Momentous Mumbling about the Moment of Truth from the
Abstract: The New York Times publishes another propaganda piece where the public is taught that not spending but entitlements are the basis for our infective and terminal debt. Here, truth is carefully repositioned to point to the voters and the inevitable fact that those folks, mostly of the grade of ignoranti or lower on the scale, will not call for reason and prudence and refuse to accept fewer benefits. Given that half the voters pay no taxes we can affirm their response as: “Yes, soak the rich!” They have nothing to lose. Paul Ryan is garnished with false praise, endowed with obvious dictatorial powers and set up as the current target suitable for Hitlerization or any other routine and pedestrian form of abuse. The Democrats will fight any cut in even a single penny and foam at the mouth if the cuts are passed. Their position as functional parasites is established again from their own words.
The eternal quest for truth is a complicated labyrinth replete with dead ends, endless synthetic passageways that lead to oblivion or perhaps even worse places and the false paths are often illuminated by obelisks that display the ringing notion that such as pure truth is known, sorted for your convenience and shared openly. Of course, this is hokum or perhaps something more puerile. The “truth” is a malleable entity that suffers so many variations that lies, random injections of news and hearsay are frequently more informative. Merely concluding that the opposite of the ‘facts’ is actually the real truth in such essays gains some credibility since this process is frequently more than 50% effective.
The inimitable chum-chucker in the political world, at least since Pravda rotted away, is, of course, the near-financially bankrupt[1] New York Times—aka the Walter Duranty Papers[2][3]-- whose spinning machines disgorge vast quantities of something that passes for truth in some quarters. Examples of such high-level and revered writers include Maureen Dowd, the Old Red Lady [4][5][6]of the Old Gray Lady, who has graciously provided us with her mystifying but exact[7] ‘Unspoken Words Theorem[8].’ She can read between the lines of offensive written work or speech and tell us what certain writers are really thinking. Or, Frank the Crank[9][10]--Frank Rich-- who is celebrated for his supernatural ability to crank out sophomoric and doctrinaire far-left literary brats with sausage-machine tedium even when they apply to nothing in particular if he needs to attack someone on the right. For the rest of us it is merely a fountain of political claptrap crafted for the appeasement of the simple and their controllers and an annoyance for those who prefer to think in depth. Most of the writers for this webzine are wordsmithing wheel spinners whose cynical views of the world are surpassed only by their ability to create new and kidney-stirring observations directed against capitalism with heartrending rare insights from the flattest selections of pedantic sophistry and threadbare political platitudes.
The repositioning of the truth is artful and attracts rave reviews if the alignment of such truth dovetails with clear-cut political dogma. This is successful if the content is true or false by any standards. If not, then a blunder has been committed and the mantle of political shame and the Dance of Duncery must be offered as a sop. But, this merely sets the stage for another meretricious performance thus providing more work for the
Let us amuse ourselves as we count the unforgivable affronts [by using underlining in the text today] to strict leftist political dogma in this current piece by the ex-conservative David Brooks.
How to best read my blogs:
[I offer extensive quotes in this blog so that the reader can view the exact language and can be confident that nothing was taken out of context or that nobody was misquoted. The easiest way to take in the salient points is to read the emphatic points in the quotes and then peruse my comments. Comments on my comments are always welcome: ryckki@gmail.com.]
We begin:
“It was a season of fiscal perestroika. Last fall, the Simpson-Bowles deficit commission[11] released a bold report on how to avoid an economic catastrophe. For a few weeks, the think tanks and government offices were alive with proposals to reduce debt and reform entitlements, the tax code and just about every other government program.
The mood did not last. The polls suggested that voters were still unwilling to accept tax increases or benefit cuts.”--Moment of Truth By David Brooks Op-Ed Columnist Published:
The phrase “the polls suggested” might as well translate well as “we might as well have taken the advice of a dozen Bowery sots into consideration before releasing the result.” The Simpson-Bowles ‘report’[12] was an incoherent hodge-podge of surreptitious cutbacks in numerous areas set up in advance by the White House with funny costumes and high-pitched kazoos all designed to inflame nobody in particular and to appear to offer a responsible ‘solution’ to the fact that our economy is crashing in debt. It was an intermezzo for stooges. It was so stale that it was immediately [and comfortably] forgotten as most of the findings of ‘blue ribbon’ panels seem to be. It is resurrected now as a prime underpinning for Brooks to babble away with his strenuous unpeeling of capitalism.
The ugly facts are that NO Democrat wants to cut ANYTHING and they actually want to spend 9 trillion more dollars in pursuit of their socialist dream.[13] But, we are left with the impression that this final resolution, e,g, do nothing and keep spending, in the Simpson-Bowles ‘report, was inspired by the ‘voters.’ Such hooey is authenticated by leftist activists who pretend to objectively analyze the economy then return utter gobbledygook such as this prattle:
Caca Ex Cathedra:
“Austerity is self-defeating: when everyone tries to pay down debt at the same time, the result is depression and deflation, and debt problems grow even worse. And conversely, it is possible — indeed, necessary — for the nation as a whole to spend its way out of debt: a temporary surge of deficit spending, on a sufficient scale, can cure problems brought on by past excesses.”[14]--1938 in 2010 By Paul Krugman
Notice that the urging to spend to achieve a debt-free position has no upper limit or boundary constrained by reason or by any economic theory despite the tawdry claims of the author that he is an economist. This eventually results in monetizing the debt[15] as Bernanke has refuted in one of his many evasions of the truth even in public before Congress. After all, the Swedes could give a Nobel Prize to a monkey. Thus there is no limit to their spending and we must presume that the ‘rich’ will pick up the tab in the future using punitive taxes or worse. The rich do not have that much money and they will take what they have and leave if this threat persists.
The White House dismisses these recommendations:
“The president walked away from the Simpson-Bowles package. Far from addressing the fiscal problems, the president’s budget would double the nation’s debt over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office.”--Moment of Truth By David Brooks
Tax and spend.
This comment hangs in the breeze waiting for a climax, which is omitted. It does not contain the information that doubling the debt is any important factor in Obama’s thinking. We might thus conclude that budget cuts are a very big problem for this administration hence they are disallowed and even more spending is encouraged after a second reading of the Paul Krugman krugmanical[16] screed above.
What went wrong:
“What they lacked was courageous political leadership — a powerful elected official willing to issue a proposal, willing to take a stand, willing to face the political perils.
I wonder if the foregoing and what follows is some criticism of Obama:
The country lacked that leadership until today. Today, Paul Ryan, the Republican chairman of the House Budget Committee, is scheduled to release the most comprehensive and most courageous budget reform proposal any of us have seen in our lifetimes. Ryan is expected to leap into the vacuum left by the president’s passivity. The Ryan budget will not be enacted this year, but it will immediately reframe the domestic policy debate.”--Moment of Truth By David Brooks
This piece thus identifies and puts Ryan in the center spotlight for automatic abuse no matter what he recommends. He was passed the baton so as to fill the vacuum ignored by Obama. The attributes given to Paul Ryan in this propaganda smear exercise are synthetic in leftist terms and this signals the sorry left that he is the current fulcrum of contempt until somebody more powerful is thrown upon the stage for summary vivisection by the Times.
The brutal facts, not that the liberals pay any attention to economic facts, are the following:
Our current debt is 97% of our
This process is terminally unsupportable by US citizens and can only result in inflation or default.[17]
Now, a diversion:
“The Ryan proposal will help settle the fight over the government shutdown and the 2011 budget because it will remind everybody that the real argument is not about cutting a few billion here or there. It is about the underlying architecture of domestic programs in 2012 and beyond.”--Moment of Truth By David Brooks
The fight has just begun. This is NOT any form of real argument since the taxes are high enough and the deficit arises from excessive government spending. It is a narrow conclusion as it omits other forms of spending such as the inane war against Colonel Gadaffi in
Not forgetting to mention that architecture of domestic programs was structured by the left starting with
They will repudiate attempts to cut anything or any social program and demonize others for even suggesting this outrage.
The rest of this piece mumbles around the size and cost of entitlements, factors that we have known about and obvious outcomes that were predicted several decades ago and for which many think unconstitutional. It is mid-body textural fluff of the mundane sort that tends to put the reader to sleep and perhaps miss the exciting conclusion.
Next, our Babbling Brooks peers into the future with a series of provocative statements and queries.
“It also creates the pivotal moment of truth for President Obama. Will he come up with his own counterproposal, or will he simply demagogue the issue by railing against “savage” Republican cuts and ignoring the long-term fiscal realities? Does he have a sustainable vision for government, or will he just try to rise above the fray while Nancy Pelosi and others attack Ryan?
And what about the Senate Republicans? Where do they stand? Or the voters? Are they willing to face reality or will they continue to demand more government than they are willing to pay for?
Paul Ryan has grasped reality with both hands. He’s forcing everybody else to do the same.”--Moment of Truth By David Brooks
This concluding brick in the Babbler’s Edifice is flush with wondrous possibilities and seems to give us the impression that the White House and their attendant stooges in Congress are actually considering changing the budget to reflect either reality or what the ‘voters want.’ The reality politically imbedded in the Ryan image here is false, designed to mock and this ‘reality’ can now form the basis of leftist political attacks based on [what else?] his lack of reality. This nostrum will appear in the media soon if not already.
The bottom falls out of this rusty bucket on purpose leaving the reader in suspended animation, because the thrust was to point the reader’s attention in the direction of entitlements and away from the spending outrages by the Democrats. There, goodies are at stake and the nasty Republicans will starve children and again force the old folk to eat dog food or worse.
Brooks put up some form of trial balloon with some pointed comments that might seem to be directed at Obama and his manifold failures. This is not the case as the
This is not a Moment of Truth here--it is a Moment of Disinformation and rabble rousing rhetoric.
rycK [a 5th generation Californian in Exile and removed from that mental infection. ]
[1] They have been morally bankrupt for decades.
[2] The Babbling Brooks of the
[3] In honor of that celebrated Communist stooge and liar and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for the
“He said that these people had to be "liquidated or melted in the hot fire of exile and labor into the proletarian mass". Duranty claimed that the Siberian labor camps were a means of giving individuals a chance to rejoin Soviet society but also said that for those who could not accept the system, "the final fate of such enemies is death." Duranty, though describing the system as cruel, says he has "no brief for or against it, nor any purpose save to try to tell the truth". He ends the article with the claim that the brutal collectivization campaign which led to the famine was motivated by the "hope or promise of a subsequent raising up" of Asian-minded masses in the
[4] The Hag of Harpur and the Old Red Lady both Criticize the Obama Healthcare System and Hillary
[5] The Old Red Lady of the Old Gray Lady Comments on Losers: Clinton and Kim
[6] The Old Red Lady of the Old Gray Lady Howls at the Moon. Palin has Rattled Her Cage Door.
[7] in her view
[8] Maureen Dowd. Op-Ed Columnist Boy, Oh, Boy By Maureen Dowd
Published:
[9] The
[10] Frank [the Crank] of the
Frank [the Crank] of the
Frank [the Crank] of the
Frank [the Crank] of the
Propaganda Gem: Frank the Crank Clarifies Anger for the Women Voters and the Polls Show Obama Wins the Most Women!
Frank The Crank of the
Frank the Crank [Rich] Dumps on Clintoonery to Save Racism http://rycksrationalizations.blogtownhall.com/2008/05/11/frank_the_crank_[rich]_dumps_on_clintoonery_to_save_racism.thtml
[11] Notice that the title of this piece derives from: THE NATIONAL COMMISSION ON FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY
The Moment of Truth
[13] “What you have to bear in mind is that the economy — and hence the federal tax base — is enormous, too. Right now
[14] 1938 in 2010 By Paul Krugman [Emphasis is mine in all quotes.] Published:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/06/opinion/06krugman.html?src=me&ref=general
Krugman Offers Us Canned Circular Revisionism: We Can Repeat the War Time Successes of FDR.
http://ryckki.blogspot.com/2010/09/krugman-offers-us-canned-circular.html
[15] Resurrecting a Zombie: The Revival of the Failed Keynesian Myth and the Logic of Joseph Stiglitz
http://ryckki.blogspot.com/2010/10/resurrecting-zombie-revival-of-failed.html
[16] A new word.
[17] usdebtclock.org as of
[18] Krugman Applies Protosimian Logic to Health Care. Big Government and Higher Taxes! Of Course!
[19] Propaganda Gem: Krugman Distorts History as He Grubs for More Taxes.
[20] Propaganda Alert: The New York Times Axes the Right Questions and then Answers Them with the Left Answers.
[21] Political Lessons from the Fairy Tales by the New York Times: Propaganda at Work.
[22] Propaganda Lesson: Economics and Recessions from The NYT: A Long [Sad] Story and Stern Tutorial on Tax Cuts.
http://rycksrationalizations.townhall.com/g/2bea69e5-bb30-4923-9ed4-192199970c1a
[23] Krugman of the
http://ryckki.blogspot.com/2010/09/krugman-of-nyp-plays-nazi-card-as-times.html
[24] Polishing the Pedestal of the Stooges: EcoNazism threatened by Big Oil and the Charge of the Leftist Cavalry
http://ryckki.blogspot.com/2010/10/polishing-pedestal-of-stooges-econazism.html
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