Lies and Liars

Quite a long time ago, I had my very first full-time job in the meat department of a supermarket.  When we had chickens on sale, there were times that there were crates of chickens left over after the sale.  We froze them.  Then, when they went on sale again, we defrosted them.  I recall one time when the department manager was running water over the frozen chickens to defrost them faster, and the word came down from the store office that the big boss had walked into the store.  There followed a Marx Brothers-like dash to get the chickens out of the running water and onto trays.

Because freezing and defrosting the chickens and then selling them as fresh was illegal.  The game was that everybody knew this was done, but it had to be done in the dark.

Around the same time, a friend who was a cook in an upscale restaurant was visiting, and he was working the grill in our backyard.  He was describing in Bourdain fashion the horrors that go on in the kitchen in a fancy restaurant.  He had just described how, if a piece of meat fell on the floor, the cook would pick it up, brush it off, throw it on the stovetop for another minute, and then serve it.  As he finished the story, the steak he was grilling dropped to the ground.  Looking just a tad abashed, he picked it up, brushed it off, and threw it back on the grill.

In a non-food related area, I was volunteering at my daughter's elementary school library.  The librarian was pulling books from the shelf and deleting them from the school's records.  I am sure I asked what would happen to them next, and she told me a story about how they would be stored in an attic in an administration building.  After many later years working in school and public libraries, I can assure you they were not being stored.  They were being discarded.  When you work in a library, you don't tell the patrons (or the parents) that books are being thrown out.

If you look back on your various jobs and careers, most of you will recall lies you were told, and lies you told.  Not too long ago, in congressional testimony under oath, White House communications director Hope Hicks testified that she had told "white lies" for the president.  The very president who on Day One made his press secretary tell us that "This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration... period."  And then there are the convenient lapses of memory by Jefferson Beauregard Sessions during his confirmation hearing.  All under the watchful -- you might say, paranoid -- eyes of the liar-in-chief.

We once lived in a country wherein the business philosophy was "caveat emptor" -- let the buyer beware.  Buyers were taken for such a horrific ride that they rebelled, and laws were passed protecting them from harmful lies.  Of course, it did not take long for capitalists to fight back for the right to do whatever the hell they please, and we have had ups and downs in the area of consumer protection.  These days, Congress and Trump's swamp creatures are busy dismantling consumer protections and the Supremes are solidly behind the big bucks.  We seem to have returned to the carnival days of never give a sucker an even break.

In today's atmosphere of cynicism, it is surprising how naive we all continue to be.  We are watching Donald Trump and his cronies display in full screen the flagrant corruption and rampant lies of business in America.  This is the corruption of the real estate industry, and of the oil industry, and big pharma, ad nauseum.  From Bill Gates to the Kochs, the rich got that way by screwing others and telling us how lucky we are to have the opportunity to be screwed.

How do they get away with it?  They have learned how to frame their lies in a way that appeals to us.  Republicans won congress back in 2014 by well capitalized lies about Obamacare.  The Supremes, in Citizens United, gave their blessing to big lies told with the money of big donors.  Political ads tell more brazen lies than the most egregious drug commercial, and they work.

Diversion is the other tactic that keeps us fish biting through misdirection.  The magic is in making the mark look the other way while their pocket is being picked.  I know some very fine and caring Democrats who get rabid over food stamp cheats.  While there are going to be a few slick characters who don't need food stamps but have found a way to receive them, this is mostly a myth that goes way back to Reagan's food stamp queen driving up to the welfare office in her Cadillac.  The woman in the grocery store line buying that steak may have eaten pasta and beans for a week to afford that treat, and very likely lives a life of worry over making ends meet.

On the other hand, if a wealthy businessman pays no taxes you can be sure it will be painted as well deserved, because he contributes so much to the economy.  The worker who earns $20,000 a year?  Not so much.

I had a conversation with a guy repairing my washing machine a few years ago.  We were having an innocent, non-political chat about retirement and being able to afford it, and he went off on welfare cheats.  I said I was far more concerned about the billionaires that were cheating us via the government.  And he replied:  "Yeah, but you can't do anything about them."

So our entire economic system comes down to getting abused by your boss and coming home and kicking the dog.  It is all about feeling so helpless to fight the corrupt powerful that we are willing dupes in the misdirection that causes us to turn on those with less than us.

These days, the Trump swamp has stunk so much that it has even magnified the odors coming from Congress.  Paul Ryan's lies about health care and Trump's lies about tax cuts just may be what creates the prism that separates the lies from the reality.  It may not be so far between lies about inaugural crowd size to stealing those massive tax cuts.  Taking away consumer financial protections and affordable health care might serve to focus us more on the real issues than the diversions.  The outcomes of recent special elections may be the proof that we are waking up to the big con that has been perpetrated on us for far too long.

Today the liar-in-chief is rethinking his promise of just yesterday to sign the budget and keep the government running.  I heard everyone from Paul Ryan to Mick Mulvaney were surprised.  I try not to dwell on the creep's tweets, but I heard he was complaining that the Dems have abandoned the Dreamers and he hasn't gotten the full amount for his damned wall.  It would take another entire blog to unpack that load of crap.  As I recall though, it was the orange criminal himself who took DACA away from the Dreamers, and Mitch McConnell who has been refusing to bring it up for a vote in the Senate.  And we keep hearing about Trump fulfilling his promise to build the wall, but he fails to mention who he said was going to pay for it....  Lies and cons.

November is coming, and I hear that this year it is going to be swamp-draining season, in Washington and throughout the country.

Gas Tax for SC? Hell No, Say Kochs

You may not be surprised to find that the Kochs and their right wing organization, Americans for Prosperity, don't think we South Carolinians should be funding infrastructure projects.  Not that the roads and bridges don't desperately need improvement.  The Kochs just don't think tax dollars should pay for it.

And their campaign to stick their nose in our business in order to prevent this increase in the gas tax is all over the place.  When I googled Americans for Prosperity and SC gas tax, the first four websites were by AFP, with the very first one headed:  South Carolina Opposes Proposed Gas Hike.  Well, hold on a minute --  that sounds like the "Americans are against Obamacare" gambit.  And it is.  The article, full of lies and blazing rhetoric, states in no uncertain terms that even a five cent increase would kill "nearly 1,000 jobs," destroy investment and small businesses, and drive every one of us South Carolinians into poverty and ruin.

If only we were able to tell the truth with as much passion.

In fact, South Carolina has come together in a way that is rarely seen, in agreement that our roads and bridges need attention immediately.  With the lowest gas prices in years -- and before the Kochs and their ilk are able to figure out how to get them back up over $3 a gallon -- now is the ideal time to raise the tax without doing economic damage.

But as far as the Kochs are concerned, money that goes to pay taxes is money that isn't going into their pockets.

So they have used their great brains and deep pockets to do an all-out ad campaign, far beyond the big google website manipulation.

In a well-publicized publicity stunt in Greenville and Summerville, Americans for Prosperity covered the federal and state gas tax for anyone lining up to buy tax-free gas.  And line up they did.  Here's a situation where people just didn't know they couldn't afford to pay tax on gas until they found out how much it cost when the taxes were deducted.  Thanks to alerts from AFP, the media was all over it.  Brilliant.  If only they could use these great minds to educate our kids.  (Wait a minute, they are:  they are "generously" funding our South Carolina colleges in order to have free reign to indoctrinate students on right-wing economic dogma.)

But while all the attention is on the gas tax, let's not imagine they would forget public transportation.  Lies about your tax dollars being spent frivolously, loud lies, repeated lies.

Americans for Prosperity, American Legislative Exchange Council (A.L.E.C. -- which calls itself "non-partisan"), State Policy Network, and who knows how many other fronts for right-wing, anti-American, pro-corporate interests, especially the richest of the rich, the Kochs and Koch Industries.

Why, we wonder, would the wealthiest pair in the world, be so focused on each and every attempt we make to improve our communities by raising a tax?  For gods' sake, this isn't even an income tax, some right wingnuts might even call it a "fair" tax.

The answer has to do with strangling government.  The more our infrastructure crumbles, the more our schools fail, the more we risk bankruptcy and poor health because our health care system has failed, the more secure will be the Kochs.  Not because they need the money.  What they need is the power.  They know that if we ever figure out their game, our government will begin to regulate their enormous excesses.  So keep making the government evil, by pointing out not the services we need, but that we are paying to get government services.  Cut those taxes, make the services suffer, and then tell us how bad government really is.

They are expert in engendering fear, but also holding the carrot out in front of us, as they did with the tax-free gas gimmick.

But here in Charleston, and I'm sure in other communities, our progressive leaders are working just as hard to educate the public by pointing out the lies.

You can help by getting on social media and spreading the truth.  Share and retweet articles that point out the fallacies and the damage being done by Americans for Prosperity.  Lies that assert that we all will suffer if gas goes up a nickel a gallon, that CARTA is spending your tax dollars frivolously, that all of South Carolina is against a gas tax.  Call bullshit on these creeps.

Choosing to Pay

It occurred to me, as I was listening to the ongoing harangue by America's politicians, that this is an absurd debate that we are having.


We are able to keep taxes low by voting out of office anyone who suggests we might need to pay more for government services.


We don't get to vote for price increases for anything else.  Would you agree to pay more for, say, homeowner's insurance?  (The ever popular dumping ground of South Carolina was chosen to have a rate increase this year, my policy increasing by 18%!)  How about airfares -- how would you vote on doubling fares on the Sunday after Thanksgiving?  And don't forget the cost of food; would raising food costs get your vote?


Yet the service that has always given the most bang for the buck continues to get squeezed, to the point of failure.  Take schools, or the postal service.  And my own personal favorite, public libraries.


Why do we continue to think that we should get to vote down the cost of government services, while paying top dollar for everything else?


Let's take a look at this fallacy, and let's figure out a way to give it the fresh air it needs.

We Have Met the Enemy...

Supercapitalism, by Robert Reich, is not the book you want to read if you want to get angry at somebody.  We all know the problems -- growing poverty, joblessness, pollution, corporate control of Congress.  But Reich makes a compelling and disquieting argument that the blame is not to be laid at the door of the corporation.  The conflict is not between us and them.  The conflict is between we the consumers/investors and we the citizens.

Look around and see the conflict everywhere.  The parking lot at Wal-Mart is full of people who have chosen to support the low-wage anti-union corporate philosophies of Wal-Mart.  SUV's are votes for big oil.  Less obvious is the fact that the stocks in which our pension funds invest are those that guarantee through cost cutting the highest returns; cost cutting means the cheapest material and labor.

And so, as we have made these consumer and investor choices over the decades, we have found ourselves with fewer dollars because our wages continue to shrink.  We vote for lower taxes and find ourselves with bad schools, bad roads, higher unemployment because the government employees that we need for needed government services are being cut.

Here we are, in this vicious circle, where, because we chose to shop at Wal-Mart, we now must shop at Wal-Mart.  We allow CEO's to be paid criminally high salaries and bonuses because we insist on the highest stock market returns, and we demand that they cut costs in order to be competitive, so we can reap even higher returns, until we lose our jobs or health and have to raid our IRA's to survive.

Still, we feed the beast.  We refuse to support the regulation that could cost us a few more pennies in the short run while empowering us to live better, healthier lives in the long run.  We vote for politicians that promise to cut taxes and allow industry the freedom to, well, continue to do what they have been doing, make the most money they can.


Stuff gets cheaper, but corporations get more expensive.  They cost us our health, our livelihoods, time with our families, our children's futures.


You could get a good deal on an SUV right now, but I guarantee, you won't be able to afford the gasoline.  In many more ways than the sticker price for a gallon.

Okay, Then, Let's Make a Deal

I am discouraged that we are allowing corporations and Wall Street bankers to dictate the debate on tax cuts.  But as long as our elected representatives are going sing a song of tax cuts for the wealthy, and pretend that they even believe our civilization would crash without them, it is time to put some conditions on the tax cuts.

We have been hearing about how tax cuts for the wealthy are what is needed to create jobs; I have heard some brave souls asking, "If that is true, why have we not had job growth over the past ten years?"  And then I hear the echo of nobody answering.  And the media ignoring the question.  And worst of all, I don't hear our President taking up this important question.

I believe jobs have been held hostage pretty much since the 2006 Democratic Congress; the trend had been going on over the years since Reaganomics and downsizing, when profit became more important than quality, jobs, and even the survival of the company.  And the country allowed capitalism to become a beast where profit was the only motive, and ethics were irrelevant.  The government sold out to those who claimed deregulation was the key to the economy.  And tax cuts were the only thing that would create growth.  And when the Democrats came into power, and the beast felt threatened, it brought our economy to a standstill, hoarding its gold and intimidating our elected leaders with its power.

Aren't we all gullible?  We Democrats, from the President on down, have all been cowing under the Republican flag of tax cuts, when it has been proven, dramatically, that continuing to feed the beast just makes it hungrier.

The voters, terrified of losing jobs and savings, have been afraid to see the obvious.  Major media outlets representing large corporations make certain that their reporting does not wander into confrontational or controversial territory.  Our Congress mostly does what it's told; they aren't the bad guys, they are the puppets of the bad guys.  And our Supreme Court has also sold out, allowing corporations even greater control with absolutely no responsibility.

So I believe that this deal that is going down should have some contingencies, just as did the auto bailout.  Jobs need to be proof, in two years, that the tax cuts are working, and under no condition will they be renewed in two years (another election cycle) unless there are jobs and economic improvement to show for them.  It is time that the wealthy were given something other than free reign and ownership of our government.  It is time that we all start expecting something back for the wealth they owe to this country, the people and the government.