As I listened to the convention speeches last night I thought I was living in an alternate state of reality. The entire lineup of speakers had one thing in common, the propensity to lie and to lie convincingly. I listened on Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN. Unfortunately while the MSNBC and CNN talking heads mentioned that the speakers were pretty much repeating statements that had since been refuted, they did not specifically tell the real story. They made it look like just maybe the speakers could make the statements plausibly true. I did a CNN iReport on Ann Romney’s speech and on Chris Christie’s speech that CNN picked up after the “show”.
The facts are that President Obama has not removed the work requirement from welfare and President Obama never said that business owners did not build their own business. The latter requires more scrutiny because twisting the statement he made when he said “you did not build that” is not only a lie but the attack is pretty much disrespectful to the entire middle class. It borders on un-patriotism because it neglects how our society works. Businesses do not work in isolation from the shoppers, primarily the middle class and absent them “I built that” would become “I built what? Nothing!”.
I must admit that I expected a lot more out of the Republican Convention. After all they have wheel barrows of money. Why then does the show seem so ill-produced? It is simple. The GOP really does not have anything to run on that the middle class wants. Everybody wants jobs and both parties promise that. Both parties promise to work on the debt.
The problem is that only one party genuinely wants to create structures that protect the middle class by allowing equal access to success. Only one party wants to remove the extreme tax advantages of a few that is nothing but a conveyor belt for middle class wealth transport to the already wealthy.
I was happy to see the New York Times editorial that in effect echoes my sentiments on the convention. The media has been either failing or absent to serious discourse. When I find a snippet from those that are trying to get truth out irrespective of ideology, I think it is important to share.
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How the Republicans Built It
Editorial Published: August 28, 2012
It was a day late, but the Republicans’ parade of truth-twisting, distortions and plain falsehoods arrived on the podium of their national convention on Tuesday. Following in the footsteps of Mitt Romney’s campaign, rarely have so many convention speeches been based on such shaky foundations.
Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, in the keynote speech, angrily demanded that the American people learn the hard truths about the two parties, but like most of those at the microphone, he failed to supply any. He said his state needed his austere discipline of slashed budgets, canceled public projects and broken public unions, but did not mention that New Jersey now has a higher unemployment rate than when he took over, and never had the revenue boom he promised from tax cuts.
“We believe in telling our seniors the truth about our overburdened entitlements,” he said, but his party has consistently refused to come clean about its real plans to undo Medicare and Medicaid. “Mitt Romney will tell us the hard truths we need to hear to put us back on a path to growth,” he said, but Mr. Romney has consistently refused to tell the truth about his tax plan, his budget plan, and his health care plan.
It was appropriate that “We built it,” the needling slogan of the evening, was painted on the side of the convention hall. Speaker after speaker alluded to the phrase in an entire day based on the thinnest of reeds — a poorly phrased remark by the president, deliberately taken out of context. President Obama was making the obvious point that all businesses rely to some extent on the work and services of government. But Mr. Romney has twisted it to suggest that Mr. Obama believes all businesses are creatures of the government, and so the convention had to parrot the line.
“We need a president who will say to a small businesswoman: Congratulations, we applaud your success, you did make that happen, you did build that,” said Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia. “Big government didn’t build America; you built America!”
That was far from the only piece of nonsense on the menu, only the most frequently repeated one. Conventions are always full of cheap applause lines and over-the-top attacks, but it was startling to hear how many speakers in Tampa considered it acceptable to make points that had no basis in reality.
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such BS by your article. I built my own business before Obama was 20 years old. I am not an island just like you aren’t. It is obvious that we all need help to do anything. Even feed ourselves. The statement he made was you aren’t that smart, you needed help, you didn’t build your business. Someone put roads down. Obama didn’t become President because people voted for him, they needed government help to get to the polls, to be born at some time, to have a doctor perform your birth, a college to educate the doctor and so on. So the statement You didn’t build it, pertains to every human on this planet, including you and your computer and your education and help from friends, and lets not forget the ROADS.
For reasons I do not understand you chose to misinterpret. Listen to the whole speech and listen to what he said about the ingenuity of small businessmen and innovation.
My friend, Mitt Romney and his crew have started (and they have admitted it to pundits) that they are trying to push certain issues as they must get 61% of the white vote to win. They are hitting all the issues that raise the dirty head of prejudice among a partucular group by misleading them on Obama.
I have more faith in all Americans that they will not chose the politics of division. I would hope that you would not allow the Plutocracy to control your mind.