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Local media outlets only parrot what the bigger parent "national/ world" news says... So, if you only get your news from the local station and a 1/2 hour of world news... Or your viewing is of Fox news only, then you won't be informed.. And how many places does one walk into, and the only channel on is Fox News. So, you are sitting waiting for your oil change, tire change, Dr office, AM continental breakfast at a hotel, the airport ( you get the drift), and you are only listening to the Fox News channel... And you are waiting so its boring, and the wrinkly magazine is barely holding your attention, one cannot help but listen to the drivel coming out of the anchor person's mouth... Even MSNBC is just drivel and talking points until about 8pm.
If all you hear are lies about the Democrats, and that's all the news you have caught for most of the week or month, then your opinion of Republicans will be skewed. Think about the housing bubble/ pop that has led us on this latest Recession (Depression).... If all you hear is that Bill Clinton signed away Glass-Stengall, and that Barney Frank, Dodd, and Nancy Pelosi were in co-hoots with Freddie and Fannie Mac that allowed people with no money to be able to buy a home they couldn't afford... And that President Obama was just covering it up by not investigating and not going after the govt owned Freddie and Fannie and just throwing money into the two agencies..... Now, what would you think? The Democrats screwed up the economy. The Democrats pushed the banks into giving out loans to people who shouldn't buy homes. The govt is responsible for the Recession and your job loss and your home foreclosures. They are the enemy. They are the bad guys. The banksters on Wall St were not to blame. They have no responsibility to the continued crisis. Its the govt that is ruining your life. Its not capitalism, lack of regulations, or the derivatives and creative CDO's that seemed to create fake wealth for almost a decade, and in the fall and winter of 2008, the gig was up, and the banks came running to the govt to demand money, or the entire world would crash. And the Depression would be so much more worse than a prolonged Recession.
Fox News and CNN and the early shows on MSNBC are not going to tell its viewers that every type of progressive bill that the House, under the guidance of Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats, passed some of the best legislation that would have allowed us a faster recovery and hire people using Keynesian methods, were completely blocked in the Senate by the Republicans filibustering. I've had debates with Republicans about the Senate republicans stopping legislation from helping American people because they want to remove the President from office so badly. They say, no, the Democrats had the House, Senate, and the Presidency, and they didn't pass anything good or do any investigating of themselves over Freddie and Fannie because they are protecting their involvement of the Recession and housing/ Wall St/ Banker bailouts. When I say that doesn't fly with me because the Senate has spent 3 years now blocking anything and everything that would be good for the American people. They blocked unemployment extensions, they black mailed any type of middle class assistance unless they could have the Bush Tax cuts extended. Then, if they are a bit smarter of a Republican, they say, oh they had 60 votes..... That's when I say, no they did not. Lieberman is an Independent and uses his position as leverage. The DINO's in the Senate are basically no better than Republicans (seriously, Ben Nelson has never met a tax break for millionaires and billionaires that he hasn't liked.. For pete's sake he was a reason Bush got his tax cuts in the first place). So, after they admit a bit that Democrats didn't really have 60 votes to break the filibuster and that Scott Brown came into the fold fairly quickly for much to be done, they start in on the Stimulus fail. That govt doesn't do anything right. Socialism bad. Blah, blah, blah.... you have to explain that the stimulus was only 800 billion, 1/2 of it was tax breaks, it was only good for 2 years to help prop up state govts and do a few shovel ready projects, and that the GDP had lost about 1 or 2 trillion and that 800 billion 1/2 of which was tax breaks (so it takes revenue out of the system by staying in people or corporations pockets... and now after all those tax breaks, the bigger companies are sitting on more money than they ever did when we weren't in "recession" years. Now, we are in year 3, there was NO extra stimulus passed, so now local and state govts are having to cut because the economy still sucks, the housing issues have not been fixed and their are fights between state/ federal/ and banks as to how the fraud and crash should be addressed because the banks don't really own these mortgages. The mortgage is chopped up into bitty pieces and bought up as investment schemes, so we still have a foreclosure mess and neighborhoods and towns being destroyed. The Free Trade agreements have never been examined or fixed to charge a fair tariff for cheap crap coming into the country, and jobs being exported out of the country for a quarterly profit uptake.... And it goes around and around and around.
The fact that money, corporations, lobbyists, and representatives and top govt agency officials are intermarried to one another that they have become completely useless for a govt that is for, of and by the People in a so- called democratic Republic. There is a reason that OWS has had support and success. People hoped for a better govt with the election of President Obama. People got involved. They loved his campaign messages. They loved the idea that the rich pay their fair share, that jobs stopped leaving America, that an actual health care program could be created that would mean everyone might see a Dr if they were sick and be able to be treated for a major illness without going into bankruptcy and losing everything they had worked for their entire lives would be lost due to that illness, and young people who are in debt if they go to college or screwed if they don't with job opportunities of the future would have some actual help. Instead, their parents were laid off, their parents couldn't take out a second mortgage on the home to help out with the costs because the banks won't lend and the home lost its value, and now, they are competing with those parents for entry level positions and the "better" qualified positions they should be entering into, are unavailable because those same parents are now having to work longer because their pension or 401k lost so much value and because they aren't able to receive medicare until the age of 65. Those parents have to hold onto that job for their health care needs... There is hardly a job left where the company would allow for early retirement and continue to cover the retirees on an insurance plan (its just too expensive for that "luxury") AND there has been no "out of the box" type of thinking that would allow for an older person to semi-retire... to go into a position that is quasi "volunteer" work and allow for that person to retain the ability to access health providers and health care in general.
So, if you are scared. Money is tight. The American Dream is crumbling for everyone and looking completely unattainable for children or grandchildren, you are going to get mad. You are right to be mad. However, the people who vote, especially in the off year elections or the tiny local elections that pop up here and there, the general demographic age is going to be older. Those who are older can remember better times. They can remember 1 parent working, a job paying, paid vacation every year, a pension and good health care provided by the company, and the ability to have a decent life with more opportunities for future offspring. They are fearful of this. They are fearful of the fact that they are older, going back to college at the current costs to retrain seem ridiculous at the age of 50 or 55, people all around you are losing their jobs or being cut back, losing the health care because the company can't afford it, watching their children and grandchildren struggle to work 2 or 3 jobs to provide food on the table, and homes foreclosing all over the neighborhood.... When they turn on the news (which is supposed to be truthful and factual and NOT lie), and its telling you Democrats and Obama and Pelosi and the govt in general is to blame for causing the mess of a country you are facing, then its easy for them to be hoodwinked into thinking that Republicans might be the answer now... And who else do they have to turn to? If the Democrats couldn't do the job of making life a bit easier (just providing the Public Option in the mandated buying of health insurance or extending tax breaks to people making less, but making those with more money help pay for the things needed now or to provide no-interest loans to college students or to prosecute someone on wall st for breaking America, instead of handing them an unwarranted bonus with their tax money), then they have no choice but to look towards the only other party there is.... And the Tea Baggers, while racist looking at times, were also talking about creating jobs, jobs, jobs... And that's all people right now care about. Of course, they now have learned they have no one to turn to because as soon as the Tea Baggers took office, they start yammering the same shit about tax cuts (for the wealthy) and de-regulate (which caused the bank/ housing/ Wall St crap in the first place to occur) and stop Obama and the Dems (keep their jobs over American's needing jobs), deficit reduction (cutting social security and medicare), and taking votes on social bs issues like abortion (which very few are focused on and which the country supports allowing women to choose for themselves.. these jack asses are now elevating the dumb ass fight against women to try and include birth control as a form of abortion)....
OWS has everyone in the pile and is resonating with those who aren't watching Fox news. I think more people are tuning those people out.. Shoot, one could learn more about the truth from reading a tweet or a Facebook posting than they could from any media outlet. The Republicans overreached big time. AND many Democrats look like they are just as phony and bought out. The police actions agains kids camping in a park to use their first amendment right to protest the actions of the govt and large corporations and wealthy assholes, has actually brought more attention to their cause. Older people don't really like to see their kids, who finally have gotten off the computer/ out the door to involve themselves in a movement, and they are being beaten down like its the Civil Rights actions all over again. Those who are now entering into their older years who were a part of the 60's and the anti-war, Civil Rights actions, rights for women, etc, are now seeing the images of police crackdowns for protesting agains the govt and corporation collusion. Occupy has done so much for moving the entire conversation away from the bs of deficit reduction and the idea that "we all have to tighten our belts" when for the past few decades, the belt has gotten so tight, its wrapped around the body 2 or 3 times.... and then the wealthy asses who broke the entire system, are given bonuses and still retain 5 or 6 homes, while we are losing the only 1 we have. Thank God people around the world are beginning to wake up. Its going to be a fight for the power, but we have 99%... and that means more of us than them.
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- Whichever of these Repuke clowns is still standing at the end, all Obama need do is run their own commercials and show self-promoting, asinine ''book reviews'' like this. Then let them be defeated by their own words.........
