MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
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MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE by Michael Wolraich Order today at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop |
But there are many people in this world who don’t base their perception of reality on truth, facts, and logic. These people tend to be FEELERS, rather than thinkers, so they invariably give ideology priority over truth. When such people are faced with an inconvenient fact, instead of accepting that fact and using it to modify their perception, they’ll do whatever they have to do to contort truth into a configuration that fits comfortably into what they WANT to believe (Yale Study Shows that Many, Particularly Conservatives, Give Ideology Priority Over Truth). We can see that tendency at work in the conservative claim that, "President Obama is un-American - he’s engaged in a socialist plot to insure my family against catastrophic illness." That assertion sounds ridiculously funny to most of us, but to FEELERS who feel a desperate need to hate Obama, it represents perfectly sound logic, and the failure of progressives to recognize that fact, and act on it, is what led to the 2014 midterm disaster.
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In my article, "The 2014 Midterm Election - A Towering Testament To Monumental Stupidity,", I allude to a letter that I sent to President Obama back in February in an attempt to avert this midterm disaster. In the letter I point out the following:
"So while I think you, personally, should continue in the mode that you’ve established, at the same time, you should create a staff - housed right next door to the Oval Office - whose sole purpose is to debunk Republican disinformation. Then, whenever any Republican appears on the news to distort reality, he or she should be able to look forward to the next day’s news cycle being flooded with information not only debunking his or her words, but also, examining every action that he or she has engaged in during their career that tends to be in conflict with their current position. In short, you should parade their hypocrisy before the American people.
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"If you would take that simple action, Mr. President, you would not only drive home to the people the GOP’s hypocrisy, but you would cause individual Republicans to run away from the cameras instead of stumbling all over one another to be the first one to present the latest Republican assault on reality. In addition, it would appease the thirst for blood among the people in your base, provide writers like myself with grist for our mill, and also give us an indication of what areas of investigation would bear the most fruit."
.I go on to point out that "Since much of the GOP’s popularity and success is based upon the complete ignorance of a sizable percentage of the American electorate, I’m convinced that if the President would have followed my advice and educated the American people to what they’re actually dealing with in the GOP, he could have done an end run around what we witnessed last night."
But the President didn’t choose to take my advice, and since, for some reason, our Democratic politicians don’t see fit to confront GOP lies and disinformation, as progressives, WE’VE got to become the staff that I spoke to the President about establishing. WE can use the internet to do the research, and WE can, and MUST, go on a single-minded mission to debunk GOP lies, and push TRUTH down America’s throat. If we don’t, the Corporate/GOP Alliance is going to attack, and try to reverse Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, unemployment insurance, the Fair Labor Standards Act, the minimum wage, the Voting Rights Act, and everything that’s been put into place to protect the poor and middle class America since the New Deal. That, is their agenda - to enslave the American people by leaving us totally dependent upon Corporate America..
Please start your research with the issues presented in the articles below. The information therein represents many hours of research, and provides posters that makes the information easily digestible. They'll give you much perspective, and will allow you to hit the ground running. Providing sound and irrefutable facts and knowledge is the key to getting America to open its eyes - and this may be our last chance to do that. Consider this. If the Corporate/GOP Alliance wins both the presidency and both houses of congress in the next election, the American experiment in democracy, is over.
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Eric L. Wattree
http://wattree.blogspot.com/
[email protected]
Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)
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Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.
Comments
I am sorry.
I just kept thinking of this old song from decades ago.
Where is America, anyway?
I am sooooo very lost!
by Richard Day on Sun, 11/09/2014 - 12:33am
Excellent !
I'm slow-reading/studying Walter Lippman's book, Public Opinion and you've identified a point he made that people purposefully build shells around them where they can pigeonhole information they consider necessary to their way of life. And I have actually encountered people, when confronted with facts that prove what they say and think are wrong, they really do, as you said, contort the facts to make their opinion seem valid so they don't have to admit they're wrong.
Unfortunately, the only way I can see for people to realize their "factual world" is based on myths and wishful thinking is for them to see their goals fulfilled. And once they see the chaos their goals achieve, only then will they be willing to consider other options.
September 2008 was one such occasion ... the middle class was nearly destroyed, loss of wealth tied up in housing, loss of jobs, benefits, retirement funds, security and so forth ... yet many blame Democrats for their losses because republicans were able to reframe the issue and Democrats refused to engage so the lie became fact.
And I think you wasted your time with addressing the issue with President Obama because he is, after all, a laissez-faire leader seeking bipartisanship with republicans at any cost which republicans have and will take full advantage of.
And the Democrats in the Senate have been quite feckless, refusing to use their political power to push any aggressive agenda by whatever means possible.
So the only possible point of entry would be with the local/regional Party offices in the States to create an agenda there, looking for candidates that have the abilities to push such legislation thru local city and county councils,and State legislatures with an eye towards Congress.
by Beetlejuice on Sun, 11/09/2014 - 9:43am
..the only way I can see for people to realize their "factual world" is based on myths and wishful thinking is for them to see their goals fulfilled. And once they see the chaos their goals achieve,
Their "factual world" is, as Wattree says, based on Ideology. They do not see what non-ideologues see.
An ideology can be so strongly established that it can become almost impossible, regardless of facts, for the 'believers' to cast off. Ideology is the indispensable tool of dictators and despots, acting as a shield for the crimes of those who wield it, and a impenetrable filter for facts which threaten it.
Fox News and Limbaugh, etc, reinforce the GOP ideology by reporting, and repeating over and over, opinions supporting that ideology, and propaganda/misinformation or outright lies supporting it.
If you think ideology will be cast off by 'chaos' you might read Under Two Dictators: Prisoner of Stalin and Hitler, a witness to the extremes of both left wing and right wing ideology, and its hold on those who believe. The author documents many for whom the grasp of ideology persisted until the bitter end.
by NCD on Sun, 11/09/2014 - 11:53am