Media Complicity in Wisconsin

Have you noticed how corporate interests always manage to get in front of the microphone when there is something they want? These links show how Republicans and our for-profit media help corporate America by controlling the narrative. If you don't take a little effort to learn the larger story, you might even believe the shit going down in Wisconsin is about the state's deficit.

Amanda Terkel writes how unions are being largely frozen out of the weekend talk shows. Republican governors? No problem.

Meanwhile, David Kay Johnston writes about some really bad reporting in Wisconsin.

Gov. Scott Walker says he wants state workers covered by collective bargaining agreements to "contribute more" to their pension and health insurance plans.

Accepting Gov. Walker' s assertions as fact, and failing to check, created the impression that somehow the workers are getting something extra, a gift from taxpayers. They are not.

Out of every dollar that funds Wisconsin' s pension and health insurance plans for state workers, 100 cents comes from the state workers.

How can that be? Because the "contributions" consist of money that employees chose to take as deferred wages – as pensions when they retire – rather than take immediately in cash. The same is true with the health care plan. If this were not so a serious crime would be taking place, the gift of public funds rather than payment for services.

The real story on taxes, who pays, and why we have deficits, is obvious to anyone with even a hint of scholarly self-respect. That leaves out Glenn Beck, but you can click here for one article from the Journal of Economic Perspectives showing how corporate America and the wealthy have shifted the tax burden towards the middle class.

As the authors say in the abstract: "The progressivity of the U.S. federal tax system at the top of the income distribution has declined dramatically since the 1960s. This dramatic drop in progressivity is due primarily to a drop in corporate taxes and in estate and gift taxes combined with a sharp change in the composition of top incomes away from capital income and toward labor income."

Dogs And Teabaggers Sense Fear

Here is a video I meant to put up earlier. Bill Maher and Michael Moore capture much of the essence of teabagger mentality, and for that matter, much of what studies on authoritarian personalities have demonstrated long before anyone heard of teabaggers, Palin, or Glenn Beck.

Maher makes the point that many Americans are like dogs. That will get the right wing's assortment of serial resenters frothing, but he makes a cringe-worthy and accurate assertion that so many Americans are like dogs because they don't really understand what is being said; they look for voice inflection, style, symbolism, and attitude.

Ok, so dogs don't get symbolism, but Maher is right to emphasize fear as a motivator for dogs and teabaggers alike. Millions let their gut feelings be their guide, which is why, as Maher notes, so many seem impervious to rational discourse. On numerous issues wonkish progressives hold dear, teabaggers do not simply disagree with progressives, and offer a reasoned counter argument; they do not understand the issue in the first place. 

But listen carefully to Moore. He stresses a point you have heard me say before: Dems lost seats in November because the 18-24 crowd didn't bother to vote, while their parent and grandparents did. Moore says 70% of the 18-24 demographic voted for Obama, which sounds about right. However, while 23 million of them voted in '08, only 9 million did so in 2010. Yet Republicans only garnered 5 million more votes in 2010.

Do the math: it's all about voter turnout.

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