Myth Taken Politics:

Common Myths

Republicans are against unions
Republicans are not always anti-union, but generally side with big business over the interests of labor. But lost in much of the discussions, is the awareness that big business usually consists of unions of owners. These owners collectively bargain with their employees, either with the employees singly or in groups. Quite often those groups of employees are not based on unions, but instead on bureaucratic determinations made by the corporation. Republicans, and often Democrats, will side with the more powerful union of owners against the employees. Why is there a false understanding of corporations? Because clearly the market supports unions of owners over individual large owners and because of decades of misconceptions often fostered by corporations. Somehow many believe unions of owners are efficient and unions of employees or consumers are inefficient. Of course, democracy, a system based on the equality of humans, can be portrayed as inefficient in the short terms and tyranny of the powerful much more efficient. And that gets to the main distinction in the form of unions of owners versus employees, generally corporations are anti-democratic (power decided by wealth) versus unions of labor or consumers (power decided by people).
Republican leaders are against regulations
Look it up, regulations are essentially laws. What Republicans tend to be against are both laws and regulations that force corporations to favor protecting life over profits. Republicans tend to be strongly for regulations and laws that protect corporation profits and protect corportations being held accountable by a democratic society.
Social Security is running out of money
Repeating a lie doesn't make it so. Williams repeats the myth that Social Security is running out of money despite evidence and protestations to the contrary by Krugman. Unfortunately this myth is designed to allow a wealthy minority to steal the savings of generations of Americans.

Cures for the common myth

HeadlineUpdate
William Klein tears apart the headlines to get to the real story.
On the Media
Show that savages co-opted and self-censored media coverage.
RIP - Wall Street Journal
Until recently, perhaps, the best newspaper in the United States. Murdoch decided to squeeze the life out of this golden goose. Previously had fantastic muckracking pieces. The ruling class preferred WSJ to the whitewashed and watered down mass media.
Technorati
Hidden among the millions of blogs and RSS feeds is the vox populi.

Complaining about the deficit gives cover to Republicans try and cut government programs for the middle class without actually cutting the debt thanks to more tax cuts.
Complaining about the surplus and paying off the debt too quickly, gave Republicans cover a decade ago to give the huge tax breaks, especially to the wealthy. ^[1] Thanks to the Bush tax breaks and wars, we had an anemic economy that led to huge deficits.
Misrepresenting the cause of the deficit as being caused solely by government spending makes it politically easier to increase the transfer of wealth from average people to the rich through tax cuts. (Much of government spending actually is highly productive, efficient and often impossible for the private sector: think Social Security that keeps seniors spending and not burdening their families, highways that keep commerce possible, the Internet which the government created and gave to the world for free, GPS which is free to use and maintained by the government, food safety that keeps people alive so they can participate in the economy, etc.)
Cutting taxes for the wealthy creates more government debt, that the wealthy can then take the free money from the tax cuts and invest in government debt and yachts. This is the simple equation that drives Republicans to love deficits. Everyone else can eat cake.^[2]
Making sure that the government is in debt allows for a stable investment for diversified investment portfolios including for the wealthy. Think of the instability without the bond market with the AAA ratings.^[3] ^[4] ^[5]
The deficit and government debt creates a more stable economy for allowing the wealthy and corporations to move jobs and industry to other countries. Foreign governments and other foreign entities would probably not allow for such a trade deficit without destroying the U.S. economy or the dollar, if it were not for the option of holding stable U.S. government debt.^[6]