Stop Watching and Reading the Pundit Boobery

Upending some current myths and half-truths

Look — what’s the problem here? Do I have to explain everything? I don’t want to! Stop watching and reading the pundit boobery! Unbelievable! I’m trying to get through the last of my Thanksgiving day leftovers and I now have to stop and summon all my Marvel superpowers to turn the Speeding False Train of Knuckleheads around and shoot bolts of facts and wisdom into everyone’s heads. I didn’t ask for this job. If you’ve noticed lately I will actually wait for weeks now as I listen to bullshit piled on bullshit before I step in and try to straighten things out. So here I go:

1. Biden’s approval ratings are at an historic low!

No, they’re not! The polls say 52% of us disapprove. That’s because when they call me or you and ask us if we approve we say ”No!” We don’t approve of the human infrastructure bill being chopped down. We don’t approve that there’s still no voting rights bill. We disapprove of Biden not getting Manchin and Sinema in line to vote for these bills. We disapprove of him pulling OSHA back from forcing companies to require employees be vaccinated as a workplace safety issue!

But let’s get this straight — none of this means that the 52% who disapprove are the people who are voting for Trump’s Republicans next year — or for Trump in 2024. A big chunk of the 70% who say they think “the country is going in the wrong direction” are people like you and me and millions of our friends because we believe not passing these laws after nearly a whole year means we ARE heading in the wrong direction. If Biden and the Democratic Congress doesn’t deliver on the promises they ran on, then millions of Biden voters will simply stay home on Election Day next year and then we WILL truly be going deep, deep, deep in the wrong direction.

Again: when 52% say they disapprove — at least a fifth of that number are us! And we are disapproving for the right reasons. Not because we’ll vote for Trump.

2. The country rejects Bernie, the Squad, Democratic socialism, Black Lives Matter and critical race theory!

No! They do not! They may not like AOC or me or Bernie or the word socialism but the vast majority of this country agrees with everything we are trying to get passed in Congress:

•73% of all Americans believe everyone should have paid family leave (CBS poll)
•63% believe community college should be tuition-free (Pew poll)
•64% want stronger gun control laws (Morning Consult poll)
•75% believe “climate change” is real and must be addressed NOW (AP poll)
•62% believe the minimum wage should be raised to at least $15 an hour (Pew poll)
•84% believe Medicare should cover hearing aids, glasses and dental (CBS poll)
•67% believe children should have access to free pre-K (CBS poll)
•67% of voters say that federal voting rights legislation is necessary (Navigator poll)

3. Inflation is at an all-time high!

NO. It is not. The temporary higher prices are the result of a once-in-a-century global pandemic — and they are already self-correcting. When you’ve got pundits saying gas is up 50% over last year — well, of course it is! Because nobody was driving last year! Jeez. And don’t forget, the oil companies, not wanting to be left out of the record wealth accumulation by the rich during the pandemic, have jacked these prices up worldwide. Stop being conned by a media that knows squat about economics. None of this has anything to do with Biden. I promise I’d be the first to point it out.

Companies are raising prices well above increases in their costs.

Let’s be clear: America wants help with its kids, help for their aging parents, help with reducing college debt, and Americans want Big Pharma to cut the crap with charging us $795 for a single pill. The public hates politicians saying they’re going to do something and then don’t. 

4.  Employers can’t find enough employees because people just don’t want to work!

WRONG! Everybody needs work! But the pandemic has been a wake-up call. And millions of workers have decided they will no longer work for shit wages, crap health care, no paid vacation, no pension, no future. Why go to work and risk your life being closed-in with a half-unvaccinated group of idiots? For what? Ten bucks an hour? And then rush to get to your second job? Hell no.

And so with no planning, no leaders, no movement, the working class of America has said FUCK YOU to the business world, the corporate bosses, the cubicles and the assembly lines. They are refusing to go back to work until they are paid a real middle class wage. They’ve decided to suffer without a paycheck and are willing to holdout until they are treated right and paid what they deserve. The Left has always hoped for a nationwide strike that would bring about economic justice. No one, though, could figure out how to pull it off. Until Mr. Covid-19 came to town.

Well, now we have a nationwide workers strike underway! The media will never claim that’s what’s going on because to do so would acknowledge the power we hold and that we are defeating the most important weapon the rich have over us: the power to demoralize us, to crush our spirits, to always remind us who is in charge. Until that day that they’re not. And that day has arrived. So now I ask liberals, the Left, good Democrats, and our anemic but much-needed labor unions — what are we going to do with this miraculous moment? Millions of workers are refusing slave wages — but that can only hold on for so long. Time to support them! Time to organize! Time to pass around those Union vote cards! Time to demand a $20 minimum wage (you bastards should’ve taken Bernie up on his bargain-priced $15/hr offer when you had the chance)! A raise for retirees on Social Security! Free health care for all! I beg you all — this is an historic moment and we will regret it if we miss it.

(Here’s something I did recently. In re-opening our nonprofit theater in Michigan, we needed to hire staff to check people’s vaccination cards at the door. I was told I wouldn’t find workers. I offered $22.50 an hour. Within two hours of posting the job openings, we had 40 applicants. Nuff said.)

The State Theatre re-opening in Traverse City, Michigan

The first “bi-partisan” infrastructure bill was so watered down. An exhausted President Biden, hunched over his desk as he signed it into law — the poor guy, already feeling half-defeated and pretending to be excited about touring the country at 90 mph in an electric Hummer to rah-rah up the American people over his great accomplishment (ROADS! BRIDGES!) — when he knows the legislation was chopped to pieces and won’t really give us what we truly need. An example: The American Water Works Association said it would cost $60 billion to replace all the dangerous lead pipes in America. To get this bipartisan infrastructure bill passed, he whittled the lead pipe replacement funds down to just $15 billion. So, for every 100 cities that are poisoning their children and giving them permanent brain damage, only 25 will get help? Or perhaps all 100 will get to replace just 25% of the pipes so we can con Black and Hispanic America into believing we’re doing something for them. Who gets to be the lucky Flint of this decade? Who gets to pick the 25% who will get to drink clean water? King Solomon, there’s a call for you…

Old rusty utility pipes sit on the ground where workers are installing new water pipes in Oakland, California. Who decides which lead pipes stay and which get replaced? (Justin Sullivan/Getty)

Imagine if when Lincoln ended slavery, and the only way he could get any bill passed was to compromise and say “OK, in the spirit of bipartisanship, we’ll agree to only free the slaves in Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky. It’s a start! We’ll free the others later!” Or when women were finally allowed to vote, suffragists, in order to get the Amendment passed, gave in and agreed that only married women would get the vote.

In this “Build Back Better” human infrastructure bill — a bill that MUST pass the Senate in the next 3 weeks — we must all stand firm for what is right and just.

And I just want to distinguish the painful difference between actually creating real change — such as, no child shall ever be poisoned by any government-delivered water ANYWHERE in the United States, period — and the creation of the illusion of change, the pretense that your government is actually doing something that matters. Well, thankfully most citizens can now see the bullshit coming at them faster than a runaway Pillsbury Doughboy balloon at a Thanksgiving Day parade. 

Here’s an example of why no one has taken to the streets with passion to help Uncle Joe:

In order to make it look like the Dems are doing something for “climate,” fully one-third of this second $1.6 trillion infrastructure bill — $555 billion — is, as they like to say, “devoted to climate!” Here’s the truth: $320 billion of that $555 billion for “climate” is not actual cash to go toward saving the planet. It’s $320 billion in tax credits  — gifts to corporations! — who promise to do what they should already be doing with their earth-abusing industrial products and their fake green efforts — all being set up so that they get to pay less taxes! THAT is not going to save Mother Earth. We are in the middle of an environmental catastrophe. An extinction event is underway. Young people know it. Many of the old time leaders of our environmental movement are in bed with Wall Street, corporate America, capitalism. Tricking people into thinking a full $555 billion in this bill is going toward thwarting the planet’s collapse — well, people aren’t stupid. They know this isn’t the real green new deal we need because it funds the wealthy class and does nothing to reduce consumption and the profit motive. Sadly, few “leaders” in “the movement” will tell you the truth.

Let’s cut the crap and get this bill passed. Cut out the corporate welfare hidden under the guise of “green” and tell Manchin and Sinema, “there — now you got the number you wanted. Vote for the damn bill!”

The House has passed it. The Senate will take it up this week. It’s time for all of us to activate, make noise, call Senators, buy Senators, do what we need to do in West Virginia and Arizona and come up with any bat-shit crazy idea that may just get this bill passed.

Who’s game?

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