To Comfort The Afflicted
And Afflict The Comfortable

To Comfort The Afflicted And Afflict The Comfortable

Saturday, December 21, 2024

Observercast

Lies And Liars

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How can wage-earners be fooled into believing that they are better off financially when they elect politicians who do everything they can to keep wages low? These same politicians also want to make you believe that you are better off if they cut taxes.

There is a direct link between taxes and government services. If you’ll look at a map of states with the highest median income, you will see they are also the states with higher tax rates. Good schools cost money, but they also educate people so they can earn enough to pay taxes. See how that works?

This week, in the gym, I got a lesson in how people buy into policies that are not in their best interest.  The television on the wall in front of the treadmills is set on Fox News. An African American was telling viewers that the economy was so much better for black workers during the previous administration.

Here’s the truth. In August 2019, the unemployment rate for African Americans was 5.3. In March 2023, it was 5.1. In between, during the pandemic it spiked.

This doesn’t explain wage differences, however. The gap in education levels has narrowed, but that seems to have little effect on the wage gap. One fact stands out: Southern states with lower average wages also have a higher percentage of African American workers. That still doesn’t explain everything, so you have to consider that race is a factor.

Next, they trotted out a Latino to complain about people crossing the southern border in order to vote. We know this is impossible, and we have evidence from the 2020 elections about the security of our voting system.

Fox uses spokespeople who look like the viewers they want to convince. Brilliant!

An alleged news broadcaster followed with verifiable lies. That’s when it hit me, the danger of a television network that masquerades as a news channel when it is, in fact, making up its own facts.

Why should I be surprised? This past month, the former president told lies to people who had lost their property during a catastrophic hurricane. They hadn’t lost enough, evidently, so he added lies that put aid workers in danger and more lies that convinced people not to apply for help that was available to them.

The former president will do anything to make voters distrust honest news sources. Only when people believe the lies and the liars does he have a chance to win. We’ve heard it from his own mouth that the bigger the lie, the easier it is to make people believe it. It’s that much easier when a television network amplifies the lies for him.

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