They’re Orwelling Us Again
The first thing I thought when listening to Public Radio’s “Marketplace Morning Report” this morning was WTF? Someone from the Heritage Foundation was saying that what poor people lack isn’t money, it’s lack of opportunity.
And that’s when it hit me. They’re doing it again. They’re “Newspeaking” us.
Boy, these guys are smart. And they think we’re all really really dumb.
They think we’re so dumb that we’ll stop talking about income inequality. About the 1% and the 99%.
They think we’re all so dumb that we won’t remember that these “compassionate” conservatives have consistently taken our opportunities away from us for the past several decades and given them to the very rich – helping them get richer and richer while the rest of us get poorer and poorer.
They think we’re so dumb that we won’t remember that they compassioned us out of our money.
They think we’re so dumb that we won’t remember that they have compassioned us out of our jobs.
They think we’re so dumb that we won’t remember that they are planning to compassion us out of our health care.
They think we’re so dumb that we won’t remember that they compassioned a heck of a lot us right out of our homes.
I hope and pray that we’re not that dumb, that we’re not so dumb that we’ll fall for their Newspeak again. But I’m not sure about this. These guys are very, very good at doing The Orwell.
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O R they?
I sure hope not.
Seriously though, from what I can tell there are two main sources of “opportunity” for middle America.
First, decent wages. Median income has stagnated even though those at the top, individuals and large corporations, are making lots of money. Due to tax breaks and lower tax rates, those at the top, the “Job Creators”, have been getting exactly the type of medicine that conservatives claim will translate into more “Opportunity” for the rest of America. But the sad fact is that it just hasn’t worked out that way, the same way it hasn’t worked out ever. This should be painfully obvious to the middle and lower class voters that somehow still buy into the conservative narrative. They are making more money, and instead of spreading it around they are just keeping it. And the majority of this lucre goes where? Invested heavily into new investment vehicles of questionable stability and little impact to the GDP.
The second driving factor is access to credit for the middle class. Like small business loans. Since the credit crisis banks that have traditionally made money along this path have steered away from it. Loans of this type are very hard to get, so small businesses can’t get up and running unless they get lucky or have an angel investor of some type. Or a long lost aunt dies and leaves them a pile of money. This is a direct result of the shenanigans going on at the highest, and most unregulated, levels in the financial sector. A sector that is defended to the death in their corruptions and short sightedness by the GOP at every turn. So basically, my take is the Heritage Foundation can take their crappy analysis and stick it where the sun don’t shine.
I have never heard a greater misuse of the word compassion as has been used in this article. Sorry i read it.
Now the word compassion is going to be politicized and you want to be part of that one? Is that not the ‘Orwelling’ pot calling the ‘Orwelling’ kettle dark?
Slamfu…You stated “This is a direct result of the shenanigans going on at the highest, and most unregulated, levels in the financial sector. A sector that is defended to the death in their corruptions and short sightedness by the GOP at every turn.”
I agree that this unregulated financial sector has led to huge econonmic dificulties in this country, but I ask two questions.
1. What impact did the repeal of Glass- Steagall have on the deregulation and financial collapse? This was bi-partisan (Senate 90-9 and House 362-57).Clinton also declared Glass-Steagall dead prior to this vote.
2. What has Obama done to bring the perp’s that created much of the financial collapse to justice? Remember, he had a Democrat controlled congress from 2009 to 2011, so much could have occurred during those sessions, along with his justice department investigating Wall St. wrong doings.
I say lets not be so damning of the GOP for all the ills that occurred in the financial sector. There is enough blame to go around to most all in D.C.
Maybe if peoples efforts were focused on finding politicians that would make changes and would not walk lock step with both parties, positive change could occur, but right now all we have is such division in the country no one wants to work together to find candidates willing to work for the people and not their parties and big business. Democrats are losing “Blue Dog” moderates and the GOP are losing centrists that will come together and vote what is right for the country.
If we had moderates on both sides, maybe something positive would come out of legislation that would result in sensible regulations, tax reform, job creation and the ability for those on the lower end of the income matrix to begin their upward movement. But right now there are few moderates to make this happen, so we will continue to get nothing and the 1% will get richer and the 99% poorer.
This morning’s guest was from the American Enterprise Institute. He was attempting to claim that you can provide opportunity to the poor without spending any money. No need to tax the wealthy any more than they’re currently paying, etc. AEI has no credibility yet they keep getting to comment on things.
RP.. let me answer those.
1) It was the Graham-Leech-Bliley bill, republicans all, who started the ball rolling on this travesty. Not only did they author the bill, but the conservative side of the aisle are also the ones pushing the overall narrative that regulations are killing jobs, and if we aren’t doing away with them, you are hurting the economy. This is a narrative that like lower taxes = more jobs is easily digestible by the public, makes sense on the surface, and is totally wrong. Especially in this case. The bill was not accepted at first, and the democrats basically used it to negotiate for a bunch of stuff they wanted before it got passed. So while I fault the dems for being stupid enough not to see the repercussions, without the major push by the GOP this would not have happened. They seem to be at the root of most bad legislation. As to how it affected things, without this commercial banks would not have been able to offer up their sub prime mortgages to be rolled into securities which ran out in 6 months, and they would not have had the insane drive to make more of them as fast as they could to fuel the sales of said securities. Basically the housing bubble would not have occurred if banks weren’t financially incentivized to throw out all sane credit processing practices in making trillions of dollars in loans.
2) Obama hasn’t done much of anything, in fact he seems to be absurdly comfortable doing nothing. Next to signing the Defense Act allowing him to imprison anyone he wants without trial this is my biggest sticking point with his administration. I consider him a dismal failure in this regard. However, no one in the GOP seems to be interested in addressing this issue either, certainly not Romney, so this issue tragically becomes a wash when I decide who to vote for. If there was a serious candidate that was going to address this issue, unless he was otherwise a madman he’d probably get my vote.
Why is it so bad that other people are making money while you are not?
Maybe you made bad choices. Why is it always someones else fault because your life isn’t perfect?
We all had choices to make.
I don’t mind the rich getting richer, as long as middle American can keep pace. In the long run, if that doesn’t happen the economy collapses. When we implement policies that basically ensure that, I have issues. The rich don’t keep the economy going, they don’t consume the vast majority of goods and services that grow the GDP. Its like a food chain. Or rather, trickle down economics but in reverse. How is GM supposed to sell cars if no one has enough money to buy them? Expand that logic to all sectors and what happens to the economy? Its not jealously, its national economic policy, which apparently conservatives think operates on the same principles of running a lemonade stand.
Slamfu..I have to agree with most everything you have said except for the repee of GS being all GOP. If the votes had been 60-40 or 65-35 in the senate, then I would agree that this was all the GOP shenanigans, but when the vote is 90-9 and the same overwhelming vote in the house supports the bill, then it appears to me that there is equal blame to go around.
And yes, most all of the housing problems might have been avoided had the deregulation of the banks not occurred.
As for voting for Obama, well I am going to cast my vote like someone who owns a business and hires a CEO that does not work out after 3 1/2 years. I believe the known incompetence of the individual in office offsets the unknowns of the individual that wants to take that position. And I know that there are many who say just watch the political ads and you will know where the challenger stands. I will wait for the debates to decide if I will vote, and then if I do it will be for someone and not against someone.
That’s exactly why I’m voting for Obama. I’m about the results. What you are comparing is the hypothetical Romney in 4 years with what Obama has done in the last 3.5. However, what you should be comparing is what Bush did vs. what Obama has done. Because Romney is going to be implementing the same conservative policies that Bush did. And while Obama has only managed to achieve tepid growth, at least he didn’t completely screw us. Which is what you should be looking at. That doesn’t even count numerous issues such as Bush was handed a pretty robust economy while Obama was handed the biggest crap sandwich since FDR. I think we can agree it is a lot harder to fix things than it is to break them. Throw in a blatantly obstructionist GOP congress and even tepid growth starts to seem like a ray of sunshine.
Essentially you are voting for a CEO who is just like the worst CEO in modern history. He’s come right out and said it. Obama is the hedge bet, Romney is Bush all over again.
To follow up on slam’s points. An essay on cynicism. The author projects that Romney might win because we no longer understand how to govern ourselves.
[His is the most purely cynical campaign in recent memory, selling to a battered economy the very policies that battered it in the first place, and doing so confident in the knowledge that the country has forgotten, or has become completely confused, about what was done to it. And cynicism sells best to the cynical.
For going on 40 years now, we have been encouraged in our cynicism by the very forces of which Mitt Romney is a perfect product. The ideal of a self-governing political commonwealth did not break down in the public mind because we got smarter, or it got obsolete. It was deliberately demolished, brick by brick, by people who knew what they were doing and did it very well. They replaced it with an artificial form of populism by which self-government was destroyed as a viable option so that something called "government" could be created in its place as a kind of alien entity.]
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/romney-gaffes-11214991?hootPostID=9dbc8e45258692e6ddf301d5d3ef0955
The idea that we need to find a way for the poor and middle class to have more opportunity seems pretty obvious to me, so I’m not sure what all the fuss is about. It seems he might has said, “I like puppies” and the same post could have been written. It would also help to know who said it and what they actually said, and what the context was. But again, It doesn’t seem like what he said is really the issue.
As for who or what is to blame for income inequality, I think most experts who have looked at the problem in depth have concluded that it’s a complicated problem with multiple contributing factors. It’s not clear that government policy has played a leading role, and if it has, how and why. Timothy Noah explored the issue (link is too long. Search for “Can We Blame Income Inequality on Republicans? – Slate Magazine”).
As part of that he cites some numbers compiled by Larry Bartels which suggests that Republicans may be more responsible. But his theory breaks down quite easily, as I explained here: http://sovereignmind.wordpress.com/2010/09/11/how-to-mislead-with-charts-whos-responsible-for-the-great-divergence/
Jim, thank you. I got the attribution wrong. It was the American Enterprise Institute this morning. Sorry about that.
That is a neat piece on how they can be tweaked but the most interesting piont is the data points chosen. How you can do that without doing it by year and by tax rates I don’t know. Also, republicans were not really that different until Reagan. Ike was a republican, but not by today’s standards. Probably ditto the tree hugging Nixon. Essentially he takes a pretty meaningless piece of data analysis and points out its meaningless. Inadvertently in reversing the initial assumption that the democrats know what they are doing, I came away feeling like I owe republicans an apology. Well played sir, well played.
I’m going to put something together with a few more data points. Come on whiskey, we got work to do!
Slamfu..You are opeining up anther can of worms when you mention Ike and how much different he was than current Republicans.
Ike was in the mold of a Rockefeller Republican which was considered more liberal when the Republicans were considered much more moderate than by todays standards.
And to mention those being diifferent, one of JFK’s major legislative moves was reduced taxes. Just read his speeches on line and you will find many of the Republican arguements for lowering taxes.
Just like the republicans were for the individual mandate before they were against it, so to were Democrats for lower taxes for everyone before they were for higher taxes.
Which is exactly why I would divide it up not by which party was in power, but what the fiscal policies in play at the time were. Tax rates, Capital Gains, Regulations enactments/repeals, GDP Growth, government spending, deficit levels, consumer spending, inflation. I’m going to put them all down by year as far back as I can go and see if any trends pop up. Might need some tequila too.
I think there should be a corollary to Durverger’s Law. You know the one where any discussion will, if it goes long enough, result in a comparison of one’s opponents to Nazi Germany/Hitler. I would be that if any discussion goes long enough, there will be a comparison 1984.
If I listen to the latest pod cast of the show on NPR, all they are saying is that the problem isn’t that we don’t simply give money to the poor, but that we don’t provide enough opportunity for them to get jobs where they can earn more money. Regardless of how you feel about redistribution of wealth, this doesn’t strike me a “Orwellian”.
I want to compliment all of the above commenters. Well said, all.
I just can’t past the overspending and under budgeting that the current administration will no doubt just continue. You all may be correct, and I can’t dispute the very poor showing Mitt is making, but I can’t help worrying about bankruptcy. I’ll hold my nose, and hope for a change for the better.
Not to worry about holding your nose this November dduck.
The GOP just came out with a nose-plug attachment for the blinders they sold you.
Correct me if I’m wrong but was I under the impression that it’s the Congress, not the President, that spends the money and passes the budget.
Kay, your use of the word “Orwelling” is dead right to nuts (as we used to say in the machine shop). I think the real trick that’s been perpetrated on our culture though is to convince us (with our blessings of course) that we are not in fact sheep, but are wolves! Talk about a magnificent con! The political right must have been thrilled no end when they first discovered they could employ Bizarro world logic so effectively within the elecorate. I mean really, what could be more beautiful to a philosophy informed by sociopathy than the realization that lies will be accepted with open arms? Of course there are always a few spoil sports who don’t like to play along, but they can be neutralized. Just keep repeating the lies faster than they debunk em! Whatever you do, don’t make critical thinking part of the culure! That way lies madness!!
Wow, there is just so much to say about this article and the comments.
1) I did not hear the interview (although I am an NPR junkie, how did I miss it??). But let’s be honest: it IS about opportunity. Most of the poor are born into poverty and stay in poverty and will leave impoverished offspring. Census data proves this, statistics proves this, studies prove this.
Most of the nation’s poor were born in poor communities. I’ve studied census data and it’s true: poverty is strongest in specific geographic clusters: inner cities, certain rural areas (especially the south), Appalachia, Indian reservations.
These areas do not have opportunities the rest of us do. They tend to have lousy schools. They do not have money for private school or college or tutors. They also tend to have lousy, or no, jobs in their communities. And public transportation is not enough to solve it.
The jobs thing is key: the jobs for the undereducated are gone. Offshored. So where’s the opportunity in that? Used to be a time when one could get a good factory job, save up $$ and send kids to college. Nowadays, there’s none of that. No opportunity, no method to get out of the depths of poverty.
Without decent wage jobs for the undereducated, there will be no break in the cycle of poverty.
2) Money for the poor is not an answer, either. We can’t simply fund the poor through various programs. It’s just not tenable. We need to get folks out of poverty, not subsidize the poverty. In order to that, we HAVE to create … here we go … opportunity.
3) So here’s the REAL rub. The AEI and their ilk promote the same Underpants Gnomes economic farfle of “rising tide lifts all boats” and “don’t punish job creators” crap that has failed to keep our economy growing (and when you toss in “open regulation”, it’s ruined us). They are not offering up any plans to get opportunity, to get jobs into those clusters of entrenched poverty. It’s just more magic tax-cut pixie dust.
4) Someone mentioned “Ike was a Republican”. Factually true, but don’t forget he was politically agnostic and was actively courted by both parties. He felt he was slightly closer to the GOP at that time and went when them. But he was not die-hard on their side (the famous “military-industrial complex” was a direct slam on their brand of crap).
5):
I think the real trick that’s been perpetrated on our culture though is to convince us (with our blessings of course) that we are not in fact sheep, but are wolves!
Seconded. We are a competitive society, but competitive within ourselves. We are figuratively eating our own young with our shortsighted, “me me me” policies. “Waaaah! I want my tax cuts and I want them NOW, Daddy!” Folks no longer care for our society or for our country. We think of “me me me”. “I want my tax cut.” “I want to keep using my gas-guzzling SUV to go grocery shopping.” “I want to shoot my assault rifle.” “I want my big bonus for screwing over as many customers and lying to as many banking regulators as I can.”
We no longer think about what our behavior does to the society at large. We whine about “personal responsibility” while refusing to take any ourselves.
It’s killing us, people!
Bravo Barky
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war.
In most communities it is illegal to cry “fire” in a crowded assembly. Should it not be considered serious international misconduct to manufacture a general war scare in an effort to achieve local political aims?
Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels – men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion. [One that, imho, the GOP tried to do as standard procedure (e.g. criticizing the president in time of war is bad--when it was G. W. Bush)]
The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office. [Applying this to the current election, boy are we screwed!]
and for a final quote today…
A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/d/dwight_d_eisenhower.html#Zwegx3l1vsyzTiHy.99
I have to say that I’m am totally impressed with the discussion here. You guys rock.
SK, I hope your rose-tinted glasses don’t pinch your nose, cause they sure aren’t revealing the economic road that lies ahead; the old Spend Your Way To Prosperity or as the grasshopper would say: I’ll worry about later, later. As to congress making laws, yes but with Romney in the Reps would have 2 of the three parts. Obama once had 3 parts, but then again he did squat and frittered that opportunity away.
Polls Show Obama Reclaiming Momentum in Battleground States
And the Obama Team hasn’t even started pointing out examples of the Republicans intentional obstruction of all efforts by the President to improve the plight of the average American.
When the voters who haven’t been paying attention see how the Republicans have sold out to Money & Power,Inc.™ and how their (the Republicans) actions have been nothing less than a viscous assault on the American Middle Class I don’t think it will even be close in November… Barack Hussein Obama will be re-elected by a landslide.
I’d like to agree with you Steve, but then again I was completely surprised Bush beat Kerry in ’04. Apparently starting a completely unfounded war with the whole world looking on isn’t enough to cost you your Oval Office. After that, I really just consider the American voters to be a wildcard.
I’ve seen dead fish with more charisma than John Kerry. But yeah, American voters = wildcard is pretty accurate.
Kerry was a bad candidate, but Bush started a war on bad intel. Hundreds of thousands died as a result, a nation was thrown into utter chaos, its still a mess. That’s the WORST thing you can do as a head of state. Its the uttermost height of incompetence. The scale of misery in a war means they are not to be jumped into on a whim. Yet that is exactly what we did, with all the accompanying horror and suffering that comes with such a decision. But what the hell, right? How do you just give someone a pass for a mistake of that magnitude?
I didn’t vote for Bush because it was his job to get the weapons of mass destruction thing right. OTOH, the Democrats were so busy trying to charge the Bush lied and was a war criminal that they actually helped distract from this. I’ve wondered that if they hadn’t been so obsessed with painting Bush as evil whether they would have won.
Your words imply, but are you in fact saying that Bush didn’t lie?
That Bush isn’t a war criminal?