Monday, August 15, 2005
The Gaslighting Of America: Economic Edition
Whether it be about Iraq, the economy, or anything else, the leaders of the GOP/Media Axis are doing their damndest to convince people that the hot yellow liquid being poured on them really is rain. By telling people that up is down, war is peace, ignorance is strength, depression is recovery, and the needless killing of tens of thousands is "mission accomplished", they hope to create the same sort of effect Charles Boyer was trying for when he sought to drive Ingrid Bergman mad in the film Gaslight. The economic gaslighting is one which I've been thinking about the most at the moment. For all the media talk about the "recovery", the average person feels that something is wrong, but doesn't know how or where to look for information to justify that feeling. That's why Bonddad's Kos diary of today was and is so important. Bonddad manages to discuss, much more clearly than I did when I first examined the subject, just the sort of information that Joe and Jane Average need to be told in order to break through the Gaslight fog. (For one thing, we're still about seven million jobs short of where we should be, for this recovery to be real as far as the average person is concerned; for another, unless the new jobs provide pension and health benefits, they're not going to reverse Middle America's long-term slide into poverty.)
More blogs about politics.
