What's The Matter With You? Why Can't You See What I See?
I communicate regularly with a very conservative friend who continues to assert that "the left" is oblivious. His analogy is that there's a fire moving across the prairie toward us and all I can see is that it's a nice day. I invited him to consider the possibility that I'm evaluating the wind direction to see whether the fire will turn and burn itself out.
I assert that his lack of faith in the government is misplaced and is based on faith and belief in fear-mongering propaganda about the imminent demise of Social Security (among other panic attacks) delivered by people and companies with economic interests unaligned with the interests of the majority of American tax paying citizens. The people who are spouting this nonsense do not rise up from the grass-roots. Indeed quite the opposite is true. Well-funded, well-heeled lobbying interests and PAC's amount to a perpetual motion machine for generating widespread fear. They have an agenda. This administration does not see eye-to-eye with their agenda so therefore this administration is portrayed as malevolent, ignorant, selfish, evil-doers that must be stopped. Meanwhile the same lobbyists funding the opposition make huge campaign contributions to Democrats in the hope they can buy some influence. It's no secret that enormous sums of campaign money are taken by both sides.
Despite the chorus of "Americans believe this..." or "American don't want that..." these beliefs and wants are NOT shared by everybody in the country, not even the majority of Americans. They are however shared by like-minded, reactionary individuals, of which there are many, in my friends circle, neighborhood and state. Having lots of people share his view does not in any way alter the objective facts of the matter. It just makes the roar get louder.
Instead of digging the trench deeper, perhaps conservatives should consider digging it wider. The deeper you go the less you see. The wider you go the greater the possibility of seeing the horizon and the battle field from a more complete perspective.
Apparently the left is oblivious to the looming debt and deficit crisis as well. I'm not aware of any serious voices on the left advocating that we ignore the debt OR the deficit. Likewise no one is suggesting that we should not take an honest, hard look at reforming Social Security and Medicare to ensure their long-term viability. I think the majority of thinking people are agreed that reforms are called for, but it's a matter of degree to which the problem is being painted. Is it a crisis brought on by the policies of this administration, or the last one (what was your level of faith in those guys?), or is it merely another chapter in the continuum? Either way I'm looking right at it.
