There are two strategies to get our message out: 1) speak the truth, 2) stop the right-wing propaganda butt-cold before it spreads into mainstream discourse. The following post is an example of the latter strategy:
There's a cut-and-pasted meme running like a virus around right-wing websites today that really irked me. They're trying to explain Bush's terrible poll numbers, and are using all the usual right-wing tricks of the trade. I found this reply to a blog post to be a typical example of the right-wing talking points being used today to explain Bush's terrible poll numbers.
May 12, 2006Because in this country, we have nothing but good news:
Iraq is now safer than the streets of Detroit or Washington DC
Unemployment is at an all time low
Employment is at an all time high
Al Qaida is decimated and on the run
No terrorist incidents in the US for 3.5 years
Federal Tax revenues at an all time high
Stock market is at an all time high
Number of high paying jobs is at an all time high
Interest rates are at an historical low
Inflation is at an historical low
Only 1 administration official is under indictment compared to 61 Clinton administration officials under indictment
The only problem we have is the left-wing propaganda machine called the MSM is pounding Bush 24/7. But even more good news. MSM is losing readers and viewers in record numbers and their losses are mounting resulting in their stocks hitting an all-time low.
Let's examine these claims one at a time:
Iraq is now safer than the streets of Detroit or Washington DCThis claim has been passed around on
right-wing websites since at least Fall, 2003. Whether this claim is important or not is debatable, but is it even true? The claim seems to originate from right-winger and NRA apologist John Lott in July, 2003. Ever the opportunistic damned liar, Lott compared
murders in Washington, DC to
US combat-related deaths, and not all deaths in Baghdad. In September of 2003, the
L.A. Times wrote:
“The number of reported gun-related killings in Baghdad has increased 25-fold since President Bush declared an end to major combat May 1. Before the war began, the morgue investigated an average of 20 deaths a month caused by firearms. In June, that number rose to 389 and in August it reached 518. Moreover, the overall number of suspicious deaths jumped from about 250 a month last year to 872 in August.”So
before the Iraq War Baghdad was safer than D.C., but the U.S. invasion certainly made it less safe, and definitely less safe for Americans. Iraq has become progressively more violent and less stable since 2003, and still passing off this lie as truth is even more egregious today than it was three years ago.
Unemployment is at an all time lowYear Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Annual
1996 5.6 5.5 5.5 5.6 5.6 5.3 5.5 5.1 5.2 5.2 5.4 5.4
1997 5.3 5.2 5.2 5.1 4.9 5.0 4.9 4.8 4.9 4.7 4.6 4.7
1998 4.6 4.6 4.7 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.5 4.5 4.6 4.5 4.4 4.4
1999 4.3 4.4 4.2 4.3 4.2 4.3 4.3 4.2 4.2 4.1 4.1 4.0
2000 4.0 4.1 4.0
3.8 4.0 4.0 4.0 4.1 3.9 3.9 3.9 3.9
2001 4.2 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.3 4.5 4.6 4.9 5.0 5.3 5.5 5.7
2002 5.7 5.7 5.7 5.9 5.8 5.8 5.8 5.7 5.7 5.7 5.9 6.0
2003 5.8 5.9 5.9 6.0 6.1 6.3 6.2 6.1 6.1 6.0 5.9 5.7
2004 5.7 5.6 5.7 5.5 5.6 5.6 5.5 5.4 5.4 5.4 5.4 5.4
2005 5.2 5.4 5.1 5.1 5.1 5.0 5.0 4.9 5.1 4.9 5.0 4.9
2006 4.7 4.8 4.7 4.7
http://data.bls.gov/I see lots of numbers in there lower than 4.7, so clearly this claim is untrue. I highlighted the month with the actual lowest unemployment in the last ten years. Hey, wasn't that during the Clinton Administration?
Employment is at an all time highThis is true, but only in the sense that also makes
unemployment at an all-time high. It's a meaningless statement of raw data. It's true that there have never been as many people employed in the US as there are today. This fact, however, is due to the increase in population, and is meaningless as far as an economic indicator. The number of people ‘not in labor force’ has increased, too, commensurate to the increase in population times the employment
rate, the rate being the only meaningful measure of employment, and even that has been redefined to come out rosier for the economy.
ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/suppl/empsit.cpseea1.txt
Al Qaida is decimated and on the runA web search on this claim comes up with hundreds of hits from May, 2003. Clearly someone is trying to pass off some old information as current. The fact is, Bin Laden is still alive almost five years after 9/11, and Al Qaeda in Iraq is still killing Iraqis and Americans. No reliable statistics are available to substantiate the claim that Al Qaeda is decimated or on the run, but the mere fact that they are still around, harrying the world’s preeminent military power -- still killing Americans! -- should be enough to render this claim ridiculous.
No terrorist incidents in the US for 3.5 yearsObviously someone is passing around some dated information. Wherever this person cut and pasted his information from was about a year and a half old.
Let’s examine the claim anyway.
The Oklahoma City bombing occurred on April 19, 1995, and the next domestic attack was September 11, 2001, so historically one should not expect terrorist attacks only 3.5, or even 5 years apart.
Reports from all over the media have decried the Republican laissez-faire approach to national security, especially in regard to budget cuts for the security of America’s ports:
"But 4 1/2 years after the 9/11 attacks, the supposed danger is almost a distraction from the real work. Congress has done little to advance agreement on better security plans for ports, decide how to reopen ports if an attack occurs or spend more than a fraction of what's needed to reduce threats from conventional, biological or nuclear attacks using cargo."http://www.whisprwave.com/2006/02/port%2Dof%2Dseattle%2Dreal%2Dterror%2Dthreats.html">link
Bush has not made America any safer, so attributing the lack of domestic terror attacks to Bush is spurious.
Federal Tax revenues at an all time highThis is another claim based on unadjusted raw data, and is therefore meaningless. Expenditures are also at an all-time high, too. The US
trade deficit has increased under Bush. The
national debt has increased under Bush, even when adjusted for GDP growth. The
budget deficit is greater under Bush than under any other president in history.
Stock market is at an all time highPat Buchanan made this false claim a few weeks ago on
Hardball with Chris Matthews, and despite
Media Matters' rebuke of him, the claim is still getting passed off as true. The stock market actually hit its all-time high the week before Bush took office, during the Clinton administration.
The stock market should be Bush’s pride and joy, the showpiece of his administration. Bush’s tax cuts have been aimed at the wealthy investor class, and the stock market has been propped up by years of entitlement tax cuts and giveaways. That plan was only a temporary stopgap, however, and
corporate profits, the only real bright spot in the Bush economy, are set to fall. In a sense, Bush borrowed against future earnings, like a 1920’s stock speculator, and it’s just about time for the margin call.
Number of high paying jobs is at an all time highThe most recent available statistics from 2003 and 2004 cite manufacturing job loss at
2.5 million, without outsourcing continuing. CBC News reported that
high-quality jobs have been replaced with lower quality, lower paying service industry jobs. Interest rates are at an historical lowInterest rates are not at a historical low. They’re low in an effort to encourage borrowing, but they’ve been lower. In fact they’ve been lower even in the Bush administration, but have steadily risen. Interest rates are set by the Federal Reserve, and since rates are based on an interaction between spending and inflation, they cannot really be used as an objective economic indicator. The fact that interest rates have been so low during the Bush administration could generally be seen as an indication of a potentially moribund economy. Low rates are not necessarily a good thing.
Inflation is at an historical lowAnother outright lie. Inflation is near its highest in the last ten years.
YEAR JAN FEB MAR APR MAY JUN JUL AUG SEP OCT NOV DEC AVE
2006 3.99% 3.60% 3.36%
2005 2.97% 3.01% 3.15% 3.51% 2.80% 2.53% 3.17% 3.64% 4.69% 4.35% 3.46% 3.42% 3.39%
2004 1.93% 1.69% 1.74% 2.29% 3.05% 3.27% 2.99% 2.65% 2.54% 3.19% 3.52% 3.26% 2.68%
2003 2.60% 2.98% 3.02% 2.22% 2.06% 2.11% 2.11% 2.16% 2.32% 2.04% 1.77% 1.88% 2.27%
2002 1.14% 1.14% 1.48% 1.64% 1.18% 1.07% 1.46% 1.80% 1.51% 2.03% 2.20% 2.38% 1.59%
2001 3.73% 3.53% 2.92% 3.27% 3.62% 3.25% 2.72% 2.72% 2.65% 2.13% 1.90% 1.55% 2.83%
2000 2.74% 3.22% 3.76% 3.07% 3.19% 3.73% 3.66% 3.41% 3.45% 3.45% 3.45% 3.39% 3.38%
1999 1.67% 1.61% 1.73% 2.28% 2.09% 1.96% 2.14% 2.26% 2.63% 2.56% 2.62% 2.68% 2.19%
1998 1.57% 1.44% 1.37% 1.44% 1.69% 1.68% 1.68% 1.62% 1.49% 1.49% 1.55% 1.61% 1.55%
1997 3.04% 3.03% 2.76% 2.50% 2.23% 2.30% 2.23% 2.23% 2.15% 2.08% 1.83% 1.70% 2.34%
1996 2.73% 2.65% 2.84% 2.90% 2.89% 2.75% 2.95% 2.88% 3.00% 2.99% 3.26% 3.32% 2.93%
1995 2.80% 2.86% 2.85% 3.05% 3.19% 3.04% 2.76% 2.62% 2.54% 2.81% 2.61% 2.54% 2.81%
http://inflationdata.com/Inflation/Inflation_Rate/HistoricalInflation.aspxOnly 1 administration official is under indictment compared to 61 Clinton administration officials under indictmentYou know as soon as a conservative mentions Clinton that a litany of lies will ensue, and much bile will be disgorged. I did some research, and there’s an easily cut and pasted list of Clinton administration “high crimes and misdemeanors” floating around out there. Some of the claims originate from
this website. The problem is that trying to keep freeper-types honest about Clinton is like trying to nail Jell-o to a tree. They are pathological when it comes to Clinton. So the problem with researching "Clinton and indictments" on the Internet is that you hit 100,000 pages of right-wing paranoid vitriol. The nature of the Republican-manufactured crises and scandals on the 1990's is well-documented, and would be redundant here. All I have to say is that Fitz has only just begun, and the repugnant stench of the Bush administration is soon going to foul the air of every home across America.
Think of it this way: Bush's approval rating is at 29%
BEFORE the bulk of his scandals come to light. Once they do, anyone still passing around garbage propaganda for the Bush administration is going to get a one-way ticket to the funny farm.
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