One of my friends on Facebook has, in so many words, accused me of it in the past. I will be the first to admit that I sometimes tend to focus on the negative - people and policy that piss me off - instead of the good things happening, though I also blog to inform as many as possible about some of the underhanded bullshit that you never hear about on Nightly News.
But it's also true that one of my biggest criticisms of Bob Gorrell - the editorial cartoonist who has appeared in multiple posts here - is that he's a relentlessly negative, naysaying critic of the president who ignores or glosses over Obama's accomplishments (which are many).
To make up for any Gorrell-like negativism that I may display, I'd like to post some editorial cartoons that actually make me happy:
This is excellent. Despite all the claims from some that things were so much better back in the "good ole days", the so-called "Reagan revolution" of the '80s and the "Republican revolution" of 1994 has been busily rolling back policies from the past that were more progressive than what passes for "progressive" today.
During the Eisenhower era, the tax rate percentage for the wealthiest Americans was in the nineties:
Today we hear that an increase of a few percentile points to the one-percenters' tax rate is akin to "Socialism", though the country managed to survive - and thrive - thanks to progressive policy.
The people are willfully dense of our nation's history and the helpful policies that some in Washington have been dismantling in the name of "small government".
Along the same lines, here's another excellent Ruben Bolling creation:
The arguments from those who think that the poor are just "lazy" or need to work harder to improve their station - which tellingly, never come from those who are themselves poor - are incredibly simplistic. My generation has been told time and time again that if we do well in school, go to college and graduate, we will find ourselves a well-paying job that sustains us.
The unfortunate reality is that even with a two-year degree from an accredited community college, few employers - especially in "STEM" professions - won't give you the time of day.
So the solution is to just get your Bachelors degree, right?
Well, you still have to get your foot into the door before you can get a great job - degree or not. So you search and search and search, but nobody will hire you for "lack of experience".
Of course, you can't get relevant work experience without actually working!
My point is this: the poor need more than platitudes about "bootstraps" and how they're lazy moochers for needing assistance. As an aunt of mine used to say, "it takes a sight to live", and it's hard to make it in a world where there are already two strikes against you because you're poor and can't buy or influence your way to success (like the rich).
It's true that it's not the rich people's fault that you're poor, but sometimes, it's not the poor person's fault either. The sooner we realize that, helping people and lifting them out of poverty instead of blaming them for our economic troubles, the sooner we'll actually live up to the ideal of being the "Christian nation" we claim to be.
Many thanks to Ruben Bolling for his consistently good cartoons!
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