Mom....make him quit saying mean things about me

People like to have their opinions validated.  If a car enthusiast buys a Porsche, or BMW, or Audi, he'll likely join their brand's car club, too.  He wants to hear others of like mind tell him how cool his car is and how smart he was to buy it.  If they see a magazine on the newsstand that implies their favorite car smoked the competition, he'll buy it.  If it says his car got creamed in a comparison test, he won't.

The same holds for politics.  A supporter of Elizabeth Warren or some other Progressive will probably choose to watch MSNBC and read the Huff Post.  Their go-to validator will be someone like Rachael Maddow.  Liberals can do no wrong; conservatives can do no right.  They're told what they want to hear, and they like it that way.

Ultra-conservatives work the same way.  They only want to hear and read things about Donald Trump that validate what they already believe.  They watch FOX News and listen to Rush Limbaugh.  They're told what they want to hear, they're patted on the back and made to feel all warm and fuzzy, and they like it that way.

So why were there raised eyebrows when it came out that Sean Hannity is also a client of President Trump's personal lawyer, Michael Cohen?  Hannity is a shill for Donald Trump.  That's a fact.  Did anyone really expect him to seek out Whuppie Goldberg's lawyer?

So why was there a "courtroom gasp" when Hannity's name came out yesterday?  His faithful radical conservatives still love him, probably more than ever, and those liberals who believe him to be the devil incarnate will just dig in their heels deeper, too.  This is just the Fact-Free World we live in today.

Instead of all this political bickering, I propose that from now on we only talk about who has the best football team.  That should be something we can all agree on, right?  *wink*

S

Just the facts, ma'am

There was a popular cops-and-robbers TV show back in the fifties, Dragnet, where Sgt. Joe Friday was famous for saying,  "...the facts ma'am.  Just the facts."  He wasn't interested in hearing opinions or innuendo, just the facts.

Fast forward 60 years and we seem to have forgotten Sgt. Joe's mantra.  Today President Trump has made "fake news" his mantra.  He implies that everything that comes out of the news media, especially ABC, CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, the Washington Post...virtually everyone except his favorite, FOX News...is "fake", not true, a lie.  Dismissing the press en masse like this is dangerous.

The true problem lies between our own ears.  We hear factual news and the accompanying editorial and believe it all or not at all.  We have become such shallow thinkers we don't know how to separate the wheat from the chaff.  And to make things worse, most of us only read/listen to whatever reinforces what we want to believe.  Opposing views are not tolerated.

For example, the news might report that John Smith was caught on surveillance video robbing a convenience store and is now in custody.   The police have video and the eyewitness account of the clerk who was robbed, and the perp is indeed behind bars.  So far, this is a fact.   But then a conservative news outlet might add "...and now this vicious predator is off the streets" while a liberal outlet might say "...he looked to be homeless and hungry".  

If you've ever been on a jury panel you'll remember the judge asking if you've seen news coverage of the alleged crime and have a pre-conceived opinion of guilt or innocence.  This is how our inability to separate fact from opinion can skew justice.

The truth is, most serious investigative journalism today seems to originate from the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, and just a few others.  The facts they uncover and print or put on the air must be corroborated or else they're setting themselves up for a massive libel suit.  Unless their facts can be credibly refuted with real, conflicting evidence, they should be believed.  What they write on their editorial page is just for entertainment value.  

If we can't learn this difference, our long-term democracy is in jeopardy.  Wise up people, or get run over!

S

How could this happen?

Any school kid has seen pictures like this of pre-WWII Germany where hundreds of thousands of ordinary Germans flocked to get even a glimps of Adolf Hitler as he promised to pull them out of the hard times they were in.  

"How could this happen?  Didn't they see Hitler for the hateful madman he was?"  

Well, no, not really.  Hitler inflamed even the slightest prejudices most people had and convinced them better times were ahead if only they would trust him.  Prejudices against Jews of course, and the mentally and physically handicapped, and Slavs, and pretty much everyone who had it better than they did, too. 

"Times were simpler then, and people were just very naive.  That could never happen today.  We're much better educated and too sophisticated to fall for anything like that."

Really?  Have you not seen FOX News, or MSNBC, or read Breitbart or Huff Post or any number of other slanted sources of information?  We all have our prejudices, and there is one group or another out there looking for you, hoping to turn you into one of their disciples.  IMO we're even MORE susceptible today of falling into the camp of one evil group or another than Germans were back in the 1930's.

Examples?  President Trump has his "base", those who refuse to believe anything at all negative about him.  Any evidence of a tainted election victory is just sour grapes, "flip-flopping" on issues is just his way of keeping his opponents off balance, etc.  They have tasted his brand of Kool Aid and apparently loved it.  They aren't going back.

Then you have the anti-Trumpsters who can find absolutely nothing good to say about the President.  Everything he says is dismissed out of hand.  THEY are always right, and HE is always wrong.  More Kool Aid consumed.  They aren't going back.

Antisemitism is still with us.  Racial tensions are flaring...White Supremacists, Antifa...Charlottsville was NOT spontaneous.  Protestants still view Catholics warily.  My generation looks unfavorably at today's kids and their dress, music, attitudes, etc.  Gay/straight, Believers/atheists, stand or take a knee...the issues, and ardent followers of each, are almost endless.  And however they might believe, they are unlikely to ever go back.  Some believe those who own guns are just a bunch of knuckle-dragging, Tea Party bubbas.  Umm...I own guns, and I am ANYTHING but a knuckle-dragging, Tea Party bubba.  Ewww!  *Oops, even I have prejudices*

My point is, we are NOT too sophisticated to fall prey to being radicalized.  If you think you're too smart to fall for such shenanigans, they're probably already reeling you in.  Apparently we haven't learned the old lesson of history repeating itself.  I hope this ends better than last time.

S

So, you enjoying your $16 Big Mac?

I've been watching with interest our rapidly accelerating efforts to find and deport the illegals here among us.  President Trump seems to be deadly serious about building a Maginot Line*....er....wall and throwing every illegal he can find over it.  Problem is, I don't think he understands the unintended consequences of his plan.  In his view illegals are just here to rip off American taxpayers, sop up free welfare benefits, medical care, commit violent crimes, etc, and are a huge drag on our economy.  The bigger picture says something very different, however.

Statistics show they commit no more crimes than native born Americans.  They commit less, actually.  Investigations have shown that if you stay at a Trump hotel, you're staying somewhere built at least partially (and cheaply) by illegal Hispanic labor.  That new roof put on your home last year after our devastating hail storms was probably done with (some) illegal Hispanic labor.  

That last restaurant you visited probably had illegal Hispanic dishwashers, busboys, and maybe even cooks.  Did you enjoy your salad?  Who do you think picked it?  Whenever I  drive by a new subdivision being developed I wonder how many of those Hispanic guys pouring concrete are illegal?  And those Hispanic day laborers you picked up to plant those big trees in your yard were almost surely illegal. 

The overwhelming majority just want to live here in peace, far from the crime and gangs they fled, and make a modest living for their families.  Truth is, we need and depend on their labor. 

Prez Trump seems to think illegals don't pay taxes.  Not true.  Look at all the Hispanics shopping the next time you're in Walmart.  They're paying sales taxes.  And their landlords pay taxes on their properties, and charge a prorated amount of those taxes to each apartment they rent out to illegals.  Those tax revenues are shared by the cities, counties and states to fund street maintenance, police and fire departments, schools, etc.

Do some take advantage of our generosity?  Do some sell drugs, pimp their prostitutes, and rob us?  Yes!  So let's round them up and throw THEM back over Trump's wall!  Oops....there's even a kink in that plan.  In recent years the Hispanics coming here are more likely to be Ecuadoran, Guatemalan, or El Salvadoran than Mexican.  When our bus shows up in Matamoros and says "Here ya' go Mexico", they're gonna reply, "Nope, sorry, not ours.  They're your problem.  U-turn Gringo."  Getting even the undesirables out will be much more difficult than we seem to think.

So should we just look the other way and pretend no one is here illegally?  Should we just all meet up on the town square and sing Kumbaya?  No, of course not!  But there are options besides just what FOX News and MSNBC spout at the extremes.  Just remember, you can't always play the poker hand you want....you have to play the hand you're dealt.

We need some courageous politicians (yeah, oxymoron, I know) to step up and codify a realistic plan to have illegals who have been here for a while register, without fear of deportation IF they have proven to be good residents.  Criminals, cheats and bums need not apply.  Then we'll know who's here, who's working and paying taxes, who's contributing, etc, and they can come out of the shadows (and yes, learn English, just like previous immigrants from Italy, Poland, and elsewhere did).  In the meantime let's seriously protect our borders with aggressive, smart, flexible measures that won't piss off half our hemisphere.

We can make this a win / win situation.  Right now we're rushing headlong towards a colossal lose / lose mess.

S
  

*  The Maginot Line, a long line of concrete-and-steel reinforced gun emplacements, no more protected France from Germany than Trump's wall IMO will protect America from Mexico.  

Just watch....right behind the construction crews will come the tunnel diggers and the pole vaulters.  Wanna make a fortune?  Sell 20' ladders in Mexico!  We need to be smart and flexible, and not waste our money building a wall likely to be obsolete before the concrete cures.

Throwing red meat to the lions

I watched an interesting TV show last night about the origins of the Nazi party in the immediate post WWI Germany.  (Yes, I'm a history nerd.)  Stay with me here....this is leading to a modern corollary.  

It told the familiar story of a few malcontents who met regularly in dark Munich beer halls, how Hitler met Goering and the original party core was formed, etc.

 

 Propaganda Minister Goebbels wrote the book on print and electronic thought manipulation.

But then it told of how things were moving in slow motion until they bought a small Munich newspaper, the Das Groobenshinerbocklageramberale (not sure about the spelling).  That was their original propaganda mouthpiece, and that's when their membership took off. 

They filled its pages with slanted news, sometimes factual, sometimes made up, to whip their fellow malcontents into a frenzy.  And they soon found radio had an even wider audience.

The Fox News of the 1930's?

That's not likely to ever happen again.  Today we're much more sophisticated.  Or are we?  Ever watch Fox News?  In a headlong race to the bottom, they're in first place by a wide margin.  They're not even subtle about it.  

They're a mouthpiece for the ultra-conservative right....the Tea Partyers, and those who are (or at least think they are) in a privileged position.  Some of their "contributors" are actually funny they're so absurd.  Fox News today is the ultra-right wing's Das Groobenshinerbocklageramberale.

In fairness, the ultra-left has their mouthpiece, too....MSNBC.  The only difference is, nobody watches it.  They once invented their own propaganda radio network (Air America) and it flopped miserably, too.  I guess they haven't read that book by Goebbels, Propaganda, Lies, and Just Plain Bullshit.  Fox News obviously has, and has even added ts own prologue.

The right says the New York Times is a liberal mouthpiece, but as long as you stay off their editorial pages, I don't see it.  It's pretty much just who, when, where, why, and how plain vanilla news.  I had a good chuckle recently when my pseudo-Tea Party brother showed me a "conservative" article in the Dallas Morning News, then started lambasting the "liberal NYT".  

Only then did I show him the by-line of the article's author at the end of the Dallas News story....it was a NYT journalist.  They just copy and pasted his story.  Haha!

Anyone who quotes from either Fox or MSNBC as their source loses huge credibility with me.  People today only want to hear that which reinforces what they already believe.

We need to learn to read more widely and think for ourselves again.  We've become very gullible people.  What's that old saying about history repeating itself?

S

The snake oil salesman is alive and well

When a President goes through the White House doors

And does what he says he'll do

We'll all be drinking that free Bubble-Up

And eating that rainbow stew

Merle Haggard..."Rainbow Stew"

We must be the most gullible electorate walking the face of the earth.  It's an election year again, another crop of "tell 'em what they want to hear" politicians are talking out of both sides of their mouth, and we just smile and nod and bend over and let them have their way with us.

Four years ago it was Barack Obama "spreadin' it deep and sellin' it cheap".  "Hope and Change" was going to save us all.  But how?  No details?  Nope, just the power of positive thinking.  And enough of us voted for him to put his name on the mailbox at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.  You may already be a Publisher's Clearing House winner.  No purchase necessary.  

We'll all be drinking that free Bubble-Up....

This year it's Mitt Romney.  He tells us he's going to give us all a 20% tax cut, expand funding for our military, and somehow still balance the budget.  Since when does 2+2=9?  We're all going to have good jobs, freedom from government interference, and a bright future, too.  How?  Only he knows, and he's not sharing any details with us.  Nope, we're just supposed to "trust him".  And a sizable number of us will.  Maybe enough to make him our next President.  

Do you think if an entrepreneur had come to Mitt when he was the CEO of Bain Capital asking for money, with a business plan that simply said "We're gonna buy cheap, sell value, go for volume, and get rich", he would have put millions of dollars in this upstart venture? Absolutely not!

And eating that rainbow stew....

Has our educational system failed us so badly that we can no longer critically think?  Has common sense gone the way of the dodo bird?  Do we just hoover up everything Fox News or MSNBC tells us, questioning nothing?  

I'm certainly not going to tell you how to vote, or how I voted.  That's a personal decision.  But please, know why you're voting for a particular candidate.  We need meat and potatoes details in order to make smart choices.  We're getting puffed pastry promises.  In politics, nothing is what it seems.

I have no idea who will be running in 2016, but I can hear their campaign promises now...."Jobs for all, taxes for none, and a free puppy for everyone (while supplies last)."

S