The Three Fifths Equation

I think President Obama is doing pretty well considering the original constitution only recognized him as a partial human being.  Mr. Bill O'Reilly had a bit to say about that on his show yesterday.  He was raving (I guess it's called opining when he does it) about how President Obama had attended Easter services at a church where the minister had savagely denigrated the constitution by stating that the original document was flawed.  Yes, apparently some people consider something as minor as counting blacks as three fifths of a person is a flaw.  It's no wonder, (he opined) that so many people believe Mr. Obama has a fundamental dislike of this country.  Why else would he attend the church of a known "racial activist?"

Mr. O'Reilly's staggering lack of sensitivity is often bewildering.  His guest was an elderly African American minister (I'm afraid I missed his name) who had lived through the ugly days of racial discrimination and had no doubt experienced the sting of being treated as sub-human.  Mr. O'Reilly argued that calling the constitution flawed for any reason is un-American.  He was also quite sure that the only motivation for saying such a thing was blatant racism.

How could anyone be that callous and so hopelessly screwed up about right and wrong?  To his credit, the guest refrained from punching O'Reilly in the face which is what he deserved.  He very calmly defended the preacher in question and assured Mr. O'Reilly that he was sure Mr. Obama loved his country.  Of course, O'Reilly was having none of that.  I wonder if Billy "Boy" would be singing the same tune if the founding fathers had allowed the enslavement of the Irish?  Counting Mr. O'Reilly as three fifths of a man might actually be exaggerating his worth.  As a slave, he would have been a lousy asset.  The market for loud-mouthed, opinionated slaves was never very good.

Welcome

Welcome to my nightmare.  When I was young and more naive, I believed the political sentiments of the nation swung back and forth in a natural cycle.  That may have been true before the age of Ronald Reagan and the birth of the simple elegant lie.  The beauty of these simple, well amplified lies is that they flow from the tongue like a mantra and yet require someone with a PhD at least an hour to refute.  The people are just too impatient, so they blindly accept more and more brazen nonsense.  It may be impossible to fool all the people all the time, but the elegant lie has enabled a greedy few to fool most of the people most of the time.  That's all it takes to get people to consistently vote against their personal interest.  I'm amazed at how many otherwise reasonable people are convinced that "Trickle Down" economics is a proven theory rather than a totally discredited excuse to screw the middle class.

This blog is my attempt to push back against the insanity of well crafted, institutional lies and their principal amplifier, Fox News.  The hard core, fully indoctrinated devotee of Glenn Beck is probably unreachable.  I find that most of these unfortunate souls have become immune to reason.  For them, the lie doesn't have to be elegant or even rational.  Sometime I think he tests his subjects with totally preposterous statements just to measure his control over their minds and emotions.  My hope, therefore is to reach young people who are not generally impressed by television windbags.  Their unbelievable networking skills may be the last best hope of putting the plug in the megaphone of insanity.  Most importantly, their future is what's at stake.  Our current economy was designed by rich people for rich people.  Wealth will never trickle down but if no one pushes back, the national debt will.