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Money Madness … Foolin’ the People About Money, Part Three: Makin’ Foolish People – Foolin’ the People About “Us” (The Rich)
Makin’ People Foolish – Foolin’ the People About “Us” (The Rich): Money Madness … Foolin’ the People About Money, Part 3
Obvious “Truths”:
- Things you hear a lot are true.
- Simple “truths” are real truths.
- Democrats think they’re better than everybody; they’re snobs, elitists….
- Unlike Republicans who are regular people just like me, folks I could sit and have a beer with…who’d understand me.
Confused People Take Comfort in Stupidity
When ALL You Hear Are Lies, You Begin to Think It Has to Be the Truth.
So, what happens? What is the result of these things being heard long enough, with nobody countering them or anything. It’s natural, if you hear something said enough, you don’t question it.
I myself am that way. I was told that we should go into Iraq because there was weapons of mass destruction. I didn’t hear anybody saying anything differently. So I believed it. Well, that turned out to be a lie.
It’s just natural that if you don’t hear anything to counter something, you’re going to believe that the only thing being said is the truth. And that certainly has increased over time…through the years.
Democrats Feel Like They’re Talking to a Wall; They’re Talking to the Weary.
It is not that these lies weren’t countered; they were…by progressives and Democrats…and the few, the brave of commentators.
In later years, MSNBC emerged and could be counted on for straight talk. Comedy Central became the “real news” for the young educated for being willing to throw light, albeit hiding behind the built-in denial mechanism of a comic façade, on the inanities of the Wingnuts and Well-Funded.
But that has not been the reality touching the lives of ordinary Americans. What I observed is that the great majority of pundits weren’t any help in clarifying things for people. Journalists would say, “Ok, Mr. Democrat,
what do you have to say about that?” And The Democrat would respond with a reasoned argument, laying out all these things that made perfect sense if you’re familiar with the issue.
And pundits wouldn’t delve into their argument, tease out its elements so as to enlighten.
And keep in mind that now more than ever people need that. We have people listening to this who are working two jobs, tired, overworked, worried about their health care, stressed.
They’re not going to be able to follow an argument very well. In fact they’re going to forget what all those words meant and how they all fit together.
So after a while a lot of these folks are going to say…I’m sure you’ve heard them, they’re Republicans and the ones who vote for Republicans…they would say, “Aw geez , that’s just a bunch of words, it don’t mean anything.”
But what the hell does that mean?
Confused People Retreat Into the Stupid.
Well, it means that all these words can’t be remembered, they can’t take root in their mind after the lies they’re always hearing from the other side. They are
surrounded by the organized disciplined ongoing assault against them by the Republicans. They are filled up with talking points benefiting the wealthy comprised of simplistic simple-minded irrational mantra…irrational, repetitive, simple slogans.
So, the result is that Democrats don’t end up having a lot of power; they don’t get elected. I saw it happen in presidential election after presidential election. I saw Reagan saying simplistic things, getting all the people pissed off about poor people and about the Soviets.
From the other side, I heard his appealing to the worst in people countered by reason, by sensible explanations and realistic proposals of a Dukakis, a Carter, and a Mondale. And then at the end it was…. it didn’t mean a damn thing. Because people just felt more comfortable around somebody who kept things simple, who said simple words, and seemed angry like they were.
Not that Reagan said anything indicating any of his policies were going to benefit average folks. No, actually he screwed them, but they still liked him! Because Reagan, like other Republicans, are able to confuse people into thinking that any screwing up, of any time, must have been done by Democrats. They will tell you your poverty now is caused by Democratic policies of the past which actually got us out of depressions, recessions, and created surpluses.
They will tell you your lousy health care now is caused by money going to the Medicare that you like. They will tell you that the financial squeeze you feel is because of the “penny” going to a poor person not the bundles of loot they are taking.
..
..
And Burdened People Become Confused People—That’s Their Plan
So, the electorate is swimming in these simple irrational things that have been made to sound reasonable. And they are unable to see through them because they have been kept in this situation of increasing pressure to produce, produce, produce; of less leisure time and no time to think; of worries, medical care, all kinds of things you have to put out money for. They can hardly see through the swindle since they are distracted by the threat to their lives from insurance companies–those folks who may or may not pay you if you need it though you have faithfully paid them.
We’ll Insure You, Up to the Time You Need It
It’s gotten to the point where you have insurance but you dare not ever make a claim. You live with the risk of unexpected loss to your home at any time that you can not cover, because if you make a claim you may not get it next time. You risk losing home insurance and threatening your home. What the hell kind of insurance is that? You are insured but they can deny you? They can deny your claim, or as it happens all the time, you have one or two claims, and you no longer have an insurance company.
So if your payments are not making them a profit, if you are one of those few who are costing them more to be a member or to be covered by that insurance company, if you’re costing them more, they’re not going to take it out of the profits of all those who are costing them less, so, you’re eliminated. So why do we even have insurance companies? Most people have insurance just in the hope that they’ll be covered.
Rational Thought Replaced With Slogans … How Can Anyone Know the Truth?
How Can Folks Unite Against Injustices Hidden From Them
Who has the time to think clearly or reason confronted by all this other uncertainty, this other insanity? So we have all these pressures and then there’s these slogans put out and people are not able to follow rational arguments.
How this expresses itself came out in a discussion yesterday on Facebook. One rational type was trying to reason with a supporter of Mitt Romney, who was convinced everyone knew all the “true facts,” EVERYONE knew about all the “failed” and horrible things Obama had done…as she’d learned from Glenn Beck among others.
My earnest and reasonable friend finally threw in the towel saying, “It’s like talking to a random thought generator. What do you think about foreign policy?
Cheese.”
That is the result of factoids, “obvious truths,” replacing reason in burdened and confused minds. So how could these people possibly, without being able to see clearly, how could folks like this ever be united against the REAL injustices against them…which they don’t even realize are happening…their minds filled with the fake stuff?
.
How Can Folks Protect Themselves From “Wizards” Hiding “Behind the Curtain”?
People do not even know who the perpetrators are, for the pundits won’t tell them. Folks cannot figure it out for themselves; and the pundits absolutely refuse to point out who’s responsible for the things that add misery to their lives.
Media types say they cannot do that because they say it has to do with, something about equal time. But that was supposed to be for elections.
And, as I pointed out earlier, equal time turned into something where, no matter what lie is put
out there or would be put out, no matter what truth is put out there, the media will find somebody, they could find anybody, who would be willing to say a lie and sound reasonable for the purpose of confusing things.
With all this, how can anybody know what the truth is?
Continue with A Rising Tide Lifts All Yachts…The Rich Are Getting Richer and the Workers Are Getting Humiliated: Money Madness … Foolin’ the People About Money, Part 4
Return to The Wealthy Are the Creative Sector All Right … Creative in Stealing Our Money: Money Madness … Foolin’ the People About Money, Part 2
The Rise and Fall of “Obvious Truths,” Part Three – an Audio Reading by SillyMickel Adzema
Here is an audio of the author’s impassioned reading of this part. Though it is of the first, unedited and unpolished version, and it does not contain all the detail of its current form below, it does capture the flavor of it all. I offer it here for your listening pleasure. For the reading of this part, “The Rise and Fall of ‘Obvious Truths,’ Part Three,” click on the link to the audio site above or click the link to the audio player below.
http://ecdn0.hark.com/swfs/player.swf?1305835355
Continue with A Rising Tide Lifts All Yachts…The Rich Are Getting Richer and the Workers Are Getting Humiliated: Money Madness … Foolin’ the People About Money, Part 4
Return to The Wealthy Are the Creative Sector All Right … Creative in Stealing Our Money: Money Madness … Foolin’ the People About Money, Part 2
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Republicans – Blue Meanies Naked and Looking Foolish
Oh, Those Prankish Republicans
This follows from “Obvious Truths,” for those who are interested. This is called “Naked Republicans, Blue Meanies Fleeing or Foolish.” May 8, 2009…so maybe some of you seeing the news lately will know what I am talking about as what is going on currently is merely a continuation of what was started then, as I explain.
To start, this follows from how George W. Bush and Hank Paulson managed to get away scot free with their last-minute cleaning out of America’s cupboards—taking even the silver—and leaving America, and the world, closer to an actual doomsday within a generation or two at the most…leaving us closer to the end of all time than ever before….
Yea, I know… that made me feel real good too *sarcasm* … Happy thoughts… [Continued below audio]
Naked Republicans: Blue Meanies Looking Foolish –
an Audio Reading by SillyMickel Adzema
Here is an audio of the author’s impassioned, sometimes, humorous, reading of this chapter. For the author’s reading of “Naked Republicans,” click on the link to the audio site above or click the audio player here.
Image of Naked Republicans Blue Meanies Fleeing or Looking Foolish by SillyMickel Adzema
Blue Meanies Fleeing or Looking Foolish
Ironically, however, by knee-capping all efforts we were put on a worse financial footing even than the already horrible financial footing caused by the war and the eight-years of massive Republican tax giveaways to the Filthy Rich that was already going on and was going to be left to Obama and America to take care of. So what they did with TARP at the very end of Bush’s reign took a very bad situation and turned it into the emergency that we’re experiencing…. Yea, that cheered me up to.
Ironically, however these Republicans-that-got-away by kneecapping all future efforts to steady ourselves made sure we would never forget them either. For the last-minute clean-out was an overreach of the most red-handed, leaving us far worse off than the already horrible financial footing they had left America on, which was the result of a long war and another eight years of massive Republican tax cuts to the filthy rich…following from the twelve years of the same during Reagan-Bush….
So the Republican facade had come down as surely as the Berlin Wall had. However, leave it to Republicans to never let the facts get in the way of saying whatever lies they can dream up to support their benefactors, showing in this way their true servitude to those outside interests. Unfortunately for them, after their embarrassing rejection in 2008 these Republicans were not even allowed the dignity that the Communist hard-liners had when they were so openly shown to be wrong and were allowed to disappear from public life.
They looked all the more ridiculous when they attempted some kind of reverse outrage at Obama for having been put in the position that, actually, their policies over the eight year’s of their governance with Bush put them.
But don’t cry for them. Because Republicans are extremely wanting when it comes to self-consciousness. It is impossible to imagine they they ever look at the “man in the mirror.” They are so other- and outside-oriented (towards money). Naturally it follows they are horrible at soul-searching or even looking inside to their conscience.
To keep this squarely on hard realities and not overreach, I am going against my gut and laying out that huge assumption—that they even have a conscience. Certainly, John Dean of Watergate fame was not facetious when he wrote about “conservatives without a conscience.” So that is the context of this new era.
No. Republicans have ridiculed the inner life, any inner life, for many decades.
They have been notoriously ripping into the prospect. Somehow they have convinced too many Americans—with their juvenile and effective substitute for reason—that is, ridicule, mocking, and shaming—that if you have compassion for others you are a “bleeding heart.” They have advanced a perspective that if you shed a tear during a presidential campaign, for example, you are weak, unstable.
If you attempt to raise yourself above feeling and seek the Presidency as someone who would NOT put himself above the law (See how great the opposite idea has worked out during the eight years of the W…that is, we had someone who did put himself above the law)…. If you would attempt to show that you would follow the law no matter what your personal feelings and you would give a legal answer to a personal question about your wife…for those who aren’t as old as me, I’m talking about Dukakis…well, then you are a zombie and have no feelings.
Somehow Republicans had convinced Americans it is better to be irrational and murderous for the sake of one’s family and to shred the Constitution and act dictatorially as a president than to aspire to deal with one’s feelings personally and abide by the same laws as everyone else so that Americans could still have the sense that there is still some democracy left in this country. Like I said, this was Dukakis’s approach in the first campaign we saw of a Bush for president. And somehow America decided it wanted a tough-guy, Bush, rather have than a rational person, Dukakis. That is strange.
Anyway, my point is that the Republicans disability in the region of the heart, has left them completely vulnerable to making total fools out of themselves. The polls are showing they are not believed anymore. But that is not the whole truth, which is most Americans just do not think them credible when, after eight years of robbing Americans blind and creating the biggest and most punishing economic debacle in almost a century, it would be discovered the only progress or benefit of all that was to create a brand new class status in America. It was widely seen that Rich-publicans major accomplishment under Bush was the rising up of an entire new level of moneyed power which is above the very, very rich and which is so far removed from normal Americans the cable documentaries to report on it have struggled with any kind of normal sounding name for this class. Lacking even an acceptable euphemism the reporting on this very very very very very very very very rich was forced into the obvious, calling this new class the “filthy rich.” That was the actual name of a documentary, “The Filthy Rich.” So don’t blame me folks, I didn’t make up the term.
So immediately after the end of Bush’s term and after the Bush-Paulson-”filthy rich” caper that cleaned out the Treasury and nearly eliminated Obama’s hopes for economic justice once he became President, they looked ridiculous when they turned right (around) and proclaimed as foolhardy, unworkable, and unnecessary Obama’s attempts to save the economy by funneling money to the actual people who do create wealth in America. These ordinary folks actually create the wealth in that they work for a living, not suck off others’ wealth. They actually pay taxes back to the government when they work…again in contrast to those other people we are talking about. And they actually create jobs because, not being “filthy rich,” they have not had the lives of ease of Bush’s Republicans and his “filthy rich” constituency. So when they get some money, however little it is, they maximize it; they do not feel like they have the privilege to blow it.
I mentioned Bush’s “filthy rich” constituency for certainly his administration was not a government run for the benefit of any but that new aspiring American royalty, those faceless people inhabiting that tiny slice of status above all the rest of us yet controlling more than sixty percent of all America’s wealth.
The Republicans began embarrassing themselves within a few weeks of the outcome of the 2008 election by completely reversing their rhetoric soooo quickly. They had no trouble doing this because they are not ones taking to anything smacking of any namby-pamby “psychobabble” so they do not have a clue, and therefore no shame, about the way they are being perceived. This blind-sightedness is their way of covering up, to themselves as well as others, not only the fact that they are disabled in not having a heart but also the fact they have not the faintest glimmer of what an inner realization, understanding of one self, or even an insight is.
So they could not help but expose themselves and their personal inadequacies before the majority of Americans who have had enough classes in the school of hard knocks as to have had to learn a few things about themselves and to have become at least a little savvy about human motivations and the hidden agendas of others. Because of their confrontations with the hard realities of life, ordinary folks are able to see through at least the most obvious of the dishonest ploys or self-serving lies of the people around who might occasionally resort to that. So they were able to see these “emperors” sans clothing and their respect for Republicans turned toward pity. Therein we have our context.
Specifically we have these Rich-publicans…at this point now shortly into Obama’s term and after having blown all that money at their turn…squealing about big spending Democrats! Keep in mind this was only weeks from the ending of their dominance of government which had them, instead, opt for…well, not free spending…like they say “free spending Democrats”…but blatant and free stealing , with the obvious consequence of breaking the bank—the Treasury—in their all-consuming greed.
So, Boehner and Cantor, as Republican minority leader and Republican whip, went squealing and setting the squealing chorus going and keeping it high-pitched and ongoing about the very results of their own actions just previous, which added to the transparency of the shame they were displaying to … the world! For, tragic but funny enough…and they so deserving of being laughed at…what we all saw was a small bunch of squealers who were obviously knowing of their guilt over the years and the suffering , immense, over the years they caused. They could not help but be keenly aware of the way they had enriched themselves and their circles of cohorts (the “filthies”). So rather than…. Christ, their behavior was the kind of thing you are able to see through at least by the time you make it into junior high! They opted to flaunt their shame and hypocrisy…”you lie”–Joe Wilson…rather than stand idly by. Undoubtedly they knew if they respectfully retreated at all, it would leave the center of the circle open to be filled with nonguilty voices. And these voices they knew would circle in increasingly on them and their despicable actions in the not too long ago.
So, terrified their silence would leave them naked and exposed to the truth…culpable, perhaps criminal…they opted for tactics of the most, let us say…well, unsavvy and unslick are two words that would apply and would be kinder than they deserve. It didn’t take Shakespeare to see through their juvenile, laughable fakery and lies, which they then were stuck with and trapped inside of. And this caused them only to increase their proclamations to higher and higher levels of—hilarity for the rest of us—inane, embarrassing and telltale inanity for them. [continued after video]
True Deceivers
It didn’t take a Freud to see this tactic. In the common way of thinking of this Republican ploy–not the psychological way…like Freud–people say the best defense is a good offense. Others might say they made spectacles of themselves caught up in the shame and fear of being caught in their criminality if it were ever to come out what they had done under Bush. So, overburdened this way with anxiety, they could not then think with any rationality, nor even come up with any smooth or artful cover-ups.
But America is not as averse to understanding other humans as these Republicans wish they would be. For a long time they could get away with their habitual lying, and they forgot that things had changed. Remember how McCain was brought down by his lying during the campaign against Obama in much harsher fashion than any of his predecessors? He wasn’t a bigger bald-faced liar. No, he was just as big. But he ran in an era that had seen a rapid increase in technology, including the sort that allowed the production of ever cheaper and smaller little cameras without film, with immediate recall and which also recorded video, all from a tiny box.
So, McCain, being like most Republicans out of touch with the waves on which the normal folks must surf or at least move, also made a laughingstock out of himself…remember this? He time and again and on stages small as well as grand (Meet the Press, for example) adamantly denied ever saying exact wording that, sure enough, the moderator would produce in video showing him, plain as day and exactly, saying and meaning. So it was really rough going for all Republicans whose political skills all ran in the direction of their ability to lie and deceive while hiding their true agenda.
No, technology hasn’t been kind to liars.
And they had been so successful over the last few decades, half century that in the last fifty-eight years prior to Obama’s win, Democrats had held the Presidency for only sixteen of them. Indeed until Clinton managed to prevail for eight years, it had been a measly eight years out of forty-two.
So, many Republicans had become reliant on deception. Hell, perhaps they became Republicans for that reason: They could apparently seek office with even the sleaziest, most criminal, or most selfish of reasons, but they would be surrounded by a sea of true deceivers–liars who made sport, game, and a perfection about that that.
Just ask them. As even McCain was accused by Bush in South Carolina of fathering a black child and came to the obvious conclusion that at least Bush was a big liar and deceiver and so on. Unfortunately that did not stop McCain from doing the same kinds of things. That’s the tragedy there. But that’s Republicans for you. I can’t understand them.
So, that’s the history, the thrust, and the wind behind them, as decade after decade, they turned truth on its head and got away with it. Indeed, they were able to make American heroes out of the best in that art—Reagan the penultimate example. And in doing so they aided their cause of confusing Americans about truth. America’s mind became seriously muddled through Republicans getting away with blatantly and self-servingly turning white into black. Just add a little anti-abortion or a little evangelical sounding talk and they were able to come across to some as as white as the proverbial driven snow.
But things change. I mentioned the technology as helping this along. But how can anyone forget eight solid years of Bush-lies. More than the lies: How could anyone forget all the suffering caused by those lies! No, people were getting harder and harder to lie to.
But when, being a Republican, that is the only tool, the only political skill, the only reason you are even a politician in the first place… well, though they might know that there has been a change in people’s abilities to see through them, still, skunks can not change their stripes, but funnier still is the stench they can’t cover up.
Imagine that, and you’ve got an idea of how they appeared, how funny, how stupid, how much appearing to be the obvious fools, liars, self-interested, uncaring of the public interest, the Constitution, or anything that they they’d ever espoused, and which for most Democrats would be their actual reason for being in office…as it should be for all politicians in our democracy.
So, let’s take a little gander back at the fun of, no, not yester-year, actually not so long ago.… And would you believe it?! I don’t believe they are going to allow themselves to realize how foolish they are appearing. Look, if ya got no clothes, you may have an inkling at times that people are laughing at your foolish, saggy hide, but, well, YA GOT NO CLOTHES!!
So, a little fun, and, then, too, for the record:
I won’t go into the stupid things that Boehner and Cantor and the other bewildered fools said and that were laid out one after the other, the pundits almost chuckling at the spectacle as they, well, being reporters, they HAD to report on this idiotic behavior.
Basically, these Republicans are obviously the guys who blew all that money there at the beginning of their control. And even at the end, just a month or so earlier, they had wrangled the largest single payout in American history by extortive means. And then there you see them saying Democrats are spending too much money…. And, for what are they spending? The Dems are criticized for wanting to put money into the hands of people who might actually make jobs and could really use it…. Wow.
And but for all but them this is obvious and unseemly. Shameful. But don’t feel too sorry for them. Like I said, they have no capacity for insight. They may even shed a tear on occasion, giving you the impression they have a heart; but, no, not at all, none at all, absolutely NO insight into themselves. Let’s see…. Put this another way…NO self-awareness.
For them it is, “Hell, where’s the time for that psycho blather when there are endless high wire games of swindle, intrigue, and self-interest to attend to!” And all of it with the added wrinkle of it having to be totally lied about. They are become consummate pretenders, precision actors. And of what would seem to be the hardest acting to pull off. Oh, lots of people could pull it off for a moment, a spell. A scene, let us say. But they have to pull off for a lifetime (!) that they are…check this out…that they are the EXACT OPPOSITE of what they really are.
They have to boldly pretend in defiance of every single nerve and thought that comprises them and is obsessing every second how to get a personal advantage out of every, every little thing. Against that they have to appear they are “serving” the interests of the nation. Or, caught in that lie, well, it’s their “constituents” they are serving…
Though, think about it now, just who exactly lives in a district whose constituents want you to enrich yourself? Or who has constituents who are ALL, or even predominantly, so wealthy it enriches them as well? What kind of constituent could there be who would want for you to have power or advantage of whatever secret sort that is the object of your game or who would want you to work to benefit those “filthy rich” folks I was talking about earlier which…and this is match, point, game, no question!…which boon for them is achieved completely at their expense!
What kind of people would want that? What constituent would like seeing the already-haves having more at the expense of their having to accept lower wages, lower standards of living…having to worry about their not being able to afford health care and having to live the rest of their life with the knowledge that but for that unneeded manna on the filthy rich their child would be alive? Or who would want knowing that a war that cost them a child, and much else, was made up to distract and enrich certain corporations and not for your protection or benefit at all?
What kind of constituents are like that? Who has constituents who are like that?
Or, just simply, who lives in a district where your actions increase virtually all of the struggles of their lives so that you might slavishly carry out the wishes of the hidden puppeteers who have paid for your seat, bought your election for you, and so on, and who you wish to get ever closer to, in the thought that sucking up enough you too can suck yourself, too, right up and through and into the tiny sliver class of the filthy rich?
So, that ploy, you know, goes like,
I have to screw all you Americans because the people in my district basically aren’t like real people and so the increased burden added to life’s struggle by my actions, well…
and here’s when the “heckuva job, brownie” really comes splattering back out from the fan
…because WE are AMERICANS, who’ve NEVER SHIRKED OUR RESPONSIBILITIES, BUCKLED UNDER A BURDEN, RUN AWAY FROM A FIGHT. No, WE are AMERICANS!
And the smell of that bodily waste…well that’s a stench that even that skunk would run from.
I mean, say I’m in that district that person is talking about. Or the person who is representing that district is running for president and is showing me what the years with him leading our country are going to be like. Like I’m going to go…ok, because of course he’s right and I and all the rest of us in the district are the most blitheringly idiotic humans ever spawned…so we’re going,
Wow, yea. You’ve just made me feel so proud, you’re wonderful. This being an American is so great, how fortunate that I am one. Why, now I see, when you’re an American, you get to have stren…no, kind of like powers, Superman like powers.
Yea, that’s the ticket. ’s gonna be so fucking great having McCain as President, what a life I’ll live!
I’ll go to war but will kill multitudes and never get a scratch! And, well, who gives a shit if this guy does everything the exact opposite of what would help improve the economy and make jobs.
Damn, that don’t matter. I’m like Superman! I could probably work ten jobs; as he said, y’know, “we never shirk, we never run away from a fight, we will shoulder all responsibilities ,and never buckle under a burden.” So since I’m superman, as he’s pointed out, that’s not going to be a problem for me, I could probably work ten jobs.
But if there weren’t any jobs, I wouldn’t even starve. Thank God I’m a freaking American, how weak those sappy European weaklings who…heh!…have to eat to survive.
Ha! This is going to be absolutely such fun with McCain as president: I’m going to Fight! I’m going to bear heavy burdens, I’m going to have responsibilities that never let up. I’m not going to make much money…them “filthy rich” sorts, well they’re the ones that care about that. Whereas me, because of this incredibly wise and pandering McCain (or Bush, Dole, Romney, Bauchman, Pierce…
go ahead, any Republican name will work perfectly), I’m gonna get to have superpowers.
Oh, how dumb, I just realized how dumb that sounded,.. Sorry, my bad, I’ll get this right… No, of course I’m not gonna GET superpowers, just because of this politician, however good, kind, wise, and caring of me. Of course not. He can’t GIVE me any such thing.
But, I’m so alive and happy and grateful because, well, of course you see, it’s so obvious, HE’s opened my eyes to the fact that, well I’m an AMERICAN AND THAT MEANS THIS INCREDIBLE GIFT, Gol Dang, thank you, Lord, and forgive me for not noticing the obvious:
That I ALWAYS had these super powers. How wonderful to be awake. I’ll try my best to forget how stupid I was to have not realized it myself…ever…my whole life long.
OK, enough of that. No, things are changing. I don’t really know how these self-serving phonies, these pretenders, these highest wire liars, perfecting, ever more precisely, their deceptive skills, can continue the mass fooling of people they need to do.
So, there they are, wind no longer at their back but, like salmon, only knowing one thing one direction. And the only thing they know, stumbling and mucking their way forward, are those invisible strings pulling the same way, pushing them now into the wind! No matter how the winds have changed, they cannot change course. For they never got to set it in the first place.
And so, in tandem they march, no matter how foolish they appear stumbling into the head winds, and falling down in their words–their words no longer seeming so artful as they go on and on about having to save the American workers and the middle class as they hand over, so fast it lookin like a holdup, to rich thick bankers the hugest sums ever dispensed by Congress. And this most quickly. And this outflow not to end cancer, achieve world peace, give solar energy to everybody in America. But, no. Rather this effusion into the hands of a jet-owning billionaire who is later going to brag how his bank is not going to give any of that money to people needing loans, homes, autos. No, they are going to store it away as it will increase their corporation’s profitability. And when the quarterly earnings come out, hell, they’re going to look great,
their stock will go up… .more money, more money… and in the meantime, they’re going to triple the interest rates of those who already have loans with them…more money, more money, more money, feel like dancin…more money…like singin.
Well, believe me, they did that. It happened to me and virtually everyone I knew.
Well anyway these naked squeaky voiced Republicans…it’s a blessing that they have no self-perception really…idiotically crumbled before that gang of the “filthy rich.” And, like I said it was a damn good thing for them they have no shame either when these bankers did not even cover up or hide…well not much anyway…the fact that they made out like bandits and they had no intention of having that money be anything but for feathering their nest. Indeed, it was all the more suspicious since such a huge calamity was predicted if the money wasn’t forked over. I mean, the Democrats were told it was going to be a “worldwide economic breakdown.” So then when the bulk of the money was not used to help the situation at all, and…well…we’re still all here…. Wow, it really looks like it was quite the con job, I’m afraid to say.
And so these stumbling over their feet and their tongues Republicans…well, Obama is in office and a few weeks go by and now what?
What’s this? They’re claiming that they’re standing straighter now. How’s that? Well, to a person, no one of them voted for the stimulus. Keep in mind that money was to go toward serving the entire economy, even the world economy. And both would of course serve to reverse the suffering and eventually go in the direction of easing the burden of all. Well almost all. After all the filthy rich bunch…well, it don’t help them.
You have money going into the hands of ordinary folks and well, that’s not money that they can steal from the government now is it.
So, there you see these Rich-publicans, talking as if they’re not absolutely exposed and naked in everything they say to you and me and the cab driver, butcher, computer nerd, and all the rest of the kind of people you actually see walking about in this world and in its cities. By the way, as for their “people,” where the hell do these faceless “filthy rich” live, anyway? Do they walk? Fly? Are they in fact alien beings? Superior ones, maybe? Well at least then it would have SOME kind of sense to it.
But no, they are so pathetically proud, the Republicans, that they stuck together to “do a Hoover” and to screw over ordinary Americans. Do they really think we really believe them when they burden us, when they take the rug out from beneath us when we think we might be getting ahead, and so on? And then they call us Americans who can bear any burden, shoulder any blah, blah, blah, fight this, carry that, blah, blah, blah.
Ok? Now, there was that stimulus package and there was all the Republicans in the house, not one of them voted for it. And they’re saying they’re all helping us all out. Well, sometimes it’s funny…sometimes it’s just sad. but they made fools out of themselves, that’s one thing.
I mean were there EVER any people so pathetically lacking in self-esteem that such claptrap about where they were born actually made them grateful to the politician, who just added another, well not brick to their load, let’s say more like he just busted their truck with the load and now they are going to have to start all over again.
Ok, so now let’s say I’m one of those “constituents.” I’m thinking…
“Thanks a lot, bastard, you think I got it easy? You jerk! Who the hell you think you are down there in Louisiana, Mr. freaking Governor who don’t need no additional unemployment money. No, idiot! You GOT a job!
It’s me that can’t find work and that’s worried about my kids getting sick and, well, now the almost certainty, by the way because of your stupid-assed spiteful action to turn down my money for me. Now, I ‘m gonna lose my house, worry about my kids staying healthy.
But you’ve done what? You’ve stood up to Obama (the guy who was gonna give me money?) You’ve said we don’t need no stinkin’ money and made yourself a spectacle on the national stage and, you think (here’s that lying again).
You screwed us over and then you’re thinking you can tell us that we were better than that or something of other of a slick confusing fog of insanity.
And you think that this will give you a leg towards the Presidency. You screw me over and then tell me I’m a better person than you? that’s… eyaaaah!
Well, Mr. Jerk-off turning down my money for me like it’s my pride your fighting for, do you really think we are still that stupid, still that happy to be burdened and crushed for your aspirations,
which obviously don’t include, you’ve made that damn clear, doing anything for any person, any “constituent, any citizen, no, not anyone”
And it’s clear that our burdens are so meaningless to you that you will heap misery on us to do, now what was that again? You “stood up” to Obama? What the fuck, are you in grade school?
Do you think I give a shit who’s staring who down? I’m trying to live a life; a life that you have just put a cloud of unhappiness and worry over that will not go away for many many years. Thanks a lot! In fact I may never own a home again.
Thanks for the radical change in my life that I wasn’t expecting. But I won’t go on about things that cause your eyes to glaze over. Just let me ask you this Mister, wise-potato?
You “stood up” to the guy who’s gonna give me money, and hold out his hand to me? Ok, Mr. more principles-than-brains, what’s your next big plan?
Oh, I see, you’re gonna stand up to, uh, Santa Claus. Oh, yeah, I hear it all right. Out on the National stage; spoutin out as if you’re talkin our mind; shit, you ain’t even one of us. But I hear you:”
“Nope, Mr. Matthews, you see we’re Louisianans? Not beggars. We don’t need Christmas. We can take care of ourselves.”
I hear you saying…
”Let you folks out there have Christmas. I mean, if you’re so weak.
So you’ve had it your whole life and now you’re kind of like addicted to it.
“Well OK. I’m not going to talk down any on those who are obviously so weak and needy. But, you see, Mr. Matthews… Mr. Matthews, well let me put it this way, you ever come down to Louisiana? Ever? To visit us, anything? You have?
“So you’ve met with some of our citizens, have you? You have.
Well, then you know what a strong-willed, strong-spirited, and PROUD people we are down here, don’t you? You agree. Thought so.
“So you see that’s why. I knew you would agree because it’s so obviously true about the folks that live down here, I didn’t see how you’d miss it.
“So that’s OK, let Santa go somewhere else where he’s , you know, where they’re the folks that need to have a handout and can’t get by the year without having a good time. No, my constituents are strong-willed, and they wouldn’t have me letting any squirrely funny-suited guy out here prancin around and lookin foolish. Well, not us. We’re not foolish. We’re PROUD.”
Continue on this site with
Culture War, Part Twelve: American Dictatorship
Naked Republicans: Blue Meanies Looking Foolish –
an Audio Reading by SillyMickel Adzema
Here is an audio of the author’s impassioned, sometimes, humorous, reading of this part. For the author’s reading of “Blue Meanies,” click on the link to the audio site above or click the audio player here.
Image of Naked Republicans Blue Meanies Fleeing or Looking Foolish by SillyMickel Adzema
Continue on this site with
Culture War, Part Twelve: American Dictatorship
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Continue on this site with
Culture War, Class War, Chapter Twenty-Six
American Dictatorship
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Foolin’ the People … About Money, About “Us” (The 1%), About Taxes, About Job Creation, About Democrats, About Republicans, About Generations, About Your Life, About You: Choose the Red Pill
Aug 22
Posted by sillymickel
Money Madness and the Rise of “Obvious Truths” … Around Taxes, the Wealthy, Job Creation, Democrats, Republicans, Generations, Your Life, and You: When ALL You Hear Are Lies, You Think It HAS to Be Truth
Culture War, Class War, Chapter Fifteen: Money Madness
Tax the Wealthy, You’re Taxing Me … Foolin’ the People About Money
Obvious “Truths”—Fiscally Responsible Republicans and Tax and Spend Democrats
Obvious “Truths”:
Obvious “Truth” – Tax the Wealthy, You’re Taxing Me
That’s a Small Business?
We’re All Rich. Somehow I Missed That Memo.
Obvious “Truth”: The Democrats’ Want to Take Your Money.
Well how did it get to that conclusion when actually it’s going to lower taxes. And they were saying it over and over again, “No, we don’t even need to know what the plan is; we just know he’s a Democrat and that he’s going to raise taxes,” they would say of Obama…or for that matter of any Democrat at any time in recent history.
Now, how did that become true? Well because…he’s a Democrat and well haven’t you ever heard the term tax and spend Democrats? And there we go again.
Obvious “Truth” – Fiscally Responsible Republicans
Pointing Some Fingers Already
Alright, let’s go back. Pre-Roosevelt turn of the century initiatives so common and familiar now, such as the Food and Drug Administration, are the kinds of things Democrats brought in that added to government. Yet, Republicans spout misinformation; they get people angry about “evils” of such “big government.”
Misplaced Credit
The Democrats are the ones who brought in the FDA, worker’s rights, workman’s compensation. They’re the ones who put in Medicare. They’re the ones who put in Social Security.
Misplaced Blame
And we remember the Republicans are the ones who created the Great Depression, created poverty for everybody at that time. They’re the ones who did it again with Bush, who tripled and nearly quadrupled the National Debt under the twelve years of Reagan-Bush, then more than doubled it under George W. That’s a lot of goddamn money.
That’s a Lot of Money.
And even afterward, all Congressmen were agreeing that’s a huge amount of money, which at the time
was the biggest amount of money being spent at one time, in such a short period of time on anything.
And how could we forget that they just took the money and did whatever they wanted with it? They paid off debts to other rich friends; they went overseas and invested in other countries.
.
Chase Didn’t Use the Money for What It Was Intended.
Obvious “Truths” – Tax and Spend Democrats
Social Security, Medicare, and Surpluses, Oh My!
It has nothing to do with the truth. Certainly Roosevelt benefited all Americans with Social Security and so on; certainly Medicare, brought in under Lyndon Johnson benefited the vast majority of Americans. All these things the Democrats did.
And Clinton raised taxes on the very rich a few percentage points and balanced the budget. Clinton created jobs and prosperity, balanced the budget, reduced the National Debt, and created a surplus that could have gone into creating a better America for all Americans. But, no, that was considered bad, because they said it hurt all Americans when the extremely wealthy had to give a little more in taxes.
The Fun Times Anticipating the Surplus
Never mind the facts, never mind that fact that we had a surplus that we were talking gleefully about how we were going to spend it. If you can remember, we were discussing investing in better roads and infrastructure that would have benefited even the businesses.
Stealing Home
The Wealthy Are the Creative Sector All Right … Creative in Stealing Our Money
Obvious “Truth”—The Wealthy Are the Job Creators
Obvious “Truths”:
Obvious “Truth” – Rich People Create the Jobs
Obvious “Truth”—The Wealthy Are Society’s Creative Sector.
They’re Creative All Right.
They’re the creative people, huh? Yea, they’re creative in stealing from us. They’re creative in fattening their wallets at our expense. They’re creative in getting people elected who are liars and things like that.
That’s not the kind of creativity I’d like to have. As far as creating jobs. Who creates jobs?
Excess Wealth Given to the Rich Created High Art Prices, Not High Employment.
Real Truth—The Rich Will Squander or Sit on Extra Money.
Obvious “Truth”: Non-Wealthy Folks Don’t Create Jobs, Don’t Invest Their Money
Real Truth: People With Less Money Will Sweat Over and Multiply Money, What They Can.
I saw my father do it. He is the same person making the meager fifty dollars a week at one point. And he wasn’t making much more, but he eventually got a truck driving contract with the U.S. postal service.
He was able to own several trucks and to hire several workers.
So, why did he do that? Because he didn’t have a lot of money.
And by taking those chances and becoming a businessperson, taking that little bit of money he had, he created jobs for a few other people. Because he was motivated, he was desperate. And for him it was all about a chance to raise himself out of being poor. He spent his life scanning for such opportunities till he finally came across one.
Billionaires Are Not Highly Motivated to Become Millionaires.
But Nobody Will Point This Out!
..
Makin’ People Foolish – Foolin’ the People About “Us” (The Rich)
Makin’ Foolish People – Foolin’ the People About “Us” (The Rich)
Obvious “Truths”:
Confused People Take Comfort in Stupidity
When ALL You Hear Are Lies, You Begin to Think It Has to Be the Truth.
Democrats Feel Like They’re Talking to a Wall; They’re Talking to the Weary.
And pundits wouldn’t delve into their argument, tease out its elements so as to enlighten.
So after a while a lot of these folks are going to say…I’m sure you’ve heard them, they’re Republicans and the ones who vote for Republicans…they would say, “Aw geez , that’s just a bunch of words, it don’t mean anything.”
But what the hell does that mean?
Confused People Retreat Into the Stupid.
..
..
And Burdened People Become Confused People—That’s Their Plan
We’ll Insure You, Up to the Time You Need It
It’s gotten to the point where you have insurance but you dare not ever make a claim. You live with the risk of unexpected loss to your home at any time that you can not cover, because if you make a claim you may not get it next time. You risk losing home insurance and threatening your home. What the hell kind of insurance is that? You are insured but they can deny you? They can deny your claim, or as it happens all the time, you have one or two claims, and you no longer have an insurance company.
Rational Thought Replaced With Slogans … How Can Anyone Know the Truth?
How Can Folks Unite Against Injustices Hidden From Them
That is the result of factoids, “obvious truths,” replacing reason in burdened and confused minds. So how could these people possibly, without being able to see clearly, how could folks like this ever be united against the REAL injustices against them…which they don’t even realize are happening…their minds filled with the fake stuff?
.
How Can Folks Protect Themselves From “Wizards” Hiding “Behind the Curtain”?
With all this, how can anybody know what the truth is?
A Rising Tide Lifts All Yachts … The Rich Are Getting Richer and the Workers Are Getting Humiliated
Increasing Humiliation of Working People, the Rich Get Richer at Our Expense
Obvious “Truth”:
Real Truth – The Rich Get Richer at Our Expense.
Life Has Gotten Harder – Real Truth
Real Truth – Our Suffering Has Paid for Even Greater Obscenities by the Wealthy.
Humiliation…Increasing Humiliation of Working People
We have these huge corporations taking over and it’s humiliating to people. I mean in times past we had the small retailer, perhaps this person had a small coin shop, bakery, drugstore and pharmacy, shoe shop, maybe a corner grocery store. Now, there aren’t any small stores like that. And where does that person end up making a living?
Well, he worked in retail so maybe he even ends up working for the same department store hat pushed him out of business. So what does that do to your self-esteem?
I can say I feel fortunate to have lived many years in an America quite different from what most people in America being younger than me have been growing up with.
Hippies, Yippies, Yuppies … How the 1% Diluted the Progressive Movement by Slandering Boomers to Foster Culture War Between Them and Gen Xers and to Distract from Their Own Looting
The Yuppies Were Hardly Boomers … But This Idea Supports a Right-Wing Agenda by Pitting Progressives Against Each Other … Try the Red Pill Instead
Obvious “Truths”:
Real Truth – All the Above Are Lies … Propaganda to Further the Motives of the 1%, the Filthy Rich
I can say I feel fortunate to have lived many years in an America quite different from what most people in America being younger than me have been growing up with.
I watched in the early Eighties the lies about a “Me Generation” coming out. Republicans brought that out to beat people down with. The idea was planted that people who wanted anything for themselves were selfish, for after all only the wealthy should ever benefit.
The 1% of the WWII Generation’s response to Sixties activism on campus, as I showed earlier, led to their taking over the universities in the early Seventies and turning them away from the humanities and social sciences and into career mills; I was there and observed it first hand. The success of this is what created the Yuppies in the Eighties–young upwardly mobile professionals–who were the first batch of Generation X—who are those born 1961 to 1981, who therefore left high school beginning in 1978. [Footnote 1]
So these Gen X Yuppies were coming onto the scene in the early Eighties, when the first of them were leaving the universities. The turnaround in education, away from free thinking and towards conservative careerist values, was in full swing by the time they reached college in 1978 on. And its effect on them was patent when they began coming of age. They were what the WWII Generation wanted: money-oriented and compliant…greed had been made “good” again. Standouts of this generation today are Sarah Palin (born 1964), Eric Cantor (born 1963), Rand Paul (born 1963), and Paul Ryan (born 1970).
So then the WWII Generation, fully in charge of society, could point to these yuppie spawn as examples of the obscenity of greed, thus deflecting attention away from their own, WWII Generation, me-spiritedness. To further their ends, they also claimed the origins of this unseemly greed lie in the failed, unrealistic values of the Sixties generation and their idealism.
Whereas this actual Me Generation, these Yuppies, were predominantly a bunch of reactionary young people who said to hell with this idealistic stuff, and of helping out, and kumbaya, and all that stuff. They said, we’re for money, to hell with any one else. And somehow the WWII-Generation-owned media, assisted by a Fifties Generation now in their prime, convinced folks that these careerists out only for themselves were the one-time visionaries. Of course they only pulled this off because they owned or controlled all the major organs of expression in America—the newspapers, magazines, TV, radio, education, book publishing. I’ve delineated how they did this in one of the earliest all-out assaults, after their initial setbacks in the Sixties, of the Culture War/Class War they have been waging on the 99% since that time.
The media flooded American minds with the idea that the Me Generation was My Generation (I’m “talkin’ bout my generation” here) in the Eighties. They had prepared the ground for that lie, as there had been constant slander of my generation in the press since the beginnings of our activism in the Sixties, exactly like they are now putting out against the Millennials and those in the Occupy movement today. Beginning in the Seventies, owning the publishing and media industries, they concocted the lie that there was a conservative backlash going on. (See Chapter Two: Matrix Aroused, the Sixties and The Big Lie About Yuppies Being Hippies.)
This supposed conservative backlash was merely a continuation of Nixon’s laughable claim that he was supported by a “Silent Majority,” which he had used since the beginnings of his term in 1969 and which was obviously false, as demonstrations grew in size and support swung away from him throughout this period; and eventually he was forced to resign. But Republicans always claim there are a majority of real folks out there—“real Americans” as Palin and her kind say today—who support them but are doing it secretly. (btw, lol!)
Anyway, by the Eighties the powers-that-be were able to place this idea of a selfish “Me Generation” of Sixties youth, which they had been saying for a while, as being the ones on the campus at the time or recently out, the Yuppies. It fit their narrative. But it was a lie, and virtually all my generation knew it and thought it laughable. We stopped laughing after a while as over the years, it became clearer they had done such a good job of preparing the ground and repeating the lie that it stuck in the minds of those other than my generation—the Fifties Generation ahead of us and Gen X behind us—and the right wing, who of course saw this as red meat to further their causes. The media controlled by the 1% said the Sixties generation had gone from idealism to just wanting money, thereby discrediting their opponents, us who were consistently representing the 99%. At the same time they gave credibility to their claim of the superior veracity of their own values of greed, materialism, ruthless pragmatism, ego above all, and even me-spiritedness. Also, it validated, even glorified their personal traits of conformity, hard-headedness, cynicism, compliance, and even mean-spiritedness .
The Lies About Jerry Rubin
They could only give one example, Jerry Rubin; and even about him they lied and slandered. First off, neither Jerry Rubin, or Abbie Hoffman for that matter, were Boomers or Sixties Generation members. They were Fifties Generation, born in 1938 and 1936 respectively. Boomers were born in the post-WWII baby boom from 1946 through 1960. So that is enough to discredit what they said about “my generation.” But taking it as an attack aimed at the counterculture, let’s examine it:
They said Jerry Rubin was engaged in trying to make money. And they never mentioned what he was trying to make money on…
but God forbid anyone but them should try to make money anyway. You see, what the 1% do is drive people into lowered standards of living and poverty where they experience desperation for money at times. Then they can point to that grasping to survive as proof that their values of money above all else are legitimate and that it is not possible for humans to have any other values higher than that. They create the conditions that they can use to support and validate themselves…how convenient.
But Rubin’s position in this “debate”—which was actually a discussion of different ways the Sixties values might succeed, not be overturned—was that the POOR COULD BE HELPED by promoting programs to create wealth in their communities. I quote:
Someone who knew him well, Stew Albert, said this of Jerry in eulogizing him.
And,
Does that sound like someone promoting the interests of the 1%? Or like someone just out for himself, as Yuppies really are? Remember that at the time, militant, even violent revolution had been in the air for a while—with the Weather Underground, the Black Panthers, and the Symbionese Liberation Army and such. So “Yippie vs. Yuppie” was a leftist debate about tactics. Today it would be considered a discussion of liberal vs. progressive views…hardly conservative, Yuppie, or Republican views. And Jerry Rubin’s putting on a suit made him about as conservative as it made Bob Dylan a conservative when he picked up an electric guitar at the Newport Festival of 1965. Dylan got booed for what was only considered unusual alongside some very high, and strict, expectations about purism in music having nothing to do with political ideology or musical quality but simply technology. Rubin’s wearing a suit was the same kind of thing at the time he did it…and it had nothing to do with ideology but simply tactics—i.e., revolutionary technology.
Also, at the same time as Rubin was doing all this and supposedly a Yuppie, he was running a legal and civil rights office in an artsy/alternative part of L.A., Echo Park, where he also lived. When he died he was on his way to dinner in the company of Fred Branfman of the Making a Difference project, whose purpose was to bring money into poor communities by helping inner-city youth learn how to start their own businesses. Does that sound like a Wall Street careerist? Does that sound like he turned over his ideals and bowed to the god of money? So, lies, lies, lies. And these lies become instituted and they’re not challenged after a while, after you hear them for decade after decade after decade….
You have to be older to know that it wasn’t always the way they tell you it is. It helps to have lived in different times and places and to have seen things with your own eyes to be able to see through these inane “obvious truths” that people take as absolute truths. It helps to have had experience with the things they are talking about to know what are actual facts and what are complete fabrications.
Setting the Record Straight on Boomers
Boomer-Generation X Culture War
A friend who supports the Occupy movement, and who happens to be a Gen Xer, recently shared this with me,
If this person were correct, then why have the Boomers voted consistently Democratic? [Footnote 2]
The Gen X/Yuppie—Fifties Generation alliance was responsible for getting Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II elected. Boomers voted against Republicans, especially these; it’s all in the public record. Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II are the ones who did the tax cuts. Whereas Clinton—a Boomer and a Democrat—raised taxes on the 1% and balanced a budget for the first time.
Indeed, all Democratic candidates and Presidents going back to Roosevelt at least, with the one small exception of Kennedy favored and fought for raising taxes on the 1%, not cutting them, so as to relieve the burden on the 99%. The right likes to use Kennedy as an example of a Democrat seeing the wisdom of cutting taxes to improve the economy, but Kennedy’s proposed tax cut for the 1% was when the marginal rate was 91% range, not at 35% as today, and the country was prosperous. (See The Myth of JFK as a Supply Side Tax Cutter.) Also it was not instituted until Johnson began his term … which was incidentally when the huge deficits began. So Kennedy’s tax cut had nothing at all to do with the prosperity we enjoyed during his term, indeed its institution marked the beginning of increasing deficits.
Even today, it is Democrats—supported heavily by Boomers—who are opposed to tax cuts and favor reining in the greed of the 1%.
This includes Obama, who incidentally is a Gen X-Boomer cusper, born 1961. Note that he has surrounded himself with Boomers—Biden, Clinton, et al. And they are engaged in that same Democratic struggle of decades past of trying to get the 1% to pay their fair share in taxes. Meanwhile Republicans supported by that Fifties Generation (the Koch Brothers, John McCain, Dick Cheney, Mitch McConnell, et al) – Gen X/Yuppie (Palin, Cantor, Ryan, Rand Paul) alliance oppose Boomer-Democratic tax and other progressive initiatives at every turn.
So to accuse Boomers, who voted predominantly for these Democrats and their policies, of cutting taxes is grossly misinformed or a lie. And for a Gen Xer to do this blaming is either ignorant, a denial, or delusional…but is in any case a product of that misinformation I’ve been talking about.
For to address that Gen Xer’s charges of Boomer’s causing the dependence on dirty foreign oil, the Sixties Generation started the environmental movement. I know a little about this; as I explained previously, I was one of those who helped bring nuclear plant construction to a halt in America, which we did in Springfield, Oregon, in the early Eighties. We, Boomers…I was born in 1950…supported Democrats who fought for environmental legislation, alternative energies, and reduced dependence on dirty energies against Republicans, supported by the Fifties-Gen X alliance, who watered down those policies and legislated a rape of our natural resources and our environment to benefit big business, Big Oil, Big Nuke, Big Coal, and the 1%.
As for the accusation that Boomers sent our manufacturing base overseas and caused a lowering of middle class wages, how can that possibly be true alongside the more than obvious knowledge that Democrats are the ones who consistently push for and favor raising the minimum wage and are the union supporters? Can this OWS person not be aware of the parallel Wisconsin union movement which has Democrats and union folks up against Republicans and Gen X/Fifties Gen Koch-supporters? Or is he somehow unaware of the fact that Boomers have consistently voted in greater numbers for Democrats than Republicans over all these decades? [Footnote 2]
Well, this shows the amount of success the WWII Generation and Fifties Generation enjoyed in shifting the blame for their policies and their theft of the national wealth. And, by the way, it was the WWII Generation that had the greatest retirement wealth per person and who instituted Social Security and other benefit programs for themselves … making themselves the wealthiest as well as the “Greatest Generation.” Probably with the tax cuts, the current Fifties Generation who in their retirement years are raping the wealth of the country to fatten themselves, are bettering them. Whereas the Sixties Generation, scapegoated again, is facing cuts in Social Security, Medicare, and other benefits at the exact time as they need it and are facing or entering retirement—being beaten down, harassed, and scapegoated by the Gen X-Fifties Generation alliance again.
You think this is ancient information and is irrelevant to what is happening today? Remember that the comment I quoted above from my Gen X friend and fellow Occupier was from only last week. He has his sights set on my generation as the perpetrators of the problems; these ideas have caused a split between Gen X and Boomer Progressives. I can tell you that his comment is not atypical from others I hear from Gen X in their attitudes toward Boomers.
Similarly, to some extent the Millennials believe Boomers are at fault also—this is what they have been taught. They are simply misinformed and so are not so committed to the lies as the Gen Xers.
The Millennials are open to the fact they have been deceived. After all their Boomer parents are models of the fact that these “facts” are actually lies. The Millennials have been made to believe, simply, that their own parents and those of their friends are somehow just different from those “bad Boomers” out there who are really the selfish and tax-cutter ones.
Lies and toxic misinformation are not healthy, at all, for a movement that is predominantly an alliance of Millennials and Boomers, with some Gen Xers (notably, few Fifties Generation folks). After all, how do you think a progressive Boomer feels,
after fighting his entire life with his generational cohort for the changes that we are still fighting for with the OWS and Wisconsin union movements, and after hearing his entire life the made up lies, the slander, the scapegoating about himself, his generation, and his beliefs? How do you think she feels seeing those same lies being pulled out again and thrown against OWS supporters, for example, continuing therefore to throw salt into old wounds? And finally how do you think she feels to hear from her friends and allies in the movement that she has been the problem all this time, not the solution? It is disheartening, to say the least.
In this antagonism against Boomers, the other side—the WWII-Fifties Gen alliance, supportive of the 1% and their Tea Party sycophants—have won again. [Footnote 3]
For these WWII-Fifties Gen lies have thrown discord into progressive ranks. And they have thrown off the aim of our movements as to who the perpetrators are, giving the 1% a convenient fog of confusion behind which they can continue unfettered their actions against us.
Finally a most visible example of the right-wing/Republican Fifties Generation – Gen X alliance was shown in the last presidential election with a Fifties Gen, McCain, matched with a Gen X – Palin, born in 1964, coming smack in the middle of the Yuppies (1961 through 1970). This is the generational alliance and the generational values we should be targeting, not Boomers, and Progressives would do better to know that.
The “Truth Dividend” of Having Been Around
So, in understanding what might be the truth and what are obviously lies, it helps to be older, for you can know that it wasn’t always the way they tell you it is or has to be. It helps to have lived in different times and places and to have seen things with your own eyes to be able to see through these inane “obvious truths” that people take as absolute truths. It helps to have had experience with the things they are talking about to know what are actual facts and what are complete fabrications.
And with that seeing comes the knowledge that over the course of the last fifty years America descended into a deep slumber of untruth from which it could not awaken…regardless of all the righteous efforts of many true-seeing progressive activists who did their best to sound alarms.
Continue With Culture War, Class War, Chapter Sixteen: The Fall of “Obvious Truths”
Return to Culture War, Class War, Chapter Fourteen: Better Off Than Fifty Years Ago?
The Rise and Fall of “Obvious Truths,” Part Three – an Audio Reading by SillyMickel Adzema
Here is an audio of the author’s impassioned reading of this part. Though it is of the first, unedited and unpolished version, and it does not contain all the detail of its current form, it does capture the flavor of it all. I offer it here for your listening pleasure. For the reading of this part, “The Rise and Fall of ‘Obvious Truths,’ Part Three,” click on the link to the audio site above or click the link to the audio player below.
http://ecdn0.hark.com/swfs/player.swf?1305835355
Footnotes
1. A lot of confusion about Boomers, Yuppies, And Generation X has been generated by the Census Bureau and main stream media. A generation, see below, is defined as a cohort of people occurring roughly every twenty years who share some common viewpoint and experiences.
This is what a generation actually is:
Meanwhile, the U.S. Census Bureau definition of Boomers is different. See Baby boomer.
Why would it be different? That is the crucial question. The Census Bureau’s definitions of Boomers and Generation X is as follows:
So why are those born 1961 through 1964 considered part of the Boomer Generation by the Census Bureau, which has informed much of the discussion on this? Why is the Census Bureau attributing only 17 years to Generation X but 19 years to Boomers, when in fact the Boomers were born in a World War II “baby boom” that had them being born in a distinctly shorter period. Whereas Generation X was born of the Fifties Generation during a more languorous, hence longer period? Why is the Census Bureaus including as Boomers those born at those end years of 1961 through 1964 when the number of births was decreasing, not “booming”?
I don’t know the answer, but I do know this decision by the Census Bureau has served pundits and right wing commentators in giving more weight to their positions by diluting the distinctly liberal voting record of actual Boomers. As I have been stating above, there was a concerted effort to scapegoat Boomers and to confuse them with Yuppie-Gen Xers. This confused definition by the Census Bureau is part of that. It has allowed pundits to slander the Sixties Generation, as I said, by attributing qualities to them that were actually a part of the WWII Generation’s Culture War Attack of creating a generation different from and more compliant than the Sixties Generation/ Boomers.
At any rate, that is why we have the discrepancy shown in this description of the Pew Report findings on “Boomer” voting patterns. Let’s look at a few relevant findings:
This supports what I’m saying about generational voting patterns. The difference lies in that this author has to differentiate between late Boomers and early Boomers. They are opposite in their voting patterns. This person wouldn’t be so confused if he placed the generational divide where it belongs, at 1961, not 1965. Boomers were born between 1946 and 1960, as shown in the chart below, which also shows Generation X beginning in 1961.
The Boom Generation defined by Howe and Strauss, as shown in the chart above, born 1946 thru 1960 are the ones who vote consistently Democratic. They are the ones who shared common events and experiences growing up and were shaped by them, notably the Vietnam War; the JFK, RFK, and MLK assasinations in 1968; the sexual revolution; the explosion of the use of LSD and pot as drugs, and the counterculture. These events were not on the cultural map that faced the ones born 1961 through 1964, for they were too young. Yet how can one define a Boomer-Sixties Generation that does not include these as formative experiences?
So this discrepancy is an example of what I’m talking about in this article. For it continues the confusion about Boomers and contributes to the scapegoating and the denigration of Boomers as being a Me Generation and Yuppies being former hippies by simply getting confusing results by including some from Gen X—some actual Yuppies.
To include those born between the four years, 1961 through 1964, you end up getting the confused results this author gets. You are including the likes of Sarah Palin and Eric Cantor, fer Chrissakes! I’ve never heard anyone mistake them for my generation. It would have Barack Obama, born 1961, categorized as a Boomer, as if there is not an obvious generational difference between him and some the notable Boomers in his administration, like Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton. But by seeing that Obama is a Yuppie-Gen Xer, it helps explain the differences between him and the actual Boomer president, Bill Clinton.
For more on this, see Generation Jones, which is the term given for those born 1954 through 1964. They are seen to be very different from the Boomers. They did not confront the same social realities as did Boomers. They even came of age after the Vietnam War. They missed the counterculture movement. It is ludicrous for generationalists to include these with Baby Boomers as especially the second half of these have an entirely opposite world view from Boomers. Their stalwarts include Rick Santorum (born 1958), Sarah Palin (born 1964) and Eric Cantor (born 1963)…hardly Boomers. Notice that it also includes Rand Paul (born 1963), who as expected is the son of a Fifties Generation parent with whom he is allied, Ron Paul (born 1935).
See also the write up on Generation X in Wikipedia, which addresses this confusion as to where the dividing line between Boomers and Gen X is as well.
Finally, see Baby boomer, which discusses this confusion and adds two important considerations: The person who coined the term “baby boomer” described them as those born between 1943 and 1960. So why did the Census Bureau change it? The second point discussed is that many theorists have two distinct generations during this supposed period of Census Bureau Boomers—Boomers and Generation Jones, which are said to be those born 1956 through 1964. So this latter group is not included with Boomers.
Is all this not confusing enough? Does it not play into the right wing agenda to dilute their opponents power by confusing their opponents profile, so they can lob any charge against them? Or attribute any self-congratulatory trait to them, as they wish?
Most of all, this strikes me as devious in that it allows right wingers to blame Boomers for the cadre of youth, the Yuppies, who were actually their creation—that of the 1% and those reactionary culture war forces—and were in no way influenced by, so should hardly be included in, “my generation” of Boomers, the Sixties Generation.
2. BLAM!! From the site, Gallup Politics, of May 8, 2009. Even though continuing the misinformation that Boomers were born up till 1964, going with the Census Bureau definition, Gallup Poll data still solidly support the premise that Boomers are predominantly Democrats, as well as the fact that Millennials are as well.
Notice here that not only are arbitrary birth figures used to stipulate Boomers and Generation Xers, but everyone older than a Boomer is classified as part of the World War Two Generation—”The Greatest Generation.” So they would have everyone born in the forty-five year period from 1901 through 1945 to be WWII Gen even though some were born during the war and had their coming of age after the war and in the decade of the Fifties—those born 1925 through 1945. Elsewhere this generation has been termed the Silent Generation or the Eisenhower-Presley-McCarthy Generation…I’m calling them the Fifties Generation for convenience sake. Still, the study does find Democratic tendencies among Boomers, however wrongly defined, and Millennials. And it finds Republican leanings among Generation Xers, however wrongly defined, and the Fifties Generation, however wrongly defined again, as shown by the graph below:
Now contrast what above is said in the Gallup Poll about Boomers with what is said here about “late Boomers,” or who Howe and Strauss and other social scientists would call Generation X, and I would call Gen X-Yuppies:
The article above also describes the Democratic voting patterns of the Millennials, or what they call Generation Y.
On the idea that the Millennials being the sons and daughters of the Sixties Generation/Boomers, as I continually point out, I offer the following definition of Millennials from WhatIs.com
Finally a most visible example of the right-wing/Republican Fifties Generation – Gen X alliance was shown in the last presidential election with a Fifties Gen, McCain, matched with a Gen X – Palin, born in 1964, coming smack in the middle of the Yuppies (1961 through 1970). This is the generational alliance and the generational values we should be targeting, not Boomers, and Progressives would do better to know that.
3. There is some scapegoating done by Millennials out of this misinformation. The following was published a few days ago, on June 17, 2012. It is further validation of the antagonism against Boomers regarding the issues of the movement—OWS and Wisconsin union:
Continue With Culture War, Class War, Chapter Sixteen: The Fall of “Obvious Truths”
Return to Culture War, Class War, Chapter Fourteen: Better Off Than Fifty Years Ago?
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