I was did the whole cycle this weekend, as usual. That is to say, my TVs are in a continuous stream of Fox, MSNBC, and CNN and I make sure to catch Maher and Meet the Press to balance it out. When I say balance it out so many may think both are liberal and with MSNBC and CNN, why do I need more liberal bias for my opinion? Well, because Fox is on message when MSNBC is on Lockup. Fox is selling small government and gold when CNN has Piers Morgan delving into the deep insights of the Kardashians. Fox is warning us of the Muslim Brotherhood's inevitable infiltration of the Egyptian revolution. The are setting the stage, the agenda.
Bill O'Reilly the other night had a Democrat and a Republican on to discus the budget. Bill prefaced the interview with a diatribe about the nanny state and how everyone expects the government to take care of them, warning of a Grecian downfall. I forget who was being interviewed, but remember that it was a pale, balding Democrat set far away from Mr. O'Reilly, sandwiching a gorgeous blond woman with a perfect smile who was almost holding hands with the host. To his credit, and almost as a set up, the Democrat started talking about raising the revenue in the country with increased taxes. That was brought up just in time for the beautiful blond to blurb that taxes dont bring up revenue, Bill agreed, then kicked to commercial. Upon return (I switched away, but couldn't bring myself to care why Bob Barker was on CNN), Mr. O'Reilly had a wonderful posture on the subject. Allowing the uneasy Democrat to make his point again about how taxes at the upper level need adjustment, Bill cut him off. The topic is the budget. Not taxes. Budget means how much money the country spends, so all it addresses is how much money the government can cut to reduce the deficit. The idea that the country might take in revenue was a different conversation for a different day. I recalled at that moment how Bill Maher mentioned that the top 400 income earners in this country made as much as the bottom 100 million earners last year. That's what I mean by balancing it out.
Meet the Press started with David Gregory telling the country that the discussion it was having was about spending cuts. That would be the topic, the Republicans set the topic, he even admitted, and the hour would be committed from that point on to which budget cuts were better than the other. Obama adding to the defense budget and cutting the non-military discretionary budget (basically everything he has control over) was not enough for the Republicans, and he should have known it wouldn't be. With a majority in the Senate and huge approval ratings for a very popular President, much is being conceded to the Right.
A TEA Party woman was arguing on Fox that the teachers in Wisconsin are getting too many benefits. Her argument was that as a small business owner she did not have the ability to collectively bargain for better health care rates and pays about $800 a month for her family of four. My head almost explodes as I recognize the irony that the organization she is speaking from was formed in response to a government program that would create competition and greater equality in health care, especially for small business. Fox then flips to a gorgeous woman mentioning that state employees get benefits and pay they would not otherwise get in the private sector. Host agrees without question, cut to commercial. Beautiful.
The rebellions in the Middle East are not about human rights. They have little to do with foreign policy or freedom. The true cause of the revolts is the cost of food. Many are starving, others have to devote their entire income to feeding their families. The people look up and see their leaders experiencing the most lavish of lifestyles while they perish. This is not the first time we have seen the Proletariat raise up, nor will it be the last. What we need to see in our own country is that our ruling class is not the politicians. The status quo is not ruined by one party or another. Instead, it is the removal of the upper class from the discussion. The ruling class in our society are the billionaires and corporations whose opinions and agendas are put at the forefront of the discussion of our national situation instead of our much more serious issues of energy dependence, education, health care, poverty, and infrastructure.
"We have to live within our means," is the new mantra on Fox these days. Remember, the budget is only what we spend, not what we take it, that has been made clear. Those words make people scared. The people at the lower levels of the income structure already feel they are living within their means. So do those in the middle and even upper middle classes. When politicians and pundits say, "live within our means," they instill a general fear in the majority of people that there will have to be some sort of cutting back in their lives. I am waiting for someone to argue "means." There are an awful lot of people in this country making and holding a whole lot of money. They have been for 30 years, reaping essentially all the benefit of the Conservative policies of the past 30 years. This has gone on without much resistance as the standard of living in this country has accelerated greatly over the same period, mostly due to cheap foreign labor and technological innovations.
Soon though, if the trend of stepping on every single worker and eliminating their right to assemble continues, if the national guard is called in in Wisconsin, if the government continues to try to fund itself on a equal plane as if this country has no socio-economic tiers, if we keep allowing the channel with the most consistent message spouted by the most beautiful people call the shots, we are in for a greater fall than Egypt. With enough downward pressure, those TEA Party people will stop arguing that government employees do have the right to have better benefits, and start arguing that they deserve those benefits as well and those people who are living the dream while they clean their sheets are going to have to pay for it. How far do we have to go until this revolution? It is my hope we never get there and correct ourselves before collapse, but one thing is for sure: you had better not have Americans going hungry.
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