Cognitive Dissonance Around 9/11 Questions is Understandable

Cognitive Dissonance is a state of mind a person experiences the moment he or she realizes that their well held beliefs, or physical perceptions of the world, are directly challenged by new information which is contrary to these beliefs or perceptions. Actually, the new information is shocking. The subject basically freaks-out upon hearing or seeing the unbelievable (sometimes this is but a brief moment) and immediately will concoct justifications or even lies to defend his or her beliefs or perceptions.

A relatively few people are hearing the conspiracy theory that certain elements within the Bush administration may have been involved in planning and carrying out the Nine Eleven attacks. These relatively few people are using the defensive mechanism of cognitive dissonance. They are few because the major media are also experiencing cognitive dissonance and therefore not covering the issue.

An extreme but too common example of this challenge to the mind, is the wife who discovers that her husband is sexually molesting their daughter. The brain of the wife and mother launches into a strong defense mechanism of cognitive dissonance. She’ll convince herself she saw something else. She’ll convince herself her husband would never ever do such a thing. These rationalizations will seem perfectly reasonable to her and allow her to continue in her life without having a nervous breakdown, or murdering her husband.

There is a mountain of evidence that the Nine Eleven attacks were not solely, if at all, the result of twenty Arab hijackers. The physical evidence and the undeniable coincidences that implicate our own government are too many for a reasonable person to ignore. Still, many do, many upon hearings these amazing facts and questions without answers (that reasonably should have answers) immediately begin their own cognitive dissonance. I have been told that “those who think the government would have done this are just sick!”

Conspiracy is a word that should not be equated with irrational thinking, or wild ideas, or paranoid delusions. Conspiracy only takes two people at minimum keeping a secret about a plan. An easy measure to accomplish when considering the history of the United States government what’s conspiracies include, but certainly are not limited to; the Boston Tea Party, the wooden one man submarine the USS Turtle, the small pox blankets given to native Americans, the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, the sinking of the USS Maine in Havana harbor, the Cuban Bay of Pigs assault, the Gulf of Tonkin Vietnamese “attack,” the Tuskegee STD live experiments, the assassination with a “magic bullet” from a single shooter of John F. Kennedy, the Nixon “Plumbers,” the Reagan Iran hostage secret deal and the corresponding Iran Contra arms for hostages illegal dealings, the Mellon-Scaiffe backed framing of Bill Clinton throughout the nineteen nineties.

These and all conspiracies have several factors in common:

• Their goals would not have been legally permissible or publicly palatable if conducted openly.
  
• Each covers-up the truth. Deception is the foundation of its existence. In uncovering each conspiracy there is one truth and there is one conspiracy, but one can become the other, if the truth seekers are successful.

• The goals are determined to be worth significant cost and risk to those conspiring to carry out the actions.
  
• Often carrying through is deemed worth the loss of life of innocents. The ends justifies the means.
  
• No conspiracy is perfect. All are found to be suspicious by someone, either during the actions, or in the months and years following the actions. All leave clues.
  
• Disclosure of suspicions of all conspiracies always meet with disbelief from reasonable people.
  
• Prior to planning, the accomplishment of the goal is thought to be unlikely by those involved. This dismay is the motivating factor for secretive human manipulation of circumstances towards the desired goal. This doubt of the realistic lingers with the conspiracy for an indeterminate number of years.
  
• Every conspiracy begins with the desires of one person. A large or greatly influencing goal is always supported by power and money or both.
  
• Never is a conspiracy learned in full, or in part, by anyone with involvement, who does not have a need to know. Each will use unknowing participants when possible.

A great protection for a conspiracy’s principle actors is the ever present and reliable cognitive dissonance of the public. “Oh hell Winston, we’ve nothing to worry about! They’ll never believe it old boy!”

In the example in paragraph three (above) of a woman who is in denial (cognitive dissonance) that her daughter is being molested by her husband, cognitive dissonance could be broken down. But it would take radical actions. Someone would have to tie the mother up to a kitchen chair, tie the husband the same across from her. Make him confess aloud using a red-hot spatula. Then shake and slap the mother until she breaks down and cries and hopefully she shouts profanities and spits at her scumbag husband sitting across from her.

But how does the public get awoken from its slumber of cognitive dissonance? Repetition of consumable messages of short length in the media is the only way. Even little tid-bits of doubt, broadcast outward like grass seed that might not sow, might not sprout, but is broadcast anyway to be there just in case. When the public turns its busy head, perhaps in a quiet moment, the seeds of doubt will be there and truth will sow into the soil and begin its long journey to the forefront of the mainstream thoughts.

Why question this government’s official story of the events of Nine Eleven? Do it because of the incredible weight that this event has. The weight of this event versus all others in our history, or in the history of all governments and societies. Weightier than the J.F.K assassination, heavier in relevance than the Bay of Pigs secret revolution attempt, a boulder in importance to the grain of sand that was Iran Contra, or Watergate, or Gulf of Tonkin, sinking the Maine and etc.. For those events don’t threaten the integrity and existence of a nation. Those events didn’t begin a series of irrational war related decisions, killing and wounding tens of thousands more people who certainly would not have died otherwise.

Nine Eleven was a horrific event and it is not a surprise that the great majority of Americans want to put it behind them. But the event is so impacting, so life changing that if one or two questions remain, they should be answered. If the event was planned and carried out from within our government, than that fact would make the event a thousand times more impacting, more weighty, more important in its scope. Given that, each question is also a thousand times more important.

Far too many clues were left behind on Nine Eleven Two Thousand and One. Do not discount that as few as twenty people might have conducted this horror with full knowledge, but they could have used their power and money to involve as many two hundred others who unwittingly took part, whose careers or possibly even their lives were threatened by people perfectly capable of carrying through. Do not discount the power and ability of righteous indignation, religious fervor, extreme patriotism “for the good of the nation a few must die!” While investigating facts around the Nine Eleven events do not forget the tried and true axiom: The Ends Justifies the Means, because this phrase exemplifies the ability of the mind to rationalize, and to possibly do something awful.

Ignore the questions and accept the presidential appointed commissions answers and live comfortably with that knowledge and you may be allowing a heinous and massively important crime to go undiscovered. You may be allowing the next group of righteously indignant, power and money hungry conspirators, to get away with a similar crime in the future.

I won’t write about Nine Eleven conspiracy in any detail. That kind of exploration is best done on one’s own initiative. Suffice to say there are literally hundreds of reasonable questions to be answered. Many are questions that confront physical impossibilities offered by our government as explanations by the Nine Eleven Commission.

One good non-profit organization's website to start with is The Family Steering Committee for the 9/11 Independent Commission, and their: Unanswered Questions page:

http://www.911independentcommission.org/questions.html

Conservative Psych-Out . . Whoops!

If you’re a politically apprised liberal you may have already heard the reference to conservative policy as “everyday is opposite day.” That refers to their actions resulting in the contrary of their rhetoric, or of their legislative initiatives with titles designed to fool the large segment of the public, that is not paying attention. But there is another kind of opposite the conservatives practice, which could be called “Freudian Theory Gone Wild!” It’s the general acknowledgement that all people resist and revert, or resist and convert, or just run the other way when faced with an action to initiate that resistance. It’s the Republican Psych Out! It requires arrogance and hubris and goals which have secondary and self serving outcomes.

Usually the outcome is not what the conservatives had planed on, and might have been prevented just by knowing more of what they were talking about, or by consulting with non-partisan experts. But it also comes about by believing the postulations of conservative think-tanks that publish suppositions on everything from social policy that deals with the poor, to foreign policy that prepares for war. Of course the authors of these well dressed documents had never fought in a war, or for example had never gone grocery shopping with a poor family. These misguided preclusions occur almost entirely when the conservatives try to estimate the reactions of people.

Remember when you were a child and you thought you had the world figured out? There was a short while when it seemed that opposing action seemed to be the results of most actions. That everything had a resistance which caused it to move in the other direction, go up instead of down. As we entered adulthood some of us came to learn that complexity dictated reactions and they are individualized in nearly all matters, especially among people. But there were others among us (conservatives) that decided that these rules seemed to apply broadly, and they kept that belief, and became policy makers.

Examples:

• If you fight that school yard bully who has been pestering you; then he’ll respect you and stop picking on you. Child Psych!
  
  Whoops. The bully is into revenge and wrath and protecting his dominance. He beats the piss out of you the very next day. Mom was wrong.
  
• If you leave your bike unlocked on the sidewalk, it won’t get stolen, because the thieves will be surprised and think that your watching them, and assume that it’s a set-up. Criminal Psych!
  
• If you cut the beejeezus out of the Welfare programs, the lazy bums will all run-out and get jobs, saving the taxpayers millions. Republican Psych!
  Whoops. Poverty has increased exponentially, with four million more families living below the poverty line, and almost two million more children living below the poverty line. Apparently the reasons for having welfare to begin with, were not addressed when attempting to get rid of it. The Republicans were wrong.
  
• If you bomb the hell out of the nation’s infrastructure, killing several thousand civilians (as collateral), invade the nation, then occupy it, the people will “greet us with candies and flowers.” (Dick Cheney, February, 2003). War Psych!
  Whoops. The conservatives forgot to ask the population how they might feel about being invaded and occupied. The bombings really pissed them off. The deaths even more so. The invaders never gained control of the streets and mayhem ensued and never really stopped. Infrastructure has never been fully restored. The candies and flowers became Improvised Explosive Devices and car bombs.
  
• If you stop teaching sex education in schools, the kids will stop having sex. If you stop allowing them condoms, they’ll stop getting diseases and unwanted pregnancies. Education Psych!
  
  Whoops. It turns out kids weren’t having sex due to the presence of, or absence of, condoms or sex education anyway. All the data was available, but the conservative’s hypothesis were just so convincing! In fact the numbers of sexual diseases and unplanned pregnancies among teens went up. Apparently the taboo factor was increased for the teenagers. Also those teens were far less likely to discuss sex with their parents, being the subject was literally off-the-table.
  
• Arrest and incarcerate over four million men and women for drug offenses and eventually drug use will go way down or stop completely. They’ll realize the error of their ways! Fear Psych!
  Whoops. Conservatives and Republicans continued, year after year, to fail to provide proper funding for drug treatment clinics. They didn’t want the psych-factor to occur among drug addicts. The addicts might see those carpeted clinics as a reward for breaking the law. Drug use went up, selling drugs became more profitable because the incarceration possibility was more likely. The majority of the imprisoned are minorities as they are the easiest to arrest, living more poorly, more visibly. New and cheaper drugs were invented in the streets to better feed and begin new addictions.
  
• Criminalize abortion services and that will cause pregnant teens and women to realize they love their fetuses, and then they will carry their little babies to term, and will probably keep them and wrap them up in soft pink or blue little blankets and will great parents. And we can indoctrinate them into Christianity while they are staying at our “women’s health center.” Criminalization Psych-Out!
  Whoops! Several newly pregnant young mothers committed suicide in each state that has severely restricted abortion each year. Many others mutilate themselves in attempts to abort their own fetus. Doctors establish hidden clinics to perform illegal abortions, risking their careers. Raped women, and those determined to abort are held in quasi jail-houses to carry to term forcefully.
  
• If you bomb a nation, killing civilians and destroying their homes, in order to get to an enemy faction within that nation. The people in that nation will rise up against the enemy faction, blaming them for the bombing and not you. War Psych!
  
  Whoops! Those people turned out to not be idiots. They knew who was dropping bombs on their heads, they experienced the death and destruction, and they saw no excuse good enough to pardon the bomb-droppers from their actions. In fact they now hate them with a vengeance and most of the regular populace has joined the enemy faction.

Often to carry out a Conservative Psych-Out, the conservative policy maker requires the presumption that the effected persons will be stupid, or just ignorant. But the policy begins focused upon people assumed to be so from the start – or else there would be no policy.
A conservative policy wonk might say: “Those stupid welfare mothers, those stupid Arabs, those stupid teenagers, those stupid pregnant sluts, those stupid drug addicts. They don’t know what’s best for them. We can concoct a solution which favors us primarily, them secondarily, and give the appearance to the population that we’re handling a problem. Why we’ll use psychology! Television psychology!”

If today’s Conservatives did not exist. We would have to invent them.

"Quick! Toss a Blanket of Denial Over that Angry Muslim Family!"

If anyone thinks for one moment that George W. Bush and the Cheney administration were ever intent on stopping terrorism, then they are thinking deficient loyalists of the authoritarian variety, followers, and champion deniers. The current leadership in Washington D.C. has not shown any evidence, through one single example, that they want to actually stop terrorism. Don’t get my allegations wrong: they want to kill terrorists, and their families, and anyone in the same neighborhood, and anyone they attach a new label of terrorist upon. But addressing the cause of the actions of terrorists is not in the White House rule book. In fact what they have done is to increase the numbers of persons who would be terrorists against us one day soon enough.

Iraq is in itself a recruiting tool for terrorism better than any could be. Americans killing tens of thousands of Muslim civilians with our fancy jets and missiles. Occupying a formerly secular and controlled nation for four years. Failing to rebuild our own destruction against a nation that never attacked us and had nothing to do with Nine Eleven. The repeated bombings of Baghdad and the atrocities of the Fallujah bombings alone were enough to solidify hatred against us. We set military bases in more than two hundred locations around the world, we established an air base on the land walked upon by Mohamed and left it there for more than ten years, kissing-up to a ruthless Saudi regime that oppressed its people tirelessly.

Many American Conservatives (about %27) just don’t get this. It is as if they are not capable of grasping causality. I continue to hear them phoning in to CSPAN or Air America Radio and being completely oblivious to the concept that being in Iraq, and killing more people, just makes more terrorists. That is contradictory to “fighting the war on terrorism.” But they don’t get it. They’ll say “ but if we get enough of them they’ll learn that we can’t be messed with, that they won’t get away with it again.” Well guess what my conservative village idiot, they are getting away with, Osama (if he did do it) is still not apprehended or dead.

Common statement: “Either we fight em over there or we fight em over here! I’m with Bush on that!”

Best reply: “You moron. Do you actually think that statement makes rational sense? We’re not fighting terrorists over there! Barely %5 of the insurgents in Iraq are from a foreign country, and those few are probably there because they hate our guts and they had some time off, like the majority of Muslim males, in the mid-east ages ten years old to ninety-eight! If anything we’re making more terrorists and providing a American-killing training ground for would be terrorists. Jesus H. Christ either you really do have s#@# for brains or you don’t take five minutes a day to read something that doesn’t say Fox News on it!”

Best evidence that the Bush crime family has no intention of stopping terrorism is that not one legitimate American arrest has been made of an actual terrorist. Not one trial of anyone legitimately proven to have connections to terrorist organizations. Sure, there’s been a coook or two, terrorist wanna-be's making confessions of Martyrdom grandeur. But no physical evidence, no reliable witnesses, just American political grandstanding. Back in the good old twentieth-century we used detective work to arrest terrorists, conduct real trials, and throw them in prison for life. Police work thus far has been focused upon violating the privacy rights of the rest of us, to find a few. It is our far more enlightened kin across the Atlantic that have been successful. The British and the Germans and Italians and the Spanish, don’t bomb their suspects into oblivion like little boys squashing an ant colony with a basketball on a boring day. They use good police work. They creep around their suspects and gather information. Silently, smartly, with advanced technology and under cover operatives, they actually find terrorists. This type of intervention is a real night mare to a Muslim extremist. Being arrested means he might spend his life alive in a prison cell – nightmare.

Fate Expectations

Ahh the glory years! Those hopeful times between the years of ten and thirty, when all was possible, when turning around a misfortune was always possible, when that feeling in the gut told you that one day, you could be rich! You the reader are a relatively young American Conservative who supports all efforts to better the economic plight of the wealthy and corporations, because they are like you, or so you think. That feeling you could be rich, has set you apart from the crowd of coupon cutters below you, and that separateness was well justified because society seemed to encourage it. You’ve carried that destined feeling with you into your young adulthood.

To defend that feeling of promise of fortune, you find that ignoring the plight of the poor helps in maintenance of the egocentric ball of future-fantasy that is embedded behind your daily thoughts. Your coldness for those riff-raft, in a way, proves that you are very different. “Why I’m obviously country club material!” You may tell yourself.

Rhetoric from the principle speakers for the political right wing aid you in justifying your attitude, and you have used these one-liners whenever someone questions your detachment to the poor. “They lack responsibility for themselves!” “They need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps – like I did!” “Anyone in this great country can make it – they just need the drive and the discipline!” “Its all those government handouts, its weakened their ambition, they’ve all become complacent!”

You grew up watching movies and television shows that reinforced the fortune destiny. At least once a week you watched some portrayal of a poor kid making it big – like you were certain you would one day. An impoverished Arthur pulls the sword Excalibur from the stone and his fortune is changed. Willy Wonka turns over his chocolate factory and fortune to the young and desperately poor Charlie Bucket – because of his honesty. The King of Persia falls in love with and marries the modest school teacher, her fortune changed dramatically. The tattered and common Eliza Doolittle is sculpted into a society lady and marries her mentor into a charming and wealthy life. Poor Aladdin finds the treasure of gold and a genie to grant his wishes.

Criminals also appear in these portrayals of poor gone rich. Steve McQueen in the Chase, escapes with a large cash booty and the pretty girl. Clint Eastwood kills off his competitors, the Good, the Bad and the Ugly, to win the buried cash fortune. In Oceans Eleven, Frank Sinatra robs casinos and escapes with millions. Of course there are dozens more examples to find. This genre’s theme is that a likeable criminal character (who must also be handsome or beautiful), is identified with by the viewer or reader, and he or she makes good in conflict against the odds of society.

As you, the American Conservative, travel through your life, recurring clues maintain the destiny myth within you; like the nice looking used car your grandfather just gave you with no questions asked. Or that four hundred dollars you won in the lottery, just one number short of the big multi-million dollar jackpot. That twenty dollars you found on the floor of the grocery store. Certainly these are signs of the fortune to come, right? It is a form of superstition, no doubt. It is so engrained you wouldn’t recognize it as such if a psychologist strapped you into a couch and worked-you-over using everything in the book.

It will take defeat for you to lose this self aggrandizing characteristic of destiny of fortune. Not just any defeat, but a type of which you clearly see that you controlled the conditions from the beginning. You’ll have to take responsibility for the defeat. If you don’t you’ll just continue expecting the pot of gold to fall in front of you, and mentally spitting on the poor when they come into sight.

If you reach the age of forty, and you find yourself in big house, with a big car, and a country club membership. You’ll meet with your friends at the club and bark derogatory criticisms at the poor and liberals and the ACLU, and mostly you’ll complain about taxes. You’ll have an ego as hard as steel what’s origins are buried in your brain behind a dense foliage of nerve bundles. That ego will be fortified with certainty that you were destined to live like this anyway, that it was just waiting for you.
On a summer night by your backyard pool, at a cocktail party, someone you know will call you a “world class asshole!” right to your face. It is likely to be your wife. They’ll be absolutely right.

Now its thirty years later and you are on your deathbed. You had a carpenter engrave the headboard with the word D-E-A-T-H, just to verify the bed’s purpose. You are alone and starring at the ceiling and thinking while the morphine is doing its work.

“What was the purpose of my life?”

“It must have been collecting all this crap. Yes that’s it, all the crap, good crap.”

“I knew I would make it good.”

“Stinking IRS! They’ve taken me for a ride!”

“Now I’ll have to pay that wretched Estate Tax after I’m dead. That’s gonna hurt!”

“If I hadn’t collected all this crap and money I wouldn’t have to worry about the stinking IRS.”

“Huh. I wouldn’t have to worry about the IRS. Huhh.”

“The purpose of life . . . was not to collect a bunch of stuff and money. It was to contribute to everyone else. To take a roll in bettering lives as my own got better. That’s where the satisfaction is . . . . was.”

“I’ve wasted these seventy years on myself alone. The world could sure do without me.”

Then, bitter and disappointed, you shut your eyes and your heart stopped.

Honor is a Lost Attribute for the Soldier of a Modern Army

It is a horrible statement of modern civilization’s lack of progress that we conduct warfare with tools and weapons that kill non-combatants by overwhelming ratios to soldiers killed. Great dishonor is carried by those who use this type of warfare, not excluding my own nation; the United States. In Lebanon the Israeli’s are conducting just such an offense against the people of Lebanon, in their goal of ridding that nation of Hezbollah armed militia. Sure, they say they had no intention of hurting civilians. But consider, if there is a way to conduct the battles without killing civilians, and they chose to fight in another manner of their choice, then it is not intention that is horrible, it is knowledge of consequences and the willingness to accept those outcomes that forces the moral burden upon them.

In the case of the Israeli and Lebanese/Hezbollah conflict, it is reasonable to expect that if the enemy is amongst the civilian population, that many civilians would die and be wounded, as has happened. As their reward for war the Israelis have seen but a fraction of dead Hezbollah fighters compared to innocent and unarmed civilians.

Every industrialized nation that has ever developed and shared or sold advanced weaponry is in part responsible for this type of warfare. We knew from the aerial bombardments of World War II and of Vietnam, that you can’t kill Gorilla Warfare targets with large, loud, foot falls, such as our bombs, artillery, missiles and airborne craft. With these expensive weapons we achieve the goal of killing more enemy with less loss of life on our side. Usually – in theory. How can any nation be expected to chose not to use the most effective weapons they have?

When the bombing is over the foot soldiers usually always discover the enemy lies in wait, sometimes miraculously unharmed. But the poor who could not flee, are dead or wounded and walk their neighborhoods in a daze, crushed humans bodies still intact, minds destroyed, family missing.

A war against Gorilla tactic requires the opposition to meet them at eye level. Face to face with their targets, a soldier can more easily see that he or she is shooting at an armed person and not a civilian running for cover or hiding. A great many civilians would survive this type of warfare. Unlike a bombing from the skies, knowing that the ground shooting is getting closer, non-combatants could run in the proper direction away, and save their own lives. But the loss on the side of the uniformed and well equipped opposition would be higher, their casualties far greater than if their choice were those expensive “stand-off,” weapons. Snipers, land mines, traps and ambushes would wait for the opposition as they crept through the urban streets discriminately, walking on veritable pins and needles.

As casualties mount for both sides, the opposition force that chose to go in on foot, rather than launch a faceless battle of one-sided technology launching, will see that there is a cost for honor. Their bravery on the ground is unparalleled. The result at battle’s end is very few dead and wounded civilians.

Honor is a lost trait among the industrialized armies of today. Sure recruiters say “honor,” a lot, in their commercials, but where has it gone to? Is there honor in an attack toward an area where civilians are likely to be? No. Honor is not only following orders or completing some test of your ability. Honor is felt within the self and is pure. Honor needs no verbal recognition from peers or superiors – it is that strong. The best example of this revered human trait is warfare, on the ground warfare, eyes meet eyes, and faces strained with the exertion of strength, swords of contention clashing as sweat is flying and fear is just beneath, put aside, for honor to be won.

Fredrick and Johnny were Earners

In progressive taxation the further away (or up the ladder) an earner is from living desperately or from hunger or homeless, determines what greater percentage of his whole, or fraction of his whole, of total annual earnings, The progressive system, in an ideological pure form, increases the revenue burden on the wealthy because their own welfare is not at stake.

As the illustration above shows, that drop in the bucket experienced by Bill Gates (on the right) does not effect his lifestyle, as his pie is still huge (numerically). Interestingly Bill Gates, a.k.a. Fredrick, perhaps one of the richest persons in the world, supports progressive taxation. Johnny on the left would have but a sliver of his pie left if his contribution to the general fund (federal taxes), were equivalent in percentage to Fredrick’s percentage. Funny thing about money is, the less of it you have, the more valuable it is to you. Conversely, the more of it you have the more of it can be disposable without threatening your lifestyle, opposed to Johnny – less valuable.

But loudly the vast majority of the wealthy complain. Lavishly they lobby our politicians, and aggressively they hire tax accountants and tax lawyers and stash their earnings in offshore accounts to keep more and more at amounts approximating seven hundred billion dollars annually. Having more money comes with a brain condition called greed. An irony is that pirates also suffered this condition in the eighteenth century, and they buried their treasure, also offshore.

When issues of taxation are discussed, its not just philosophy that separates the Economic Conservative (EC) from the Economic Social Liberal (ESL). Because the differences are so brightly polarized, I have to conclude its got to be a brain hemispheric difference. The humorous adage ‘ . . when you were a baby your mother must have dropped you on your head.” May apply in this area.

The ECs do not seem to understand the value of the mathematical fraction as expressed as a percentage. A percentage, or a fraction relative to the whole, has nothing to do with a specific amount of money dealt with, generally income earned. It is relative value that defeats the ECs case against Progressive Taxation. This is why so many simple economics instructions begin with nice round and small amounts for easier understanding.

Johnny works in the plastic factory. Johnny earns a dollar.

Fredrick works at Morgan-Chase-Stanley investment brokers. Fredrick earns a dollar in commission.

Johnny cashes his dollar at the payroll cashing store and pays the owner twenty-five cents of that dollar for the “service.” Johnny would like to use a bank but he needs two-hundred dollars and good credit to open an account.

Fredrick never saw his dollar, he has an arrangement, it automatically compounded into a mutual fund account that earned almost twenty percent last year. For this financial service Fredrick is charged only point six seven percent for the transaction on that dollar, or six tenths of one cent.

The next day an IRS agent pays a visit to Johnny at the plastic factory and informs him he owed taxes on yesterday’s earnings. Johnny contributed his share of eleven cents (or eleven percent) Johnny paid at the lowest income earning taxation level, because based on his previous year’s earnings, he will earn far less than most people working full time jobs. Johnny will file taxes on a one page form at the beginning of next year, the form’s formula will determine that he gets all of his federal income tax back, less of course his Social Security and Medicare payments to those federal government insurance programs.

Fredrick was in shock when he looked up from his plasma computer screen to see an IRS agent standing over him with serious look of business. He requested Fredrick’s contribution to the General Fund, and Fredrick handed him thirty-eight cents (or thirty-eight percent). The agent left and Fredrick was pissed. “That’s a lot of money dammit!” He slammed his fist onto his deck. Later that night at home in front of his eight foot fireplace, Fredrick drank a glass of Sherry, his ass on leather, his feet on mahogany, he thought about taxes:

“Its not right. I paid almost a hundred and fifty thousand last year, and what do I get? An IRS agent barging into my office for more? I get not food stamps, no free lunch, no special training, no help with colle . . well Ok I did get a lot of help with college. But nothing else! Shit on soap! That’s what I get!”

Johnny left the factory a seven p.m., it was already dark out and he appreciated the street lights that show the way and keep him safer, subsidized by the eleven cents he gave today, if the city had to pay for those alone, they would be off for sure. A police car sped by him, lights and siren on, it was speeding to someone’s aid. Again his city’s funds alone could never fund the entire police force of twelve cars. An ambulance followed within a minute, a service belonging to the fire department, another case of an expensive service that federal dollars subsidized, costly when they sit doing nothing, invaluable when they show-up within three minutes to save your life. Johnny crossed over the bridge, made of cement and steel, it spans the wide river in his city. To build it today would cost millions of dollars, to maintain it costs thousands per month. Again if the city had to pay in full, the bridge would be closed due to safety concerns. Johnny approached a big campaign billboard on the other side of the bridge, it showed the face of a man he knew, he had played darts with him at the pub a couple of times:

Joe M. Blow for Congress - You Dollars Should Be Accounted For!

Johnny remembered Joe’s vehemence about the money in Washington. He knows he was pissed off and determined to do something about it. Fortunately, and even Joe M. Blow knows, most money is accounted for pretty well, but there’s always those stories that anger the public, of those so called rip-offs. Joe is an average guy, when he gets past the local primary, he’ll get matching funds from the Federal Elections Commission, money well spent for representation of the type he promises.

Late that night Fredrick was still in his living room and the fire was dying down, he listened to a talk radio program and the host was matching his feelings and anger about taxes. He thought to himself “I should call in, boy I’m mad!”

“I paid almost a quarter of a million dollars I taxes last year! Why should I have to pay so much when I make so much to be taxed! I should get major tax breaks, I deserve them, I should get a rebate and we don’t need to give the middle class and the poor anything back because they don’t contribute like I do!”

Here is where it becomes convenient for Fredrick to speak of his tax contribution in terms of amounts (notice that when publicly stating his taxes paid he increased the true amount more than one third to emphasize his point more dramatically) but his taxation rate is not on his mind. Its convenient because in this example on the radio call in show, he is complaining for his own defense, for his own benefit To Fredrick its all about the money in real terms. It is that money in dollar amounts that leads Fredrick to feel his contribution is stronger, worth more, more valuable to society as a whole.

Fredrick’s income class, those making $200,000 or more annually supply slightly more than %87 of federal revenues from income tax. But so what. Its all relative. The group buys %100 of all caviar, fine wines, Bermuda beach houses, Mercedes Benzs. These victims of government oppression manage, even with their high tax rate, which is between %28 and %39.6, of reported income, after all deductions (which this income class is very good at using) to have the best that a material world could offer.

But Johnny’s dollar is worth more to Johnny than Fredrick’s dollar is worth to him. Fredrick will earn tens of thousands of dollars before the summer is over, he can use his spare dollars for toilet paper without guilt. Johnny has to think very carefully about every dime of every dollar spent. Johnny has to buy the generic can of beans instead of the B&M Boston Baked Beans which cost twenty cents more. Back at Johnny’s apartment he finds that the cable television is out, he was late with the payment, so Johnny sets up the antenna with foil wrapped around them. Johnny sets a cold beer down on his coffee table, one of three left in his refrigerator. His table, a electrical cable spool turned on its side. Johnny watches the game with snowy interference, he downs a hearty swallow of cold beer, and he thinks to himself: “I’ll never fucking get ahead! How would I? Its impossible.”

Come tax time Johnny will pay no federal income tax, after all allowable deductions and exemptions for his personal low income. He will be one of 43.3 million filers in this category. But he’ll not escape his State income taxes, or his State sales taxes, or a city tax he may pay, and his landlord will pay, using Johnny’s rent money, the property taxes on his building. He won’t escape a tax attached to his phone bill, his electric bill, his natural gas bill. Essentially everything single thing Johnny does is taxed, his groceries, his rent, his clothes, his car, his driver’s license and etc.. Are these things less valuable to Johnny than to Fredrick? No. They are more valuable to Johnny, they represent his livelihood.

From all of our lawmakers who we citizens and our parents elected, to the lawmakers long before them who have assembled a complex book of tax law, to the millions who sought more fairness to create those laws, its about the fraction of your earnings, a.k.a. the percentage from earnings. The large fraction that Fredrick pays is not just because he makes more, it is because he can do a lot more and have a lot more than Johnny, whether is Fredrick is taxed slightly or taxed more heavily. Fredrick has also benefited from society greatly: like his college loans which allowed him to get a BA, and the Securities and Exchanging Commission that has enforced and protected his stocks from corporate trust violations, and the government services in his neighborhood that increase the realty values increasing his own capital. His father went to college on the G.I. Bill, later his father bought his first home through a Veterans Administration housing loan, where would Fredrick be without the opportunities of his father? When his mother was dying her Medicare was her only payment method to receive care, her doctors knew their payment was guaranteed, the hospice knew their payment was guaranteed, and so her care was unquestionably reliable, without the Medicare Fredrick would have had to drop out of college to help his father meet expenses, they may have had to sell the house they occupied since the 1950s. Fredrick didn’t “pull himself up by the bootstraps.” Fredrick pulled himself up by the collective boot straps of others, of a society that realized the economy of opportunity is the best investment.

But now Fredrick sits in luxury and wants those poorer than he is to take a larger tax burden that he does or a more equal burden, so that hopefully in the balancing of federal revenues to expenditures, he can keep more of his own money. Fredrick has become an EC, he has lost his way while traveling in a sea of green. If being empathetic is what it takes to consider the plight of those without opportunity, Fredrick has successfully quashed that attribute in order to enable his pro rich-people stand. Denial is a river in Fredrick’s mind, that flows with green treasury paper and Fredrick is a man standing in that river. Under the wallet temperature bills that flow with vigor past Fredrick’s wading body are the decomposing bodies of the World War II generation, those who created the many programs used to help Fredrick – those who had confidence in the Great Society concept. He steps on them and wobbles a bit, but that’s not enough to tip him over.

Taking thirty-eight percent from Johnny would essentially wipe-him out. Johnny would indeed be pressed to meet basic human needs since he is already living on the edge between poverty and despair. While Fredrick’s earnings place him far above any need to begin to worry about eating, housing, child care, transportation, health care. So, taxing Fredrick still hurts him very little, this is why have a progressive tax system. As you “progress” up the ladder of economic success you can contribute a higher percentage of your income without being hurt in any of the manners that those below you may be hurt.

Liberals tend to understand Progressive Taxation, while the Economic Conservatives seem to selectively choose to deny that it is fair based upon their feelings of being unfairly burdened. The Conservatives may realize that the system is fair in concept, but they won’t admit it, because that would violate the very essence of their conscience of selfishness. Coinciding, the rich are more likely to vote for a conservative candidate to represent them, while the middle class and the poor (and those with advanced college degrees) tend to vote for the more Liberal candidates.

Simplification is now the call of the wild in the forest of reformers. National Sales Taxes are proposed, Flat Taxes proposed. Some dream of one little postcard we could all file our taxes with. Each of these tax hypotheses would eventually lead us back to a Progressive Taxation system similar to what we have today. How man years will that take? Twenty, forty years? It is just natural that we would divide into those who need certain deductions and exemptions and those not yet realizing they do, and it would start all over again. We would campaign to elect representatives who would get us our special deductions and exemptions, refunds, and allocations of special need. Because we are not the same. We are not uniform in our needs. We don’t stand on the same rung of the economic ladder. Thus we must contribute to the revenue stream progressively, based upon need. Based upon the distance on the ladder from the ground.