Which is why this trio of related articles that blow that myth to hell are all so welcome.

The first is an editorial in Bloomberg Businessweek by entrepreneur/venture capitalist Nick Hanauer, called “Raise Taxes on Rich to Reward True Job Creators”. The second is a commentary on that editorial by Henry Blodget, editor of the website Business Insider, called “Finally, A Rich American Destroys The Fiction That Rich People Create The Jobs”, and the third is another article by Blodget that defends one of his key arguments in the previous article, “No, Entrepreneurs Like Steve Jobs Do Not ‘Create Jobs’ By Inventing Products Like The iPhone”.

This trio of articles makes two key points: 1) raising taxes does not, as we are so often told, discourage business people from creating new companies or hiring more employees, and 2) the real job creator in America is the average consumer, not any businessman or entrepreneur.

The first part makes plenty of sense. If you’re a millionaire, and you can start a new business that will make you millions more dollars a year, would a small increase in your tax rate make you say, “nah, I don’t need those extra millions”? Probably not. This trio of articles makes that argument, as does this earlier one by a businessman who says that the tax rates have NEVER entered his head when starting new business.

The second argument is a little less obvious, but still rings very true. If you invent a brilliant new product like the iPhone, and get enough financial backing to bring it to market, you have created some jobs, BUT:

those jobs are all TEMPORARY if people don’t buy your product.

So Hanauer and Blodget are arguing very compellingly that entrepreneurs get the ball rolling, but that they only create a relatively small number of jobs for the country. It is the purchasing dollars of average Americans which make those jobs permanent, and allow the companies to sustain, grow, and become much larger job creators.

They then make the argument that our current economic inequality is itself a barrier to job creation. As an example, they talk about Hanauer’s post-tax income of $9 million a year:

With the more than $9 million a year Hanauer keeps, he buys lots of stuff. But, importantly, he doesn’t buy as much stuff as would be bought if that $9 million were instead earned by 9,000 Americans each taking home an extra $1,000 a year…

Despite Hanauer’s impressive lifestyle — his family owns a plane — most of the $9+ million just goes straight into the bank (where it either sits and earns interest or gets invested in companies that ultimately need strong demand to sell products and create jobs). For a specific example, Hanauer points out that his family owns 3 cars, not the 3,000 that might be bought if his $9+ million were taken home by a few thousand families…

If that $9+ million had gone to 9,000 families instead of Hanauer, it would almost certainly have been pumped right back into the economy via consumption (i.e., demand). And, in so doing, it would have created more jobs.

That’s the reality for you. YOU are the job creators, not THEM.

(Or you would be, if you had any money)

Wait, no, wrong guy.

Scott Walker, as you’ll recall (please!), ran for governor of Wisconsin as a Jeewhiz Folksy Downhome Republican. But after taking office, he ripped off his human outer covering to reveal the authoritarian Godzilla underneath, slashing taxes for the rich, cutting services for the poor, firing government workers en masse, and trying to end all public sector unions in the state. Understandably, the folks of Wisconsin were furious and scared, held massive protests for weeks, and are now attempting to get him ousted early (see earlier minor “recall” pun).

Walker is now unleashing his new Shut Up Hippies policy: if you want to protest against him, you have to pay money.

It’s bullshit on its face, with a few tiny fig leafs of logic, which also turn out to be bullshit after thinking about them for 40 seconds.

1) If a group of four or more people want to protest outside of any state building, they need to get a permit. And need to apply at least 72 hours in advance.
2) If more than 100 people want to protest outside the state capitol, they will have to pay for any extra police officers that are “required”, at a cost of $50 per cop, per hour. In advance.
3) Protesters could be billed for the costs to clean up any mess that government officials claim was left behind after the protest.

That’s an embarassingly self-serving rule. Who proposed it? Scott Walker. Who benefits from it? Scott Walker.

In conclusion, I am announcing that anyone who has every criticized me now owes me $10. I’ll be around shortly to collect.

But if you take that last part, it seems like a pretty rational concept. In everyday life, if you have a problem in your household, workplace, classroom, neighborhood, relationship, it seems like the most pragmatic way of solving it.

1) “Everybody, I think we have a problem.”
2) “Do you agree that we have a problem?”
3) “I think the problem is X. What do you think the problem is?”
4) “We agree that X, Y and Z are problems.”
5) “What can we do to fix problems X, Y and Z?”
6) “Let us take actions A, B and C to solve problems X, Y and Z.”

That makes sense, right? There’s a problem, let’s talk about it and then try to fix it.

So that was the beginnings of Occupy Wall Street. “There’s a problem. The economy is broke, and millions of Americans are being crushed by the falling pieces. And we, the OWS organizers think that the both the problem and the solution have to do with Wall Street in some way. Get down here and let’s talk about this.”

I think we all agree that there’s a problem, right? Record unemployment, rising poverty, millions losing their homes, increasing cuts to social services at times when they’re most needed? And that’s just the stuff since the economy detonated in 2008. But I think that the OWS crowd identifies two enormous elephants in the room: 1) an economy that rewards the rich and increasingly punishes everyone else, and 2) a system of government in which the average citizen has little to no say. Essentially, unless you’re a multimillionaire, you’re probably screwed, and there’s nothing you can do about it. I call that a serious problem.

Of course, the Wall Street “1%” (actually, research tells me that these super-rich are really the 0.1%), don’t agree that there is a problem. Their primary motive is to make money via rapid-fire gambling and incredible fraud, working as hard and as unethically as necessary to not be holding the hot potato when it ignites. Paying more taxes, accepting legal reforms and limitations, and thinking about the consequences of their actions are all direct barriers to making money in the way they’ve become accustomed.

So: conflict. One group of people is the victim of an oppressive problem and is starting to demand solutions. And the other, bloated with trillions in ill-gotten profits, is willing to fight gold-plated tooth and diamond-encrusted nail to prevent those solutions from taking place. In fact, these 0.1% want changes too, ones that will accelerate the suffering of the average American. Despite proving that they cannot be trusted with the world’s economy, they want even fewer restrictions on how they can manipulate the markets. They also want even more cuts to their already light taxes, meaning cuts to government services that people need more desperately during this crisis era, or increases in taxes for the 99% just to hold on to these already insufficient government services.

In a staggering display of chutzpah, the 0.1%, their media pals, politician lackeys, and easily-annoyed average folks sneer and demand that the OWS folks explain what they are upset about and what policy changes they want to get there (”explain to me in one sentence what they want” railed one messageboard commenter). A economic and political clusterfuck decades and decades in the making, by the manipulations of an assortment of evil geniuses and complex institutions, and a group of angry, overworked victims should have figured out a reasonable fix for it all in their spare time, over the past two months. Seriously, fuck you guys.

There’s lots of problems. All of these problems are big and complicated. The solutions are difficult, because both economic and institutional political power are denied us. And it doesn’t help that while the protesters are trying to come up with answers, the police are treating them like hippie-shaped pepper-spray sponges.

My favorite sign from any OWS protest I’ve seen was this one in San Diego:

Positive political and social change in this country has rarely come from a reasoned debate, a political ad, a ribbon-wearing campaign, or even the ballot box. It most often comes when people disrupt the day-to-day functioning of society: sit-ins, strikes, civil disobedience, mass movements, riots, and yes, occupations. These types of actions can force people in power to make changes to get things “back to normal”, or frighten them into taking action because the consequences of escalating dissent might be worse. Sometimes this leads to reform. Sometimes it invalidates the entire regime. Sometimes it leads to outright revolution.

Taking part in these sorts of actions can interfere with life as you now live it. And a lot of those outcomes are potentially scary. But it seems clear to me that if people do not stand up and try to change the direction of this country, things will get worse: less freedom, less security, less democracy. Time to think long and hard about what you want for your world, and how to get there. Or jump right in and start making change right now.

So I want to write an article to say “we’re protesting Wall Street because they did this to us.” True, the politicians are also to blame. Frankly, the whole Occupy Wall Street protest is basically saying “the whole system is set up to keep rich people rich, and powerful people powerful, even if it means hurting everyone else. And that is fucking unfair!” Economic systems and political systems should serve the people who live in those societies, not the other way around.

So there’s your message. “Shit’s wrong, and we’re angry!”

So that article is coming. I’m re-reading all of the info I’ve got about why the economy imploded so I can try to understand it, and then condense it down to something comprehensible (that’s always been one of my talents). But man, as much as I’ve understood how all this happened, it is so much worse than I ever thought. True, Wall Street’s astounding recklessness caused the collapse. And their greed is a heavy weight stopping the economy from rising out of the muck. But the extent to which they’ve scammed and re-scammed and re-re-scammed and re-re-rescammed the government for avalanches of money–your money and my money– leaves me reeling.

Oh, it’s also a very confusing and boring story. Wish me luck as I try to make it clear and readable.

—

For a few years now, I’ve been reluctant to write much about politics. It felt useless. The economic wasteland, the increasingly moronic and vicious politicians, the collusion of Democrats, the flailing of the Left. I didn’t see much point in trying to describe the hellscape around us, or try to rally people to take action against it.

I then got an email from an acquaintance who’d created, run, and then dismantled a radical activist magazine. He seemed sad that I wasn’t continuing to write, and I explained my despair to him. He agreed, recognizing territory he also knew well. But he carried a few flames of hope and passed them along. “Independent media alone changes little or nothing,” he said. “Indie media connected to organizing and movements does.”

And now that there are flying sparks that might become a movement, you’ll pardon me if I have to go put my fingers back on the keys.

And today, I’ve just seen the most ridiculous example of parceled-out hype in a while.

A big, new superhero movie called “The Avengers” is going to be released in the spring of 2012. And today, there was much pomp and giddiness for the release of the First Official Trailer. Remember, this isn’t the movie that fans want to see, this is a commercial for the movie. But that wasn’t enough. Yesterday, the television show “Entertainment Tonight” gave us all an “exclusive first look” at the commercial. For those of you who couldn’t wait 12 hours, the TV show showed clips of the commercial for the movie you actually want to see.

And that’s not all! One popular fan site gave readers a “preview” of the Entertainment Tonight segment! So you could watch a preview of the preview of the commerical for the movie.

I understand why the studios do this, and I sometimes get caught up in the spiral myself. Hell, there’s even some logic buried in there for the fans. But, objectively speaking, that doesn’t make it any less nuts.

But not only is the US government refusing to take on this role to jump-start the economy, but it is on course to cut trillions in existing spending. Even worse, many of these cuts are being made to the moth-devoured safety net needed by a country so desperately unemployed and increasingly foreclosed upon.

If this was such a dire situation, if the deficit was really such an important issue, you’d think that some of the politicians now wailing about it would have noticed when the Bush tax cuts were draining the governments bank account, or that we were fighting several wars with no plan to pay for them. They would also now see the need to cut our ludicrous military budgets and raise taxes. The fact that they didn’t and won’t show that their every spoken syllable on the issue is a lie. It’s not a crisis so much as a rhetorical sword to slash at their opponents and defend their ultra-wealthy masters.

Wall Street lost their money, the government fixed them up with our tax money, and now the government tells us that we need to make some sacrifices.

I think it’s safe to say that the ramifications of the budget deficit and the issue of US debt are not really of top importance to the 23 million un-/underemployed Americans, the 50 million who don’t have health insurance, and the 15 million Americans in danger of losing their homes. They are in trouble now and need help now, not in two years or ten years or whenever the debts become due. When was the last time you heard Obama say anything about jobs?

So the recession will continue, if it doesn’t actually get worse. I repeatedly hear that we are entering an “age of austerity”, where politicians only talk of cutting back instead of helping or investing. This current debt ceiling charade is an example of the most ruthless “shock doctrine” calamaties, a manufactured crisis for the purpose of forcing change down the throats of those who would normally rally against it.

I’m no fan of government, but the majority of us are not doing too well right now, and I don’t know any grassroots/DIY way of getting us past this.

But another Syrian brutality that is shocking to me is the murder of Syrian songwriter Ibrahim Qashoush. Qashoush wrote a number of songs and chants that were popular at protests, usually with angry but humorous lyrics. Quashoush went missing on July 3, and was found dead in a river in his hometown, with his throat cut out. Not cut, removed. As horrifying and bloody a political message as I’ve seen in recent times.

So let’s fight silence and murder with noise. Here’s a video of a street protest in Syria where the people are singing one of Quashoush’s songs (with subtitles).

First off, it seems that maybe some of us owe Rupert Murdoch a small apology. Lefty media wonks nearly always curse Murdoch’s name for the blight that is his Fox media empire, and Fox News specifically. But apparently Roger Ailes contract with Fox News prohibits Murdoch from interfereing in Ailes’ operations or political messaging at the network. So while Murdoch gets the finger for starting this muckball rolling, Ailes is the one who deserves all the demonic credit for its current state.

Secondly, I’ve probably been too soft on Fox News all these years. I’d thought it was a mediocre news network with a blatant and evil political agenda. After reading this article, I think that Fox News is really an evil political operation that also runs a TV network (that happens to have “news” in the title). It is the culmination of a technique that Ailes first concocted in 1968 as a campaign manager for Richard Nixon:

The real problem, as Ailes saw it, was a media establishment that he viewed as hostile to Republicans. The “only hope,” he recalled, “was to go around the press and go directly to the people” – letting the campaign itself shape the candidate’s image for the average voter, “without it being interpreted for him by a middleman.”

To bypass journalists, Ailes made Nixon the star of his own traveling roadshow – a series of contrived, newslike events that the campaign paid to broadcast in local markets across the country. Nixon would appear on camera in theaters packed with GOP partisans – “an applause machine,” Ailes said, “that’s all that they are.” Then he would field questions from six voters, hand-­selected by the campaign, who could be counted on to lob softball queries that played to Nixon’s talking points…

Ailes had essentially replaced professional journalists with every­day voters he could manipulate at will. “The events were not staged, they were fixed,” says Rick Perlstein, the author of Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America. “People were supposed to ask tough questions. But asking a tough question – let alone knowing how to follow up – is a skill. Taking that task out of the hands of reporters and putting it into the hands of inexperienced amateurs was brilliant in itself.

Fox News is exactly this, inflated from one-time programs in local media markets, into numerous programs, 24/7, and coast to coast. It’s a series of “newslike” shows rigged to push a worldview favorable to a particular conservative ideology (Dickinson’s article also has a sidebar that breaks down a single day of Fox News down into its component talking points and repetition by anchors and guests, also worth a read). By pretending to be unbiased news, they convince millions that this self-serving worldview is reality, and the political beliefs and actions of these audience members follows naturally. That’s its purpose. That’s why Fox News exists. It’s not a biased news network, it’s a televised stage show, created to get propaganda directly to audiences, without any pesky, skeptical journalists getting in the way.

Dickinson and I (well, mostly Dickinson) aren’t saying anything new here, just laying bare the skeleton of this monster, in the bright lights, with its different bones neatly labelled for view. But this point, for me, made the entire piece:

“Ailes isn’t interested in providing people with information, or even a balanced range of perspectives. Like his political mentor, Richard Nixon, Ailes traffics in the emotions of victimization.

“What Nixon did – and what Ailes does today in the age of Obama – is unravel and rewire one of the most powerful of human emotions: shame,” says [Rick] Perlstein, the author of Nixonland. “He takes the shame of people who feel that they are being looked down on, and he mobilizes it for political purposes. Roger Ailes is a direct link between the Nixonian politics of resentment and Sarah Palin’s politics of resentment. He’s the golden thread.’”

This is a core component of today’s conservative movement*. All kinds of Americans, feeling like they’re being judged and looked down upon for their views and tastes, feel humiliated. Maybe they’re poor, or uneducated, or prejudiced, or get mocked for their traditional religious views. Right-wing media like Fox News and faux-populist politicians like Sarah Palin start telling these shamed folks that no, they are the real Americans, they are what’s right with this nation, that in fact, anyone who is not like them is actually destroying America. Literally destroying it. Shame is a powerful emotion, and anyone who can turn that shame into pride and a feeling of belonging has done that agonized person a great favor. And the newly proud person is not likely to look too closely at the lies and destruction that come with this new, exciting outlook.

In the end, this leads us to an old and depressing debate. Clearly, political persuasion based on emotion is easier and much more powerful than appeals to reason and pragmatism, even when the emotion is based on absolute bullshit. The right wing media, and some of their politicians, are very good at this. And well-intentioned liberal/progressive types (mostly individuals and some media, there are barely any politicians that count as left-wing) seem to think that simply stating the facts will win people over. Not only do facts lack the power of emotion, but trying to “educate” someone who already feels like liberals think that conservatives are stupid might actually activate their existing outrage and resentment at you dirty liberal elites.

So what now? Lie and spin for people’s “own good”, to try to beat back right-wing policies that will hurt all but the billionaires? Enjoy fiddling on the moral high ground while Rome burns? Concede defeat while preparing for neo-feudalism or Civil War 2.0? Find another way?

It took decades of ruthless, explicit dictatorship before long-suffering citizens of the Middle East finally demanded an end. I hope Americans can catch on a little sooner than that.

—
* I wanted to say that it was the core component, but it is one giant among many. Thomas Frank would tell us the core of new conservatism is the liberal abandonment of economic policies that help working class Americans that leave many voters with nothing to choose from except “moral” issues. The late Joe Bageant would say that it’s the middle class’ choice to leave working and poor Americans with minimal educational opportunities and then looking down on those same people for being uneducated. Bob Altemeyer would argue that it’s due to a persistent authoritarian personality type in American society, that either craves powers or craves to bask in the glow of a powerful leader.

Now, that line is a commonly used pop culture reference, adapting a line from the movie “Poltergeist 2″. The line was “they’re baa-aack,” which was itself a reference to the original Poltergeist’s memorable line “they’re hee-eere.” Because the scary ghosts from #1 have now returned in movie #2.

IMDB tells me that Poltergeist 2 came out in 1986, and Poltergeist 1 came out in 1982.

And today, it is 2011. So the Huffington Post’s cleverest headline is a non-funny reference to a nearly 30-year old movie quote.

Yes, part of this post is just me bagging on the HP for lack of creativity. And part of this is me wondering how media must seem to people in their teens and twenties, when it’s based on knowledge, jokes and references from before their time.

But I have to stop due to my own experience growing up.

Me, and many of my generation that grew up in the 70s and 80s, were raised on cartoons like Bugs Bunny and Tom & Jerry. The vast majority of these cartoons that were originally created for the big screen, as filler between double-features, for adults, in the 1940s. I was raised on in-jokes, movie references, and celebrity caricatures that were often 40 or more years old. I was not sure why I was supposed to laugh at lines like “I wish my brother George was here”, “Play it again Sam” or “He don’t know me vewy well, do he?”. Eventually, they became repurposed catch phrases of their own, with me only knowing that these were things that Daffy Duck or Porky Pig said. I’m told that much of the racist humor that was acceptable in the 1940s and ignored during broadcast during my own youth, has been since scrubbed from those shows. But I can’t remember the number of times I saw stereotypical Black housekeepers, exploding bombs turning protagonists into blackface Al Jolson imitators, or falling cymbals turned characters into bucktoothed, strawhat-wearing Chinese stereotypes.

I can only imagine how the referenced and re-referenced Simpsons might have an impact on kids recently growing up, or how a highly topical show like South Park might come across in another decade or so.

No real conclusions here, just noting something kind of bizarre. I work with a number of teen volunteers at my job, maybe I’ll ask some of them about mainstream jokes and humor based on pop culture from before they were born.