A Broken Record: Decomposing the Music of the Right

Dear Phantom de Comment,

As I've said, I don't mind the comments; keep them coming. But you're increasingly a coward masked by anonymity, afraid to own his fractured ideology.

It's a sad comment on our education system that you fundamentally do not understand basic economic pinciples, let alone those of the international variety.

I'll give you this: you understand your own bank account. So manage your own bank account up right and let somebody who understands economics talk about economics.

If your taxes happen to increase because you make $250k a year or more, work a little harder or a little smarter. Fortunately for you, with Obama in office, you you can probably maintain or even work a little less and your wealth will still grow. And just a little heads up, if you happen to be part of an ever decreasing population with disposable income, now would be a superb time for you to invest. In about five years, you'll be a very rich man.

But an economist you are not. Under an economic system of international opportunity funded by the developed world, even if your wealth were to decrease, you will experience little difference -- and perhaps even an increase --in your real standard of living. Do you understand what real means, like economically, or even in general? Spending money on other people may seem irrational and wasteful, but over time it expands the international consumption base.

For you this translates to an increase overall in your REAL standard of living. Furthermore, as the demand for the shit you sell if you are a salesperson or the shit you manufacture if you are a manufacturer increases, your earning potential increases, exponentially.

This is not rocket science. It's not brain surgery. It's not Reagonomics, Keynesanomics, or Socialism. It's not international charity or economic catastrophe. It is economics boiled down to its most basic and fundamental relationship: SUPPLY & DEMAND. If you do not understand the inverse relationship between supply and demand, you might go back to ninth grade and sit in on an economics class or two.

But perhaps its not the real standard of living that you gives you your rise.

Perhaps your rise is from the pedestal that you create for yourself by holding others down. Maybe your position on this pedestal makes you feel like a big man who can point big condescending fingers at others and say, "I'm right because I am not wrong." And despite how buffoonish this sounds it makes you feel good. That and the viagra-inspired dream of being wrinkle free and hard as a rock in the geriatrics ward may well be your driving force in life.

For me this isn't about being right, it's about doing what's right. Call it my bleeding heart, but I just care. I guess that's what makes me a lib and you a con. I care and you don't.

Some people measure experience in years, and others measure it in experience. I may be younger, but I have experienced a lot. Nevertheless, I've never been on welfare, I've never collected an unemployment benefit, I've worked hard since I was sixteen and haven't worked less than two jobs since I was a Freshman in college.

Even when I lost my job last year, I worked two shit jobs. When these jobs couldn't quit make the ends meet, I moved into my friend's living room and saw my car get repossessed. I've felt the consequences of my mistakes exacerbated by the fallout from others' mistakes. I'm a better person today because I made mistakes and felt the consequences of those mistakes. I'm lucky, too, because I got to go to college. And when things got really bad financially for me in 2008, I had family good enough to help me out with a loan when no one else would. So let me be clear in say how lucky I am.

But there are those who are far less privileged than me; I talk to them everyday in my current job as a case manager for a law firm specializing in Social Security Disability Benefits.

It is not uncommon to talk to disabled veterans who can't even get a disability benefit for conditions earned defending our country. I speak quite often with the hard working Americans who've done the grunt work that somebody's gotta do for the past 30 years and now suffer from degenerative disc diseases and spinal conditions that won't get any better over the two years they'll likely wait to get disability benefits and pay for treatment. Helplessly, they watch their prognosis deteriorate from "fair" to "poor" while they await a benefit to go get treatment, because in America you can't get treatment without a job, and you can't get a job with a disability. It's a vicious catch 22.

And the lucky few with terminal cases that actually do get awarded in a timely fashion would probably be shit out of luck had the Bush administration been successful in privatizing Social Security instead of merely sabotaging it for eight years. F*** me, frankly, because this blog isn't not about me versus you and your cronies. You may find peace of mind knowing that far worse things have happened to far better people than what happened to me last year.

And if I draw on my personal experiences experiences occasionally, it is because I'm just writing about what I know about. That's what make this my blog. So let me just say it again, clearly: this blog is not a pity party for me or any of my middle class friends. Yes, I occasionally decry a failed economy created, ironically, by a baby boom generation that benefited from Roosevelt's New Deal and access to affordable college and affordable health care. I may occasionally allude to an economic meltdown that will leave much of this greedy baby boom generation reliant on my generation to sustain a quality of life they feel they deserve. But these days I'm feeling ready and up to the lofty challenge.

I acknowledge that there is a bluff inherent in this blog that glorifies the Libs and marginalizes some Cons. But we as a nation have been failed by the Cons. And I make no secret that I have some fundamental problems with the Republican party, and specifically an undercurrent of "American exceptionalism" that sounds increasingly like a chorus sung by Klansmen of the Ku Klux variety.

Make no mistake, I am not Anti-American; I am anti-Dick Cheney, anti-Rush Limbaugh, and anti -Karl Rove and anti-their klan of designing henchmen.

I am pro-REAL AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM, characterized by opportunity for those who work hard being able to achieve their full, individual achievement within the framework of widespread socioeconomic opportunity.

So to the phantom de blogger, whomever you may be, continue singing the music of the right if it makes you feel better... if it makes you feel somehow "right!" But I can assure you the only threat to your safety and precious bank account is your own experienced and shortsighted thinking.

Think of me, and think of me fondly,
The Lib Who Writes This Blog