The Ryan Budget; Pigs, Apples, and Milk

The Ryan Budget; Pigs, Apples, and Milk

 (The Pigs Have Every Right to The Windfall Apples

 and the all of the Milk, Just look to the Overton Window)

Paul Ryan in Your Pockets: Government by People Who Hate You.  On April 11, 2011, Dean Baker wrote in the Huffington Post about the Ryan Budget Proposal. In the title he asserts that the far right hates us.  I do not agree, I believe Ryan’s draconian proposal is not about hate but a device for controlling what you think and what you are willing to accept.  Hate is not required just the willingness to manipulate your perceptions of reality. 

The right wing talkers all know how this game is played.  Beck has written a book titled The Overton Window.  This is pure Any Randian manipulation of the thought of the body politic.  Fox news will now devote a massive effort to getting people to see that Ryan’s budget is actually a reasonable solution to our financial crisis. Charles Krauthammer, O’Rielly, Beck, Hannity, and Limbaugh began moving the Overton Window of political possibilities before Ryan had released his budget.   They know how to begin building momentum to shift thinking to the extreme right, they do it for a living.

The MACKINAC CENTER for Public Policy,  http://www.mackinac.org/7504, is a Private “Think Tank”  where Overton developed the notion of his window for shaping public thought.  It is a think tank devoted to deregulation and privatization of our government.  They advocate using techniques to change what people think they think. 

In a blog on The Mackinac Center’s website Nathan Russell provides An Introduction to the Overton Window of Political Possibilities Jan. 4, 2006.   Mr. Russell explained: “Imagine, if you will, a yardstick standing on end. On either end are the extreme policy actions for any political issue. Between the ends lie all gradations of policy from one extreme to the other. The yardstick represents the full political spectrum for a particular issue. The essence of the Overton window is that only a portion of this policy spectrum is within the realm of the politically possible at any time. Regardless of how vigorously a think tank or other group may campaign, only policy initiatives within this window of the politically possible will meet with success”.

It is the task of the shaper of thinking then,  to move the window of possibilities as far as possible to insure that the desired policy is “within the realm of the politically possible”.  Russell quotes Milton Friedman in his preface to the 1982 edition of Capitalism and Freedom: "That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable."

Friedman was a major force in using the Overton Window to help deregulate our financial markets and banks.  He was an advisor to all Republicans presidents and was especially influential on Reagan’s thinking.  The use of the Overton Window, as described by Milton Friedman, played a major role in the ultimate collapse of our economy because of deregulation.

In his Huffington Post article about Ryan’s Budget proposal, Dean Baker says that.:”When it comes to redistributing money upward, the bar for intellectual coherence is set very low. Pundits from across the political spectrum had a hard time containing their enthusiasm for”.  Mr. Baker you are simply  witnessing the effective use by the right of the Overton Window.

Mr. Baker, Intellectual Coherence Does not need to be high when  you are in the process of shifting the Overton Window of Political possibilities further to the right.  This may ring a bell or two if you have ever read Orwell’s Animal Farm: “The importance of keeping the pigs in good health was all too obvious. So it was agreed without further argument that the milk and the windfall apples (and also the main crop of apples when they ripened) should be reserved for the pigs alone."

Mr. Baker, Ryan’s budget insures that the milk and the windfall apples (Animal Farm’s Version of Wealth) will be reserved for the wealthiest 1% of us.  The rest will have to grovel for what is left.  If they employ the Overton Window well, we will believe that it was our own idea.