When Voters Become Abusive

No More Mr. Nice Guy!

Is it time to just "blow a gasket?"

.................................................................................................

Hey! Lighten up! After you die, we still have to live here. [image]

"Escaping the surly bonds of 

false tolerance and painfully "good" manners."

Finally! MeanMesa running "wild and free!"

When one has simply...had enough.

There is no shortage of folks in almost any crowd who would insist that "getting angry" is quite the negative approach. However, MeanMesa firmly holds the opinion that this nonsense has reached a crippling level on the Republic. Far too much utterly intolerable nonsense is floating about these days, and all the while that same nonsense is being "tolerated" as, variously, "good manners," "equanimity," or simply as etiquette amounting to some obscure form of conveniently Stoic cognitive dissonance. A precise listing of these modern "intolerable schemes, utterances and actions," when viewed in the cold light of day, is shocking. 

Quite predictably, this post focuses on, of course, the hilariously outlandish narrative of contemporary religion and politics.

In both of these areas the "day to day traffic" has become an embarrassment for Americans, in fact, for humans, in general! The constantly eager perpetrators of these "breathlessly urgent, modern style, burning questions of the day" are grotesque.

"But wait." 

We hear almost automatically. 

"Are you forgetting that there are always two sides to every case of such issues? Can it possibly be reasonable to simply deem those with such obnoxious ideas as 'grotesque' simply because one disagrees with them?"

Okay. Yeah. It's reasonable.

See, there are NOT two sides when one of those two sides amounts to absolutely nothing more than utterly irrational, GROTESQUE blather. At least, there are not "two sides" in the mannerly, logical sense of it's being "discourse within an informed electorate" as envisioned by the founders. When "one side" of what one might possibly consider "political discourse" amounts to nothing more than an irritating, craven, relentless flow of cheaply designed ideology, one finds himself in a conversation with something no more valuable than bulk propaganda produced as an industrial commodity, that is, in a conversation with the equivalent of a stale, fetid wind drifting in very slowly from the nearest feed lot.

It amounts to "conducting political discourse" with a worn out, sun bleached bill board stranded and rotting aside an abandoned two lane highway in the flattest possible spot in Oklahoma. This sort of discourse only has redeeming value if one is interested, say, in the political positions of tattered tumbleweeds making their way mindlessly on their endless journey in the summer wind. 

Clearly, there are voting Americans who are quite comfortable filling precisely the role of these "noble vagabonds" of the tumbleweed universe.

Good manners have, shall we say, "had their day." That "day" has ended.

If you are still interested in "just a little more" of this stuff, we can begin with you placing yourself in the front row of the "news"conference being held in the basement of the local Baptist church. Next, carefully imagine your facial expression as you listen to an overweight, dirty shirt preacher from deep within the Confederacy threaten "self immolation" if gays are allowed to marry. Getting the picture?

Now, How Dare They?

Neither "they" nor anyone else should dare.

Possibly, not even comedians.

Rather than tacitly accepting these "heart felt lamentations" as no more than the daily ramblings of some "twelfth tier," geriatric, high desert blogger, let's just imagine a few examples of fascinating comments which have been "media-validated" as the "second" side of a "two sided" thing. One might have had to continue listening beyond the next commercial for the craftily implied, justifying innuendo which was to serve as an explanation for exactly why "something or other" which had just been said was, in fact, the "second" side of a "two sided thing."

If precisely the same words as those just uttered by this "two sides of everything" guy were written in bold, san serif letters on a sheet of otherwise blank typing paper and handed to one of these "listening Americans" who, by this time, was quite resolutely nodding his head in agreement, he would have stopped in his tracks saying,

 "Oh no! I was believing this garbage??!!"

Thom Hartmann characterizes the modern Republican Party as one formed almost exclusively by two groups: billionaires and suckers. MeanMesa couldn't agree more strongly. It is as if the entire Party were comprised of a legion of Donald Trump clones, angry because their rental applications for a North Carolina trailer park had just been declined.

Self-Aggrandizement and Resentment as a Political Platform

DailyKOS

S.E. Cupp: 

GOP Voters Are Mean, Irrational, Reactionary,

 and Very, Very Delicate

by GrafZeppelin127

AUG 28, 2015

[Visit the original article here: DailyKOS]

 

For years I've been asking my friends and acquaintances who vote Republican why they do so. Their answers, for the most part, once they get past the standard bumper-sticker slogans and finish congratulating themselves for not being whichever caricatures and strawmen they've been programmed to believe Democrats, liberals and "the Left" represent, always invoke some variation of the same basic theme: There's someone out there, real or imaginary, that they want to be mean to, and Democrats/liberals/"the Left" won't let them, but Republicans will. Democrats/liberals/"the Left" actually think we should be nice to Those People, who are undeservedly benefiting at our expense, and refuse to criticize, condemn or punish Those People for their transgressions, inadequacies and inferiority, while they fail to properly praise, honor and reward Us, the Real Americans, for being ... well, Us, the Real Americans. Voting Republican, supposedly, will fix all that. Republicans will punish Those People for their sins and give Us, the Real Americans, the honor We deserve.

As I've written many times before, it boils down to self-congratulation and resentment. I have yet to talk to a Republican voter about the basis for that political preference without hearing some variation of the above. There are people out there that they resent, who aren't being punished; they feel insufficiently honored (or unjustly criticized) for their own virtues; and they blame Democrats, liberals and "the Left" for all of that. Voting Republican is, for them, an act of aggression and retaliation.

Sometimes, these feelings are couched in a professed disdain for "political correctness" (or "PC culture") which, again, is solely attributed to and entirely the province and fault of Democrats, liberals and "the Left." There's no question that "political correctness" sometimes goes too far, sticking its proverbial nose in where it's really not needed. But generalized complaints about "political correctness" are just a variation on the same theme: We want to be mean, "the Left" won't let us, Republicans will.

Which, of course, brings us to the Donald Trump "phenomenon." Donald Trump has shot to the top of GOP primary polling by, inter alia, being really, really mean to a particular group of Those People, viz., "illegal" (read: non-white) immigrants. Yes, he's a blowhard; yes, it's probably an act; yes, he'll never be elected President, but that's not the point. He, or at least the character he plays in the campaign, is just plain flat-out mean to the people his fans, the GOP voting base, desperately want to be mean to, and in a way that the other GOP candidates aren't, won't be, and can't be. His supporters will say that he's "honest" and "refreshing" and that he's "not afraid to tell the truth" or "speak his mind" or whatever it is any political candidate's supporters tell themselves in order to justify their support. What they're really saying is, He's mean, he's making it OK to be mean, and we love it.

Cue conservative commentator S.E. Cupp, who has, unwittingly and without a hint of irony, penned a column at Townhall called -- wait for it -- "Blame Liberals for the Rise of Trump" that thoroughly vindicates my theory. 

Here's S.E. Cupp, describing the current front runner for the presidential nomination of the Party of Personal Responsibility:

***

Trump is the result of liberal political correctness run amok.

***

Thanks to unrelenting demands by the left for increasingly preposterous levels of political correctness over the past decade, people are simply fed up.

***

The new era of liberal political correctness ... has reached critical mass. If not for the loony sensitivities foisted upon us by the left, someone like Trump would be immediately dismissed as unprofessional and unserious, an incoherent blurter. Instead, he's the equally extreme response to extreme correctness[.]

***

[In] a world in which nearly everything could be considered a microaggression, a macroaggressor like Trump is inevitable. Thanks, political correctness.

***

Delusions aside, Cupp's basic thesis is that "political correctness," promulgated entirely and exclusively by Democrats, liberals and "the Left," has driven Us, the Real Americans, straight into the arms of an unprofessional, unserious, incoherent "macroaggressor" like Donald Trump. We, the Real Americans, are so sick of being told -- by Democrats, liberals and "the Left" -- that we can't be mean to Those People, and of their "demands" that we be thoughtful and sensitive instead, that we can't help but want the meanest, coarsest, least-thoughtful, least-sensitive candidate we can find to be the Leader of the Free World.

This is supposed to be a virtue? This is supposed to be an indictment of "politically correct" Democrats, liberals and "the Left," not of a cohort whose desire to be mean is so strong that the mere suggestion that they not be mean causes them to make wholly irrational choices about who their elected leaders should be?

Think about what she's saying: Conservatives wouldn't take Trump at all seriously, let alone vote for him, if they weren't being told that in some situations it's preferable to be thoughtful and sensitive than mean and coarse. Does that make any sense? Forget for the moment the fact that the only consequence of not being "politically correct" is that other people might say things about your "politically incorrect" behavior (i.e., "political correctness" does not actually prevent anyone from being mean, coarse, thoughtless or insensitive). Cupp is openly admitting not only that Republican voters are irrational and reactionary, but that it really doesn't take much to drive them to make wholly irrational political choices. How, in any sane universe, is this an indictment of "political correctness" and not of the GOP base?

You have to wonder also; is this something that's actually happening, that these people are experiencing first-hand? Who, exactly, is making these "demands" that Cupp is talking about, that "people" are supposedly "fed up" with? Are people really having these "demands" directed at them personally every day, by real people? Or is this just something they're hearing about on Fox News and talk radio? 

In the end, Cupp's commentary is just further confirmation of my theory that GOP voters, by and large, vote Republican because they want to be mean, regardless of who they want to be mean to or why, and they feel that Democrats won't let them be mean but Republicans will. Democrats just scold them for being mean, while Republicans will honor them for it.

Republican politicians and their media enablers haven't done much lately to dispel or undermine this idea. If anyone has heard (or can think of) a better reason to vote (or consider voting) Republican in 2016, please share. As it is I'm hard-pressed to understand the party's appeal beyond the desire to be mean and have that meanness validated by powerful people.

What If Citizens United Isn't Really the Problem?

Consequences, Symptoms and Causes

The difference between the "consequences, symptoms and causes" can become quite blurred when sought from a reactionary baseline. We can be so engrossed in "reacting" that important, "bigger picture" issues slip by us. For one thing, there is the matter of time.  Generally, time must pass between the initiation of causes and the resulting consequences -- especially when social or cultural issues are hosting the developments.

As for "symptoms," although often quite material, perhaps the most notable quality of symptoms is that they are the precursors of the actual consequences.  While very durable consequences are maturing in the background, the symptoms are the "canaries in the coal mine" which notify us that things are changing.

MeanMesa thought that we might need this short, hyper-academic, conceptual  interlude to set the foundation for the arguments which follow in this posting.

It's actually quite easy to become reactionary when considering the Citizens United ruling, its consequences, its symptoms and its causes, but let's take the effort to transcend even that, more or less, all encompassing viewpoint.  MeanMesa thinks that the most interesting truth of the matter resides in the arena which hosts Citizen United, that is, the environment which serves to lend weight to its consequences, symptoms and causes.

If the thing were no more than carelessly abandoned debris left on some deserted New Mexico mesa somewhere, doing nothing but catching an occasional tumble weed, its grave threat to American democracy would be nothing more than a theory.  

Citizens United -- as a "Symptom"

It started in our public schools.

Now, we have to look at precisely the advantage that Citizens United has delivered into the hands of those rich enough to utilize the ruling.  The first thing which comes to mind is the "discovered legality" of the process of unlimited spending to manipulate the political process.  Sure, there are a few rules, but toothless, unenforceable ones -- rules perhaps best described as "voluntary disciplines" which were made to sound workably given the strong, patriotic ideals and honor of those likely to test them.

Most Americans used to learn how to run our government. (image source)

However, all this stuff amounts to a pile of symptoms.  Yes, these are the immediate injuries the democracy faces, but a more sinister culprit lurks deeper down -- in the foundation of exactly why Citizens United works.

Remember.  It wouldn't matter if it didn't work.  But, it does.

Stripped of all the decision's judicial outrages, Citizens United has everything to do with education.  There is a largely unexamined "body of knowledge" in the mind of an American voter as he makes his way to the polls.  Further, that "body of knowledge" has a very shadowy definition and an even more shadowy set of sources.

In past days, one important source of that "body of knowledge" was the education which provided the essential literacy of the nation.  Way back then, every student in a US public school studied the mechanism of American democracy in a civics class and accumulated some sort of knowledgeable world view from the common history lessons taught in every school named after a President from Vermont to Alabama.

Another traditional source of that "body of knowledge" was provided by actual media reporting.  Radio stations, television stations and news papers caused plenty of mischievous bias in those days, but they competed with each other -- they competed with each other for credibility and objectivity.  And that competition for a reputation of "truth telling" enjoyed eager consumers.

Does the name "Walter Cronkite" ring a bell? 

A "Body of Knowledge" and an "Informed Electorate"

All this has something to do with the US Constitution.

By the time elections rolled around, a huge part of the "body of knowledge" accompanying voters as they went to the polls originated in either public school education or the media's reporting or both.  Of course, the "other part" of that "body of knowledge" came from the politicians.  The exact ratio of how much came from the first source and how much came from the second source is anybody's guess but, we can still see the results of those choices in elections.

In MeanMesa's 70 trips around the sun, precisely this serves as an example of the now hardly known requirement to operate our government called "an informed electorate."  The founders considered the idea important for the democracy, and they referred to the concept often in our founding papers.  They intended for the "informed electorate" to make informed choices in our democratic elections.

It's time for an example.  

Walking around in today's United States, it's relatively easy to find a voter who is blankly terrified with the current combination of Iranian belligerence coupled with Obama's proposed defense spending cuts.  The point made here is not an opinion on the issues involved in the argument, but with the "body of knowledge" that voter is "using" to make his very questionable decision at the polls.

The ratio between information sources mentioned above has changed.  In fact, even the sources have changed.  Our voter has been convinced that he dare not lend any particular credibility to media reporting, and he has never been exposed to enough history or civics to pique his curiosity about what he "knows."

So, where is our voter getting the information he will need to be part of an "informed electorate?"  Now, we are finally arriving at the "prize on the table" which has inspired so many billionaires to "indulge themselves" with the new legalities made possible by Citizens United.

The stakes are high -- sky high.

Even Cheaper Than "Bread and Circuses"

A thousand watt station versus a thousand loaf bakery

The Roman plutocrats of the Imperial period had to fork over some major cash to sway the electorate of the day.  Those old Romans were a bit pickier than modern Americans.  The more modern crowd will cave in quickly with just a few, well engineered, incendiary talking points.  However, the point remains the same.

Pompeii - distribution of Roman bread.

Just as the oligarchs' demariae flowed in ancient Rome, modern cash will still purchase what is needed to win elections now.  The difference is that the old Romans literally bought votes with their gifts while the modern oligarchs spend money to very carefully manufacture largely unexamined "mind sets" which can be trusted to behave properly in the voting booths.


"Mind sets?"  Yes, "mind sets" is a generous, collective term describing many little pieces and bits of "motivators" which are patiently and relentless implanted, day after day, election season or not, into the consciousness of the willing.  Citizens United money is now free to do precisely this -- without limit.  The scope of the wealth of those providing the cash for such endeavors is fundamentally incomprehensible to those who consume the product.


Further, although the Citizens United ruling was about a film criticising Clinton, the money need not always take such an identifiable form.  30 and 60 second toxic commercials are favorite media purchases -- by the hundreds.  Extremely mediocre books are written then purchased by such money for free distribution as the "sales" elevate them to "best seller" status and fame.

The Clinton film was an example of a  "big piece."  The wars in the election booths will be won by an immense myriad of "small pieces."  Further, the broadcast of these "smaller pieces" is cheaper, faster and more efficient than anything the Romans dreamed of accomplishing with their loaves and circus tickets.  Considered as a whole, Citizens United has turned over the task of educating the "informed electorate" to the highest bidder.


In earlier days, any political platform had an "unmanageable ally" in the settled history of any issue.  Voters had learned about such things in public school.  They might be swayed by political rhetoric during a campaign, but what was being "swayed" amounted to persuasive adjustments to mere details of knowledge attached to the much larger bodies they had learned about in school.

Did You Notice
that Politics Were Getting "Jumpy Wild?"

Further, the "distance issues could be swayed" -- the "swaying" aspect of campaigns -- was much smaller.  Political discourse was much more centered on tangible plans compared to the modern focus on ideology -- along with some the lingering, darker sides of American opinion.  For example, the race baiting and arrogant classicism of modern politics would have been unthinkable during the Eisenhower campaign.  The result was discourse much more attuned to the challenges and opportunities which were material and "on the table" -- the plans and promises of a typical campaign by either party.

To make Citizens United worth anything, the vacuum left by a failed public education system had to be in place first.  To an "informed electorate" many of the incendiary gambits which are quite saleable today would have amounted to tasteless sarcasm.  Few millionaires or billionaires would have reached into their pockets to publicize such ineffective material.


In 21st Century America there is no longer even a "comparable memory" of a functioning media.  Not only has aggressive, competitive reporting ceased long ago, the contaminated "news" presentations no longer even fear being called editorial, an indictment which would have incited terror on the city desks of the 50's and 60's.  The vacuum of objectivity which is the predictable result of such a pervasive failure might have caused market corrections back when networks competed with each other for reporting objectivity.


Now, however, that vacuum can be very efficiently filled by decidedly commercial sources -- examples of which abound as we review the media purchases of the Citizens United crowd.  "Commercial?"  Yes.  Citizens United media investments are all part of a marketing scheme, directed by specific goals of influence on voter turn out and all with an aim which includes profit somewhere down along the line -- very often in the redirection of tax money or other legislated advantages.


Modern politicians are not only generously sponsored by those whose interests they intend to serve when elected, they have become actual surrogates for those interests.  The protection offered by Citizens United money is paid for --  compensated by legislative actions which could not have previously survived the eye of an "informed electorate."  

One thing leads to another.  Stupidity turns into cash.

Evidence of the educational vacuum has really been front and center in the conduct and statements of candidates in this Republican Primary.  For example, one famous gaff of then front runner Bachmann placed Paul Revere's route in New Hampshire.

An early map of the 2012 New Hampshire Primary (image source)

However, of note here, is that this ridiculous gaff didn't lower Ms. Bachmann's approval ratings among Republican Primary voters.  Still think that an "educational vacuum" is a mere exaggeration?

Some Americans think that the only proper response to Citizens United is to strike back, that is,  do to the oligarchs what they tried to do to us.  

This won't work.  

So long as the "prize" remains on the table, either Citizens United or something similar will continue to operate.  The only way to drive a stake through the heart of this monstrosity is to remove the "prize."  Should the American electorate become, once again, somewhat informed, Citizens United will die the death it deserves, a slow, confounding demise driven home first by a dwindling credibility, then finally, by a profound lack of interest.

It turns out that there is very little difference between uninformed and uninterested.

Finally, a short note from MeanMesa.

Short Current Essays 

Never Intended To Report the "News"

It's all opinion.

Oh sure, MeanMesa has -- very occasionally -- scooped news stories as they were approaching.  In the first days of the Tunisian uprising, Short Current Essays predicted that the Arab Spring was poised to roam far and wide through the Middle East. [January, 2011: Over Estimating the Distance to Tunis ] When President Obama shuffled Panetta, Patraeus and Gates, MeanMesa predicted a very substantial cut to US DOD "defense spending."  [April, 2011: Part 1: The Most Serious Military Campaign in US History and, May, 2011: Part 2: The Most Serious Military Campaign in US History ]

The Right Wing's Strange, Convenient Mathematics

MeanMesa has posted before about the passive way we respond to revelations of outrageous wrong doing committed against the democracy.  It seems that anything which cannot be completely described in a fifteen second news clip or corrected by a stroke of someone's pen must be dispatched to the realm of denial.  

An example we know only too well has to do with whether or not Barack Obama can instantly refill the national coffers after eight years of systematic looting by the other guys.  With this issue, just as is the case with too many others, even our most generous time frame apparently extended to a duration of less than two years.

Of course, all the details have been misrepresented.  What else could anyone expect with the "dancing puppets" of the Fox Network running loose among the semi-literate?  Worse, the mechanism of this deception has too often fallen into the realm of "funny math."  In fact, let's say, "extremely funny math."

The practice of carefully preparing all this mathematical manure for the wholly owned Senators to regurgitate in their now famous "committee hearings," "passionate debates" or  "special interviews" has become an art form in its own right.  Credulous listeners and viewers foolishly expect that any inconvenient non-facts would, through the normal digestion cycle of such rubbish,  collapse in the face of reality initiating "political embarrassment" to the miscreant choir who only a day before sung them as nothing less than the latest version of the "truth of Moses."

Pythagoras, from the famous painting “The School of Athens”, Sanzio (Public Domain  image source)

If MeanMesa intends for this lament to amount to more than another geriatric "ranting session," there should be some examples right about here.  Happily, of course, there are.  In fact, the contemporary occurrences of these wretched "mathematical deceptions" present themselves in a very, very long list.  For the purpose of this light hearted blog posting, we'll just pick out a few "big ones."

1. The Artificially Convenient 9.6% "unemployment rate"

This carefully crafted little theorem requires an actual person without a job, that is, a somewhat "theoretically unemployed" person, to pass through a very challenging set of "hoops" to be counted on the list or in the percentage.  Failure to navigate through these delightfully exclusive little tests results in the creation of a person who, although he has no job and would like one very much, is not "theoretically unemployed."  A good number of "voices in the know" estimate that the "real" unemployment rate is around 17%.

MeanMesa's evaluation of the accuracy of the 9.6% number? Don't bother.  It's more Paulson than  Pythagoras.

2.  The Convenient "zero" cost of living increase for Social Security recipients

Now, no one could reasonably doubt that a seriously thoughtful scheme is not required for calculating the "cost of living increase" to be employed in adjusting Social Security benefits.  This "zero percentage" cost of living increase, for example, must be carefully measured in a manner based on the current costs of things which Social Security recipients actually purchase.  The rules say that items such as a new, nuclear aircraft carrier, a three dozen stone set of matched DeBeers blue diamonds or a $25 Mn "tourist junket" aboard a Russian Soyuz  space craft are not to be included in the Social Security "cost of living index" calculations.

What does such a list of exclusions leave on the Social Security "shopping list?"  Apparently not medical treatment and drugs -- up 12% since last year; food -- up 7% (all New Mexico) since last year; gasoline -- up 6% since last year; or utilities - up 6% since last year.  If these frivolous items had been included in the "cost of living index" factors, Social Security would not have calculated a "zero" increase in the "cost of living."

3.  The Conveniently "less than a $Trillion dollar cost" of the Bush military adventures

Of course, the autocrat trotted out his very best "number benders" to minimize the war costs even before he craftily deleted them from his gigantic deficit  "spending bills" by classifying them as "emergency supplementals" to his visible budget, already a train wreck without them.

Things "counted" and "not counted" in the deadly Bush "numbers?"

Items such as bullets and bandages, tank and helicopter fuel and the operations costs of a few run down, rat infested veterans' hospitals were the very minimum  charges W's "special accountants" could not successfully omit from the totals.  However, items such as incredibly over-paid, emergency "no-bid," multi-billion dollar contractors (and that is "emergency" year after year for most of a decade), outright bribes and, of course, the famous million dollar pallets of hundred dollar bills the viceroy accidentally misplaced clearly had no place in the "totals."

The actual cost of the Bush Oil War in Iraq is agonizingly close to $2 Tn.

4. The Conveniently Uncertain,  Bouncing, "National Debt"

Of course, there are situations -- especially if one is a "not-too-concerned-with-the-truth" sleazy radio pundit -- in which a larger or smaller national debt offers a persuasive advantage.  The reported debt numbers jump around between $11 Tn and $16 Tn, a $4 Tn difference.  Also, naturally, there are about a jillion very convenient, different ways to, uh, "calculate" the debt.

But a $4 Tn dollar difference between radio stations?  Wait a minute.  Math-wise, a moment of explanation may be in order.  A billion is a thousand million.  A trillion is a thousand billion.  If a trillion is written out with all its zeroes, it looks like this:

1,000,000,000,000

and, of course, a trillion dollars looks like this:

$1,000,000,000,000.

The annual GDP (total value of domestic goods and services) runs around $12 Tn, depending on whether we are having a "good year" or a "bad year."

When someone in a responsible position can't correctly determine whether his part of the government is spending $1 Tn or $2 Tn, that guy has to join the ranks of the "theoretically unemployed" where his unemployment check will be subject to the "real cost of living."  Moreover, all of these consequences should begin the morning after he comes up with another "conveniently wrong"  $2 Tn price tag.

5. The Conveniently Obscure Total Cost of the TARP

When "Smilin' Hank" Paulson showed up for the check from the carefully terrified Congress, the amount seemed to be $800 Bn.  Naturally, within moments the corporate "news fraud" had snatched that number and run with it.  The $800 Bn figure was clean, easy to understand and, totally in its own right, infuriating to the general public, thus falling comfortably within the "news" category of "If it bleeds, it leads."


However, in the small print on the TARP check there were dozens of additional, "collateral" expenses and guarantees which had to accompany it.  Although these didn't have to be included in the actual amount on the check, they would eventually have to find their way to the balance sheets in the Fed and at Treasury.

For example, all the foolish billionaires who had pumped cash into AIG -- then backed their investments with derivatives and guarantees -- had to be made whole unless, of course, they were Lehman dollars.  This little glitch all by itself added most of a $Tn to the actual cost of the bail out.

All told, that is, counting all the "extras," the "next guy" was going to have a budget that, if made transparent, would jump $2 Tn higher than even the outrage which emerged from the autocrat's figures.  To his credit, Obama has not only "gone transparent" with the numbers of the full cost, he has aggressively moved to collect on all the Bush paper.

Of course, there is still that last desperate possibility that Americans can be  tricked into believing that TARP came from Obama and not from Bush, Jr.

Other Convenient, "Non-Money" Special Numbers

6. Climate Change

Even though a third grader, reviewing the "weather news" for the last year, would conclude that the planet's climate is plunging headlong into a disaster, MeanMesa understands that the coal and oil folks are understandably anxious to pump "boat loads of carbon dough" into "confabulating" any of the troublesome science associated with climate change.

Even though the equivalent of an Encyclopedia Brittannica has been published publicising the incredibly dangerous climate developments we face, "Old Mr. Oil" and "Old Mr. Coal" seem intent on relentlessly trotting out the results of their own "special science" to refute climate change models.  MeanMesa suspects that these miscreant throwbacks were actually relieved by the deflecting publicity when miners died in their  illegal, collapsing coal mines or vaporized on their exploding oil rigs.

Wholly owned, carbon Senators will delay any response to this killer just as long as they can continue to cash their carbon-based campaign checks.  Bad math will "lubricate" the effort just as "wonderfully" as  Chinese WalMart motor oil.

7. The Convenient Math of the  "Voice of the People"

Vice President Biden recently lamented to the slithering neo-cons in the House that "You are entitled to your own opinions, but you are not entitled to your own facts."

Although this may have seemed a little dramatic, Biden's words were not without substance.  For example, in the desperate GOP dinosaur attack on the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" repeal, literally dozens of Southern Sunday School Graduates and other Republican "War Experts"  (heh, heh, heh -- "Gramps" McCain?? and an old Navy lawyer??) kept referring to the "voice of the people" to support their medievalism when every poll was showing that the "voice of the people" was 70% in favor of the repeal.

This imaginary, yet very convenient, "voice of the people" is now cited daily all over Capitol Hill.  For example, this "voice of the people" wants health care killed, Wall Street set loose from its new regulations and the Social Security Trust Fund privatized.

8. Convenient "Math Lies" Are Also Local

This "alphabet soup" mathematics can be found even in the quiet, high deserts of New Mexico.  Around here, MeanMesa has watched horrified as the local school district, Albuquerque Public Schools - APS, has gleefully "discovered" its own massive shortfalls.  One day these disasters are $75 Mn, but the next day they are $200 Mn.  Next week, the shortfall will change again.

The New Mexico State Government has had a budget shortfall of $200 Mn only to suddenly discover that the figure is really $400 Mn.  A week later, it has become $600 Mn.

Conclusions, Conclusions

How, exactly, can an "informed electorate" either in New Mexico or across the whole country possibly solve the problems of the Republican Great Depression when no one can be certain about how bad it is?

The numerical chaos is roughly the same story in most cities and states in the country right now.

Are these figures really all this hard?  Americans, unable to digest the mayhem of catastrophic predictions, simply roll back their eyes and dispatch the entire, unpleasant affair to the always convenient "land of denial."  MeanMesa thinks otherwise.

Now, although these examples may have been interesting by themselves, the title of this post mentions the Right Wing.  What exactly do the billionaires have to do with something like this?

Quite a bit actually.  To make this easy, let's roll down "memory lane" where MeanMesa's special view of history is presented in paper mache' dioramas constructed entirely of "Paulson dollars."

Ex-Treasury chief Paulson loses $1 million on DC home

(article and image source)

As for the other billionaires, we can make this short and painless.  Well, maybe not so painless.

Before Ronnie Rayguns invented the "trickle down" fraud, middle class wages were rising.  After "trickle down," however, middle class wages have not increased even as much as inflation for three decades.  Before "trickle down," middle class consumers had money in their pockets and, predictably, bought all sorts of things, making American enterprises fat and happy.  After "trickle down," however, prices continued to rise, but the amount of money in consumers' pockets stagnated, creating, again predictably, a problem for American enterprises.  The "demand economy" faltered from a diminishing middle class purchasing power.

In no time, economic geniuses created a wonderful alternative to this slow strangulation of the national prosperity.  That was, of course, the "supply side economy."  In it, the junk on the shelves would no longer be an enterprise response to consumer demand.  Instead, the cages were reversed.  The junk on the shelves -- the "supplied junk" -- would demand that there be a, well, consumer demand.

All this may have sounded good, but there remained a problem.  Although the "eager beavers" in the enterprise side were all over creating an ever increasing supply, the middle class consumers still didn't have any more, additional money to spend for the "junk on the shelves."

The geniuses rushed back to the office to solve this next problem.  The answer they came up with was simple enough.  Credit.

This solution would make it possible to increase consumption without ever actually increasing wages.  If the billionaires are not already in the developing picture you are creating, this is where they show up.  Not only could credit solve the lackluster demand problem, it would also represent a wonderful way for the billionaires to retrieve the all the equity that middle class consumers had invested in their real estate, pension plans and retirement savings.

After all, according to the Right Wing, all that equity always belonged to the billionaires, anyway.

And now, as prices have risen and values have fallen in every account here from real estate to the cost of labor or from imaginary assets to the date they are not taken away so much as disallowed, from wars so cynical they must never be glimpsed in true light, the great harvest has begun.  A few of the billionaires have been mortally short sighted as they incorrectly positioned themselves for the final numbers.  Others, even more foolish, trusted each other, crippled with the idea that perhaps "class knew loyalty."

Of course, their servants have plied these synthetic numbers to us.  The actual scope of the vaporization had to be concealed as long as possible.  After all, there remained -- right to the end, most likely -- the last dangerous spark of the possible collective correction incompletely defined as democracy.

Now, we find ourselves with all this proof that this isn't actually happening, or worse, can't actually happen.  We also find ourselves not only broke, but tired and toothless.  In fact, we find ourselves so shaken by the reality of all of this that not even a fresh dose of more funny numbers can make us feel any better.