My take on the President's proposed budget, for those who care, is posted below, but did you hear this one?
Radio commentator Michael Medved and one of his guests (I'm sorry I missed the name) were discussing President Obama's "goal" to cut the deficit by 50% in next year's budget (Propaganda Alert: Glittering Generality), but then Medved also pointed out that a 50% cut still leaves us with a $650 billion deficit! That's larger than any deficit presented in eight years of the George W. Bush administration, even with the impact of 9/11 and a two-front war figured in.
And it gets better. To meet that "goal," the Obama administration is projecting three-and-a-half, four and even four-and-a-half percent growth rates in the U.S. economy over the next three years (Another Propaganda Alert: Card Stacking). Those are incredible (literally) boom time growth rates, and the chances of the U.S. experiencing the kind of growth that will result in a significant reduction of the Obama Deficit, even in ten years, are minuscule.
In marketing, when someone tells you a tale like that, it's called "blue sky," and only a sucker buys.
PS
Friday, February 27, 2009
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Post-Modern Mardi Gras
Along with many other professors, Dr. Mary Ann Gillies of Canada's Simon Fraser University points out that "post modernism uses irony as a primary mode of expression." Irony in this context means "the use of words to express something other than and especially the opposite of the literal meaning," or an "incongruity between the actual result...and the normal or expected result" (http://www.merriam-webster.com/). If Dr. Gillies wants examples to illustrate her lectures, she need look no further than President Obama's speech last Tuesday to the Joint Session of Congress. It was a post modern headtrip.
Arguably the most ironic feature of the speech was the day upon which it was delivered. Is it even possible that his staff overlooked the fact that he was to present the rationale of his budget proposals to Congress on Mardi Gras--Fat Tuesday? According to AmericanCatholic.org, "Fat Tuesday is the last hurrah before the Catholic season of Lent." The other name for the holiday of course, is Carnival, literally an exuberant and hedonistic "farewell to the flesh," a medieval opportunity to revel in sensual pleasures before the denials of Lent. It is a time for indulging appetites, for gluttony, excess, intemperance and dissipation. In other words, it is the opportunity the Democrat Party has been waiting for to call up the overwhelming tide of new spending and pet projects which have been thwarted by twelve years of Republican domination in the Congress. It's just the season for indulging pent-up desires, they say, and the President picked this one day to announce them. That's irony.
It's also bad news for all of us. The Democrat Congress is having the party, but we're going to suffer the hangover. The forty days of Lent began on Ash Wednesday, the day after the President's speech, and are a period of fasting, abstinence and the humiliation of the flesh, to cleanse us from the influences of world, and more pointedly, to atone for the excesses of Fat Tuesday. That's the scary part about the President's budget proposals. The load of taxation and borrowing that will have to be born to pay for the largest increase in government in history cannot possibly result in anything other than tight credit, a depressed business climate, and ultimately Carter Era style inflation. We may be making Lenten payments against the Fat Tuesday Budget literally for generations, which only heightens the irony of his timing.
It can't be that President Obama doesn't grasp the connection. In fact, the President himself clearly has a keen sense of irony. It's no secret that the total cost of his budget proposals, $3.6 trillion, will make Barak Obama the man who spent more money in one year than anyone, ever! One commentator noted that if the Federal Government spent a dollar a minute, a million dollars would last a little less than two years, a billion dollars would last until the year 3911, and a trillion dollars would last nearly two million years into the future. Barak Obama is going to spend over three-and-a-half times that amount in just one year. And what is the title of his budget document? "A New Era of Responsibility." That's either monumental irony or epic arrogance. It's hard to say which.
Perhaps the answer lies in the rest of Dr. Gillies' definition of post modern irony. "Post modernism uses irony as a primary mode of expression," she says, "but it also abuses, installs, and subverts conventions and usually negotiates contradictions through irony." President Obama and his Party have promised us change which will stand the conventions of the American system on its head. The change will be what falls out of our pockets.
PS
Arguably the most ironic feature of the speech was the day upon which it was delivered. Is it even possible that his staff overlooked the fact that he was to present the rationale of his budget proposals to Congress on Mardi Gras--Fat Tuesday? According to AmericanCatholic.org, "Fat Tuesday is the last hurrah before the Catholic season of Lent." The other name for the holiday of course, is Carnival, literally an exuberant and hedonistic "farewell to the flesh," a medieval opportunity to revel in sensual pleasures before the denials of Lent. It is a time for indulging appetites, for gluttony, excess, intemperance and dissipation. In other words, it is the opportunity the Democrat Party has been waiting for to call up the overwhelming tide of new spending and pet projects which have been thwarted by twelve years of Republican domination in the Congress. It's just the season for indulging pent-up desires, they say, and the President picked this one day to announce them. That's irony.
It's also bad news for all of us. The Democrat Congress is having the party, but we're going to suffer the hangover. The forty days of Lent began on Ash Wednesday, the day after the President's speech, and are a period of fasting, abstinence and the humiliation of the flesh, to cleanse us from the influences of world, and more pointedly, to atone for the excesses of Fat Tuesday. That's the scary part about the President's budget proposals. The load of taxation and borrowing that will have to be born to pay for the largest increase in government in history cannot possibly result in anything other than tight credit, a depressed business climate, and ultimately Carter Era style inflation. We may be making Lenten payments against the Fat Tuesday Budget literally for generations, which only heightens the irony of his timing.
It can't be that President Obama doesn't grasp the connection. In fact, the President himself clearly has a keen sense of irony. It's no secret that the total cost of his budget proposals, $3.6 trillion, will make Barak Obama the man who spent more money in one year than anyone, ever! One commentator noted that if the Federal Government spent a dollar a minute, a million dollars would last a little less than two years, a billion dollars would last until the year 3911, and a trillion dollars would last nearly two million years into the future. Barak Obama is going to spend over three-and-a-half times that amount in just one year. And what is the title of his budget document? "A New Era of Responsibility." That's either monumental irony or epic arrogance. It's hard to say which.
Perhaps the answer lies in the rest of Dr. Gillies' definition of post modern irony. "Post modernism uses irony as a primary mode of expression," she says, "but it also abuses, installs, and subverts conventions and usually negotiates contradictions through irony." President Obama and his Party have promised us change which will stand the conventions of the American system on its head. The change will be what falls out of our pockets.
PS
Friday, February 13, 2009
Bad Omen?
Do I have this right?
The catalyst for our current economic disaster was the collapse of the housing market, leading to mass foreclosures in which millions of people may lose their homes. Now the President's plan is to deal with this crisis by building more park benches, bridges, tunnels and overpasses.
Does anyone besides me think this is a bad omen?
The catalyst for our current economic disaster was the collapse of the housing market, leading to mass foreclosures in which millions of people may lose their homes. Now the President's plan is to deal with this crisis by building more park benches, bridges, tunnels and overpasses.
Does anyone besides me think this is a bad omen?
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Who do You Think You're Stimulating?
This site is dedicated to pointing out logical fallacies and propaganda techniques employed by newsmakers--ok, politicians and the media, really--but it's always fun to find examples in the news and illustrate them with my own experiences.
A few years ago I was teaching a pre-college composition course. This is a course that used to be called developmental, and before that remedial, and before that "bonehead" English (Propaganda Alert: Euphemism). One member of the class was a big, beefy young man with an attitude about English, so when I handed back his first in-class essay with a "D" grade on it, he wasn't happy with me. After class he dropped his paper on my desk, glared at me and said, "Why can't we have a real test?"
I confess I have a weakness for sarcasm, but I hasten to point out that while it may not be particularly polite, it's not a fallacy. I replied, "This was a real test. See your real grade?"
I think that was clever, but it was lost on my student. He said, "No, like, one where there's different answers, and I pick the right one."
I patiently explained that this was a writing class, and to determine his abilities I had to evaluate his writing. He replied, "Well, that's just stupid. I've taken this class three times before, and nobody else does it like that."
Besides providing me with a great teaching story, my student was falling victim to a classic fallacy. He thought that because everybody does something one way, that must be the only right way to do it. Vox populi, vox dei. "The voice of the people is the Voice of God." Except it's not.
Now President Obama is getting caught in the same type of error, and it's catching him from both directions. In fact, the whole Democrat power structure is engaged in the same kind of fallacious thinking. After his "stimulus" bill squeaked out of the House last week without a single Republican vote, the President held a pep rally to hearten his fainting party members. "We won," he told them, referring to last November's election, and so they get to do whatever they want. There's the Fallacy Alert: Vox populi, Vox dei.
The problem is that in our democratic republic the election is only the first opportunity for the people to speak, and the leaders continue to be accountable to them throughout their terms. Even if the Democrats did win last fall, they really can't do whatever they want because the people can change their minds so fast. At this point, less than a month after the Inauguration, barely 35% of the people--the same ones who voted for him last fall--now support the President's "stimulus" bill. They still like the President, but they recognize a pork-padded catastrophe when they see one. In fact, Congressional emails and telephones have been slammed by The People voicing their opposition. If the voice of the people really were the the great power in the land, the President would have withdrawn the bill long since. Hold your breath and wait for that to happen. At this point he really doesn't want to hear the voice of "God."
Instead the President is travelling around the country attempting to pump up support for his plan. It's a bad sign that he has to take to this extremity so early in his Presidency. If he really had the people behind him, it wouldn't be necessary to go out on the stump for it. President Obama has an unstoppable majority in both Houses of Congress that can pass whatever bills he wants, and probably will for a while. But I wonder if the President is starting to suspect the same thing that I am--that the people elected him as a symbolic President rather than as a working President. If that's the case, and it's looking more like it every day, it won't take long for them to begin resenting all that change he campaigned on in such vague terms.
PS
post script: After the quarter was over, I found out that beefy "kid" was twenty-six years old and had done time for assaulting an officer. It's probably just as well I didn't know that at the time.
A few years ago I was teaching a pre-college composition course. This is a course that used to be called developmental, and before that remedial, and before that "bonehead" English (Propaganda Alert: Euphemism). One member of the class was a big, beefy young man with an attitude about English, so when I handed back his first in-class essay with a "D" grade on it, he wasn't happy with me. After class he dropped his paper on my desk, glared at me and said, "Why can't we have a real test?"
I confess I have a weakness for sarcasm, but I hasten to point out that while it may not be particularly polite, it's not a fallacy. I replied, "This was a real test. See your real grade?"
I think that was clever, but it was lost on my student. He said, "No, like, one where there's different answers, and I pick the right one."
I patiently explained that this was a writing class, and to determine his abilities I had to evaluate his writing. He replied, "Well, that's just stupid. I've taken this class three times before, and nobody else does it like that."
Besides providing me with a great teaching story, my student was falling victim to a classic fallacy. He thought that because everybody does something one way, that must be the only right way to do it. Vox populi, vox dei. "The voice of the people is the Voice of God." Except it's not.
Now President Obama is getting caught in the same type of error, and it's catching him from both directions. In fact, the whole Democrat power structure is engaged in the same kind of fallacious thinking. After his "stimulus" bill squeaked out of the House last week without a single Republican vote, the President held a pep rally to hearten his fainting party members. "We won," he told them, referring to last November's election, and so they get to do whatever they want. There's the Fallacy Alert: Vox populi, Vox dei.
The problem is that in our democratic republic the election is only the first opportunity for the people to speak, and the leaders continue to be accountable to them throughout their terms. Even if the Democrats did win last fall, they really can't do whatever they want because the people can change their minds so fast. At this point, less than a month after the Inauguration, barely 35% of the people--the same ones who voted for him last fall--now support the President's "stimulus" bill. They still like the President, but they recognize a pork-padded catastrophe when they see one. In fact, Congressional emails and telephones have been slammed by The People voicing their opposition. If the voice of the people really were the the great power in the land, the President would have withdrawn the bill long since. Hold your breath and wait for that to happen. At this point he really doesn't want to hear the voice of "God."
Instead the President is travelling around the country attempting to pump up support for his plan. It's a bad sign that he has to take to this extremity so early in his Presidency. If he really had the people behind him, it wouldn't be necessary to go out on the stump for it. President Obama has an unstoppable majority in both Houses of Congress that can pass whatever bills he wants, and probably will for a while. But I wonder if the President is starting to suspect the same thing that I am--that the people elected him as a symbolic President rather than as a working President. If that's the case, and it's looking more like it every day, it won't take long for them to begin resenting all that change he campaigned on in such vague terms.
PS
post script: After the quarter was over, I found out that beefy "kid" was twenty-six years old and had done time for assaulting an officer. It's probably just as well I didn't know that at the time.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Isn't that just like him?!
Dang. Whether as Senate Majority Leader or as a disgraced Cabinet nominee, I can always count on Tom Daschle to work counter to my interests. Just when I've got him nailed as an example of media propaganda (see Dizzy is Just How They Want Us, below), he goes and withdraws his name from consideration. Still, it was spin that kept him on the table for as long as he was.
PS
PS
Monday, February 2, 2009
Dizzy is Just How They Want Us
There is an email making the rounds, which a good and honest man assures me he has researched and verified, comparing the media's reaction to Pres. Obama's Inauguration versus that to Pres. Bush's 2nd Inauguration. The contrast very effectively illustrates the political propaganda technique known as "spin" (see Propaganda Techniques).
Headlines On This Date 4 Years Ago:
"Republicans spending $42 million on inauguration while troops die in unarmored Humvees"
"Bush extravagance exceeds any reason during tough economic times"
"Fat cats get their $42 million inauguration party, Ordinary Americans get the shaft"
Headlines Today:
"Historic Obama Inauguration will cost only $120 million"
"Obama Spends $120 million on inauguration; America Needs A Big Party"
"Citibank executives contribute $8 million to Obama Inauguration"
"Everyman Obama shows America how to celebrate"
The content, the details, indicate that both Presidential parties were extravagant (I mean the "celebrations," not the "organizations," although...), but the difference in tone communicates volumes about how the media desires people to perceive the different administrations. That's spin.
Take another example. It was revealed in confirmation hearings that Timothy Geithner, Secretary of the Treasury in the Obama Administration, had failed to pay "tens of thousands of dollars in taxes," according to CBS News, over a period of four years during which he signed 16 quarterly statements affirming that he knew those taxes were due. Nevertheless, CBS and many others defended his confirmation, observing, "The 47-year-old is seen by many as the best candidate for the job, and there was concern that rejecting him would mean a delay in confirming a replacement that the country could not afford." So he's in, and with media approval.
But Geithner won't be alone at the Obama Presidential Cabinet table filing his amended return. Health and Human Services Secretary Designate, former Senator Tom Daschle, has admitted he owes nearly $100,000 in back taxes on "gifts" he received as professional courtesies. (Has anyone ever given you a gift that would trigger a $100,000 tax bill?!) The Obama administration is referring to Daschle's delinquencies as the result of "an honest mistake." It's an interesting phrase, "honest mistake." Have you ever heard of a politician who made a "dishonest mistake?" But the media is accepting that explanation without question or investigation.
Compare that to the treatment received by members of the Bush Administration. I can tell this one from personal experience. I get so tired of hearing of the inherent evil of that team that I occasionally invite my students to consider other possibilities. When I point out that Dick and Lynn Cheney donated over 70% of their 2007 income to charity, I never hear any appreciative response. Invariably I hear, "It was probably a tax dodge." Spin, you see, is subject to the Laws of Inertia--an idea set in motion by the media tends to stay in motion. That one will keep spinning long after the former Vice President's ashes are scattered over the Tetons.
Certainly no one party has a monopoly on spin as a propaganda technique. Both employ it regularly, and neither is as adept at spinning as their colleagues in the media. But judging from the current PR successes of the Obama Administration, supported by their media allies, and the dismal PR failures of the Bush Administration, there should be little doubt who is better at it.
Headlines On This Date 4 Years Ago:
"Republicans spending $42 million on inauguration while troops die in unarmored Humvees"
"Bush extravagance exceeds any reason during tough economic times"
"Fat cats get their $42 million inauguration party, Ordinary Americans get the shaft"
Headlines Today:
"Historic Obama Inauguration will cost only $120 million"
"Obama Spends $120 million on inauguration; America Needs A Big Party"
"Citibank executives contribute $8 million to Obama Inauguration"
"Everyman Obama shows America how to celebrate"
The content, the details, indicate that both Presidential parties were extravagant (I mean the "celebrations," not the "organizations," although...), but the difference in tone communicates volumes about how the media desires people to perceive the different administrations. That's spin.
Take another example. It was revealed in confirmation hearings that Timothy Geithner, Secretary of the Treasury in the Obama Administration, had failed to pay "tens of thousands of dollars in taxes," according to CBS News, over a period of four years during which he signed 16 quarterly statements affirming that he knew those taxes were due. Nevertheless, CBS and many others defended his confirmation, observing, "The 47-year-old is seen by many as the best candidate for the job, and there was concern that rejecting him would mean a delay in confirming a replacement that the country could not afford." So he's in, and with media approval.
But Geithner won't be alone at the Obama Presidential Cabinet table filing his amended return. Health and Human Services Secretary Designate, former Senator Tom Daschle, has admitted he owes nearly $100,000 in back taxes on "gifts" he received as professional courtesies. (Has anyone ever given you a gift that would trigger a $100,000 tax bill?!) The Obama administration is referring to Daschle's delinquencies as the result of "an honest mistake." It's an interesting phrase, "honest mistake." Have you ever heard of a politician who made a "dishonest mistake?" But the media is accepting that explanation without question or investigation.
Compare that to the treatment received by members of the Bush Administration. I can tell this one from personal experience. I get so tired of hearing of the inherent evil of that team that I occasionally invite my students to consider other possibilities. When I point out that Dick and Lynn Cheney donated over 70% of their 2007 income to charity, I never hear any appreciative response. Invariably I hear, "It was probably a tax dodge." Spin, you see, is subject to the Laws of Inertia--an idea set in motion by the media tends to stay in motion. That one will keep spinning long after the former Vice President's ashes are scattered over the Tetons.
Certainly no one party has a monopoly on spin as a propaganda technique. Both employ it regularly, and neither is as adept at spinning as their colleagues in the media. But judging from the current PR successes of the Obama Administration, supported by their media allies, and the dismal PR failures of the Bush Administration, there should be little doubt who is better at it.
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