More New book content

We are still in the formative stages of developing a thesis for our new book. I suggest we cast a wider net.

Here’s the latest evolution of my thinking: the traditional paradigm of the two-party system consisting of Republicans and Democrats is no longer relevant. The new paradigm is democracy and authoritarianism (those who support Trump).

Another way to look at it is today there are two major political parties. One party is those who support democracy. The other party is those who support trumpism. Everybody falls into one of these categories. If you support democracy, then it follows you reject Trump. If you support Trump then it follows you reject democracy.

New Book Intro

It would be ideal if we could elect a President with the wisdom and power to ensure a consistently prosperous economy. Our mainstream news tends to promote this  simplistic fantasy. In reality, numerous factors shape our economy, such as economic cycles, Federal Reserve policy, global trends, conflicts, pandemics, legislative processes, natural disasters, immigration, technological shifts, globalization, and demographic changes. Despite these complexities, political propaganda presented as news has misled many into attributing economic success or downturn solely to the President and their party.

To reverse America’s decline, we must abandon the belief in simplistic solutions to complex issues. Mainstream media should cease treating propaganda as a valid issue or opinion.

The downward trajectory of American politics is not a recent occurrence. Both political parties have contributed to the dystopian state we are witnessing. Understanding this historical context is crucial for navigating the challenges we face today.

New Book by David Shaw and Facebook his Group Members

Stupid Economics

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A Book/Booklet by David Shaw and Members of Propaganda in America Facebook Group

Working Title: Stupid Economics

Thesis: Blaming the president and his political policy for the state of the economy is a false narrative.

Outline

1. This part will be the bulk of the book and require supporting evidence and historical examples. It includes a history of modern economic trends, including periods of boom and bust, who was President at the time, correlations to major economic policy changes, and the historical impact of liberal vs conservative economic policies.
2. The economy is cyclical.  There will always be recessions and prosperity no matter who is President.
3. The news media should cover the impact of tax cuts and how they affect the economy for years instead of ignoring long-term impact on the national debt and blaming the incumbent president.
4. News media coverage tells you the national debt is the result of deficit spending and ignores the impact of tax cuts that cause deficit spending because of revenue reduction.
5. Congress should receive more credit or blame for the state of the economy than the President.  The President proposes an economic agenda.  Congress determines economic policy that largely reflects the economic ideology of the party that controls Congress.  This traditional framework has recently been disrupted by the belief that a minority in Congress has the right to impose their will on the majority by threatening to obstruct legislation or shut down the government.
6. The news media prefers to cover personality instead of economics.  Belief and propaganda are more influential than economic indicators.  Our news media assumes the general public is too dumb to understand the real causes of economic downturns and prosperity.  It’s easy to just blame the incumbent president. 
7. Blaming the President is a form of propaganda.  It is a way to recruit voters by creating anger and resentment in people who are struggling to support themselves and their family.

These are my initial thoughts and perhaps it is not enough for a book, but there is nothing wrong with writing a policy paper, an essay or booklet.  As I and others develop these themes, other topics may emerge that provides sufficient content for a book.  That is how my first book was developed.  It started out as a group of essays and morphed into a book during the research and documentation process.

BOOK SUMMARY

Understanding The Deplorable Class

How Americans are Brainwashed by Propaganda

When I mention the “deplorable class,” you know who I mean.  Deplorables are not mainstream Republicans, not even conservative Republicans.  They are unapologetic Trump supporters. What is their genesis?   Why are they so willing to reject established norms of behavior and traditional political ideology; tolerate moral indiscretions; embrace authoritarianism, ignore rule of law; and support public policies that are not in their best interest?  What role does society play in shaping their beliefs and molding them into loyal followers who value belief over fact?  How can a deplorable person be rehabilitated?  

There is not one theory that adequately explains why radical, anti-democratic politics is gradually taking center stage in the debate about the future of our country.  We must examine answers offered by historians, sociologists, political scientists, theologians, philosophers, and psychologists.   I have described the profound insights of prominent writers in these disciplines and I give them credit in my book.   It is only through integrating these perspectives can we understand the deplorable class phenomenon that has taken center stage in the American debate over the future of our country.

Don’t Believe

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Who are the Rioters?

A black adolescent living in a poor black neighborhood sees the white middle and upper class indulge in the finer things in life when he has no future. He wants to have those finer things and the only way he is ever going to get them by is looting. He is angry and derives satisfaction from burning down the symbols of white privilege. That defines the rioters. Its not violent left wingers, antifa or anarchists. Let’s have an honest conversation that starts with getting rid of the Trump propaganda.

Our Fascist Supreme Court

The Fascists on the Supreme Court are not Nazis. They like immigrant cheap labor. They don’t care about your sexual orientation, race, or religion. They only care about what benefits the corporate sector. If you know this, then the recent SCOTUS rulings are no surprise.

You can count on our Fascist Judges to support suppressing democratic voters, tax breaks for the rich, deregulation, oil and coal subsidies, military spending, Republican control of Congress (or gridlock) maximum Presidential power, and obviously, anything that keeps Trump in office.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10158695736306155&id=542796154&sfnsn=mo

How to Make America a Dictatorship

The impeachment of President  Trump was not about removing the President. It was about how much power our elected representatives want to cede to the current and future presidents.

A historical review of the rise of dictatorships in Germany and Russia are prime examples of how dictators come to power through propaganda and by pushing legal boundaries to the breaking point. I highly recommend such a review for those who are serious about this subject.

Failure to impeach a President for violating his oath and the Constitution is tantamount to establishing new constitutional standards and changing the laws that define the power of the Presidency.

Lowering traditional standards for ethical behavior by the President is equivalent to creating new laws. Trump’s ‘unconventional style’ is setting new legal parameters for executive power. We are headed toward a new interpretation of the Constitution by a fascist Supreme Court, controlled by the President.

The legislative and judicial
branches are gradually moving the country toward a new governing structure that significantly increases executive power. This is not a new phenomenon. Look at recent US history and what Republicans call ‘unitary executive theory’, which amounts to absolute power by the Executive Branch. This means, among other things, the Attorney General’s first loyalty is to the President, not the people or the Constitution.

Here is a list of new powers that are being vested in the President since Trump took office:

The President can not be criminally investigated, charged, or indicted.

The President can not be prohibited from colluding with foreign governments for the purposes of election campaign financing and propaganda.

The President has absolute power to ignore congressional subpoenas for testimony and documents, including tax returns.

The President has the right to prohibit White House staff from cooperating with congressional investigations.

The President is allowed to defund programs and reobligate taxpayer money for discretionary purposes without obtaining approval from Congress.

The President has unrestricted authority to determine trade policy and set tariffs without congressional approval or oversight.

The President has unrestricted authority, without informing Congress, to negotiate with foreign leaders in secret and prohibit access to related meeting translations, transcripts and call records.

The emoluments clause of the Constitution is rendered moot.

The President can fire Inspectors General anyone else in the executive branch for political purposes.

How much more do you need to see before you realize we live in a dictatorship?

Lazy America

I am surprised by the number of people who think going to the moon or sending a human to Mars somehow represents scientific progress, technological innovation and the advancement of civilization.

Most Americans have convinced themselves that exploring outer space is somehow equivalent to an earlier time in our history when we discovered electricity; and invented the telephone, automobiles, and airplanes.

From the time we achieved the amazing feat of putting a man on the moon, creativity and innovation have been on the decline.

There was that brief period when the invention of computers, cell phones, and the Internet changed our lives. These innovations certainly reflected creativity, entrepreneurship, and our thirst for disruptive technologies. Unfortunately, the silicon valley revolution has also sown the seeds of society’s decline.

Americans, and for that matter the rest of the world, have become apathetic, pessimistic, and alienated. We have replaced passion and vision with comfort, illusion, and maintaining the status quo. From this perspective, it’s easy to see why the slogan, “Make America Great Again” resonates with so many people. But our MAGA ideas reflect our laziness not our ambition. Our national politics has been replaced by a reality TV show starring an actor playing the role of Predident.

America’s great vision has been reduced to repeating what we have already accomplished: Go to the moon. Our idea of technological progress is to invent new technologies that will enable us to be lazier than we already are: think driverless cars.

Our creativity is focused on sending a human to the dead planet Mars to take pictures and dig holes; a job that is already being performed by robots.

America has quietly surrendered its leadership as the vanguard of modernization and human progress. We care more about making the lazy, wealthy class richer; producing as much polluting fuel as possible; and creating simulated, passive drama through fantasy movies, video games, reality TV; and our favorite pastime of obsessively staring into our electronic devices.

We have convinced ourselves these distractions represent the latest in human progress when in fact our society is stagnant and half asleep, numbed by opioids, marijuana, alcohol, over eating, and the constant barrage of television propaganda.

The next “moon mission” should be addressing global warming; but that’s too hard. It would require us to collectivrly get off our lazy, apathetic asses and reignite genuine creativity and innovation that will save our planet.

Don’t say “climate change”

Here is why the term “climate change” is very detrimental to the issue of global warming. Notice how Rubio completely ignores the issue of global warming by constantly referring to changes in climate:

“I don’t agree with the notion that some are putting out there, including scientists, that somehow there are actions we can take today that would actually have an impact on what’s happening in our climate. Our climate is always changing. And what they have chosen to do is take a handful of decades of research and say that this is now evidence of a longer term trend that is directly and almost solely attributable to manmade activity … I do not agree with that. I don’t know of any era in world history where the climate has been stable. Climate is always evolving and natural disasters have always existed … I do not believe that human activity is causing these dramatic changes to our climate the way these scientists are portraying it. That’s what I do not, and I don’t think the laws that they propose we pass will do anything about it, except it will destroy our economy.” (May 11, 2014, ABC News)