Rush learns a new word and Fizzy economics

Recently there has been some criticism of Michelle Obama, for taking a vacation in Spain. The argument goes that it is tone deaf for the first lady to spend all that money some of it tax payer money on a luxury vacation. Now before I dig deep into the specifics I need to address Rush Limbaugh. To do that though, I must first tell a slightly embarrassing story from my precocious youth. When I was in second grade I watched a lot of TV not really geared towards me. I watched married with children, and I have to admit I didn't understand it all the time. But laugh tracks tell you when to laugh so I still enjoyed it. Anyway, on one particular episode, Al decides to build the toilet bowl of his dreams, and the entire episode is about him designing and building it. During the very last moments of the show he completes the project but is dejected because he can't use it. Why can't he use it? (pause for comedic effect) he's constipated! Yeah I know potty humor literally; regardless it plays huge and got a big response from the audience. So much so that I, not knowing what the word meant at my young age, thought that the word itself was inherently funny; So for the next few days I went around repeating it again and again, probably much to the confusion of my teachers at the time. I retell this story of childhood ignorance to try to diagnose Rush Limbaugh’s analysis of the media's coverage of the trip. Rush, matter of factily, explains that the media is simply giving her a pass because of reparations. It appears Rush has learned a new word; he still doesn't quite know what the word means, but it has something to do with race and Michelle is black so he just throws the idea in. Specifically what he said was

"As far as the media's concerned, Mrs. Obama deserves this," he said. "Look at the sordid past. Look at our slave past, look at the discriminatory past. It's only fair that people of color get their taste of the wealth of America too."

Now lets say he is cognizant of the words he is using and there arrangement in a sentence. Is the media giving all people of color a taste of wealth through Michelle? And how does the media not covering the story act as pay back? Does their lack of coverage on this story mean they are now going to spend the hours they "should" spend on Michelle covering things like the disparity in educational resources spent on people of color per capita then on people of non-color? Does it mean they are going to spend more time covering the disproportionate prison populations?

People in this country are treating the election of Obama like it was the final KO punch to racism in this country. It is the quintessential I can't be racist because one of my friends is black. We're not racist we have a black president! People don't understand that a person being, racist, misogynistic, homophobic, or intolerant of another’s religion can be dangerous, hurtful, even deadly, but that these things aren't the true destructive force of these kinds of discrimination. The destruction comes in the institutionally enforced inferiority. It is the government refusing to acknowledge that as a living breathing human you have inalienable rights. The destruction is not a few white college kids not getting in to Harvard because some minorities are given the chance. It’s black people not being allowed to attend the college period. It’s a woman doing the same job as the man sitting next to her for 20 years and suddenly finding out that she has been making 20% less and then being told she is shit out of luck because she didn’t report it 19 years ago before she even knew about the difference. The destruction comes when you serve your country for 15 years make a career in the military and follow the ridiculous policy of not telling anyone that you’re gay, and you are still kicked out of the military because someone else outs you. It comes when you can’t build a house of worship because the community thinks it is insensitive to practice your faith in front of them.

Still there is the question of the tone; Michelle could be setting with her trip. People are claiming this is a Marie Antoinette moment for the Obamas. I'll give them that this could be seen as extravagant, but how does it show that Michelle or the Obamas do not know the plight of the middle class? The thing about the (falsely attributed) Marie Antoinette phrase “let them eat cake” is that it shows that the leader didn’t know the people couldn’t afford food to live let alone cake. Michelle isn’t suggesting Americans go abroad; the Whitehouse wasn’t heavily publicizing the trip. Yes there is the cost of the security detail and lets say it cost $300,000 dollars to cover all the expenses, it cost the American population less then a penny each to protect the first lady and daughter on their trip abroad. Again, this could still be seen as extravagant, but if we are going to talk about the extravagance of the rich lets have a serious discussion about it.

Time and time again we are told we are one of the wealthiest nations on the planet, but often in the next breath we are told that we are broke. Both of these statements are true. There is a ton of money in America, but the federal government, the states, the cities, even most of the citizens are broke. We’ve been broke for decades and each and every one of us did the same thing, like Willma and Betty, CHARGED IT! So after more then a decade of this we’re all broke. The question is, if these statements are both true, where is all the money? Well CEOs are averaging salaries 350 times the size of their average employees. This is a ten-fold increase in the disparity between the rich and the poor in a 30 year span. In addition the richest in America are at the lowest tax rate in fifty years. For decades we have been locked into this notion that allowing the rich to keep more of their money will spur innovation and prosperity for all. What actually happened was the rich began holding on to more and more of the money they had. We’ve also been told that starving government would force it to become lean mean and effective. This would work if the government was one big fat body. Conservatives joke they want government small enough to drown it in a bathtub. Thing is government is less like one big fat metaphorical person and more like one big metaphorical family with lots of brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles. Failing to feed a family enough doesn’t make the family lean and mean, it kills members of the family. Government agencies have been selling properties to make up for short falls only to have to rent them for continued operations. This is exactly what families do, in order to make it through tough times you sell some assets, you don’t get rid of Rhonda because she cost too much. Government agencies have also reduced the number of police, firefighters, and teachers, they didn’t let Walter die, but their not getting him braces either. Government agencies are even getting rid of paved roads and street lights because they are too expensive to fix; you don’t execute Uncle Keith but instead of getting him the hip replacement he desperately needs instead you set him up with a nice rocking chair.

Government has specific responsibilities, and while we can debate the methods used to meet those responsibilities, there need should be apparent to everyone. We will always need cops, roads, parks, schools, and whole host of social programs. Failure to support these aspects of our society has created pockets of third world U.S.A. The only change with our current economic crisis is more and more Americans are being engulfed in these pockets.