STOP hurting America STOP partisanship

partisan[1,noun]: a firm adherent to a party, faction, cause, or person; especially : one exhibiting blind, prejudiced, and unreasoning allegiance.

Partisan politics is nothing new in America. In fact its nothing new in politics anywhere. However it does seems as that the level of partisanship in America has sharply increased since the 1990’s. I don’t know what is the root cause or main factor contributing to this increased partisanship, but it does seem as that the one of the contributing factors to flaming it has been our media especially with the advent of talk radio, cable news, and more importantly the consolidation of various media companies.

For some such political bickering or infighting among politicians is one of those matters that they would consider to be other peoples problems, but for many what this partisanship game has done is to create a feeling were so many Americans (at least until now) think that why even participate in this process called democracy, given that politicians are going to lie, cheat, or think only about their own and/or their lobbyists interests.

Which brings me to a point that British MP Tony Benn suggested which was keeping people hopeless and pessimistic is often the goal of those in power. His other suggestion which is very relevant for our time is that there are two ways that people are controlled – first if they are frightened people, secondly if they are demoralized. After all an educated and confidant nation is harder to get manipulated by those who are seeking power for their own self interests.

This brings me to the role of media which seems as that they are becoming more involved in this unfortunate game. The conspiracy theorist would suggest that some of these outlets are in this game because of a grand or various political agenda(s), while some would assert that the main reason is maximizing profit, and then there are those who make a valid case that perhaps it could be for both reasons! However one thing is for certain and that is because of this misinformation and disinformation we hear, read, or see these media organizations have done a superb job in confusing and fooling Americans. So much that unless an average citizen is willing and has the ability to research and decipher the issue s/he will just end up believing whatever they hear, see or read.

These days politicians, pundits and even supposed journalists who are really surrogates for a particular candidate, a political party or a political agenda end up twisting, spinning, omiting various comments, or positions just to push forward their positions while presenting their counter party’s view completely opposite of what was originally meant and said. These media institutions via their editors, producers, reporters and anchors fail to truly hold these individuals to the simple standard of telling the truth, or at least pointing out the important difference between their guests opinions and facts.

So why am I bringing up this matter which I'm sure many are already familiar with. Well first because it was a good lead in for the two issues that I was planning to write here, but also to remind you to at times double check the facts on your own.

So here is what I wanted to write about. Last night I saw a supposed interview with Stephen Moore of Wall Street Journal who used to be with the conservative group Club for Growth. The subject was Barack Obama’s economic plan. He said: “… stagflation is the combination of high unemployment and high inflation. And it looks like -- I don`t want to be apocalyptic, but it looks like right now we`re headed that way. And Barack Obama would make things worse, because what he`s talking about, as you pointed out, is almost every important tax rate would go up to the highest rates they`ve been since the 1970s.”

The ground for Moore’s assertion has to do with Obama’s tax plan. He is correct that he is planning to increase some tax rates but he is also planning to reduce some tax rates. His main beef has to do with his plan to increase the income tax rates by 4% from current 35% to 39% for those with 'Taxable Income' (income after your itemized deduction and not your gross income) of around $250,000 (BTW my guess would be that this figure if he is elected will increase to around current levels of $350K -- my guess is he is leaving negotiating room). Of course in his interview both Moore and the interviewer failed to mention that this rate would be pretty much equal to what high earners paid during the economic boom times of 1993-2002 and much lower than the 50% rate high earners paid during another economic boom time 1982-1986 under Pres. Reagan.

Ironically he concluded that our economic situation (given all of these tax cuts) is getting worse and we could be facing stagflation however he forgot to mention that this downturn and stagflation has happened all while we have had a Republican president who has clearly adopted and preached Republican based economic principles and policies. Moreover his assertion is based on the assumption that this downturn will continue for almost 12 months or even longer say 24 months. Cause after all assuming Obama is elected he won’t be sworn into office until late January of 2009 and then it would take him at least several months in not more to introduce and have his tax proposals turned into law in say mid 2009 which I would assume won’t affect tax rates until 2010. So unless this economic downturn is not your typical cyclical downturn and instead we are heading into a major prolonged economic downturn which on its own can be a signal of the failure of George Bush’s economic policies (pushed and supported by the likes of Moore) then the suggestion of such a scenario is purely based on his opinion and without any factual support.

Worth pointing out that given the major crunch that middle class Americans are facing with stagnant and/or declining real wages (average hourly earnings that are failing to keep up with inflation) it doesn’t take an economist to figure out that people who are already wealthy don’t need the help in getting them to both save and/or spend more to reinvigorate the economy. As Austin Goolsbe one of Obama’s economic advisors puts it – if you ask any high earners in this society (the top 1%) whether they are willing to pay 4% more in taxes in return for tax cuts for the end users of their products and services most of the one that are smart business people would end up agreeing with that tradeoff.

Another example of media’s failure in making sure politicians and/or pundits are not twisting facts can be presented by going over yet another one of Obama’s positions. Obama has said "If we have actionable intelligence on al Qaeda operatives, including [Osama] bin Laden, and President Musharraf [of Pakistan] cannot act, then we should," Now to any objective minded person this comment is not the same as invading Pakistan ala what U.S. did to Iraq under George Bush presidency and with the approval of many in congress including the likes of Sen. McCain and Sen. Clinton. In fact it is very similar to having actionable intel just like during Pres. Clinton time. Were U.S. ended up using cruise missiles to attack Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Sudan but didn’t act when they had intelligence that bin-Laden was in a hospital in Yemen. But more important and as it was cited by Sen. Biden in one of the many democratic debates (link) this position by Obama has in fact been the U.S. policy for the last four years under George Bush!

However these days we’ve seen of all people Pres. Bush making comments like "The only foreign policy thing I remember he [Obama] said was he's going to attack Pakistan and embrace Ahmadinejad." to Senator McCain who at first repeated pretty much the same false suggestion as Pres. Bush, while now suggesting that “the best idea is to not broadcast what you're going to do” calling it “naive". This disinformation campaign is also being spread by both right wing political pundits as well as some of Sen. Clinton’s surrogates. For example Daniella Pletka of AEI has recently written that “Obama believes an invasion of Iran is not appropriate, but one of Pakistan is”. Various supporters of Sen. Clinton are using this comment and position to spin it to suggest that ironically he is a war monger or not fit to be commander in chief.

One last point that again is not mentioned in all of these rhetorics about Obama embracing Ahmadinejad is that if in fact Obama is elected then only four months later Iran will have its own presidential election and given all the economic turmoils there and more importantly the strife even among the insiders the odds of Ahmadinejad getting re-elected is very low and thus he may not even be around for this supposed embracement!

Finally I don’t want to suggest that both Obama and his campaign have been absolute saints when it comes to this matter or they have never been on the dishing end of partisan disinformation. I’m sure he and his campaign have also twisted or purposely cherry picked some facts for their own gain, but I personally ‘think’ that both his campaign but mainly he himself have been less egregious on this matter vs. those on the opposing end. This is why I guess there are so many more people who have been more inspired by his message rather than the remaining two candidates. Having said that since I guess they are playing politics in an environment were your opposition will and even your managers are so use to conducting in such manners it is I guess expected to see even his campaign getting sucked into this game.

http://www.factcheck.org/
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/