Most Popular
1. It’s a New Macro, the Gold Market Knows It, But Dead Men Walking Do Not (yet)- Gary_Tanashian
2.Stock Market Presidential Election Cycle Seasonal Trend Analysis - Nadeem_Walayat
3. Bitcoin S&P Pattern - Nadeem_Walayat
4.Nvidia Blow Off Top - Flying High like the Phoenix too Close to the Sun - Nadeem_Walayat
4.U.S. financial market’s “Weimar phase” impact to your fiat and digital assets - Raymond_Matison
5. How to Profit from the Global Warming ClImate Change Mega Death Trend - Part1 - Nadeem_Walayat
7.Bitcoin Gravy Train Trend Forecast 2024 - - Nadeem_Walayat
8.The Bond Trade and Interest Rates - Nadeem_Walayat
9.It’s Easy to Scream Stocks Bubble! - Stephen_McBride
10.Fed’s Next Intertest Rate Move might not align with popular consensus - Richard_Mills
Last 7 days
Nvidia Numero Uno in Count Down to President Donald Pump Election Victory - 5th Nov 24
Trump or Harris - Who Wins US Presidential Election 2024 Forecast Prediction - 5th Nov 24
Stock Market Brief in Count Down to US Election Result 2024 - 3rd Nov 24
Gold Stocks’ Winter Rally 2024 - 3rd Nov 24
Why Countdown to U.S. Recession is Underway - 3rd Nov 24
Stock Market Trend Forecast to Jan 2025 - 2nd Nov 24
President Donald PUMP Forecast to Win US Presidential Election 2024 - 1st Nov 24
At These Levels, Buying Silver Is Like Getting It At $5 In 2003 - 28th Oct 24
Nvidia Numero Uno Selling Shovels in the AI Gold Rush - 28th Oct 24
The Future of Online Casinos - 28th Oct 24
Panic in the Air As Stock Market Correction Delivers Deep Opps in AI Tech Stocks - 27th Oct 24
Stocks, Bitcoin, Crypto's Counting Down to President Donald Pump! - 27th Oct 24
UK Budget 2024 - What to do Before 30th Oct - Pensions and ISA's - 27th Oct 24
7 Days of Crypto Opportunities Starts NOW - 27th Oct 24
The Power Law in Venture Capital: How Visionary Investors Like Yuri Milner Have Shaped the Future - 27th Oct 24
This Points To Significantly Higher Silver Prices - 27th Oct 24
US House Prices Trend Forecast 2024 to 2026 - 11th Oct 24
US Housing Market Analysis - Immigration Drives House Prices Higher - 30th Sep 24
Stock Market October Correction - 30th Sep 24
The Folly of Tariffs and Trade Wars - 30th Sep 24
Gold: 5 principles to help you stay ahead of price turns - 30th Sep 24
The Everything Rally will Spark multi year Bull Market - 30th Sep 24
US FIXED MORTGAGES LIMITING SUPPLY - 23rd Sep 24
US Housing Market Free Equity - 23rd Sep 24
US Rate Cut FOMO In Stock Market Correction Window - 22nd Sep 24
US State Demographics - 22nd Sep 24
Gold and Silver Shine as the Fed Cuts Rates: What’s Next? - 22nd Sep 24
Stock Market Sentiment Speaks:Nothing Can Topple This Market - 22nd Sep 24
US Population Growth Rate - 17th Sep 24
Are Stocks Overheating? - 17th Sep 24
Sentiment Speaks: Silver Is At A Major Turning Point - 17th Sep 24
If The Stock Market Turn Quickly, How Bad Can Things Get? - 17th Sep 24
IMMIGRATION DRIVES HOUSE PRICES HIGHER - 12th Sep 24
Global Debt Bubble - 12th Sep 24
Gold’s Outlook CPI Data - 12th Sep 24

Market Oracle FREE Newsletter

How to Protect your Wealth by Investing in AI Tech Stocks

Facts, And Understanding, Are Often In Conflict:

Politics / US Politics Aug 26, 2009 - 10:24 PM GMT

By: Danny_Schechter

Politics

Best Financial Markets Analysis ArticleLiving In A Culture of Delusion Leads To Denial, Ignorance and Worse

What do we have a right to know?  In this web-based age, where we can Google almost everything, you’d think we would be better informed than we are.


We have Freedom of Information laws and a President who has promised transparency, offering some details on what he’s doing on an easy to access website. 

Yet, there is much more that we still don’t know, and maybe never will

At long last, a report on CIA abuse of detainees came out, but years after the fact, and in a heavily “redacted” form—i.e censored. Already the prosecutor chosen to prosecute says there’s not enough information there to do so. Duh?

The Presidents “Pay Czar” is afraid to release what he’s found out about corporate compensation for fear it might lead, heaven forbid, to naming “targets of populist anger.”

Reuters reports, “Kenneth Feinberg has said he is uncertain how much information will be made public. Privacy laws and fears that highly compensated executives will become targets for populist anger argue for limiting such disclosure.

“Feinberg, speaking on Martha's Vineyard on August 16 in his only public remarks since becoming President Obama's point-man on executive pay, called the issue of disclosure "a serious problem."

"There is a tension between not wanting to put on the front page of every newspaper in the country the specific compensation packages of these individuals ... versus the public's right to know," he said.”

What are they afraid of? Apparently, embarrassing protest. Here’s the worry cited:  an earlier disclosure sparked criticism of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner  “and prompted left-leaning groups to organize bus tours to visit the homes of AIG employees.”

OMG, Oh no!

Sometimes the scales of justice tip in the public’s direction. A judge is ordering the Federal Reserve Bank to reveal information it has insisted on keeping secret. That’s a good thing.

Bloomberg reports,“Manhattan Chief U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska rejected the central bank’s argument that the records aren’t covered by the law because their disclosure would harm borrowers’ competitive positions. The collateral lists “are central to understanding and assessing the government’s response to the most cataclysmic financial crisis in America since the Great Depression,” according to the lawsuit that led to yesterday’s ruling.’ No doubt the Bank will appeal!

The absence of information, pervasive media misinformation and the spin control exercised by powerful lobbies influences what people know,  think, and think about.  Or, more likely, don’t think about!

It gets even worse when people cling to beliefs even when they are not true, as if there is a need to believe, facts be dammed.

James Howard Kuntsler has been tracking the financial decline. He writes,  “The key to the current madness, of course, is this expectation, this wish, really, that all the rackets, games, dodges, scams, and workarounds that American banking, business, and government devised over the past thirty years - to cover up the dismal fact that we produce so little of real value­ these days - will just magically return to full throttle, like a machine that has spent a few weeks in the repair shop. This is not going to happen, of course.”

Sounds right, but will people who so want the economy to miraculously bounce back accept this reality or do they prefer ambiguity and  denial?

A new study even says that many of us lean towards comfortable truths, and reject uncomfortable ones. 

One Journal reports: “In a study published in the most recent issue of the journal Sociological Inquiry, sociologists from four major research institutions focus on one of the most curious aspects of the 2004 presidential election: the strength and resilience of the belief among many Americans that Saddam Hussein was linked to the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Although this belief influenced the 2004 election, they claim it did not result from pro-Bush propaganda, but from an urgent need by many Americans to seek justification for a war already in progress.
“The findings may illuminate reasons why some people form false beliefs about the pros and cons of health-care reform or regarding President Obama's citizenship, for example.

“The study, "There Must Be a Reason: Osama, Saddam and Inferred Justification" calls such unsubstantiated beliefs "a serious challenge to democratic theory and practice" and considers how and why it was maintained by so many voters for so long in the absence of supporting evidence.”

So, our culture not only forges consciousness but also manufactures false consciousness.

Take the idea of equality. We think our country is embracing more equality when, in fact, facts point in another direction, i.e, towards greater and greater economic inequality.

Writing in the London Review of Books. Walter Benn Michaels challenges our illusions on this issue in an essay on “Who Cares about the White Working Class?” edited by Kjartan Páll Sveinsson:

“An obvious question, then, is how we are to understand the fact that we’ve made so much progress in some areas while going backwards in others. And an almost equally obvious answer is that the areas in which we’ve made progress have been those which are in fundamental accord with the deepest values of neoliberalism, and the one where we haven’t isn’t.

“We can put the point more directly by observing that increasing tolerance of economic inequality and increasing intolerance of racism, sexism and homophobia – of discrimination as such – are fundamental characteristics of neoliberalism. Hence the extraordinary advances in the battle against discrimination, and hence also its limits as a contribution to any left-wing politics. The increased inequalities of neoliberalism were not caused by racism and sexism and won’t be cured by – they aren’t even addressed by – anti-racism or anti-sexism….

“Thus the primacy of anti-discrimination not only performs the economic function of making markets more efficient, it also performs the therapeutic function of making those of us who have benefited from those markets sleep better at night.”

The truth is: we continue to live a world of delusions. See Chris Hedges new  Book, Empire of Illusion for more deatail.

The fight for transparency and more information is critical, but it has to be accompanied by an effort to explain “the facts” and connect the dots. That’s the only way to find truth. 

News Dissector Danny Schechter, blogger in chief at www.Medichannel.org, is making a film based on his book PLUNDER (Cosimo) news.dissector.com/plunder. Comments to Dissector@mediachannel.org

© 2009 Copyright Danny Schechter - All Rights Reserved
Disclaimer: The above is a matter of opinion provided for general information purposes only and is not intended as investment advice. Information and analysis above are derived from sources and utilising methods believed to be reliable, but we cannot accept responsibility for any losses you may incur as a result of this analysis. Individuals should consult with their personal financial advisors.


© 2005-2022 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.


Post Comment

Only logged in users are allowed to post comments. Register/ Log in