What does that get us? A discontented, lazy rabble instead of a thrifty, working class. And all because a few starry-eyed dreamers like Peter Bailey stir them up and fill their heads with a lot of impossible ideas.
Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett
THERE'S A BRILLIANT LITTLE POST over at maven&meddler quoting Marriner S. Eccles on the causes of the Great Depression.
As Eccles put it, it's like a poker game in which only one side wins.
Pretty soon they have all the chips, and the game is over.
It has to do with one of the two areas we touched on in the series of the last few days: honesty and money.
Eccles, who was a millionaire by the time he was in his twenties, was Chairman of the Federal Reserve between 1934 and 1948.
In the quote over at maven&meddler he explains, in some detail, why the depression happened.
His analysis is instructive, and has a great deal to say to us today, in the midst of this recovery.
Ah, those foolish days, those foolish days when we were unselfish and pure-minded; those foolish days when our simple hearts were full of truth, and faith, and reverence! Ah those foolish days of noble longings and of noble strivings! And oh, these wise, clever days when we know that money is the only prize worth striving for, when we believe in nothing else but meanness and lies, when we care for no living creature but ourselves!
Jerome K. Jerome
IN THE PREVIOUS TWO posts, I've pointed out how a few lines in the Republican Pledge to America attempt to mislead the public.
The lines in question imply, while very artfully not actually saying, that Obama is responsible for a tax increase which Republicans actually put into effect, that the increase is on half of small businesses when it isn't, and that those small businesses are poor mom and pop affairs, when they are actually the wealthiest in the country, taking in more than the other 97% together.
At the end of the last post, I pointed out that this mislead was intentional, and that Republicans didn't mind that all of those things were lies, just so long as enough people believe them to affect the next election.
But that's only the tip of the iceberg.
The more important question is why the Republican Party would pick this particular topic to lie about.
On its face it seems like a bad choice.
Political language...is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.
George Orwell
LAST TIME I singled out a line in the Republican Pledge to America which very artfully implied that Obama wished to raise taxes on more than half of the tiny family businesses in America.
I pointed out that this was not true at all, that in fact Obama was simply refusing to lower taxes on about 3% of extremely wealthy small businesses.
The line in the pledge was phrased like this:
[Obama] wants to raise taxes on roughly half of small business income in America.
It counted on the fact that most people, upon hearing that line, would not realize that "half the income" belonged to just 3% of the wealthiest businesses, and not the other 97%.
And I said, at the end of the post, that this kind of spin provided an easy escape hatch for Republicans if they were caught in their lie.
Here's an example of how the escape hatch works.
While it might not seem like I'm changing the tone when I accuse my friends on the right of being liars, my hope is that, if we keep calling them on their calculated dishonesty, their dishonesty will lose its effectiveness.
Al Franken
I'VE BEEN READING THE Republican Pledge to America today, in hopes of finding something new, or valuable, to write about.
I had thought that it would be good fodder for a series of posts, outlining the differences between the two parties and their worldviews.
But so far I can't see any real theme in the pledge.
Perhaps I've missed it and the light will dawn eventually, or perhaps it's just the same old political rhetoric, with no real point except to trigger the emotional responses of voters while keeping them from thinking too deeply about the issues.
There was one line, however, which did catch my eye.
It claims that Obama...
...wants to raise taxes on roughly half of small business income in America.
And it goes on to complain that...
[W]hat transpired in the battlefields of Flanders on Christmas Eve 1914 between tens of thousands of young men had nothing to do with original sin or productive labor. And the pleasure those men sought in each other's company bore little resemblance to the superficial rendering of pleasure offered up by nineteenth-century utilitarians and even less to Freud's pathological account of a human race preoccupied by the erotic impulse.
The men at Flanders expressed a far deeper human sensibility - one that emanates from the very marrow of human existence. ... They chose to be human. And the central human quality they expressed was empathy for one another...
Jeremy Rifkin
WELL, MY DSL IS up and running again, and there's a lot to post about.
But I'd like to begin by sharing someone else's work with you.
Jeremy Rifkin makes a case below which closely parallels much of what I've been posting here over the last four years—except that with the help of artists he makes it much more entertaining.
Damn.
Anyway, please leave your comments—I can't wait to read them:
