Politically engaged - but not necessarily politically informed...
Today - with the all-volunteer military - such prods to active engagement and informed activism have been sorely lacking for over 30 years. If we set aside the obvious meaningless wedge issues such as gays in the military and the 10 Commandments on the steps of a courthouse, it was only the market crash of 2008 and the near-total collapse of the world economy that stirred the American public from its 35-year political stupor. The fact that it took such a direct whack to the pocket book to waken the public from what appeared to be general anesthesia was depressing enough. But the fact that there is a world of difference between being engaged and being informed is a grim reality that has left the more thoughtful Americans who have been sounding the alarm bells for years tearing their hair in total despair.
Living in the political spin zone:
The sad truth is that our constitution works in the context of an engaged and informed electorate. In a previous post I mentioned the role of the fairness doctrine and equal time in keeping the electorate informed with objective information free from spin. The ability to pick and choose user-friendly pundits for interviews has permitted candidates to engage in fact-free election campaigns where spin rules the day.
The result has been an angry electorate that is seething with rage and in search of simple answers. Those simple supply-side answers sound good. They sound down-home and down-to-earth - but....
Sorry folks - the world is a complicated place...
I spent 16 years of my life as a scientist. One thing I found out during the course of that career was this: if you think there are simple answers to any biological question you are setting yourself up for a major disappointment. When I started my doctorate - we were thinking of one gene, one disease. By the time I was defending my thesis- we were dealing with multiple genes, gene enhancers, gene suppressors, epistatic interactions, and distal regulatory effects. In layman's terms - most complex diseases are a massive confusing tangle.
So now the seething public - after electing change in 2008 thought two years was enough - and have in true schizophrenic form - put the conservatives back in the driver's seat. The desire for simple, pat answers and the longing to have someone wave a wand and make everything better is leading the public to run from one spin zone to the next in search of getting back what they lost. Folks - it ain't that simple.
You asked for it - you got it! (Too bad the rest of us have to take the ride with you!)
OK - so here is what Newt Gingrich - the poster boy of the supply side nonsense that Americans elected in Nov said last week.
"What Republicans ought to do is say to people who create jobs, how many years does the tax code need to be extended for you to make an investment decision? "
Mr. Gingrich - surely you jest? How anyone can say this with a straight face baffles me. While you are content to tell the 9.8% unemployed to eat cake you happy to leave the foxes in charge of the hen house and give them anything they want. Need I remind people that these cuts have been in place for 10 years and that after a decade of budget-busting tax breaks for the top 2% 600,000 jobs were lost before the market crash?
Meanwhile, the 911 first responders are left without the health care support they need. This was a vote that I discussed previously. The Republicans have blocked this vote yet again - refusing to release funds for vital medical care for first responders of the 911 terrorist attacks. In August, it was because it was not paid for. Now it was because the tax cuts for the wealthy had not been passed first - which, by the way, are also unpaid for.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Republicans Block 9/11 Health Care Bill | ||||
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So this is what we voted for? Pitiful.
© 2010 - RMGHicks - http://www.therobberbaroneconomy.com - All rights reserved.
[...] In previous posts, I have referred to this phenomena alternately as “willful ignorance”... People want simple solutions to infinitely complex problems and the plutocrats have an unparalleled capacity to deliver that Kool Aide. Conservative pundits have successfully labeled the progressives as ivory tower “elites” with no working knowledge of the real world. This elite wants nothing more than to stage a coup d’etat and establish a police state in which both guns and Bibles are banned. We’re also all going to be forced to read the Koran while kneeling facing Mecca. [...]
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