Response to yet another excellent ThinkProgress.com article found here
The people ultimately behind sequestration are guilty of hypocrisy, greed, and treason. A republic's economy is wholly unlike a family's budget. A family can cut their way out of debt, but a nation can not. When an economy is depressed and the government cuts its budget, money stops flowing. The problem isn't a lack of money, it's the lack of movement of money. Government should monitor but generally stay out of the way of a healthy economy, but just like a doctor giving you an annual physical then getting out of your way when you're healthy, he must step in and do something when you're sick, and cutting the medications that have kept you healthy isn't the way to do it.
When an economy is sick, it takes the government to make money available at no or low interest in order to get the blood - money in this case - flowing again. Failing to do so would be like a doctor stepping back away from a patient when the patient goes into cardiac arrest and saying, "Hmmm. Maybe it will fix itself". Or likely not.
Sequestration is a failure of our government to take the shock paddles of money flow and zapping the heart of our republic back into health. Like a sick patient, the worse the recession, the longer it takes to get back to healthy, but pulling the plug will kill the patient, just like sequestration will kill our republic.
The BRICs - Brazil, Russia, India, and China - are breathing down our necks as it is. Now Congress has essentially said, "Come on, guys! You can overtake us! And we're here to help!" Cutting scientific funding is analogous to failure to fuel your car before a long trip. Yep, you'll have more money in your pocket...when you're on the side of the road out of gas watching others who planned ahead go flying past you.
Showing posts with label hypocrisy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hypocrisy. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Sequestration, Greed, Hypocrisy, and Treason
This is a response to an excellent article found on ThinkProgress.com about the effects that are already happening under sequestration. The article can be found at the link here.
Don't think for a second that this result of sequestration is accidental or "collateral damage". The religiots and their fellow ignoratti in Congress knew that this would happen, and they desired it. Cutting research funding, that is to say funding for pure science, plays right into their hands in their push for religious dominance and in the ability to show their voters that they hold the upper hand in the battle against science. But it's the very voters who put these traitors in office that stand the most to lose.
Remember, there's a cycle that must occur before new technologies come to market: Pure science > applied science > engineering.
Before a product can be engineered and manufactured, scientists whose job it is to find applications for newly discovered materials or processes must take the results of pure science and study them, then create and test ways to use them. BUT before that can happen, researchers - pure scientists - must study new fields of science or push the bounds on existing fields in order to discover new materials and new processes never before encountered. That means that the raw, bleeding edge must always be out front expanding our base of knowledge. Sometimes, that research yields nothing, just like going into a jungle or rain forest somewhere to look for new sources of drugs might yield a treasure trove, or it might come up dry, but either way, you won't know until you go there. Exploration is essential not only to expand the knowledge base of science, but it is the fuel that powers the engines of our economy.
The US has lead the way in many or most fields of scientific exploration due to programs like NASA and ARPA, but since the Large Hadron Collider at CERN came online, we've taken a back seat to others in the field of physics who will now lead because some people think that research funding is wasted. They don't understand that studying monkeys for something seemingly arcane might result in a breakthrough in medicine or psychology, or something else that they would consider unrelated. They're told, and they believe, that the LHC and it's smaller cousin in Chicago, the Tevatron at Fermilab, have no value and are black holes for funding dollars. They will believe people who say we didn't go to the moon, but they line up for chemotherapy, MRIs, and use velcro, microwave ovens, cellular phones, and thousands of other technologies that have come from research into pure science.
But here's how you know that it's greed and ignorance playing out, and not reason: When they get hurt, do they call for a priest, or do they call for someone who will use medical science to rescue them?
The ultimate forms of treason and hypocrisy are failing to support funding for the science that will move humanity forward in the times of our children and grandchildren, and the use of the technologies whose research was paid for by our parents and grandparents when they simultaneously deny the funding that will benefit future generations.
The ultrawealthy will be able to afford new medicines, and take advantage of technologies that they themselves fund, and which will be denied to those not themselves wealthy. The rest of us will go without because some among us refuse to pay their part of funding for the future.
Greed. Hypocrisy. Treason.
The BRIC nations, Brazil, Russia, India, and China, are breathing down our necks and each wants to be the world's next superpower. If we stop funding, we stop leading. If we stop leading, we kill our economic engine, and that's just stupid.
Don't think for a second that this result of sequestration is accidental or "collateral damage". The religiots and their fellow ignoratti in Congress knew that this would happen, and they desired it. Cutting research funding, that is to say funding for pure science, plays right into their hands in their push for religious dominance and in the ability to show their voters that they hold the upper hand in the battle against science. But it's the very voters who put these traitors in office that stand the most to lose.
Remember, there's a cycle that must occur before new technologies come to market: Pure science > applied science > engineering.
Before a product can be engineered and manufactured, scientists whose job it is to find applications for newly discovered materials or processes must take the results of pure science and study them, then create and test ways to use them. BUT before that can happen, researchers - pure scientists - must study new fields of science or push the bounds on existing fields in order to discover new materials and new processes never before encountered. That means that the raw, bleeding edge must always be out front expanding our base of knowledge. Sometimes, that research yields nothing, just like going into a jungle or rain forest somewhere to look for new sources of drugs might yield a treasure trove, or it might come up dry, but either way, you won't know until you go there. Exploration is essential not only to expand the knowledge base of science, but it is the fuel that powers the engines of our economy.
The US has lead the way in many or most fields of scientific exploration due to programs like NASA and ARPA, but since the Large Hadron Collider at CERN came online, we've taken a back seat to others in the field of physics who will now lead because some people think that research funding is wasted. They don't understand that studying monkeys for something seemingly arcane might result in a breakthrough in medicine or psychology, or something else that they would consider unrelated. They're told, and they believe, that the LHC and it's smaller cousin in Chicago, the Tevatron at Fermilab, have no value and are black holes for funding dollars. They will believe people who say we didn't go to the moon, but they line up for chemotherapy, MRIs, and use velcro, microwave ovens, cellular phones, and thousands of other technologies that have come from research into pure science.
But here's how you know that it's greed and ignorance playing out, and not reason: When they get hurt, do they call for a priest, or do they call for someone who will use medical science to rescue them?
The ultimate forms of treason and hypocrisy are failing to support funding for the science that will move humanity forward in the times of our children and grandchildren, and the use of the technologies whose research was paid for by our parents and grandparents when they simultaneously deny the funding that will benefit future generations.
The ultrawealthy will be able to afford new medicines, and take advantage of technologies that they themselves fund, and which will be denied to those not themselves wealthy. The rest of us will go without because some among us refuse to pay their part of funding for the future.
Greed. Hypocrisy. Treason.
The BRIC nations, Brazil, Russia, India, and China, are breathing down our necks and each wants to be the world's next superpower. If we stop funding, we stop leading. If we stop leading, we kill our economic engine, and that's just stupid.
Sunday, February 12, 2012
America the Dumb
As I watch the daily news cycle, I'm constantly amazed at how Americans are talked down to by the media; this is even more true about the conservative media who consider themselves smarter than the rest of us. How can you tell? How many conservative radio schlock jocks are there compared to liberal ones? They even have their own TV network. While talking down to voters has been true for a while in politics, it's taken a new turn with the inclusion of national conservative figures like George W. Bush, Sarah Palin, and Rick Perry. Collectively, these three aren't capable of being a dog catcher in a progressive industrialized country like Finland.
So how did we get here and where are we going? Well, we got here when the GOP decided that it was better to say whatever they needed to say to get elected, but to then do whatever they wanted to do after getting into office. Politics ceased being about the candidate who's best suited to fulfill the duties of his office and started being about whom the party cognoscenti could coach and get elected. In our lifetimes, it began with Ronald Reagan, an actor given lines to read and who put on an Oscar-quality performance for 8 years, even when he was unfit to lead due to the Alzheimer's that Nancy and her coterie kept from the public.
Why would the GOP want to dumb down America? Because smart people can see through the lies and would never allow them to wrest power from the electorate. The GOP had an image problem after Nixon soiled the office of President, and along came Ronnie RayGun riding a white horse into the White House. He was the perfect foil; he sounded genuine, he talked like Joe Six-pack, and he was a true believer. All they needed to do was to paint Jimmy Carter as an elite, something that they're trying to do again with Barack Obama, and they had their man with the plan.
So who did they go after first? Well, if you're in the United States and you're looking for a body of people who have absolutely no critical thinking skills, who act in lock-step, who are monolithic in thought, you go to church. American Evangelicals are reared into a religion that stifles creative thinking, critical thinking, and just plain old thinking, period. Why? Because the guise of Christianity is so thin that having people think is tantamount to having them ask questions about the inconsistencies in the bible, and in their 23,000+ denominations. By the way, why ARE there 23,000+ Christian denominations? And each one thinks that only they have all the answers. Yet, when pressed, they'll clump together like so much fecal matter and shout down anyone who questions their beliefs. They'll scream that it's they who are being repressed if you complain that their religion is in your face every day, and that it's their demagoguery which has brought America to its knees. They've fought science at every turn to the point that science is taught in schools with a bent toward their mythology, Creationism, rather than the true path of Evolution. Is it any wonder that American school kids lag behind the rest of the industrialized world in math and science when what they're taught is at odds with the truth? It's shameful. And they've been duped into thinking that they're right. America lost its way the day we stopped following intellectuals and started following myth.
This morning, I watched a series of videos filmed in a small town in Minnesota. The interviewer was unbiased and was very neutrally trying to understand what people thought about government entitlement programs. The interviewer pointed out that those drawing Social Security today bring in 3 times more, adjusted for inflation, than they paid into the system. And in every case but 2, the people interviewed believed that they were exceptions to the rule, and that they had somehow earned the 3x payout. And in every case but 1, they considered themselves conservatives. I would like to see a similar set of interviews where people are asked who voted back in the 1980s for Social Security privatization. How would they feel today with no income? What? That's right, no income. Why? Because with two major recessions - that caused by 9/11 and then the Great Recession - their income would have been wiped out. Completely. The politicians who proposed that Social Security be privatized - and they're still at it - have cleverly avoided pointing out that they proposed that it would not be regulated by any government agency, that it would be governed by the free market. In that case, small investors, who would make up the vast majority of a privatized Social Security, would have been among those who lost everything in the Great Recession, and that the earlier 9/11 recession would have taken some out then. Ask people what they think about that and you get stony silence. I know. I've asked. I asked people at my mother's doctor's clinic when I've taken her to appointments. I've asked at the VA hospital when I've gone to my own appointments. Someone always blurts out that the government wouldn't have let them go without income. But that's wrong; the politicians - conservatives - who proposed privatization have all also proposed a laissez-faire system, letting the market rise or crash as it would with no oversight. None. And there are far too many people for the government to have picked up from the crash since Social Security would have been de-funded when privatization took effect. People get very quiet when you point this out, although there's always someone who thinks that he's outsmarted reality. IN reality, those people have to ignore some iron rule or another to arrive at their conclusions.
In those videos, this morning, there was person after person justifying why they should get 3x more than they paid into the system. All conservatives. All claiming that there were too many people with their hands held out. All ready to jerk the rug out from under someone else. All good, solid citizens. And every one of them was a hypocrite. Or as I refer to them, "Good Christians".
So how did we get here and where are we going? Well, we got here when the GOP decided that it was better to say whatever they needed to say to get elected, but to then do whatever they wanted to do after getting into office. Politics ceased being about the candidate who's best suited to fulfill the duties of his office and started being about whom the party cognoscenti could coach and get elected. In our lifetimes, it began with Ronald Reagan, an actor given lines to read and who put on an Oscar-quality performance for 8 years, even when he was unfit to lead due to the Alzheimer's that Nancy and her coterie kept from the public.
Why would the GOP want to dumb down America? Because smart people can see through the lies and would never allow them to wrest power from the electorate. The GOP had an image problem after Nixon soiled the office of President, and along came Ronnie RayGun riding a white horse into the White House. He was the perfect foil; he sounded genuine, he talked like Joe Six-pack, and he was a true believer. All they needed to do was to paint Jimmy Carter as an elite, something that they're trying to do again with Barack Obama, and they had their man with the plan.
So who did they go after first? Well, if you're in the United States and you're looking for a body of people who have absolutely no critical thinking skills, who act in lock-step, who are monolithic in thought, you go to church. American Evangelicals are reared into a religion that stifles creative thinking, critical thinking, and just plain old thinking, period. Why? Because the guise of Christianity is so thin that having people think is tantamount to having them ask questions about the inconsistencies in the bible, and in their 23,000+ denominations. By the way, why ARE there 23,000+ Christian denominations? And each one thinks that only they have all the answers. Yet, when pressed, they'll clump together like so much fecal matter and shout down anyone who questions their beliefs. They'll scream that it's they who are being repressed if you complain that their religion is in your face every day, and that it's their demagoguery which has brought America to its knees. They've fought science at every turn to the point that science is taught in schools with a bent toward their mythology, Creationism, rather than the true path of Evolution. Is it any wonder that American school kids lag behind the rest of the industrialized world in math and science when what they're taught is at odds with the truth? It's shameful. And they've been duped into thinking that they're right. America lost its way the day we stopped following intellectuals and started following myth.
This morning, I watched a series of videos filmed in a small town in Minnesota. The interviewer was unbiased and was very neutrally trying to understand what people thought about government entitlement programs. The interviewer pointed out that those drawing Social Security today bring in 3 times more, adjusted for inflation, than they paid into the system. And in every case but 2, the people interviewed believed that they were exceptions to the rule, and that they had somehow earned the 3x payout. And in every case but 1, they considered themselves conservatives. I would like to see a similar set of interviews where people are asked who voted back in the 1980s for Social Security privatization. How would they feel today with no income? What? That's right, no income. Why? Because with two major recessions - that caused by 9/11 and then the Great Recession - their income would have been wiped out. Completely. The politicians who proposed that Social Security be privatized - and they're still at it - have cleverly avoided pointing out that they proposed that it would not be regulated by any government agency, that it would be governed by the free market. In that case, small investors, who would make up the vast majority of a privatized Social Security, would have been among those who lost everything in the Great Recession, and that the earlier 9/11 recession would have taken some out then. Ask people what they think about that and you get stony silence. I know. I've asked. I asked people at my mother's doctor's clinic when I've taken her to appointments. I've asked at the VA hospital when I've gone to my own appointments. Someone always blurts out that the government wouldn't have let them go without income. But that's wrong; the politicians - conservatives - who proposed privatization have all also proposed a laissez-faire system, letting the market rise or crash as it would with no oversight. None. And there are far too many people for the government to have picked up from the crash since Social Security would have been de-funded when privatization took effect. People get very quiet when you point this out, although there's always someone who thinks that he's outsmarted reality. IN reality, those people have to ignore some iron rule or another to arrive at their conclusions.
In those videos, this morning, there was person after person justifying why they should get 3x more than they paid into the system. All conservatives. All claiming that there were too many people with their hands held out. All ready to jerk the rug out from under someone else. All good, solid citizens. And every one of them was a hypocrite. Or as I refer to them, "Good Christians".
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