Lots of scary talk about frackin’ goin’ on these days. Doing big scary things underground, where we can’t see what’s going on. Not being forthright about what they’re doing.
Reminds me of some other big things going on underground–some other big, scary things. Really. I wrote about it a couple of years ago, here: My Atomic Explosion
Can’t stand hearing Repooplicans saying again and again that Obama has lost jobs and has never created any jobs. Note that Obama took office during the great decline in employment, and jobs started going up after the Stimulus started. Here’s the important graph:
chart of jobs before/after obama
I’ve been saying (into whichever aether I’ve been swimming in) that the Republican Primary Race has been a great Reality Show production. The Iowa Caucus race is prime tool of the production.
Republicans know that they will get media attention from any foment in the race. They get the attention of every media-eyeballing citizen.
Every time there is a new contest, everyone watching can’t help but consider (in her own mind), “Who would I vote for now?” Time and time again, as first one candidate, then the next, falls and a new candidate is raised up, so theat the viewer is, in his mind, is choosing again and again between two different Republican candidates. Note that each time, he is voting for a Republican!
So here’s your average (Independent?) voter, time and time again mentally choosing a Republican candidate.
The simple heuristic of familiarity insists that, in the voting booth in the national election, he’s more likelly to vote for the one he’s already voted for in his mind, and that will be a Republican.
The voters’ minds have alreadty been set up to be responsive to a Republican candidate.
It will take an incredible amount of work for this prediliction to be countered by the Democrats.
Dear Ed,
Love your show, and your down-to-eath presentation. Seems to me, though, that lots of folk out there don’t understand the basics of economics. “Trickle Up Economics” chart does a great job, but there are so many more ideas that need to be made clear.
I’m not suggesting you start a classroom going–that would be really dreadful. But every day, one of the above or a similar economic question comes up, or is caused by one of the above subjects.
So why not have your staff you surely have a competent staff) prepare a whole variety of answers to such questions; then, if there’s a bank failure, say, you can talk for a few minutes about how banks work. Or Congress is passing a national debt constitutional amendment, explain how the national debt works, and why that’s different from the deficit.
In other words, devote a portion of each show explaining the economic (or governmental) underpinnings of the issues the rest of the show deals in.
Just a suggestion; I look forward to seeing its implementation.
Yours,
Tom Bentley
Simpsonville, SC
tbentley@tbentley.com
The Republican attack on birth control, as well as on abortion, is going strong here in the South. This recent article in the New Yorker is invaluable for you guys who don’t know the difficult history of the birth control movment, and its evolution into Planned Parenthood. this is a large pdf file, and well worth the read.
Pre-Socratic philosopher Empedocles:
But he was equal on every side and quite without end, spherical and round, rejoicing in his circular solitude.
How he know about Chris Christie?
James Kwak, at Baseline Scenario, discussing Invisible Hands: The Making of the Conservative Movement from the New Deal to Reagan (W.W. Norton, 2009), by Kim Phillips-Fein:
It also contains this gem for anyone who thinks the American people suddenly developed warm and fuzzy feelings about the Constitution in the past two years. Describing the 1934 founding of the American Liberty League—a rabidly anti-Roosevelt, anti-New Deal organization—she writes (p. 10):
“The main topic of discussion was creating a ‘propertyholders’ association,’ as Irénée [DuPont] put it, to disseminate ‘information as to the dangers to investors’ posed by the New Deal. The group decided that the name of their association should not refer directly to property—it would be better to frame their activities as a broad defense of the Constitution.”
