Politicians Deny Problem if They Don't Like the Solution

[daredtowork]

I've been greatly frustrated by a local political situation where monied/propertied interests have largely been successful in denying the very existence of an enormous poverty problem and housing crisis. But anything I have to say about it is just "anecdotal" or "opinion" of course.

I love it when science comes through and starts kicking some butt on behalf of the truth. Thank you, Duke University, Harvard of the South:

http://www.dailypress.com/news/politics/shad-plank-blog/dp-duke-study-solution-aversion-not-science-denial-on-climate-change-20141106-post.html

In summary, this article says that politicians of all stripes will pretend a problem doesn't exist if the obvious solution doesn't fit into their ideology/talking points

A case in point that should have been enacted in 2008: a massive Federal jobs program that would have reduced unemployment, placed pressure to raise wages, both expanded the tax base and increased the wages on which taxes were paid, could have rebuilt some of this country's crumbling infrastructure and restored its collapsing public services, and would have naturally dissolved as people left to seek higher wages in the private sector.

But no. We didn't do it because "big government is bad". We can spend a trillion dollars on an airplane, but not on enhancing the quality of our own civilization.

We have met the enemy, and s/he is us.

So now that that's been said - what to do about it?

[Odin2005]

1. Classic example of Capitalisy cultural hegemony.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_hegemony

Anything outside the bounds established by the cultural hegemony are simply dismissed and ignored.

[daredtowork]

2. Nice to have the Academic cred, though

It's an obvious point, but you can't even lay down the Golden Rule without an academic citation to back your play these days.

It especially gets my goat that we need the people who get the most attention in our society: people with media celebrity, academic credibility, political clout, awards and other forms of recognition...to be our filters to tell us about the lives of the poor. Then we pay the celebrities for their message in the form of more attention and some $$ for their latest book. But we can't just turn to the poor people in our communities and ask them what their lives our like? Give them attention and $$ for their message - they need it more, and their direct witness is a tad more accurate. But their experience is "subjective" while the celebrity who filters the message comes from a privileged position floating somewhere above it all.

In sum, I wish there was a way that we could give the people who needed the rewards the "cred" so they would be considered worthy of being listened to.

But for now, we need the danged academic citations. So, thanks again Duke! *hug*

[Odin2005]

3. You're welcome!