, which belongs to a more familiar billionaire. Like the Kochs, Rupert Murdoch aims to misrepresent the democratic choices we face, in order to persuade us to vote against our own interests and in favour of his.
What's taking place in Congress right now is a kind of political coup. A handful of billionaires have shoved a spanner into the legislative process. Through the candidates they have bought and the movement that supports them, they are now breaking and reshaping the system to serve their interests. We knew this once, but now we've forgotten. What hope do we have of resisting a force we won't even see?
THE NEW STREAMLINED RSN LOGIN PROCESS: Register once, then login and you are ready to comment. All you need is a Username and a Password of your choosing and you are free to comment whenever you like! Welcome to the Reader Supported News community. |
Comments
A note of caution regarding our comment sections:
For months a stream of media reports have warned of coordinated propaganda efforts targeting political websites based in the U.S., particularly in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election.
We too were alarmed at the patterns we were, and still are, seeing. It is clear that the provocateurs are far more savvy, disciplined, and purposeful than anything we have ever experienced before.
It is also clear that we still have elements of the same activity in our article discussion forums at this time.
We have hosted and encouraged reader expression since the turn of the century. The comments of our readers are the most vibrant, best-used interactive feature at Reader Supported News. Accordingly, we are strongly resistant to interrupting those services.
It is, however, important to note that in all likelihood hardened operatives are attempting to shape the dialog our community seeks to engage in.
Adapt and overcome.
Marc Ash
Founder, Reader Supported News
This is the first time I have ever seen anyone hand their balls over to others.
Please, Mr. President, learn the new lessons of negotiation. You cannot use reason when dealing with hate.
Time to forget about this pathetic con man and turn your attention to the local level where it may still be possible to change things.
Our greed and power addicted rulers (with their endless, oh so profitable for them wars, wars, wars, for oil, oil, oil), now call all the shots, including the manipulated recession/depre ssion we now suffer.
Time is now to take off the blinders, see how Bushwhacked, Kochsucked, and OhBombAh'ed we are, and fight like Irish/Wisconsin hell to...UNDO THE COUP!
In any case we can not afford to wait and hope, We have to TAKE ACTION. For starters, I doubt that the MSM will brings this to the attention of the country.
SO WE MUST SEND THIS TO AS MANY FRIENDS AS POSSIBLE AND TELL THEM KEEP IT GOING.
Think about the young EGYPTIANS, what they managed to do on the internet.?????
ARE WE ANY LESS??? I sure hope not.
Two English professors met one day, not having seen each other for some time.
Said Professor A: "B, old chap, I haven't seen you for a long while."
Said Professor B: "I've been away in America researching my new book."
Said Professor A: "Ah, what's the topic?"
Said Professor B: "The persistence of social classes in America."
Said Professor A: "Why, I didn't think they had social classes in America!"
Said Professor B: "Neither do they. That's how they persist."
Good comment. I agree. Crony Capitalism is horrible; almost as bad as Socialism.
Sounds like you're ready to join the Tea Party. Welcome aboard.
Tea Partiers would have let Goldman Sachs (aka Government Sachs) fail. Obama first hired then and then saved them.
so, let me get this straight, according to this article the Koch brothers, billionaires, founded the Tea Party.
and, they are for the rich people staying rich, not for the average working American. once again, how is it that they would have let another rich company Goldman Sachs) fail; maybe so they could buy them up at discount prices; what am I missing here?
When Nader said there was no substantive difference between the Republicans and the Democrats, he knew what he was talking about. He saw the binding force of laws. Now you see how it happened. Just keep your eyes wide open. Maybe we can also change it.
is this the same as making yourself throw up, when you have eaten food that is spoiled, because you know you will feel better eventually?
problem is, we are ALL going to be living under bridges along with those stupid fools!
perhaps, I guess this is what happens when people take words literally...all men are created equal...
they say the meek will inherit the earth; does that mean that the rich or the poor will end up living on a basically uninhabitable earth?
Put him in a kettle of cold water.
turn up the heat s l o w l y. and THE POOR SUCKER WON'T REALIZE HE IS COOKED.
WAKE UO PEOPLE THERE IS A HELL OF A LOT OF FROGS IN OUR COUNTRY.
GET OUT OF THE KETTLE
the trick is to do the deed and then pass the consequences on to someone else, probably the meeks who are reputed to be inheriting the earth...
wow; so everyone who voted for Obama hoping that there was a shred of decency left in America was dishonest; actually I could consider stupid or easily duped or hopelessly optimtistic; but dishonest, gee that kind of lets the bad guys off the hook; sort of like blame the victim approach?
The corporate media is the Ministry of Propaganda of the dictatorship that now even has its own flag that in place of stars are corporate logos and can be seen at www.adbusters.com.
For those of you who still accept the Warren Commission findings, just "reverse engineer" major politico/econom ic events from the "Wall Street Meltdown" of coincidentally late in presidential election year 2008, back to America's war on Islam for oil, to the fraudulent presidential elections of 2004 and 2000, to 9/11, to Reagan's "Iran-Contragat e" and the S & L rip-off, to "Watergate" and Nixon's fraudulent War on Drugs, to LBJ's war on Vietnam, and to the murder of JFK. Then perhaps conspiracy may not seem so far-fetched.
One thing certain, JFK's assassination was a sharp turn to the right and Oswald was NOT steering the ship-of-state back then.
The right-wing operatives know how stupid these people are and move right in to take advantage of it. Until the populace smartens up I'm afraid we are on a train bound to crash and to blame it all on being misinformed is poppycock.
Scaring Seniors -- http://www.factcheck.org/2008/09/scaring-seniors/
Obama's Social Security Whopper -- http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/obamas_social_security_whopper.html
What's worse than thinking seniors to be stupid, is thinking seniors to be stupid, than understanding that the entire national MSM would never dare to challenge you on your lies.
Yes, people are willfully ignorant, willful blindness if you will, and why else could that be, besides stupidity; well, here in violent America where there are more murders in one year than in the rest of the world put together, including wars; another answer is that people live in fear of their government.
In Michael Moore's film Sicko he asked French citizen about impression of US; answer: in France the government is afraid of the citizens; in America the citizens are afraid of their government.
Often guns are the way disputes are settled and NRA justifies gun ownership as way for citizens to keep control.
How about Bill Gates and Warren Buffet?
I just wonder how much Carl Rove had to do with designing it.
He was too generous. It appears that the US has found a way to combine barbarism and decadence at the same time ... civilization? Not so much.
Whichever, it's hard to argue with the thesis.
SS, these people BELIEVE WHAT THEY BELIEVE, and MAY NEVER CHANGE. Rove, the Kochs, Beck, and the like are somewhere having a party and laughing at these people they've suckered so easily. SELF-DECEPTION is much more dangerous than the average person realizes.
Obama went on TV one night all pissed off after Boehner had walked out of negotiations, and it was the Obama we'd all been praying for. He talked straight and told it like it was; what people needed to hear, especially the misled-Right. Two nights later, instead of continuing this strong stance, he went back to wordy-passivity , stupidly trying to be Mr. Nice. Everyone knew that Boehner would come on after him and lie even more, but even knowing this didn't stop Obama from offering nothing but milk toast. He had an opportunity. What we saw was Stockholm Syndrome at the Executive level.
Ellen, I am NOT ready to raise the flag of surrender just yet. Murdoch Media Mogul Empire is about to detonate, and hopefully, take down their "payroll list of politicians, Newscorp., Faux Nooz, and everything else with his dirty mitts on it WITH HIM! Throw in the repugs, blue dogs, and teabaggers as well; maybe the explosion will WAKE UP AMERICA!!!
It's a weapon of the elite which causes us to substiture therapy for political action.
I'm only 66, but I refuse to surrender to mind games.
Take back the Democratic Party.
Look what fascistic T-baggers did with the already egregious Republicans, and start to bring the so-called "liberals" to their senses.
Where is Abbie Hoffman when we need him? Or, failing that, where are the environmentalis ts, feminists, anti-poverty activists, trade unionists, minority group representatives ... you know, the AMERICAN PEOPLE ... (and, yes, us "seniors" too.
Well, Abbie Hoffman is dead,unfortunat ely; and many other people who might be candidates for "regime change" are busy, lining up to buy the next IPhone/tech gadget. I hear there is a new one set to debut in September.
http://politics.nytimes.com/congress/votes/112/house/1/690
It's good to know who the criminals are, isn't it?
That is what I want to see. The Reublicans will now advertise in colors not of Red but blue so you think you are not voting Republicans. One thing I can say they are not stupid.
and in my book they are the Criminals.
Yes.
The inverse nature of Usability vs Availability is an interesting dilemma. An increase in one will likely drive a decrease in the other and as they approach their maximum ranges, the schizim between the two grows.
Integrating the evaluation and management of this relationship into the day to day operations is key to successful governing. However, now that our elected officials are bought and sold like farm animals their ability to evaluate and manage this interesting phenomena has disappeared and we appear to be tumbling into the abyss where it is 'every man for himself' which of course is beyond the control of the perpetrators of this situation... kind of like when the banks stopped analyzing people's ability to pay for the mortgages they were awarding, for which the so called watch dogs awarded the banks triple A ratings... and then it all blew up! Well what do you know... Who might have guessed? Wow!
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable". JFK
Remember they are millionaires. and expecting to get more from the Kotches and Murdocks.
TV shows were discussed (what else?) I mentioned I favor The Office and Rescue Me. I continued I didn't watch much else with the exception of news shows and Discovery Channel with my son.
The new acquaintance took the opening to inform me that "everything on TV these days is crap." She noted, however, that she loved FOX-especially Glen Beck. The "soccer Mom" had informed me (I really didn't ask) that she was an unemployed hair stylist. She was unemployed due to a "bad back" and was applying for SSI. Her husband was a truck driver who was losing hours because of Obama. Obama was bad for the country as he was spending "all that money" on welfare.
I mumbled something incoherently and quietly walked away, never even considering an attempt at logical/rationa l discourse. It seemed it would have been a futile attempt to try to change someone's mind who was totally incapaple of legitimate critical thought,- based on factual information.
It is time to admit what we are up against. We (leftists) are a small minority. I believe we are doomed.
I do think the media is complicit in this. Our local news stations have turned into a joke, good only for weather and traffic. Heard one commentator remark that Greece was so broke it was selling off its national treasures to other countries. "That's really bad, can you imagine?" replied the other talking head. Shaking heads, tsking, while I am screaming at the screen that WE are selling off turnpikes and toll roads and other parts of our vital infrastructure to foreign investors, and don't these newscasters, directors, producers know ANYTHING????
Or people overheard at the library complaining about their taxes as they use the Internet on public computers, check out books and music and DVDs -- all for free, for everyone, because everyone contributed just a few dollars for the privilege of living in a civilized society. That's how it's supposed to work. I have to keep hoping that someday they'll figure it out -- hopefully before they destroy the country. I still kind of love the idea of America.
Which is why I never bother watching network news. Al Jazeera, BBC and PBS is factual.
So they watch Ch. Sheen and Lind. Lohan and you watch BBC and Pbs.
That does not make you any better just a little more discriminating at what you watch.
We need Americans to be informed and involved in our effort to get this country going and you do nothing.
People all over the world love the idea of America; the problem is with its implementation which requires "eternal vigilence", something that we need to foster in children. something that one would hope the public school system that we all pay for would include in its curriculum.
They are furious now and realize what a big mistake they made in voting in Republicans, now they are trying to get them out. Next election you know who they will be voting for.
And I think this will be all over the U.S. Voting Democrats in for a huge majority and then tell them give us back our country and do what we the people want. I think they will becaue the Democrats have always been on the peoples side. Having a huge majority will make a big, big, difference.
Solution - mass-genocide of the poor, sick, elderly, weak and disenfranchised .
The U.S., long engaged in this pursuit internationally , has now joined the cabal of nations already fully engaged in reducing their own populations.
Welcome to the "New World Order!"
That just about describe's the Tea Party, Americans for Prosperity, FOX and their blanked-out lock-steppers to a tee.
The tactics of blackmail, misinformation and threats of a national default leading up to the latest "Deal', if you want to call it that, (very much like the Tea Party Town hall disrupters), are very similar to those used by Hitler's thuggish S.A. Brownshirts who bullied the electorate into the overthrow of the Wermarcht. Of course the Fuhrer had them massacred too in the 'Night of the Long Knives' after they had become an embarrassment to his campaign to capture the hearts and minds of the average German, so he could swell the armed ranks and war machine for his "Thousand-Year Reich' (sound familiar yet?).
I wonder if we'll see such a self-devouring dismissal of the T.P. faction that hitched it's wagon to the Republicans and are now trying to dominate the main body, (bad enough in themselves already!) and pulling it ever closer to the abyss of total unreason?
Meanwhile, Obama and most of the Dem's sit on their hands and hope for reason, -or sympathy, or-or-or???!
To the streets!
Unfortunately, the "blanked-out lock-steppers" I refer to are unlikely to read ANYTHING, especially of substance. They are more likely to watch FOX fantasy and the infotainment, quality-free muck which the corporate media shoves down their collective, numbed-out gullets as stuffing between commercials.
They are the types to whom Hitler's well-rehearsed (in front of a mirror even) message resonated. Now take you pick between Glen "Muck", the Murdoch Empire, Michelle Barfman et al -distill to taste, there's plenty of them out there.
Might I suggest in return that y'all read William Shirer's "The Nightmare Years", his daily correspondence and broadcasts from Germany in the years leading up to WW11 before he and his Swiss wife had to get out for good. There are some frightening parallels to the current era of state and corporate-spons ored, increasing mean-spiritedne ss, fear of the other and the burgeoning prosperity of the corporate state's war machinedarlings like Krupps, Messerschmit, Fokker and others, whilst the population are retained as cannon-fodder.
Also, Greg Palast's "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy" and "Armed Madhouse", Michel Parenti's "Against Empire" and many others. There is a whole library of progressive literature out there which the average American has never, nor is likely to hear of.
It is amazing that so many unemployed are turning away jobs and financial opportunities after being successfully deluded by the Tea Party, Walmart and all the other interests which are working together to keep American's economy in the doldrums because a handful of extremely wealthy individuals are afraid of forking over a few dollars to folks who work for a living. How long can this go on?
i see some1 is saying 'to the streets!'
it has to be something big. if 50-100 ppl show up, its worse than nothing. there is supposed to be a demonstration in DC in october. www.October2011.org
if 50,000 ppl dont show up, then invest in lockheed, haliburton, or xe cuz we will be at war forever.
They are very happy with the Republican party so what does that prove? Nothing.
It just comes down to the fact if you have money you are satisfied with everything including the Republican party which they will vote for again and again.
And if you are middle class or poor or elderly on SS or a kid hungry than you most certainly do not like the Republican party. They are a greedy party, they have plenty but want more, and more and more.
You post alludes to an artificial class division among the voters that has been contrived by the media in an effort to sell the products sponsoring their broadcasts. This effort has not been unsuccessful but buying into it is neither healthy or rational; all of us rich and poor alike live together and form the good faith relations we have with one another.
The Republican Party as you point out capitalizes and feeds on this distortion. If there is for example a "middle class" then the pertinent question is what labels are suggested by the other classes; what are their characteristics ? We hear nothing of this because the "other classes" are mindless consumers of nonsense and political bilge and do not warrant recognition or merit by the media. Your perception is astute but your labels fit with the media propaganda.
I'm not sure that McLame and the brunette bimbo from Wasilla _would_ have been any worse. At least we _knew_ what they were.
Now I realize what I wasn't seeing at the time ... _nobody_ rises to the top that fast unless they've got the corporations behind them.
The answer according to Russ Baker is George H.W. Bush who appears on a J. Edgar Hover memo in 1963 listing "George Bush of the CIA" Baker gives lts of circumstantial evidence for HW's role in the assassination. Kennedy wantd to remove the Oil Depletion Allowance, and Dresser Industries didn't want that, for sure.
Conspiracy theories almost always get in the way of logic and the facts.
"As the Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz points out, in the past 10 years the income of the top 1% has risen by 18%."
Let's look at the numbers. Well, I don't know what's happened to the income percentage of the top 1% during Obama's first two years - I only see it compiled thru 2008.
So... Income share of top 1%
Enter Clinton:
1993 - 13.79%
1994 - 13.80%
1995 - 14.60%
1960 - 16.04%
1997 - 17.38%
1998 - 18.47%
1999 - 19.51%
2000 - 20.87%
Up 51%
Enter Bush:
2001 - 17.53%
2002 - 16.12%
2003 - 16.77%
2004 - 19.00%
2005 - 21.20%
2006 - 22.06%
2007 - 22.83%
2008 - 20.00%
Up 11.55%
Of course, the average CEO Pay to average worker pay soared meteoricly during the Clinton era, only to fall back in all 8 years of the Bush era.
http://www.aflcio.org/corporatewatch/paywatch/images/2010_trend_chart_2.gif
That is an intolerant ignorant slur - borders on bigotry.
Everyone not only has the right to stand for their beliefs, they have the right to be heard - and others have the obligation to listen and consider what is being expressed.
This country needs to learn how to debate again.
Not that I agree with them, but you might have missed the polls which showed that nationally, 67% supported the House Republican bill - the Cut, Cap and Balance Bill. Most all polls showed a super majority simply not wanting to raise the debt ceiling. A majority want a balanced budget amendment.
Now - a majority also said that they want a balanced approach.
The TP opposed it - the left opposed it.
Welcome to American politics - but always remember, and I suspect that your personal views represent a very thin minority, make your case, but do it with respect and with some sense of I have something worth listening to, as well.
Don't call the other side whores - unless you want to start a war. Right speech is always preferable.
Did the TeaTHUGliklans put a statement in the bill showing the section that authorizes such an action?
Hey, it's _THEIR_ rule.
cut and run? can't do that. defense spending must be huge along with the political pressure to keep it that way/jobs are involved there too.... catch 22. it is indeed a quagmire, and there are no Paris peace talks.
Obama looks horrible and because of the theory of raised expectations righteous anger ensues.
no single payer, no peace, no jobs, no money....etc..
he knows we need government spending which was the lesson of the great depression, but he can't get the money because the right has convinced the un educated that taxes can't be raised, even to save starving children. it is sick, but it is the reality he is dealing with and no one wants to cut the guy a break....they are so mad they are not thinking.....gr eat, now the rightwing is laughing. are we all idiots here? time to get tough. time to fight back together. the democrats were a will rogers joke, and still are. they never learn. not one republican broke the ranks. not one. they will always defeat us that way, and they know it.
we never learn.
look, not one republican broke the ranks. not one. they will always defeat us that way, and they know it. read rove's lips this time. no new taxes. the kid learned his lesson from his father's mistake. (actually his father george h. raised taxes to prevent a recession. he was a great president compared to the idiot son. and he didn't invade bagdad did he? he told reagan not to do that when he was cia director and he kept his word and advice. he should get props for that. instead he is made to look stupid. again, the guy was cia director and a navy pilot. )
Yes, they have demonstrated their wealth with power to bring down the working class, poor, and senior citizens of this nation morally.
Those who laught first, will laugh last!
Their is no economic growth in ths nation. Unemployment is still rising, more cuts are expected to our vulnerable citizens.
All these notable rapers of our nation's citizens and especially the T Party and the evil Republicans will be in mourning with grief! Very soon their money will be worthless, stock markets and businesses will crash! The United States the new POLITICAL BABYLON will take a great and mighty FALL!
They forgot one thing! We the People, (poor, working class, senior citizens, etc.) are the real reasons this nation was thriving. We ARE the real consumers of this nation!When we are without, what will the RICH, POWERFUL and GREEDY DO?
Our great and grandparents survived the Great Depression. They lost trust in the government, banking industry, etc.
Here we are today repeating history. When will we learn?
The Democrats agreed to extend the billionaire tax cuts even when they had majorities in both houses of Congress, supposedly in exchange for Republican support for the "bipartisan" stimulus for financial institutions. What did working people get out of that except the small portion used to bail out Chrysler and General Motors? The bankers and stockbrokers got the rest.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0e7AQQTONvg&feature=related
Labor and those who still have jobs must join forces with,the unemployed the working poor,environmen talists and civil rights activists.Our interests all coincide at equality and fairness. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqiAl84ipIk&NR=1
The rich and powerful have all the money in the world and all of the Republicans, most of the Tea Baggers and enough Democrats have succumbed to the campaign cash and the "educational fact finding trips" and "educational opportunities" offered by groups like ALEC and Americans For Prosperity,dang ling shiny trinkets and baubles. Both groups work for the prosperity of the wealthy at the expense of our society as a whole.
John Lennon knew what put the fear in the powerful and wealthy. The people.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njG7p6CSbCU
Karma rules in the end.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqP3wT5lpa4&NR=1
Opinion is treated as fact, and facts are dismissed as merely opinion. Whether something is true or not seems to have little relevance. These people don't as much vore for a Republican candidate, as much as the vote against a Democratic opponent. The Right has successfully scared the sh!t out of their base, or angered them into voting completely against their own economic best interest.
We should always:
1. Ask ourselves "who ultimately benefits from me believing what I'm being told?" Follow the money.
2. Understand that opinion+emotion doesn't = fact, it only = a strong opinion.
3. Recognize that just because we agree with someone, doesn't mean they're telling us the truth.
RSS feed for comments to this post