Miner Queries: Why do I bother?

4:26 a.m. Sigh. I blame my daughter, Charli. That long conversation we had last night about the upcoming election switched my brain on early.

While discussing the Iowa caucuses and her generation and her millennial brother’s cohort, she mentioned my Facebook feed. I mostly post highlights of my daily news reading to share as an alternative to the broadcast media poured in our ears. I know too many non-readers and folks that avoid politics. They remain willfully uninformed, and as my daughter pointed out, that hurts us all. She clearly understands the price she and her peers are going to pay for the civic laziness of her elders.

Flashback to 1980 and an election I know I am going to miss by 4 months. My father, from whom I inherited my news and political junkie-ism, was reading candidate policy proposals. He informed me, then a senior in high school, I’d be looking at less college financial aid under a Reagan administration.

Meanwhile, everywhere I turned in rural Iowa, people were besotted by Ronald Reagan. I can’t tell you what policies they liked. I don’t remember them ever talking policy. Instead I got the usual claptrap about his storytelling and likeability.

Even at 17, I understood it was an act. But then Reagan was an actor. It should have been obvious, but when it comes to voting I have learned the hard way, people don’t think. They react.

Which explains our current predicament.

Of course, my 12 years working in marketing communication and public relations at a medium sized insurance company also made me painfully aware of how our news and information is carefully crafted to work against us. My first day in the department, the boss who hired me pointed to a shelf with resource books, including one titled, “Words that Sell.”

We the people have been sold a bunch of messages designed to help narrow monied interests. We’ve been sold a bunch of entertainment to keep us voting stupid.

And I’ve spent the last two months watching hearings full of Republican congress critters (to use Jim Hightower’s term) that apparently also believe the lies they’ve been sold about Democrats and liberals. They seem to be totally ignorant of history, the Constitution and for those espousing Christianity, the Bible.

Small wonder though. We’ve had a cable news apparatus in place for 30-plus years now, not to mention Uncle Milton Friedman’s market fundamentalist version of capitalism for even longer. It can be boiled down to this simple description:  greed is good. But it’s been sold under the holy label of Capitalism.

And who’s sold it to you? Why those monied 1%ers who want it all – everything.

And how have they sold it to you?

By buying up every media source (including textbook publishers) they can get their grubby hands on and pouring “Conservative” news in your ears. By pouring political contributions into the political parties, but mostly to Republicans. By contributing funds to universities to fund new professorships, particularly in economics and business. By creating Conservative and Libertarian think tanks to develop research that supports their narrow ideology and suppressing any results that don’t fit said ideology. By creating lobbying groups to develop corporate-friendly model bills for state and federal officials to pass. By weakening public education to create a less informed electorate. By aligning with socially conservative religious leaders to convince voters to cast ballots against their own economic interests.

By co-opting labels like conservative, liberal, Republican and Democrat, left and right and by shaping news media to report spectacle over substance, they have sold voters lies.

I am sure many of my “conservative” friends think I am just a deluded “liberal,” or as I have been called: a libtard, creepy liberal or little girl. They prefer to stick with their adopted labels rather than consider that I care because we are getting walloped by the same economic forces. And I care that they have been missing from the civic conversation.

What I love about America can’t be expressed by waving a flag, thanking a soldier or wearing a damn pin. It can only be expressed by participating.

We live in a democratic republic, which means we must participate to preserve our rights.

Not just by voting. We must stay informed, communicate with officials, including protesting if necessary, pay our taxes and serve as jurists. It’s work. But I see a populace that has been ground down the point they have either given up or they believe a pack of lies.

I’m not asking you to believe everything I do. I’m not telling you how to vote. I simply want you to open your eyes and ears to new and more information. I want you to consider alternative viewpoints. I want you to engage your brains and think critically.

And for God’s sake, turn off the talk radio and cable news and read something.

Will we let job seekers be scrooged?

Last Wednesday, word came from Washington that the Congressional committee negotiating a federal budget had reached a deal, thus avoiding another government shutdown. Hallelujah!

Like most compromises, this deal makes no one happy. Radical right conservatives were unhappy the sequester and deficit reduction were scaled back. Progressives, myself included, were unhappy it raises no new revenue.

But perhaps most distressing was the fact unemployment benefits were not extended for the long term unemployed. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

This disregard for the poor and jobless was the subject of Charles Blow’s Thursday column for The New York Times, in which he reports: “Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, said Sunday on Fox News: ‘I do support unemployment benefits for the 26 weeks that they’re paid for. If you extend it beyond that, you do a disservice to these workers.’”

As Blow notes this attitude about job seekers illustrates the divide between conservatives and liberals. Conservatives believe individuals must go it alone with little government support, while liberals believe government intervention helps advance the whole society. So conservatives often claim unemployment benefits are a disincentive to work.

Blow writes about his own experience among the poor and notes this conservative attitude indicates not only a lack of experience with poverty, but a lack of empathy. “Most people want to work. But sometimes, bad luck comes calling. Sometimes you have a job, but you lose it. Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, a new one proves elusive. “And following the Great Recession, that is a particular problem.”

Coincidentally, an article on ThinkProgress the same morning highlighted it. Bryce Covert reported on a new study showing growth in the number of low wage jobs, while high wage jobs continue to decline. He writes: “The report also notes that there is a huge number of people vying for the jobs that pay better. It calculates that there were seven job seekers for every projected job opening that paid above $15 an hour in 2012 and 17.9 million more job hunters than higher wage jobs.”

His article further notes the movement among states and municipalities to raise their minimum wages and for low wage workers to organize. Yet current political dialogue portrays the workers behind these efforts as lazy and unworthy. Case in point: a Facebook post by Sarah Palin “Liked” by a friend last weekend. This infographic showed combat soldiers with the text: “We get paid less than minimum wage and you’re demanding 15 bucks an hour to slap a burger on a bun.” Way to distract from real issues, Sarah.

As my husband asked, how many soldiers left a job flipping burgers to join the military in hopes of a better career? And why shouldn’t they all earn a living wage? Is it working that’s important, or are only certain jobs worth a living wage?

I was disappointed my friend fell for Palin’s distraction, especially given her own family’s recent employment experiences. But like Senator Paul, too many of us separate ourselves from the poor and jobless and simply choose to blame them for their situation. It’s easier than working to fix the system. So now who’s lazy?

Until Congress can develop policies that create jobs, it must ensure job seekers can eat and pay the rent. And that means we the people have to make them do it by demanding they extend unemployment.