November 2

All throughout October and early November, people have told me how to feel about the probable take over of Congress by Republicans. Presidential historians point out the Eisenhower and Clinton presidencies, suggesting that Republican take over ensures re-election of the president. Republican pundits believe their leaders will overturn heathcare and show this government how to balance the budget. But how naïve do you have to be?

Republicans have never been the party of fiscal responsibility. Truly, it is the party of deluded poor imagining that they are rich. The only tax cut Obama wants to do away with apply to the richest 2% of Americans, yet 51% of Americans are outraged by Obama tax hikes, something he never suggested. When asked how decreasing federal revenue could lead to a balanced budget, Republicans talk about discretionary spending, but never specifically. They often banter about never touching “defense” spending or social security, but even eliminating everything else and reinstating Bush tax cuts leaves us in a deficit.

A recession or depression is the right time to run deficits. Either people spend, businesses spend, or the government spends. Under Bush all three spent carelessly and frivolously. Now those frivolous spenders (John Boehner) want to accuse Obama of frivolous spending in a time when government spending is life-support for the American economy.

The problem is really quite obvious. Americans -- through media outlets, twitter, 30 second commercials, etc. -- have lost their attention span. The attention span is the last victim of the short-term American mentality. Capitalism has brought about greed, selfishness, short-sightedness, and generational tyranny. Those who will get stuck with the bill of federal spending are not voting for Republicans, yet that is what Republicans ran on. It is what they ran on, but it is not what they have or ever will do. Those who voted them in on those principles have been sucking the lifeblood from my generation and my children’s generation. Or -- they voted for economic reasons. Republicans plan on fixing the economy by fixing “small businesses” -- which, by the way, are NOT owned by the richest 2% of Americans. Funny how those two issues Republicans ran on are diametrically opposite to one another.

That isn’t the problem though.

The problem is that we are so stupid that we not only let them get away with it -- we not only let them win -- we voted for them.

Because I watched MSNBC Tuesday night and Jon Stewart compared MSNBC to Fox News, I now know how it feels to be a Republican and watch Fox. The bias approach to media - we say what you think and what you want to hear - was always a shod coming from Fox News. But now, coming from MSNBC, it feels good. It feels right and it feels true. I now see what a faggot-hating, pro-trailer-trash-mama-of-eight, RPG-toting, war-mongering, education-hating, money-grubbing Republican wants in a one-sided “news” report.

Must we choose between left-prejudiced MSNBC, right-prejudiced Fox News, idiotic CNN, or missing-white-child Headline News. Have all networks lost their sense of duty? To call yourself a reporter, start acting like one. Things have changed. Information is freely available to everyone who seeks it -- but it must be sought. Anyone can go out and obtain that knowledge for you, delete the extraneous (along with a few counterarguments), and present facts for exactly what you want to hear. Since 50% of the population are Republicans, some will want their information this way. A larger portion of liberals however seek info themselves, and therefore are dissatisfied with mainstream media outlets. This explains how Fox News is by far the most trusted name is News. “I trust your motive matches mine in projecting these data and obscuring those.