In the 1960s the progressive movement that changed the world was often accused of looking at the world through "rose-colored glasses." This was a boon for the tinted glasses industry, because rose colored glasses actually became a short lived fashion trend. But, after almost 40 years looking at the 1960s through the rear view mirror, it seems that many of the optimists of the 1960s were wrong in assuming that things could be changed as permanently as they had hoped. The opponents of the many social reforms of the 1960s have regrouped and reasserted their strength through the conservative religious groups. Similarly the wealthy conservatives have been able to ride the wave of the social conservatives to write new laws to protect their wealth. The recent extension of the tax cuts on dividends shows that their power hasn't waned.
The truth is that the rose-colored glasses are now on the faces of the supporters of the Republicans and the conservative movement. These people who are wearing these glasses continue to support the Republican agenda and the Bush administration, regardless of the truth that has been pouring out over the last three or four years. And, over these last three or four years the Republicans who were wearing those rose-colored glasses were willing to only see the world in those shades of pink and red.
For example, the deception used to maintain support of the American people during the build up to the War in Iraq was classic manipulation. The supporters of the Bush administration and the Republican leadership donned their rose-colored glasses and accepted the version of the need for war fed to them by the conservatives planted in the media. When the bias in the Fox News version of the war became apparent, these supporters continued to wear their trusty rose-colored glasses and continued to believe what they were told. These glasses either filtered out the ability of the wearer to watch other networks, or believe what they said. Journalists like Judy Miller continued to pound the "facts" that the Bush administration fed her, without checking into the truth of what she was told. And, those wearing these special glasses used her biased writing to support their rose-colored view of the world.
The Bush administration told us about weapons of mass destruction (WMD), which was a clever way to group chemical, biological and nuclear weapons together. In this way the administration was able to warn us of the dangers of WMD, because "...the smoking gun could be a mushroom cloud." This statement about WMDs clearly referred to the nuclear component of this group. In logic we would ask the question: "If WMDs include chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, and we know that there are WMDs in Iraq, then do we know that there are nuclear weapons in Iraq?" Obviously, it is clear that we do not know that, but the American people don't do so well on logic tests. So, the Bush administration was able to use fear by grouping these three types of weapons together, and distorting the logic. The Bush administration was fairly confident that Iraq had chemical weapons, because the US sold them to Saddam Hussein and he used them in the Iraq-Iran war. The Bush administration used the following logic to gain support for the war they already decided to enter based on the Downing Street memos. They told us to fear WMDs, because WMDs contain nuclear weapons which are really bad. They told us that they knew that Iraq had WMDs, but they didn't mention that they were sure about this because they knew they had chemical weapons. And, the Republicans wearing the rose-colored glasses never questioned this flawed logic.
This strategy was so successful that the Bush administration thought that they could use this same logic again. This time they decided to use it on the immigration issue. In George W Bush's speech on Monday night he told us that amnesty for illegal immigrants was bad. In this way he hoped to keep the support of the xenophobic conservatives who make up 20% of the Republican Party. The common understanding of amnesty is forgiveness for breaking a law. So, the Bush administration is using the twisting of logic once again in order to keep these conservatives on his side without attacking 12 million illegal immigrants living in our country. The reason he doesn't want to enforce the law, is not because deporting 12 million people from the US would break up families. No, Bush does not want to deport 12 million people from the US because this would drive wages up for the types of work that these people do, namely agriculture, meat packing, garment sewing and even manufacturing. This might sound good for the US economy, but the truth is that a sudden change like this would cause an unknown economic effect. And, fiscal conservatives don't like sudden economic changes of any type, because it means increased risk.
In the long run, setting wages to a reasonable level would reflect the true cost of these products and even if food and clothing will go up in price so will wages until equilibrium is found once again.
So, George W Bush has decided that changing the status of illegal immigrants from illegal to guest worker will solve the opposition to "amnesty" issue. But, since amnesty does not really depend on the status of a person, unless the status changes from illegal to legal. And, changing a person status from illegal to guest worker does actually change their status from illegal to legal. So, this really is forgiveness to a person who broke the law, which by definition is amnesty. George W Bush is just trying to avoid the use of the word amnesty by granting amnesty under another name. This is typical George W Bush (or should we say Karl Rove) deception, just on another issue. Whatever your stance on the immigration issue one must admit that George W Bush is spinning another yarn once again. And, since the American people aren't that great with logic they might not see this, especially if they have their rose-colored glasses on.
The good news is that some conservatives from the xenophobic 20% of the Republican Party have seen through George W Bush's redefinition of amnesty. Now, the truth should be sought and the problem should be dealt with honestly, but honesty isn't something that George W Bush is good at. But, maybe some good could come out of this issue. If the xenophobes in the Republican Party realize that George W Bush is pulling this logic trick on them because they took off their rose-colored glasses, then maybe they will look around at the other George W Bush deceptions while they have those glasses off. And, once they begin to realize that the "amnesty" redefinition isn't the first and only deception they just might begin to be honest about the other issues that they had once supported.
Or, maybe not, maybe I am just looking at the mess we are in here in America through my own rose-colored glasses, hoping against the odds that we will be able to correct the damage that this administration has done.
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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."
Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit