FUD – Fear, Uncertainty, and Disinformation

<rant>

In other words, the McCain/Palin campaign.

For someone who promises to be a “Washington Outsider” and a “Reformer” and dare I say it, a “Maverick” it’s amazing how often he resorts to the Grand Old Party’s playbook time and time again.

McCain’s campaign knows (because at this point I’m not sure what HE actually knows) that the only way at this point that they are going to beat Barak Obama is to use the age old tactic of Fear, Uncertainty, and Disinformation.

Fear -

An easy example of this is “Hang Onto Your Wallet [if Barak Obama is elected]“  Here McCain is trying desperately to push the idea that if Obama is elected the middle-class will suffer.  Much in the same way G.H.W.Bush tried to make that case against Bill Clinton in 1992.  This is a patent falsehood and is engineered to make you forget the fact that by John McCain’s healthcare plan alone he’s going to take money out of your pocket.  The average cost of insurance is in the neighborhood of $15,000/year for a family.  Normally your employer picks up most of this, leaving you with $200-$300 per month.  Under McCain’s health-care plan, you will be taxed on the ENTIRE cost of your health-care coverage, because it will be considered “Income” in much the same way a company that gives you a “car allowance” has to report that as a part of your income.  So even at today’s tax rates that means most people will see their paycheck go down because you will be taxed on the Full $1,100-$1,200 per month.  Depending on your tax bracket that could be as much as $250.00 a month coming directly out of your pocket.  The $5,000 yearly credit will put about $416/month back in your pocket at the end of the year, provided you don’t end up owing it.  You are basically giving the government an interest-free loan for the duration.  Nice of you isn’t it?  Again, this is the healthcare plan alone.  McCain has to fund this somehow, along with the war that he wants to go on endlessly, and the MASSIVE tax break he’s proposed for the wealthiest 2% of Americans and Corporations.  (ExxonMobil corp. even admitted under oath that they don’t NEED the tax break they were being given and lobbying for.)

Uncertainty -

Well this is obvious.  McCain’s repeated weak attempts to link Obama to Bill Ayres with the advertising tagline “Do you really know who he is?” is an obvious attempt to get people to start questioning him, and a less obvious attempt to get people to associate the name “Obama” with terrorism.  (Much in the same way Osama is now, regardless of the fact that there are probably hundreds of thousands people named Osama, a miniscule percentage of which are linked to terrorism.  McCain’s attemps to cast Obama in an incertain light is not without it’s risk however, given his associations with Bush, Keating, and lately anti-american seperatist Sarah Palin.  (Ok, I’m sort of kidding on the last)

Disinformation -

Plain lies.  McCain’s camp has learned a lot from the Rove/Bush years and is putting every lesson into practice.  By either telling the truth but not all of it, or telling out and out lies he is lowering himself to the level of, dare I say it?  A politician.  An example would be the McCain / Palin claim that lowering taxes is “Patriotic”

*PAYING* taxes is patriotic.

Let me explain.  We have a war going that is costing us about US$12,000,000,000 per month.  We have three ways to pay for this war.

1. Print more currency.  This causes runaway inflation and the devaluation of the American dollar.  It means that our trade defecit skyrockets.  It means that $20.00 / gallon for gas is not out of the question, because the money is actually worth less on the world market.  (Basic law of supply and demand)

2. Borrow from foreign countries.  Right now we owe about $600billion to Japan, $400billion to China, $120billion to the UK, and about $100billion to the “OPEC” countries.  Is it really patriotic to willingly give foreign countries a bigger and bigger financial hold over us?

3. Pay more taxes.  This is the ultimate ownership experience.  With your taxes you buy civilization.  You are an American shareholder.  You make it work.

But since they (Republicans) are more worried about themselves (read: selfish) than others, they often vote with their wallet, not paying attention to the world disintigrating around them.  As long as they have their Japanese designed, chinese made 72″ plasma TV the rest of the world can go spit, right?

</rant>