{"id":942,"date":"2011-07-08T15:02:09","date_gmt":"2011-07-08T15:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mixermuse.com\/blog\/?p=942"},"modified":"2014-11-15T10:11:59","modified_gmt":"2014-11-15T17:11:59","slug":"the-obama-administration-raises-unemployment-25-really","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/myths-exposed\/the-obama-administration-raises-unemployment-25-really\/","title":{"rendered":"The Obama Administration Raises Unemployment 25% \u2013 REALLY?"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Bush Junior took office on January 20, 2001, the national unemployment rate was 4.7%.\u00a0 When he left office on January 20, 2009 and President Obama took office the national unemployment rate was 9.3% ( http:\/\/www.bls.gov\/cps\/prev_yrs.htm<\/a> ).\u00a0 The current unemployment rate as of June 2001 is 9.2% ( http:\/\/www.bls.gov\/news.release\/empsit.nr0.htm<\/a> ). Doing the math, the increase during the Bush administration was (9.3 \/ 4.7) * 100 = 198% or a 98% increase in unemployment.\u00a0 For the Obama administration the math is (9.2 \/ 9.3) * 100 = 98% or a 2% decrease in unemployment.\u00a0 The latest Karl Rove, Crossroads, national ad states that the national unemployment rate increased 25% during the Obama administration.\u00a0 Since unemployment data by definition is published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, no amount of \u201cprivate facts\u201d or bold face lies can explain away the real facts.\u00a0 The Republican lie machine has no problem spending millions of dollars spewing forth unadulterated lies.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Do these folks really think that sane voters would prefer a 98% unemployment rate increase to 2% percent decrease in unemployment?<\/p>\n

Well, what about the long held theory that taxes cuts create jobs and help the economy.\u00a0 We had 8 years to try this theory out.\u00a0 Not only did it result in a 98% increase in unemployment but it also resulted in an economic crash and the greatest recession since the Great Depression.\u00a0 Did it work?\u00a0 Didn\u2019t the Clinton administration end up with 4 years of a Federal surplus and a 4.7% unemployment rate?\u00a0 Do voters really want to believe that if we try the Republican\u2019s economic solution again it will work this time?\u00a0 Are voters that stupid?<\/p>\n

Well, what about health care and lassie faire?\u00a0 We have tried decades of letting the market decide in the Republican promise that the market would solve the problem.\u00a0 Did it work?\u00a0 How much longer do we need to TRY the market based approach?\u00a0 Ok, so let\u2019s get rid of \u201cObama-care\u201d\u2026is the solution to go back to what we had before?\u00a0 Was it so much better?\u00a0 How many more decades do we need to try the market approach?\u00a0 If we cut everyone off and get rid of the debt, are we willing to let men, women and children die in the streets from lack of health care while we satiate ourselves in our country clubs?\u00a0 What is the solution?\u00a0 Is there one?<\/p>\n

The more interesting questions are:<\/p>\n

1)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 What kind of folks continue to spin out lies decade after decade to get and keep political power?<\/p>\n

2)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Why does it seem to work?<\/p>\n

When an ideology continually repeats lies to sustain and get power the word that describes it is \u201cpropaganda\u201d.\u00a0 The main purpose of propaganda is to manipulate.\u00a0 There are two assumptions that propaganda proves out:<\/p>\n

1)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Those that are have the money and power to create this marketing blitz are the elite \u201cknowers\u201d.\u00a0 They are willing to do anything to obfuscate their true motives.\u00a0 Their apparent contradictions are smoking mirrors cleverly designed to play on folk\u2019s emotions and trick folks into supporting their true agenda \u2013 protecting the rich and powerful.\u00a0 At the bottom of this machine is a pure Darwinian belief that power needs no justification, logic or truth.\u00a0 Power is its own virtue.\u00a0 Conquest proves who the blessed are and who the cursed are.\u00a0<\/p>\n

2)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 People are stupid.\u00a0 They are \u201cherdal\u201d and cow-like.\u00a0 They cannot remember the past and have no sense of logic and rationality.\u00a0 They are zombies that can be manipulated and controlled by the elite.\u00a0 They can be made to run straight off a cliff to their own demise and believe the whole time that it is in their best interest.<\/p>\n

While the elite would never make such an explicit statement of their intentions, their actions leave no doubt as to what their game really is.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

I hope and want to believe they are wrong.\u00a0 I want to believe in logic, rationality and history.\u00a0 I would like to think that there is an intrinsic good in people that will overcome these schemes.\u00a0 I can\u2019t say that I do not have doubts and maybe the Darwinian instinct is correct.\u00a0 However, if I were to believe this ideology I would find a certain meaninglessness and futility in existence.\u00a0 Maybe we should \u201cmake friends with the enemy\u201d as Apocalypse Now\u201d maintains.\u00a0 Maybe we should head straight of the cliffs and thank the wolves that made us believe we were doing it for our own good.\u00a0 Well, as for me, I am willing to hope against hope, if that is what it takes, to adopt a more optimistic approach to human existence.\u00a0 I suppose that this may be a kind of Kierkegaardian, existential staking out my \u201ceternal happiness\u201d on an absolute paradox\u2026at least as thought from the dialectic of power.\u00a0 These choices are left to us individually whether we explicitly know it or tacitly \u201cdo it\u201d.\u00a0 I find the belief that one is the \u201cblessed\u201d and \u201call-powerful\u201d to be a comic tragedy of one\u2019s own making in which the hero becomes the blind fool and forgets his end will be in the dust with his cows while the only thing that really mattered was humanity and concern, optimism and belief, the virtue of work – of harmony and balance with nature and logic, the scorned simplicity that faces us in the other.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Bush Junior took office on January 20, 2001, the national unemployment rate was 4.7%.\u00a0 When he left office on January 20, 2009 and President Obama took office the national unemployment rate was 9.3% ( http:\/\/www.bls.gov\/cps\/prev_yrs.htm ).\u00a0 The current unemployment rate as of June 2001 is 9.2% ( http:\/\/www.bls.gov\/news.release\/empsit.nr0.htm ). Doing the math, the increase […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,16,18],"tags":[21,49,240],"class_list":["post-942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-myths-exposed","category-politics","category-republicans","tag-25-increase-in-unemployment","tag-carl-rove","tag-republicans"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=942"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/942\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3885,"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/942\/revisions\/3885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}