Busting the Bubble!

Obama won. "That happened. That really happened."

Here, Rachal Maddow recaps the campaign propaganda from the right, showcases the crazy talk of Romney's certain victory, captures the stunned Fox News team as Ohio goes to Obama, and ends with a plea for Republicans to sober up, escape the primal bubble, and join the rest of America here in reality, solving real problems based on "real facts."

Priceless.

True Freedoms

This election season has brought truth to an all-time low -- certainly in our lifetimes.

Day after day, commentators like Rachal Maddow, Chris Matthews and others broadcast the video moments that expose the outright lies by candidates Romney and Ryan, and their Superpac supporters. There's even a picture of Romney with the caption, "I can lie faster then you can fact check!" He may or may not be faster, but it's abundantly clear that Romney doesn't care about truth.

Of course the right wing media is dishing up the same propaganda. The Wall Street Journal has offered Karl Rove's twisted view of reality in America some 27 times in the six months leading up to this election. In this parallel universe "Obama's Biggest Opponent Is the Truth," not their candidate who will say anything to get elected.

Why hasn't the traditional media given more exposure to Romny's and Ryan's blatant lies? Some say that they suffer from story fatique and they may be right. How many times can they run the same story, "Romney lies again," before readers tune out? Besides, it's traditional media that is benefiting from the hundreds of millions spent on this propaganda, so they're hardly motivated to squelch these falsehoods.

On the rare occasions they expose the hypocrisy, it almost always comes along with the disclaimer that Democrats do it too. This false equivalency is utter non-sense! It's like comparing Bernie Madoff to other stockbrokers to say, well, they all bend the truth.

It's today's Republicans party that gave us self servants like candidate Romney and Vice President Cheney. That lied us into war. That fields crazies like Bachmann, Akin, Mourdock and others for public service. That suppresses the vote in Democratic precincts and with voter ID laws. That reveres professional cynics like Rove, Limbaugh, Beck, and Coulter. Talk about UnAmerican "retards!" Any one of these characters could be written into Orwell's 1984 without one bit of embellishment. If Lincoln were alive today, he's be a Democrat.

True Americans Act with Integrity.

Let's be Integrity Voters. Let's vote for good leadership regardless of party and, in doing so, hand this "Rove-ing" Republican circus a resounding defeat. 

Let's get back to what truly matters in business, life, and America: Integrity.

Spread the word.

Replace SOPA/PIPA with Link To Source!

Anyone for Lemonade?

Clay Shirky's Copyrighted Photo!If the goal of SOPA/PIPA is to squelch free speach, then these draconian bills will accomplish just that. 

If these bills pass, citizens and service providers alike will feel the crushing weight of big media, as did the owners of the College Bakery in Brooklyn who threw up their hands and will no longer print a 2nd graders artwork for fear of copyright infringemnet. 

Under the SOPA Act, this copyrighted photo (shown on the right) could be ripped from this website and theoretically the domain I paid dearly for, "bigdreams.com," could be forfeited a punishmnet! How nuts it that?

BTW, in the spirit of Link to Source, be sure to view Clay Shirky's Ted talk on why SOPA is a bad idea. It was this video that inspired me to write this post.

I'm a marketing guy, not a lawyer.

Yet, it seems to me that big media is missing the most massive marketing opportunity ever before in history of civilization!

Rather than suppress free speech and restrict "fair use," why not simply demand a Link to Source wherever copyrighted material is used in public expression? 

In this reality, snippets of copyrighted material can be used at will, virtually any where, any time -- as it is today -- under the same common sense rules known as "fair use." In return, big and little copyrighters alike justly deserve attribution, i.e. a Link to Source.

And, if some 2nd grader draws a Mickey Mouse for her birthday, the College Bakery would need only include "Inspired by Disney.com" on the cake!

Imagine millions of attributions and hyperlinks from all over the web to big media stores! How many more sales would that create? Or millons of links to thought leaders like Clay Shirky! How much more influence would that create?

For example, on this day in October 2012 Google has 51,100 uses of this timeless quote from the Lion King, "It doesn't matter, it's in the past," which are explicitly declared to be in context to the "Lion King" and not just a regurgitation of these words in someone's musings. Potentially, this would result in 51,100 new links back the Disney!

Guided by the principle that a Link to Source Act (a LTS Act?) should not create an undue burden on public expression if implemented. Yet, wouldn't a Link to Source create a win-win for all? I can even imagine the rallying cry:

Attribution, not Retribution!

-- BigDreams.Com

Class action attorneys have figured this out. Mult-million dollar settlements are often implemented in the form of credits that effectively tether users to future products and services. Ticketmaster's $260,000,000.00 settlement, for example, comes in the form of $1.50 credits that they only pay out of future ticket sales. Here they've taken a bad situation and made lemonade!

In that spirit, adding a Link to Source mandate would leave public expression unchanged but for the massive sucking sound of cash flowing to copyrighters around the world!

Who could complain about that!

The "Job Creator" Lie

Nick Hanauer is a venture capatilist and knows a thing or two about creating jobs. In his TED talk he made this lie perfectly clear:

“Since 1980 the share of income for the top 1% of Americans have more than tripled, while our effective tax rates has gone down by 50%... If it was true that lower taxes for the rich -- and more wealth for the wealthy -- led to “job creation,” today we would be drowning in jobs ….. And yet, unemployment and under employment is at records highs.” -- Nick Hanauer 

He goes on to say “We’ve had it backwards for the last 30 years…. In a capitalist economy the true job creators are middle-class consumers. And taxing the rich to make investments that make the middle class grow and thrive is the single shrewdest thing we can do for the middle class, for the poor, and for the rich.”

Briliant. Simply briliant.

Rather than this bold face lie we hear from the Republicans, it was Henry Ford who had it right. He paid his workers well, as he stived to make a car that anyone with a good wage could affort to own.

“There is one rule for the industrialist and that is: Make the best quality of goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible.” 

― Henry Ford

Who thinks in terms of "paying the highest wages possible" anymore? 

Hanauer points out that he only owns three cars and while he could afford to buy thousands, why would he? Without a strong middle-class -- the aspiring 99% -- there will never be enough demand to create jobs.

The solution then is spending on infrstructure and other measures that lead to, or retain, good paying US jobs. Plus we need a new National vision for "Made in America."

This is just math and damn good common sense.

Note-- So if not "Job Creators," just what are employers? Simple. They are Job Fillers and Killers, depending on demand and incentives. And let's not forget, the cost of each employee is FULLY deductable so what's this about tax rates and jobs? In fact, the higher the rate the more attractive it is to spend on growth -- not the other way around.  

The role of the collective is to ensure that the right incentives are in place.