A Nation of Couch Potatoes

Remember when Gov. Chris Christie warned that if we don't get rid of these redistributionist government programs "...we'll have a bunch of people sittin’ on a couch waiting for their next government check,”?
That was an interesting choice of metaphors coming from someone who, as a consequence of eating too many potatoes, could easily function as a couch.
Other Republicons have gone even further than the politician who is so fat he could teeter-totter with Marlon Brando. They claim that we are already there.
Rick Santorum said "...a little less than 50 percent of the people in this country depend on some form of federal payment, some form of government benefit to help provide for them,"
Gov. Romney made the same claim recently when he slandered 47% of the American people.

When I first heard them start to use this talking point I was like, "what the hell are they talking about? Are they just taking notes from Rush Dimbulb's radio show now and repeating the garbage he routinely pulls out of his big fat lard ass and expecting us all to believe it? Don't they realize that we live in the age of computers and fact checking?"
So I went to my computer and checked out PolitiFact.com to see what the story is.
They rated Santorum's statement Mostly True!
However, when you dig deep and look at how they come to this conclusion, things get interesting and very informative.

I attribute the success of right-wing propaganda/talking points to four main factors:
1) They are able to construct very simple arguments based on superficial appearances and assumptions. This is very easy to do.
2) They are able to make these arguments in a way that strikes our emotional chords. These arguments provoke our sense of outrage by creating the impression that a grave injustice is being done. This is also very easy to do.
3) They are able to manipulate the media in away where they can endlessly repeat these arguments over and over until they are accepted as true. This takes much more skill but is still relatively easy because of factor # 4.
4) Countering these arguments requires a much deeper understanding of reality, of how things work, of the 'big picture.' This is much more difficult to do. Plus it cannot be done in a simple sound bite.

Let me give you a few examples.
Right-wing talking points:
Joseph Stalin was bad therefore Communism is bad therefore socialism is bad therefore anything we label as socialism is bad.
Could I show the fallacy of that statement? Yes.
Could I do it in one short sentence? No way.
It would take several paragraphs.

Universal healthcare is bad because it rations healthcare and creates Death Panels, plus it's socialism and we can't afford it.
Again, it would take several paragraphs to explain the problems with that one sentence.

Obama apologizes for American values and sympathizes with the terrorists.
It took me 13 paragraphs to show how the US Embassy in Cairo's statement was not an apology, did not sympathize with the terrorists and actually defended American values. I did that in the following post:
http://liberalbabyboomer.blogspot.com/2012/09/brave-mitt.html
No wonder the Obama administration decided to disavow the Embassy statement rather than try to win that sound bite 'debate' through the media.

Which brings us to the right wing talking point which is the topic of this post:
Redistributionist policies take from the producers and give to the moochers.

See what I'm saying? See how easy it is to make the conservative argument? See how powerful the emotional impact of those arguments are? If they are believed they will enrage conservatives and shame liberals.
Obviously, Republiconservative politicians and talking heads want us to believe that redistributionist policies are causing us to become unwilling or unable to work because we are lazy and dependent on government.
Now this is definitely a plausible argument that shouldn't be dismissed by the left and needs to be carefully examined, which is what I intend to do in the following posts.

I want to demonstrate how Christie's, Santorum's and Romney's arguments are based on twisted and distorted facts, mixed in with enough bullshit to balance out a scale with Chris Christie on the other end of it. And by my estimations that bullshit would have to weigh at least a ton in order to do that.
But because reading a long complex explanation is almost as difficult as making one, I've decided to make that explanation in a separate post. So please stay tuned.

Class Warfare: Republicon Style

Just like the healthcare reform debates of two years ago, during which the Republicons falsely accused the Dems of precisely what they, the Republicons, were guilty of (rationing of healthcare with a free market administered Death Panel), the Recons are now engaged in a kind of class warfare that is not only hypocritical but misrepresents the facts in a very deceitful manner.

Romney recently expressed the kind of sentiments that right-wing radio hosts have been promulgating for many years now: Half of the country does the work (the upper income people) while the other half lays on the couch all day long waiting for their Government check to arrive.

Ed ciaccio, a friend and former MoveOn member sent me the following information in an email, which saved me the trouble of a google search. Ed also makes some excellent points:

"If you missed a very disgusting screed by a candidate for the presidency, here is what Mitt Romney said recently behind closed doors (revealing his true opinion of many of us):

'There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what….These are people who pay no income tax. […] [M]y job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.'

It's actually 46 percent, and people in southern red states—you know, where those "right to work" for less laws Mitt likes keep wages low—are disproportionately likely to pay no income taxes.

Here is the truth, which Romney either refuses to know or will not acknowledge, given his prejudice against anyone unlike himself:
Just who was included in that 47% Mitt Romney was referring to in his secretly-recorded comments at a Boca Raton, Fla., fundraiser as people who don’t “take personal responsibility and care for themselves”?

61 percent of them work but don’t earn enough to owe Federal income tax.
17 percent are students (who will pay plenty of taxes once they’re out of school), military families, people with disabilities and people who have lost their jobs—including victims of outsourcers like, well, Mitt Romney.
22 percent are elderly.
(Data source: www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3505#_ftn9.)

The fact that they're not paid enough or are active duty military or are too old or disabled—maybe suffering from black lung or other diseases acquired on the job—does not mean they don’t contribute to America’s tax revenues. In fact, the poorest one-fifth of U.S. households pay a grinding 16 percent of their income in various federal, state and local taxes."

Hey that's more than Romney pays!
Thanks Ed, good work

The Republiconservatives are trying to make it look like half the country is on welfare. This garbage comes straight from the bigoted minds and out of the big fat mouths of radio hosts like Rush Limbag and the countless copycats who have adopted his surefire moneymaking techniques.

This is how the deceit works: First you take the worst examples of the excesses of the 1970's welfare state. Then, because the President's a Democrat (all the better that he's black), you make believe that welfare reform never happened in the 90's under Clinton. Then you take that 70's stereotype, exaggerate it, then conflate it with every government program including Medicare and Social Security. Then you conflate that twisted image with the idea that this is where all your taxes go, assuming that you're in the 50% who pay "all of the taxes."

Here's a more honest and accurate, fair and balanced description of the "welfare state":

Government "welfare" programs are insurance programs that we all pay into either directly or indirectly, including the poor. These programs are available to any and every American citizen who is proven eligible and meets the requirements. This is a fact that is ignored by the right until it comes out that one of their heroes, like Paul Ryan or Ayn Rand or Joe the Plumber used Government programs. When it came out that Ayn Rand collected her dead husband's Social Security and used Medicare to treat her self-inflicted, tobacco-caused lung cancer (tobacco which was supplied by the free market at a handsome profit) and Joe the Plumber was on public assistance, their defenders pointed out that "they paid into the system"! Same goes for the hypocritical bug-eyed creep Ryan.

Do some people cheat? Sure, but the same thing is true for private insurance programs. I don't hear conservatives calling for getting rid of private insurance. We should do our best to stop any cheating. Interestingly, conservatives don't want to do anything to stop cheating in the free market because that would be "big government interference." Better to let the market regulate itself.

I'll have more on this later.

Is This an Apology or an Acknowledgement?

Is this following post an apology? If there are any conservatives reading this, please let me know what you think because sometimes it seems that an apology is in the eye of the beholder, a matter of perception.

I'd like to take this opportunity to extend to my fellow countrymen, who happen to be conservative, the same consideration and courtesy that I do to those Muslims from other countries that are at odds with us.
When I reread my last blog post I realized that I can be just as incendiary towards conservatives (many of whom are my friends and family members) as what I criticize them for being.

I acknowledge and agree with many of the grievances conservatives have regarding the behavior of certain Muslims throughout the world.
As a liberal and an agnostic, I am very troubled by much of this behavior. Especially the lack of restraint in the use of violence when expressing anger. (I think US military policy should practice more restraint as well)
Killings, the persecution of other religious groups, the treatment women, gays and dissenters are all things that are much worse, by far, than anything I've ever accused conservatives of. (except maybe the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan)

I've often noted the similarities between the mind set and behavior of the unbalanced ultra-conservative religious fundamentalists of Islam and that of our own conservatives.
But let me say this, I'll take good old American unbalanced ultra-conservative religious fundamentalists over those foreign ones any day of the week. That's because they've been tempered and shaped by good old American liberals.

If you think about it, conservatives and liberals in this country basically agree on our ultimate goals. We just disagree on how to get there. I think that conservatives have about a third of it correct. Liberals have about a third correct. And the other third is yet to be decided.

One of the things we disagree about is what constitutes an apology.
So if any conservatives are reading this and would like to tell me whether they think that this post is an apology, I'd appreciate it. If I can know what your perception is I will reveal my intention and see if they match.

In the meantime, I will compose my 'apology' for apologies.

Brave Mitt

You gotta give it to him. Mitt Romney has guts. Not only was he courageous enough to falsely accuse the President of something he didn't do and, in the middle of a dangerous crisis, insult the actions of our brave diplomatic corps, but he also showed spine by defending the fucking asshole who took it upon himself to throw a match into an ocean of gasoline.

Check out the fearlessness of Mitt's initial statements in regard to the American Embassy in Cairo's initial statement:

"I'm outraged by the attacks on American diplomatic missions in Libya and Egypt and by the death of an American consulate worker in Benghazi. It's disgraceful that the Obama administration's first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks."

Then later:
"...the statements were inappropriate and, in my view, a disgraceful statement on the part of our administration to apologize for American values.
I think it's a terrible course to -- for America to stand in apology for our values...And apology for America's values is never the right course."

From what Mitt said, you'd think that right after an American was killed in the attack in Libya, Obama pleaded for forgiveness from the attackers then apologized for granting the right of free speech in our Constitution. But just like almost every other time Mitt opens his mouth to utter something, he said the exact opposite of what the truth is.

Check out this timeline of exactly what was said, when and by whom, and how it (mis)matches with what Romney charged: What They Said, Before and After the Consulate Attack - Graphic - NYTimes.com

This was the Embassy in Cairo's initial statement which Mitt described as "disgraceful" "sympath[etic] with those who waged the attacks" and an "apology for America's values" and which he falsely attributed to the Obama administration as their first response to the attacks on our missions :

"The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims – as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions. Today, the 11th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, Americans are honoring our patriots and those who serve our nation as the fitting response to the enemies of democracy. Respect for religious beliefs is a cornerstone of American democracy. We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others."

Disgraceful? Sympathetic to the attackers of our missions? An apology for America's values?

What's disgraceful is how Romney insulted our brave diplomatic corps who, in service to our country, put their lives at risk in one of the most dangerous parts of the world and only made a perfectly reasonable, even-handed "fair and balanced" statement intended to calm a dangerous situation. Mitt wouldn't give the experienced people who were in the heat of battle the benefit of the doubt as how to best handle a very volatile situation which was developing quickly. It's like he wanted them to stand on top of the wall with a megaphone and yell "Now listen you Muslims. Everything in that Movie is the truth. You just can't handle the truth. Now back off before we let you have it!" Mitt and his fellow conservative chicken-hawks should try that next time something like this happens.

But maybe I'm being unfair referring to Mitt as a chicken-hawk because I heard that he earned a Purple Heart during the Vietnam war. Not that Mitt ever served in Vietnam. You see, even though he demonstrated in favor of the draft during the war, he used a deferment so he could serve as a Mormon missionary in the brutal and dangerous jungles of France. The way he got his Purple Heart is when he was annoying a French patron who was trying to enjoy one of the lowest heart disease rates in the world by practicing the French tradition of drinking a daily glass of wine. Part of the Mormon mission is to convince people not to drink alcohol. As Mitt preached the evils of drink to the Frenchman, he reached out to stay the wino's hand. This caused some of the wine to splash onto Mitt and produce a purple, heart shaped stain on his crisp starched-white Mormon shirt. Story goes, Mitt's salesmanship sold the Frenchman on the idea that wine could only cause him harm. So he gave up wine drinking on the spot. Unfortunately, the gentleman died of a heart attack in his mid forties.
Oh well, at least Mitt got out of going to Vietnam!

Sympathetic to the attackers of our missions?

Does this sound like sympathy with the attackers?
"Today, the 11th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, Americans are honoring our patriots and those who serve our nation as the fitting response to the enemies of democracy."

Notice how Mitt used the plural when he referred to the "attacks on our diplomatic missions." In other words, he included the attack in Libya which caused the deaths of three Americans. He was trying to make us think that the statement was made after those killings. As the NY Times reported, the statement was made by the Embassy in Egypt before the first attack even happened. The Administration's first response after the killing in Libya was to strongly condemn the attacks.
Ain't Romney something?

An apology for America's values?

Did you see an apology anywhere in that statement? I always thought that apologies required the use of words like "we apologize" "we are sorry" or "we deeply regret." It wasn't an apology, it was a condemnation of the asshole film that got three Americans killed. Something that jerk-off Romney should have done in the first place. Instead, the fuck decided to inflame the emotions of his countrymen by doing exactly what his ultra-conservative religious fundamentalist counterparts in the Arab Middle East do: throw even more gas on the fire.

Far from apologizing for American values, the statement proudly asserted them: "Respect for religious beliefs is a cornerstone of American democracy."
From the way Romney and his fellow war-mongers have been behaving, it looks as if they would like to apologize to right wing "Judeo/Christians" for the Founding Fathers including Islam in that one. (Check out Jefferson's writings on that: http://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2010/08/jefferson-on-the-toleration-of-islam/183790/ )
But what about free speech?
The statement went beyond defending it as an American value by calling it "the universal right of free speech."
The exact opposite of what Romney charged.

Do you recall what the appeasing Muslim-sympathizing General Petraeus said two years ago?
The US military commander in Afghanistan warned that the lives of American troops would be endangered if evangelical Christians in Florida went ahead with plans to burn the Koran on the ninth anniversary of September 11. I think that should apply to Romney's reckless staements, as well.

GOP Theme: We Built This Straw Man

I really hope the Dems do a decent job of exposing all that deceitful horseshit that was piled up on the stage during the GOP Convention last week. What a puke-fest that was.

I think it would be helpful to look at the definition of the word deceit: (from Wikipedia)

"Deception, beguilement, deceit, bluff, mystification and subterfuge are acts to propagate beliefs that are not true, or not the whole truth (as in half-truths or omission). Deception can involve dissimulation, propaganda, and sleight of hand, and well as distraction, camouflage or concealment. There is also self-deception, as in bad faith."

Isn't that a perfect description of Republiconservative tactics?

Check out the description of Straw Man from http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-straw-man-argument.htm:

"The straw man argument, ... deliberately misrepresents and weakens the argument of the opposing side. This can be done by leaving out key points of an opposing argument, quoting a person’s words out of context, or presenting a particular person’s poor defense as the entire defense of an opposing side."

From Wikipedia:"A straw man, ... is a type of argument and is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position.[1] To "attack a straw man" is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by replacing it with a superficially similar yet unequivalent proposition (the "straw man"), and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original position.[1][2]"

I also hope the Dems can do a much better job of reiterating Obama's message, which was taken out of context by the right but then ironically expressed with the use of the collective "We" in the GOP's very convention theme: "We built it."
It's almost as if the Republicons recognized the reality that we are all interdependent on each other.
Except, whenever Republicons and libertarians hear that concept expressed, their limbic system produces a powerful and angry emotional reaction and this causes their pre-frontal cortex to shut down rendering it incapable of accepting any information that contradicts their emotional biases. (To be fair, Dems and libs have this same tendency.)

Unfortunately, I'm not hopeful of that hope because I can count on one hand the number of people I've heard give that message the rigor and eloquence that it deserves. My guess is that they won't even try.

I'll be following the convention on the "Fair and Balanced" station and see what happens.