There’s Twitter, Facebook, Instagram; a whole lot more of social media. Then there are digital newsfeeds, cable news networks, and other organizations and individuals feeding all those pipelines. The result: short bits and pieces, sound bites, and instant images that pass themselves off as news.
VP Pence warns new college graduates that leftists will ridicule Christians. Not even a full factual sentence. Just a scurrilous assertion. I’m progressive. I’m Christian. I’m a regular church goer. I don’t disparage Christians. I am one, imperfect as I am. I’m not the only ‘leftist’ that is Christian and understands what the Bible asks us to do.
President tRump suggests China wants a democrat to win in 2020 and is willing to upset international trade relations to do it. I doubt China cares a whit about Democrats or Republicans. And tariffs have little to do with the political parties in the US.
A murder in the border states (Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and California) is the fault of an immigrant, legal or not. No facts on the case, just an idle comment, an opinion.
It is said most drugs crossing our borders are from illegal border crossings from Mexico; they are not. Most are flown in or enter through ocean ports.
tRump says truck crossings from Mexico carry illegal drugs and cheap manufactured goods to decimate Americans and their markets. Still not true. Truckloads of goods are legal and keep our economy humming with supplies, supply chain goods for our manufacturing plants, and a whole lot more.
The whole notion of cheap goods competing with our own manufactured goods…just not true. The ‘cause, effect, result’ that explains what really is happening usually is left out of the political propaganda. But this is the story tRump and his cronies want people to believe. Free trade, or global trading, is labeled as the problem. This is not true. Free trade is something we have struggled to gain for decades. And we were getting there.
We made this happen to increase the standard of living for less cost. That’s what international trade does. We in America create the new goods and services using creativity and intellectually active brains to always control the future of trade. We sell that at high prices based on innovation. We use those dollars to buy cheap goods. Lower paid workers in other countries keep prices low. American advantage makes this happen. During market shifts, labor patterns shift; new jobs are created while old jobs drop out of existence. Dislocation in those businesses and worker lives happen; not by accident but by happenstance of progress. A lot of progress. Generation of change happening faster and faster.
Holding onto old industries and product lives delays change and adaptation to better, healthier means of producing goods and services. And fresh economies of scale, pricing, salaries and worker benefits.
The jobs shipped overseas are not shipped at all. They are just newly resourced to the lowest bidder while our existing labor pool is available for reapplication to new jobs and methods. Higher wages are possible in those industries because new revenue streams are created from lucrative pricing. Old industries are forced to compete with foreign suppliers with lower wages and benefits; Americans caught in those old industries encounter declining benefits and stagnating wages.
Now do we understand the cause, effect, result logic? American leadership has not failed the American worker. The American worker has failed to see what is happening, and failed to invest in adapting to the new. Help to do that is available but it is uncomfortable and avoided by the worker. They become stuck in a dead-end job as a result. And it is easier to blame someone for these ills than look for their own change.
Sound bite news is just propaganda. The catchy phrase or term is an allure. The details of the cause, effect, result logic is never used or applied. Propaganda relies on people not paying attention. That creates powerful disruption to the body politic.
They count on that happening.
tRump and his cohorts expect this to happen. That’s how they won the election. That’s how they continue to paralyze Congress. That’s how newspapers and journalists are devalued incessantly. It is a design for chaos that reaps large dividends for them. Not us. Them.
And for what end result? Think about that for a bit. Why is this important to them? What do they get out of it? Who pays them in the end for such results? Are they reaping wealth? Are they gaining power? If the latter, again, to what end? Who is behind all this?
Doubt me? What is gained if vast numbers of people are left without medical care? What happens when education is so devalued that universities and colleges turn out meaningless graduates who can do nothing for themselves or the common good? Who benefits if the masses suffer while only a few prosper?
This is happening in India, the Middle East, much of Africa and large swaths of South America. Think of Mexico, too. Is that what we want for the US? Think it can’t happen here?
Think again. It can happen. It is already beginning to happen. Class warfare and huge disparities between household incomes.
Venezuela has a problem. It can be solved if the ruling elite does its job. If not, it is up to the people to rise up and take back their country. Same everywhere else.
When will Americans waken to the reality that a very few elitists in Washington DC have taken over our nation? When will the rest of us see it clearly and do something about it. Does this have to be a violent process? Really?
I hope not. But then again, who's trying to stop this train wreck from happening?
May 13, 2019
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