Survivng the campaign

With the race for the Oval Office in full swing it becomes ever more difficult to maintain a sense of balance and a sliver of sanity under the constant assault of charges, claims, counter-claims and pure bullshit. We were told the last time that the world would come to an end if Obama made it to the White House. He did. It didn't. Now we are being told that the world will come to an end if Obama remains in the White house for another 4 years. Mmmm... Of course the other side tells us that the world will come to an end if Romney wins. Mmmm...

The first step in maintaining, or regaining for that matter, a bit of sanity is to turn off the TV. (A good idea even during off election years. That drivel is flat bad for you.) If one must watch the TV, keep in mind that they make money off conflict - so stirring up strife puts pesos in their pockets. It need not be real conflict either, as evidenced by the barrage of complete bullshit that passes as "Reality TV". A corollary to this, no one in the media wants to see a pole that says Mitt is going to get clobbered come November, or that Obama has taken his best shot and can't get it done. It has to be a close race or else Americans will just go about their lives while the massive egos of the media and political class go un-stroked.

Anything the other guy's team says about the other guy is a lie; flat out, made up, bullshit. Everything is spun. Everything is taken out of context. Both sides are lying to us with complete abandon. (Which, in a rational, moral world, would make them both ineligible for being the POTUS, wouldn't it?) I'm going to pick on the Romney tax return flurry for a moment...

According to Mitt there is nothing of interest in his tax history and the American public already knows everything it needs to know about his personal finances. Which has the other side howling that, if there is nothing of interest, why keep it hidden? As much as I suspect there is a bunch of stuff in there he would not want us to know his accusation is that, should he provide them, the other side will go nuts with false claims and accusations. I suspect he is right. The Democrats will certainly shred his personal finances as all the evidence necessary to prove that Mitt is part of the problem, not part of the solution. (As if the Democrats actually have a solution to a failing capitalist system.)

My guess would be that part of what Mitt doesn't want us to know about his taxes is that he didn't pay any for several years, or at least didn't pay very much given his level of income. But I know that already; though not so much about Mitt personally. What I do know is the corporations and very rich long ago had the tax code written in their favor. Even if Mitt paid ZERO federal taxes for years, he did it completely within the law. (Either that or he needed to spend more money on tax attorneys and money managers.)

How do I know this? According to Forbes.com, in 2010 Exxon, Bank of America, City Bank, and Valero paid ZERO federal income taxes. Ford had a tax rate of less than 10%. This is public knowledge; no one is in jail, no one is accused of breaking any laws, no one even seems the list bit embarrassed by this corporate chicanery. This is how the people who wrote the tax code want it to be, and we Americans must be fine with that because we keep re-electing these very same people to office.

What is not happening in the campaign is a debate about how and why the tax code is the way that it is. Why would that be? Could it be that both parties want it this way? Does anyone really think that the rich Democrats that are in office want to pay any more taxes than do their rich Republican counterparts?

So we know that anything either side says in the campaign is a lie, and we also know that neither side is actually interested in changing very much about who the government serves. But many Americans still think that they need to make some effort at casting an intelligent, informed vote for the person who gets to live at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue; how to do that?

A good start would be by ignoring the campaign, particularly anything that shows up on TV, and really in particular anything that is less than a minute in length. It is surly the highest grade bullshit talented spin masters can produce. Besides, why should I listen to what Mitt Romney says about what Barack Obama said? I can listen to Barack Obama for myself and know what he said. The same for Mitt Romney. There are position papers available and web sights. For example I went to Mitt Romney's web sight and looked up "labor", guess what I find...

"Mitt Romney believes in the right of workers to join a union or to not join a union. To exercise that right freely, workers must have access to all the relevant facts they need to make an informed decision. This means hearing from both the union about the potential benefits and from management about potential costs. This also means being able to act on that decision in the privacy of the ballot booth."

You still have to decide if he is telling the truth about his positions on unions, but this is (at least part of) what he says; not what Mr. Obama says Mitt says about unions. If you are pro-union I don't see how you can have any real heart burn with Mitt's position. People should be free to join a union if it is for their benefit. And to not join if the union is going to cost them more than it is worth. Free disclosure here - I am pro union to the point of thinking the people who actually do the work for a company should actually control how their work is marketed and distributed, and where the profits for that work go - and yes, that probably makes me a socialist.

If you are rabidly anti-union and think Mitt must be as well given his background, history, and party affiliation, then you must think he is lying in order to trick the stupid union types into voting against their own best interests. If so I'm not sure what that makes you - other than a miserable excuse for a human being. And yet I am anti-union in that I know unions are often bastions of coercion, abuse and skimming-off-the-to-top; and no, I don't know what that makes me other than anti-corruption in all its forms.

Just for fun, here is Mr. Obama on Corporations:

Right now, companies get tax breaks for moving jobs and profits overseas. Meanwhile, companies that choose to stay in America get hit with one of the highest tax rates in the world. It makes no sense, and everyone knows it. So let's change it.


If you're a business that wants to outsource jobs, you shouldn't get a tax deduction for doing it. That money should be used to cover moving expenses for companies that decide to bring jobs home.

No American company should be able to avoid paying its fair share of taxes by moving jobs and profits overseas. From now on, every multinational company should have to pay a basic minimum tax.

If you're an American manufacturer, you should get a bigger tax cut. And if you want to relocate in a community that was hit hard when a factory left town, you should get help.


My message is simple. It's time to stop rewarding businesses that ship jobs overseas, and start rewarding companies that create jobs right here in America.


That doesn't sound particularly "anti-business", unless one actually thinks corporations should get tax breaks for shipping jobs overseas. And again, this is what Mr. Obama says about corporations and the tax code, not what Mr. Romney says he says.
 
The good news is, if one looks for one's self neither one of these guys appears to be the inept fool the other side would like the public to believe.

That bad news is, if one looks for one's self, neither do either of them look to be anything other than money and vote grubbing politicians who lust for nothing but power. And who are also very adept at getting what they want.

Too bad for us.

Still, if we all decided to listen to what the parties are saying, rather than what others tell us the parties are saying, we might strip at least one layer of bullshit off the cover of this election.Not much, but it would be a start.