My blood boils when I listen to conservative radio talk show hosts speak about how the government is out to soak the rich, and by proxy soak the 'hard working American middle class.' In the same breath, and I know this because I just heard it said on the radio a few moments ago, the same talkers will excuse big business relocating to other countries because they say the taxes are unfair on the people who create jobs. Honestly it's like they are stringing words together without any forethought as to their meaning.

How on the one hand can you say extremely wealthy people deserve a tax break because they help create jobs, and in the same minute say it is OK for those same folks to take the money they save and spend it overseas because they can't get a fair shake here?

Can you understand why some people hear the rhetoric given by the conservative pundits and right wing politicians and shake their heads wondering how so many people can vote in their own self interest?

In the little talk I heard a few moments ago there were so many inaccuracies, misdirections and out and out lies it was hard to catalog all of them. If there is one thing I would like to say to the vast majority of Americans, it would be you are NOT the super-rich. Stop thinking you are the super-rich, that you will become the super-rich and realize when they talk about raising the taxes on the rich they are not talking about you. I understand the American dream is to become rich, but what us common folk think of as being rich isn't rich. Spike Lee many years ago was asked the question about the large amount of black athletes becoming rich. It was when you saw the whole bling thing start up, with the gaudy large houses athletes were getting, and of course the subject came up about black people making it in America. Spike Lee pointed out the athlete who sported the gold encrusted Rolex wasn't rich. The sports player might have a few years to earn the salary they got, maybe they might get lucky and get an endorsement deal, but the owner of the sports team he played for was really rich. A player flaunting bling had nothing on the executive who was paying the athlete plus could figure to make money years after the athlete was just a footnote on Sportscenter.

Another take away, and this is so important to understand, is that the taxes talked about aren't on the whole amount of money. The increased tax would be on the money made over the ceiling amount. So, if a person makes 2 million dollars and there is a rich people tax of 40% on money made over a million dollars, the higher tax would be on the second million dollars, not the first. Even if you throw that away, even if you tax the whole amount you make, the current upper tax rate is 36%, so this big argument is about a 4% increase in taxes.

I can appreciate the right wing talking point about the American spirit and keeping the money you earn, but I also feel, being in a democracy like the United States, those that can help those in need should do so. I don't like taxes and I hate when taxes are raised but I'm getting a bit tired of being asked to sacrifice when those with money do nothing, other than asking me to sacrifice more. An interesting example of this occurred when a well meaning group got a number of celebrities to stage a 'digital death' in behalf of raising money to prevent AIDS. The idea was that on World AIDS Day a number of stars would stop tweeting and using Facebook until they raised one million dollars. Understand, these are stars who make millions of dollars a year, so a few of them pooling their money could raise the amount, but of course this was to raise awareness with the general public. All laudable, and I'm sure the people who envisioned the event, when looking at the numbers showing the people who joined the campaign had something like 27 million followers between Facebook and Twitter, probably figured it would take a day or two to raise the money.

Well it has been four days as of the time I'm writing this and they have raised a little over $200,000.

We have been squeezed too much. There is no energy left in us. On the one hand we have the right trying to convince us we have a chance at being super-rich and the money the government takes from them actually hurts us. We have the progressives who have money and want us to give more, even as we look and see more lies being thrown at us. We are tired and frankly we don't know which way to turn. We are becoming more apathetic, more cynical about authority figures. Slowly we are beginning to act in ways that will be detrimental to ourselves and to the country.