Now that the mid-term elections are over and the Republicans have taken control of the House of Representatives, we can watch television once more without being bombarded with negative political ads.
The conservative talk radio show circuit that includes the likes of Beck, Hannity, Levin, Limbaugh, Savage, and Schnitt are still talking about the same old tired topics. These guys did an excellent job scaring the American people into believing that the country was going to fall into the Pacific Ocean if they didn’t elect as many Republicans as possible.
On a daily basis these critics spend the majority of their shows talking about the same stories over and over again until there listeners begin to believe the things they hear. They continually pound the pavement with one sided stories often filled with non-factual based arguments.
These types of people want you to be a believer. They want you to believe everything they say and take every work they say as gospel. I am not here to tell you that these people are right or wrong, or that they don’t have a right to express their opinions or views, but I would encourage you to verify the information you hear before forming an opinion.
The one thing you won’t hear on any of these shows is solutions to any of the problems grumble about. I am tired of hearing about their personal attacks, and disrespectful tirades. They can do all of us a favor and offer people real solutions or get off the air.
These same talking heads tell us over and over that their sole mission is to do everything they can do to make sure the current President is a one term President, stop the Obama express, and all these other degrading things they say on the radio and television. In essence, they are telling their listeners that they hope the country fails because they don’t want the leader of the country to succeed.
So in a slick way, they are telling their listeners that they aren’t going to report or say anything positive about the President because they don’t want you to hear it. Their success depends on making you believe that nothing positive is happening and the good things that are happening will get spent in a negative way.
They tell their listeners on a daily basis that we need to create more jobs and we need to put people back to work in this country to get the economy growing again. Well no kidding. But the 800 pound question I have for them is how?
When Congress passed the tax relief act in 2001 the US Treasury had a surplus, meaning we didn’t have debt. Almost 10 years later the US treasury is in a deficit of astronomic proportions and these talking heads want you to believe that it’s all the fault of our newly elected President. C’mon man! A football coach doesn't come in and fix a losing program in just one season. He needs time to get things in order and so does the President.
These guys want you to believe that the Bush tax cuts are good for all Americans and that simply isn’t true. The rich will keep getting richer and the economic gap between the upper, middle, and lower class will continue to grow further apart. Raising the taxes of the super rich isn’t going to stunt job growth and that’s apparent because of the amount of lost jobs while the tax cuts have been in place.
Congress may as well let the tax cuts expire because they obviously haven’t worked to help keep people employed.
Most of the talking heads make well over $250,000 and would see a hike in their taxes which is the real reason they want the tax cuts extended. They are not looking out for the people that listen to them faithfully on a daily basis. They are looking out for their pockets and their pockets alone.
Nobody can convince me that companies are laying people off in America because they can't afford to pay higher wages. Some of the larger companies in America have closed down factories and production facilities in communities all over the country, sending millions of jobs once held by American workers to workers in Asia or South America. This is what the American people are not happy about.
Regardless if they or anyone else wants to believe it or not, the deficit did not begin after the election of 2008. Jobs didn’t all of the sudden start disappearing when President Obama won the election. Don’t be fooled by the talking heads into believing that the Democrats or President Obama are solely responsible for jobless rate which is sitting at over 9% as of October 2010.
Common people like you and I continue to pay higher taxes while large corporations are allowed to ship jobs out of the country and are rewarded by receive large tax breaks.
Those are the folks the talking heads need to be going after on a daily basis, not the President. They should be asking them why they chose to close factories in metro Atlanta or Detroit and opened the same type of facility in Thailand or the Philippines.
Here’s a challenge for you. Try to find 10 things in your house or office that were made in America. Look at the label and then you will begin to understand why people in this country are out of work.
Anyone with half a brain would realize that the problems we are facing today as a nation didn’t start yesterday and won’t be solved tomorrow.
There is no secret that the national debt is out of control and government spending needs to be cut down. There is no secret that there are a number of people out of work and are aggressively seeking employment. There is no secret that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are unpopular and expensive.
People have quickly forgotten the fact that some of the same politicians that where in office when national debt started to spiral out of control, are some of the same people who were re-elected on November 2nd. All these people did was point the finger at the party in control as if they played no role in the spending spree that has taken place.
Don’t think for a second that things are going to magically change come January 2011 when the Republicans take control of the House.
The doom and gloom attitude will continue to flood the airways because that’s how the talking heads make their living. They don’t even believe half of the garbage that comes from their own mouths, but rely on your ears to keep listening while their bank accounts grow larger and larger.
I encourage everybody to be a thinker and not a believer. Know the facts, understand them, and think critically when watching the news, listening to the radio, or reading newspapers.
Originally published by the Charlton County Herald on November 23, 2010 http://www.charltoncountyherald.com/articles/2010/11/24/opinion/editorials/doc4cebe2062434b464371579.txt
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