So much propaganda in such a little piece

Here's another one of those chain mail style statuses floating around Facebook. As far as I can tell, it's been around since early summer.

SO LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT ... If you cross the North Korean border illegally, you get 12 yrs. hard labor. If you cross the Afghanistan border illegally, you get shot. Two Americans just got eight years for crossing the Iranian border. If you cross the U. S. border illegally you get a job, a drivers license, food stamps, a place to live, health care, housing & child benefits, education, & a tax free business for 7 yrs ...No wonder we are a country in debt. Re-post if you agree

Where to start... where to start? Lets start at the bottom.

"No wonder we are a country in debt." The implication here is that our national debt is caused by giving goodies to illegal immigrants, not by running two wars while reducing revenue or from any other cause. For over a year now, politicians and pundits have been telling us that the debt and deficit are the single worst problems facing the country, that they are a threat to the very existence of our country. In that context, this little note is is saying that "they," the illegal immigrants, are destroying America. It is only self-defense to fear and hate them. That is, as our high-school English teachers tried to teach us, the thesis statement of this particular essay.

Now lets go to the top. "If you cross the North Korean border illegally..." Why are we talking about North Korea, Afghanistan, and Iran? Two of these countries are the surviving members of the Axis of Evil and the third is one of the worst places on Earth to live. Is the writer saying that we should view them as role models and try to be more like them? Even though many of the intended readers of the note will say "hell, yeah!" at the idea of killing people who try to cross our borders without the proper papers, that's not really the point of mentioning these three countries. The point is a matter of contrast. The brutal punishments handed out by the Axis of Evil are strong. Handing out goodies is weak and that weakness is destroying us.

Who is it that is creating that weakness? Is it the writer? No. Is it the reader? Presumably, also no. Since the writer and the reader would never do anything to destroy America, it must be someone more powerful. The policies that are destroying America must come from an elite internal enemy, a second "they" aligned with the external enemy to bring about our destruction.

Let's look at that list of goodies. At a casual glance, it would be easy to say, "yeah, if you pretend to be a citizen, you can get the same things citizens get. So what?" But the response this kind of letter is trying get isn't a shrug. It's phrased so that the implication is not that illegal immigrants can get these things, it's they will automatically be given these things.

To make that implication, the writer has engaged in an intellectual bait-and-switch. The US example comes forth in a list, which makes it appear that all four are talking about the same thing. If you enter North Korea illegally you get prison; Afghanistan, shot; Iran, prison; America, presents! But, the four are not the same. If you enter North Korea illegally and get caught, the government sends you to prison. If you enter the US illegally and get caught, the government does not give you presents; it puts you in jail for a while, then deports you. Maybe that's more lenient than shooting you on the spot, but it is not a basket full of goodies.

The list of goodies itself isn't just dishonest; it's calculated to create a strong sense of resentment. The reader sees that illegal immigrants automatically are given a job, health care, child benefits, a place to live (and housing!), and a tax free business for seven years and the reader's expected reaction is, "no one gave me those things. I have to work hard for what I get." A sense of personal injustice is created. Before the reader has a chance to think about anything, their mostly emotional response is further provoked by the sneering conclusion, "No wonder we are a country in debt." Not only is the reader being screwed, but our children and the whole country are being screwed by these foreign invaders and the enemy within.

If the reader had paused long enough to look closely at the list and think about it, they would have seen how laughably absurd it is. A tax free business for seven years? Just for being an illegal immigrant? How do you get these things? Is there a government office that you go to to apply for them? If I go to that office and tell them I'm an illegal immigrant, can I get health care and a seven year tax exemption?

The whole piece would be laughable if it, and others like it, weren't resonating with so many good people. Americans are hurting. The working poor are seeing their hopes of rising into the middle class dashed. Millions in the middle class are facing the real possibility of sliding downward. Additional millions are unemployed, using up their last resources, and facing a national leadership that is indifferent to plight when it isn't openly hostile to them. We're scared, we're hurting, and we want to know how we got into this mess. We want someone to blame. Propaganda like this little note distract us from finding real answers.

Propaganda like this is calculated to bring out the bully in people. We feel powerless in the face of an increasingly cold and hostile world. Rather than confront the forces that are hemming us in and taking away our sense of control over our lives, this kind of propaganda encourages to find someone even more powerless than we are and to take our our frustrations on them. As long as we are fighting each other down here, the people at the top of the food chain have nothing to fear from us.

The person who wrote this little note almost certainly did not have all of this in mind when they wrote it. Many of the elements in the note have been circulating for years. This particular version dates back to the beginning of the summer. A longer email blaming the debt on immigrants was circulating two years ago. It was based on a piece published on a conservative web site two years before that. Scopes traces the seven tax-free years claim back at least to the sixties. In a more generalized form, this kind of politics of resentment is as old as propaganda. And that's old.

So much propaganda in such a little piece.

• Scapegoating. Check.
  
• Conspiratorial paranoia. Check.
  
• False equivalency. Check.
  
• politics of resentment. Check.
  
• Bald-faced lies. Check.
  
• Divide and conquer. Check and check.

98% of the people who read this post won't send it on to their crazy uncle...

Remember when shouting "yee-haw" cost Howard Dean the Presidency?

Good times. Good times.

No Flag Pins!!!

Why do they hate America?


Image credit.

They are not the same

Yesterday, disgusted over Boehner telling Obama that the time he requested to address Congress just wasn't convenient, I posted on Facebook:

I have never seen a president treated with as much disrespect by the other party as Obama by the Republicans. Not Nixon by the Democrats. Not Bush by the Democrats. Not even Clinton by the Republicans. It seems there is no bottom to how low the modern Republican Party will go.

I received some "likes" from the usual liberal suspects. I also received some surprisingly tough pushback from friends who I think would all call themselves independent. All of them forcefully argue that Democrats are just as bad a Republicans. One says Bush had it tougher. Another said " The bile ... oozes out about equally from both sides of the aisle." I tried to clarify several times that I'm not talking about pundits, talk radio, or some guy with a blog. I'm talking office holding politicians and republican Party officials. I offered this as evidence:

• What is the Democratic eqivalent of a Republican mayor and party official sending around pictures of a watermelon patch replacing the White House lawn?
  
• What is the Democratic eqivalent of a member of Congress shouting "you lie" during a presidential address?
  
• What is the Democratic eqivalent of a member of Congress calling the president "God's punishment on us" as leo Berman did?
  
• What is the Democratic eqivalent of members of Congress questioning the president's citizenship or encouraging those that do?
  
• What is the Democratic eqivalent of a member of Congress calling the president "an enemy of humanity" as Trent Franks did?
  
• What is the Democratic eqivalent of a member of Congress saying of the president that they are "very concerned that he may have anti-American views” as Michele Bachmann did or un-American as Trent Franks did?
  
• What is the Democratic eqivalent of members of Congress saying the President leads a “gangster government” as Steve King and Bachmann did?
  
• What is the Democratic eqivalent of a governor saying a presidential contender "pals around with terrorists?"
  
• What is the Democratic eqivalent of a member of Congress saying the president should be impeached even though he can't think of a reason why as Michael Burgess did?
  
• What is the Democratic eqivalent of a member of Congress comparing the president to Hitler as Paul Broun has done? For decades that has been the hallmark of extremist political commentary.

You might have noticed that I have no patience with arguments based on a false equivalency. The behavior of the two parties is not the same and hasn't even been close since the early nineties. Again, there have always been nuts in the streets, but before about '92 both parties kept them at an arm's length. For the last two decades, the Republicans have been embracing their worst extremists and legitimizing them and the Democrats have not.

I'm going to throw this open to a new audience. Understand, I'm not looking for people to gang up on my friends, I really want to know how equal you think it is. If you know someone with a good argument for equal nastiness from the Democrats, I'd like to hear it. Give me examples. Are there equivalent cases of Democratic Party officials and office holders treating a Republican President the way Republicans are treating this Democratic President? Feel free to go back through both Bush's, Reagan and even Nixon.

Today is my birthday

Today is my birthday. I keep thinking of cute things to say about that. It is also the tenth anniversary of my father's death. So, I think I'll save the clever for another day. I just had a nice dinner and now I'm having a nice beer*. Later, I'll take a little Scotch out under the stars and have a drink with Dad. Then I'll have another. Dad said he would never ask a man to stand on one leg.

* For those who need to know, it's Arrogant Bastard Ale made by the Stone Brewing Company of Escondido, CA. Dad would have approved.

Earthquake in Virginia

A few minutes ago, at 1:51 p.m, a magnitude 5.9 earthquake rattled Northern Virginia between Richmond and Washington. That's no small potatoes. Five nine is enough to crack foundations, knock things off shelves, and cause spontaneous pants wetting among people who have never been in or close to an earthquake. On the West Coast, 5.9 would be something to talk about for a week, but not a big deal. For context, the Japanese earthquake this spring and the 1964 Alaska earthquakes were over one thousand times stronger than this one.

Not all earthquakes are created equal. The amount of death and destruction that one causes depend on many factors besides the Richter number. In many cases magnitude isn't even the most important factor. Earthquakes release different kinds of waves. A simplified way of looking at it is to think of them as vertical, horizontal, and compression waves. Once the waves get moving their destructiveness is strongly modified by geographical features like soil composition and coastlines. In Japan, the tsunami generated by the earthquake was hundreds of times more destructive than the shaking itself. Finally, and this might be most important in Virginia, building codes make a huge difference. The West Coast is young and most of our buildings were constructed under very strict codes that paid attention to the danger of earthquakes. In Virginia, no one expects an earthquake and many of the buildings in cities are older brick buildings (just about the worst place to be in an earthquake).

It's too soon to hear many details. I hope people are okay. I hope they learn the lesson that earthquakes can happen anywhere. I'm probably way too optimistic, but I hope some of our leaders will get the message that government regulations, like those building codes that limit tremor damage on the West Coast, can be a good thing. Proper regulations, properly enforced can save lives and save property (I'm not sure which is more important to our current leaders).

On Facebook, my Alaskan friends are already chiming in. I suppose you are a real West Coaster if your first reaction to an earthquake somewhere else is to check its Richter number and then snort, "Ha! You call that an earthquake? Let me tell you about earthquakes...."

Alaska still AAA. Who knew?

CNN Money was kind enough to post a little map of the world showing the economic club that the US has just been booted out of.

A closer look at the map reveals something that hasn't appeared in any other news coverage. Apparently, the downgrade only applied to the Lower Forty-eight.

Despite appearences, Alaska must be doing something right. That's the only thing the map could mean, right?

Dear e-mail forwarder, you have been lied to

This e-mail, obviously, has been floating around since before last Monday, but some are still sending it around. A very sweet friend of ours forwarded it to us in the middle of the week.

Dear Mr. President,

I heard you say you will not guarantee SS checks if the debt ceiling isn't raised. Why is it the scare always has to do with SS, Medicare, & our Soldiers pay? Why not stop your pay, your staff, or Congress and the Senate to save more money for our country? Why use Seniors, Soldiers, & our Needy as examples? Take the money from those who take no risks and reap the benefits!! Instead of threatening to withhold Social Security, VA and disability payments of people who really need the money.... Lets hold the paychecks of all house & senate members, then see how fast they resolve the debt ceiling crisis !!!!!

If you agree re-post this & keep it going across the whole USA.

Thank you

I hate this kind of crap, not just because it's full of lies--as this one is--but also because it's predatory. People who start these letters prey on the emotions and good will of people who are frustrated by news they hear that only reveals half of a story and in only revealing half, distorts the complicated reality beneath. Government is confusing. The rules are obscure and hard to understand even by the primary actors themselves (sometimes especially by them). That's why it's easy to lie to people who don't spend their lives studying these things and who don't have the time or background to educate themselves on the deep background of every story in the news. That's why it's easy to lie to people using common-sense sounding phrases that fit on a bumper sticker. That's why the liars prosper.

Dear e-mail forwarder,

I know you mean well, but you have been tricked and lied to. Our government doesn't work that way. The United States is a country of laws. We have laws that prevent the president from using the Treasury as a political weapon. We have laws that prevent the president and his appointees at the Treasury from deciding which bills they feel like paying and which they don't.

The Treasury is required by law to pay the bill in the order they arrive. The first bill in gets paid first. The last bill in gets paid last. The President does not have the power to say, "move this bill to the front of the line and that bill to the back." If the Treasury doesn't have enough money to pay all the bills, they start at the front of the line and pay until they run out of money and the rest don't get paid. If the payroll bill for the President and Congress arrives first, they get paid. If the bill for the Border Patrol arrives last, we start laying off guards. That's how it works.

President Obama was speaking the truth when he said he couldn't guarantee that Social Security checks would go out on time. Defense Secretary Gates was speaking the truth when he said he couldn't guarantee that military paychecks would go out on time. Anyone who says they could have pushed those bills to the front of the line is lying to you. That's how it works. The United States is a country of laws and the law says the Treasury pays the bill in the order they arrive.

According to the Republican House leader, John Boehner, President Obama and the Democrats gave them 98% of what they wanted. That wasn't enough for the extremists who have taken over the Republican Party. They threatened to crash the government unless they got 100%. Obama gave, and gave, and gave to see that those checks would go out on time. When radical rightists tell you it would have been Obama's fault if the government had crashed and the checks stopped, they are lying to you.

The person who forwarded the lies to to you is probably a good person who cares about the truth. And the person who sent it to them is probably a good person who cares about the truth. But somewhere up the line, that e-mail was born in a nest of lies, confusion, and someone's desire to keep you scared and angry. They're counting on the fact that you're too busy trying to pay your own bills to stop and try to read seventy years worth financial law. They're counting on it.

If you believe that the truth is more important than lies send this back to the person who sent you the lies. They deserve to know. Ask them to keep it going across the whole USA.

Thank you

I know that this kind of push-back is usually a waste of time. Mark Twain wrote, "A lie can run around the world six times while the truth is still trying to put on its pants." While I'm over here helping the truth get it's pants on, six more lies have left the starting gate. But pushing back feel better than wringing my hands and doing nothing and maybe, just maybe, I can help one friend get out of the way of the galloping lies. That would make it worthwhile.

Well, that was fun

If you are younger than fifty, you have never known a time when the United States could not put a person in space.

Until today.

Schatzi is not a bigot

Schatzi Ziegler of Leesburg, Virginia is having a yardsale, but she's very picky about who she will let buy her chipped china, eight track tapes, and old board games (except for the fact that the dog ate most of the blue pieces, the Risk game is just like new!).

i will not sell to LGBT, muslims, or illegal immigrants. if you don't like that you can kiss my uber white daughter of the American revolution American Irish Ashkenazi Jewish German ass. i am not racist or a bigot, but I have standards or morality, patriotism, and lawfulness which i will not abandon for the sake of a few bucks. puhleeze. get real people. moral boundaries are HEALTHY for the individual and for society....and bowing to "political correctness" and wanting to be liked over standing up and doing the right thing is something only people who can't think for themselves do. get real.

(Sparse use of punctuation and capitals in the original.)

It should go without saying, but I'll say it again anyway, any person who qualifies their statements with "I am not a bigot" is almost certainly a bigot. I have a question for Schatzi that is not related to her alleged not-bigotness: how are you going to enforce this?

"How much do you want for the cracked punchbowl?"

"Before I answer that, I'll need to subject your driver's license, birth certificate, and heterosexual marriage license to advanced testing by our crack team of right wing bloggers. If you pass, it's five dollars. If you fail, I'm going to sic the dog on you, just as soon as he finishes barfing up those little, blue, plastic game pieces."

Now that I think about it, this could be a very fun yardsale to attend.