Making Sense of What's What


Welcome to Making Sense of What's What!!!


This blog is devoted to addressing those issues which impact our daily lives. Political, educational, relational and transitional issues are all grist for the mill. Life is personal and my need is to personally share with you those things and issues that impact me and others of us as we move through our daily experiences.

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Sunday, August 5, 2012

How to Get Unstuck From Being Stuck in the Political Mud

In a recent interview with Bill Moyers, Secretary of the Treasury, Timothy Geithner, shared that it was not true that President Obama piled on new conditions when he and John Boehner were close to a major agreement on cutting the debt.  Boehner said that Obama didn’t have the courage to move ahead with the agreement.

Geithner indicated that Obama did want to raise more revenues through reforms in the tax code, however there were also several Republican provisions in the agreement that the Boehner knew the President would not accept.  And so we were fed a misrepresentation of the truth regarding Obama’s lack of courage.

Geithner also said that  Obama’s keeping of the Bush Era tax cuts for those individuals who earn 200,000 and couples who earn 250,000, and to cut the Bush tax cuts for the upper 2%  would net One Trillion dollars over 10 years.  It would also leave 97 % of small businesses untouched.  The charge that Obama is going against his promise to not raise taxes on the middle class is untrue.  Likewise that the revenue from an extension of the Bush tax cuts for the upper 2% would be inconsequential is untrue.  And, that he would place a hardship on small business is untrue.  Again, misinformation.

Job creation is another area where we are being given misinformation.  Obama is reported to have a lousy record on job creation.  Not only did Obama navigate the ship of state away from sinking in the stormy seas of the Great Recession, in his 3 ½ years, 4.5 million private sector jobs have been created.  It was said at the time of the crash that it would take 5 years to recoup the job losses from the recession with normal job growth.  Needless to say “normal job growth” was nonexistent. 

He is also criticized for an unemployment rate of 8.2 %.  Had the conservatives not cut 1 million public sector jobs, the jobless rate would be around 7%.  Again, misinformation.

The real issue is, can a democracy exist where misinformation is the norm and not the exception?  What does it say about our political system that we have to resort to “fact checkers” in order to separate the lies from the truths of what is said or written?

People having differing views about issues or opinions about what should be done are one thing.  Differences allow for dialogue, compromise and resolution.  That’s the way things used to be, for example, in the Reagan-O’Neil Era. 

Today the conservative minority tolerates no compromise. Those who have different views are categorized as the enemy and so we have a stalemated political system. We are operating in an ends justify the means mentality.  The conservative action plan is to say or do anything it can to get rid of Obama.  In today’s political world, strategy and tactics trump policy and issues. So where does that leave us?

We are political hostages in our own country.  Conservatives have more loyalty to a Grover Norquist than to you or I.   Discussion, dialogue and decision making are out of vogue.

Thich Nhat Hanh has written “no single tradition monopolizes the truth.  We must glean the best values of all traditions and work together to remove the tensions between them.  If we do, peace will have a chance.” Until we bring such awareness into our political arena, we will remain politically stuck in the mud.

Thanks for stopping by...

Namaste,

Jim