20 September 2010 Happy days are here again?

By Chris Isidore, senior writerSeptember 20, 2010: 1:45 PM ET



“NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The Great Recession ended in June 2009, according to the body charged with dating when economic downturns begin and end. But the news comes amid rising fears of a double-dip recession.

The National Bureau of Economic Research, an independent group of economists, released a statement Monday saying economic data now clearly points to the economy turning higher last summer.



That makes the 18-month recession that started in December 2007 the longest and deepest downturn for the U.S. economy since the Great Depression.”

http://money.cnn.com/2010/09/20/news/economy/recession_over/index.htm?hpt=T1

This should be wonderful news, made even more welcome by its proximity to the coming mid-term elections. Certainly the Democrats will welcome good economic news. The Tea Party mobs will claim it is untrue and the GOP will do everything it can to roll the economic situation back to September of 2008.

The GOP has a propaganda arm that exceeds the Goebbels machine’s ability to convince people that they should vote against their own self interests. How many American citizens lacking health insurance are currently parading around with signs denouncing national health insurance as “socialized medicine?” Forget, for the moment that our health care system is largely socialized. How do you convince people who need health insurance desperately to scream that it should not be provided by the government? How do you convince voters that they should vote to block their own access to health care? How do you convince voters that the wealthy should not pay taxes but that the former middle class should?

I don’t know the answers to those questions but I know that generating that voter sentiment requires lies, horrible lies, keyed upon making the voter feel that he will suddenly be paying for insurance for “the lazy”, “the illegal”, and the “undeserving.” The voter has to be made to forget that insurance companies are already adding huge amounts to his premiums – assuming he still has a job and health insurance benefits- to pay for the citizens who no longer can afford insurance benefits, the illegals, and the stupid who feel they should not have to buy insurance. And sure enough the GOP machine can somehow generate the propaganda that fills that demand.

The Democrats, the pitiful remnants of the party that built Social Security, that desegregated the armed forces, passes civil rights legislation, and crafted Medicare, while defeating the GOP’s “let the poor die” platform, no longer have the courage or the coalition to pass a bill lowering taxes for the former middle class. The Obama administration has actually done some positive things that kept the US economy from tanking and taking the world along with it. But they had to do some things that angered the public, propping up big banks and the auto industry. Then they dragged their feet on financial reform and essentially let the same bastards who created the bank failures write their own regulatory laws, making it all too likely that they will start gambling with the public’s money once again.

They, the Democrats, have positive results to trumpet. But the GOP machine is louder, slicker, and plays to the anti-intellectualism and racism/xenophobia that is swamping the results of a sadly degraded educational system. It’s an uphill slog for the part of the Democratic machine that still has a voter base to reach. It’s far easier to ignore the poorly educated, to allow the Swift-boating and other lies to blow candidates out of the game. It’s also cheaper. The GOP raises money from the fearful. The folks who are afraid of dark skin,

Spanish, Islam, tax-funded healthcare for all citizens are going to make certain the GOP has enough money to lie about any Democratic candidate with a glimmer of hope.

The political machinery of the Roosevelt days and even those of Truman’s era up through LBJ’s terms knew how to raise money, raise hopes, and turn out the voters. They pointed out the GOP lies and made certain that everyone had a chance to refute them for the BS they were. FDR talked to the people, gave them hope, nor discouragement. Truman spoke the language of the common man and called bigotry and hatred out on its home turf. JFK dealt with his religion at the beginning and then ignored it. The LBJ campaign fielded the most impressive, most frightening, and most powerful campaign ad ever use. The mushroom cloud ad won the election for LBJ.

Obama needs a speechwriter who can move the anti-intellectual, repulse the lies about his political and religious philosophies. He needs to put fire into his speeches, hammer the lies and then let others reinforce that effort. He needs to ignore demagogues and point the way Congress should proceed, needs to systematically lay out every instance where the GOP has blocked his efforts and then castigate the Democrats and his own administration for letting them do it.

I’m glad the recession has ended. It isn’t that evident here. People have no jobs, no insurance, no money, and no hope. It may have ended for the economists. For the populace, for most of us, it looks like the hard times are still knocking at cabin doors.

The solutions that worked in the Great Depression will eventually work in the “Reagan-Bush, not-so-great recession.” We need infrastructure repairs, parks need cleaning up, and we need people to care for the aged and the young. We need people to join VISTA and America Corps programs once Congress gets off their ass and stops letting the minority GOP call the tunes. The Democrats can still pull their feet out of the flames if they remember who they once were. They need to stop fighting internally, plan a platform and fight for it as if their lives depend upon it. I think they do.

I’d like to see the Democrats bring back “Happy Days Are Here Again” this year. Sure, it is an old song, older than most voters. But its lyric, its melody, and its message worked up through 1964. Truthfully I can’t think of a better theme song or a better wish for American voters.

David Gans wrote two tremendous songs about the American Condition which can be found on his web site. “An American Family” and “Save Us From The Saved” are perfect in content and intent for this campaign. I encourage you to look them up at http://www.trufun.com/lyrics.html. The rest of his music is top-flight as well. If he’s playing in your area, find a way to see and hear him perform.

We’d better push these songs and the philosophy they project. If the GOP and the Tea Party/Theocrats take this election, we’re going to be spending at least another decade singing “Buddy, Can You Spare A Dime.”