A Trip with "the Boss Man"

Actually, "the Man" in my case consists of a very attractive and sharp young couple who is in the process of building a franchised business and are the sort of people that both political positions agree to be the source of jobs as the business grows.

A small digression: after approximately 25 years, I retired from the Florida Department of Revenue and relieved the subsequent boredom by working as a tax preparer and then office manager, for one of the three major companies in the business. This fall I am teaching a class for a franchisee of another of the companies in the field and will be manage one of its stores. Last week I was extremely flattered to be invited to a training and award meeting of the most successful franchise owners in the company and met and listened to the founder of the operation.

This man is acknowledged to be the leader in the field and has been remarkably successful; he is smart and has numerous awards and honors to his credit. The audience at the meeting consisted of the best and brightest, the most "entrepreneurish" of entrepreneurs and, so long as the speakers stuck to the business operations and models, I could not find any fault. Certainly, the people in the room were enthusiastic and excited. And then, the leading figure in the industry started giving political opinions and, in my opinion, demonstrated how successful the Republicans have been in ignoring reality and history and how accepting many otherwise astute people have bought into the fantasy.

At the end of the meetings, the gentleman started to make disparaging remarks about a barely conceivable Congress with enough Democrats that a disruptive GOP could not have influence. There was laughter in the room. The question was then asked of those present if they wanted the GOP in control and the room erupted in cheers.
It has been said many times. Everyone has a right to his or her opinions. One does not have the right to his or her facts
In a recent essay, I remarked on the Right's insistence on its version of history and, to my dismay, the acceptance of that fantasy as true. This is either a new or exclusive observation, See for example, my posting http://jimspoliticalcertainty.worldblogosphere.com/284/politics/ok-i-get-it-you%E2%80%99re-angry-frustrated-and-royally-pissed/.

We have allowed the Republicans to adopt what David Rosman calls the "the repugnant mindless dribble that is the propaganda of the right." President Clinton left office with a budget surplus of about $127 Billion; President Bush left office with a deficit of about $1.2 Trillion! How? Two wars and totally unfunded ones at that. Tax cuts for the richest one or two percent of the population. A Medicare drug program that also was unfunded. A fiscal policy that allowed the rape of the middle class by their friends on Wall Street and the top insurance company executives.

Yet Republicans ""warn" Americans that a continuation of the progressive programs would result in financial disaster and unbridled deficit. Everyone agrees that, all things being equal and no economy in the dumps, further growth in the Federal budget deficit is a bad idea. But things are not in that place and government spending, not frugality, is the way to recovery.

The Bush (the Younger) administration, along with a GOP-controlled Congress had no problem with Federal spending that created a massive deficit. The very candidates who decry stimulus spending because of a poor economy (but accepted the money to saved state run services) are the people who wholeheartedly supported the very spending that created the mess! I would suggest the reason is part memory loss along with a large dollop of hypocrisy.

I also addressed the paradox in connection with the "big lie" theory of the Nazi regime in the thirties. I noted

the relentless drum beat of the far right talk radio spokespersons, the Tweeter and Facebook-driven Sarah Palin, the extremists of the Tea Parties, all following the precepts of Joseph Goebbels' Big Lie technique: "a lie, if audacious enough and repeated enough times, will be believed by the masses." I, personally, like the definition by Richard Belzer, "If you tell a lie that's big enough, and you tell it often enough, people will believe you are telling the truth, even when what you are saying is total crap."

See also fot further exposition: http://www.examiner.com/politics-in-tampa-http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-900-Tampa-Politics-Examiner~y2009m2d28-

http://www.examiner.com/politics-in-tampa-bay/the-paucity-of-ideashe-party-of-NoNobay/further-evolution-of-gop-into-even-worse-condition

http://www.examiner.com/politics-in-tampa-bay/the-paucity-of-ideas