What do democracy in the Middle East, teachers, super PACS, our suffering middle class, and the conniving wealthy have in common? They have all been used by the Obama disinformation and government propaganda mill to manipulate public opinion. Are taxpayers paying the president to oversee the spread of disinformation and to ensure that Congress passes laws to turn White House myth into reality?
Just us plain folks: the middle class held hostage.
Propaganda savants call it “plain folks.” As the traditional pre-Christmas budget fight escalates, both parties are focusing on saving the plain folks they tell us make America great. We heard about the struggling middle class in December 2010 and December 2011. In December 2012 America’s plain folks are still the ones who matter. What better symbol to sway public opinion on taxing the wealthy, even if Middle America never seems to benefit from all the verbal solicitude (see: America Thrives on Social Inequality. So Does Obama.)?
Name calling and picking an enemy: the wealthy wrecked America.
There is nothing new about Democrats singling out the wealthy for blame when they need spending money. Perhaps fearing that the Occupy Movement’s 1% was not large enough to successfully target for the hole dug by Congress and the president, our government propaganda mill expanded the number of guilty parties not forking over their fair share of taxes. The 1% grew as the White House pushed for “Extending Middle Class Tax Cuts for 98% of Americans and 97% of Small Businesses.”¹ How do we justify whacking any small business with higher taxes while we credit them for creating the jobs we so desperately need? When that 2-3% cannot account for enough tax revenue to satiate the Democratic lust to spend, look for the number of guilty Americans to grow even larger.
Plain folks, bandwagon, and fear: government propaganda rallies public opinion behind teachers.
The era of the one room schoolhouse is over. Public education is big business and teachers are all about money. Efforts by Barack Obama and Arne Duncan to spend on teachers have toned down now that the election is over and unions have done their part. For four years we were sold the myth of the underpaid, underappreciated, heroic American teacher while being threatened with a generation of dullard middle class youth falling behind their brilliant foreign competition. If America needs to hop on the bandwagon and join the world with a top-notch education system, why are foreign students so eager to come here to study?
Those of us lucky enough to live in a state like Illinois know the truth. Teachers’ unions have done everything imaginable to circumvent efforts to evaluate the job performance of their members. Teacher pay for a nine-month, holiday-strewn work year is overgenerous in many districts, and pensions and benefits are helping to drive states over their own budget cliffs. Democrats helped turn public education into the same kind of big business they claim is our enemy, but when big business means unions, all is forgiven.
More enemies: corporations and super PACS.
Why all the White House hand-wringing and election year disinformation about super PACs and corporate influence?
I’m confident that we are running a good campaign and will continue to run a good campaign. But we are being outspent substantially by the other side, and the super PACs are engaging in an experience we have not seen in America democracy for quite some time.²
The president’s own special super PACs came through on schedule. We don’t hear the GOP whining about the influence brought to bear or the downfall of our political system. Despite the fear that was spread over Citizens United, our democracy remains intact.
Hasty generalizations: America in the Middle East.
What Susan Rice knew or didn’t know, said or didn’t say about Benghazi is a smokescreen for what we should already have assumed. Government propaganda would have us believe the Middle East is ripe for change and deemed it more important for America to take the blame for a video than to admit that Islamic terrorism had again caused American deaths.
Our Secretary of State painted a rosy picture in 2011:
And what a year 2011 has been for freedom in the Middle East and North Africa. We have seen what may well have been the first Arab revolution for democracy, then the second, then the third. And in Yemen, people are demanding a transition to democracy that they deserve to see delivered. And Syrians are refusing to relent until they, too, can decide their own future.³
And what a wretched year 2012 turned out to be. We are still trying to believe our own babble about the Muslim world being ready for democracy, a fallacy proven wrong again and again and seized upon every time a handful of insurgents claim to support change. Nevertheless, Secretary Clinton is sticking to the party line:
Of course, the Arab revolutions come from within, and the greatest responsibility for their success or failure lies with the people living them each day. But the nations gathered in this room also have a powerful stake in seeing that these democracies succeed, and it is our shared responsibility to help countries in transition find the right path forward.4
Did she mean nations like Egypt, where an election empowered the Muslim Brotherhood and Mohamed Morsi is busy grabbing power, or did she mean Syria, where we are hearing news about weapons being brought in from another Middle East disaster, Iraq?
The truth? The Muslim world is a political quagmire and a waste of our good will. Ask our valued ally Israel, but do it fast, while we are still on speaking terms.
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