CNN’s Bachmann Debacle: How Mainstream Media Fails the American Public

Last night, Rachel Maddow questioned the integrity behind CNN’s decision to air Michelle Bachmann's Tea Party Express speech, citing this arrangement with a PR operative:



This PR placement hardly qualifies as a legitimate news story; yet CNN gave Bachmann a national stage for blaming chronic unemployment on the Obama administration. More than merely a false narrative and a propagandist revision of recent events, it offends our sense of cause and effect.  Consider this sequence of events:

The most severe recession since the Great Depression DID NOT begin in the Obama administration. It started in 2007 - in the Bush administration. The first warning was sounded by then Secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson - of the Bush administration. The TARP bill was rushed through Congress and signed into law - by the Bush administration.

When a speeding car runs out of gas in one administration and coasts to a dead stop in the next administration, who is at fault? The fault is with the administration that forgot, through lack of oversight, to put gas in the car - NOT with the administration that got stuck calling the tow truck.

Mainstream media lets lies such as these go unchallenged. In giving national exposure to Bachmann, CNN allowed a falsehood to go viral without making even a token effort to fact check the speech or offer a critical analysis. This is how CNN dumbs down the American public and lets political hacks get away with factitious murder.

There is more at stake behind this story. When propagandists and hacks game the system, how can the American public rely on accurate news? Junk journalism such as this puts our democracy at risk.

The SOTUS by the POTUS (and the missing judges of the SCOTUS)

I’m sure y’all bursting with comments.

United States Of Shame

I don't want to take anything away from President Obama's "State of the Union" address tonight, but for a look at the real state of our union, check this out:



I was shocked to learn my state, Tennessee, is apparently worst at corruption. Really? We're worse than New Jersey? Pity poor Washington, with the highest number of bestiality cases (though for perspective let's note that there were just four in 2010). Louisiana is the nation's gonorrhea capital? Really? Wonder why Gov. Jindal hasn't done anything about that.

But Mississippi takes the cake. Yeah, the makers of this chart picked obesity but let's be honest: there was a lot to choose from:

BONUS facts: Mississippi ranks last in the most number of categories. These include highest rate of child poverty (31.9 percent), highest rate of infant mortality (10.3 percent) lowest median household income ($35,078), highest teen birth rate (71.9 per 1,000 women aged 15 to 19) and highest overall rate of STDs.

You know, the state motto here in Tennessee has always been "Thank God for Mississippi." This national punchline is why we all just laugh and laugh whenever some Villager floats Haley Barbour's name as a presidential hopeful. Clean up your own house first, dude.

Adding .... It occurs to me that a lot of these "worst" rankings are health-related. If only we had some kind of national healthcare in this country, some of these states might not be gonorrhea, cancer, alcoholism and depression capitals of the nation. Just sayin' ...

Supreme Court Justices Who Flaunt the Law and Violate Ethics Rules

Credit: BuzzFlash guest cartoon by fascART

This weekend, the Los Angeles Times covered this story: Clarence Thomas failed to report wife's income. Allegedly, Virginia Thomas earned $686,589 from The Heritage Foundation between the years 2003 through 2007 inclusive; but Justice Thomas did not report her income as required by Federal disclosure documents. In his 2009 disclosure, Justice Thomas reported spousal income as “none,” although his wife earned an unknown salary from Liberty Central in the same year.

In theory, federal judges are bound by law to disclose the source of spousal income, which can be interpreted as a violation. However, any penalty in the form of a fine or censure is unlikely according to judicial ethics expert Steven Lubet, who said: “"I am not aware of a single case of a judge being penalized simply for this."

According to Stephen Gillers, a law professor at the NYU School of Law, the Supreme Court is "the only judicial body in the country that is not governed by a set of judicial ethical rules." Nevertheless …

"Without disclosure, the public and litigants appearing before the court do not have adequate information to assess potential conflicts of interest, and disclosure is needed to promote the public's interest in open, honest and accountable government" (Bob Edgar, President of Common Cause).

If penalties in the form of fines, public censure, or even impeachment are out of the question, there is nothing that can prevent future abuses unless … we make a public stink and raise public awareness.  So lets get the framing right:

How can there be respect for the Law when Supreme Court Justice Thomas thumbs his nose at it!

Clarence Thomas is not the only Supreme Court Justice under scrutiny at the moment. Common Cause, a leading advocacy group, has filed a petition asking the Justice Department to investigate possible conflicts of interest by Justices Scalia and Thomas in the landmark Citizens United case, which reversed the ban on corporate funding of political campaigns. The petition seeks to disqualify Justices Scalia and Thomas from the case and vacate their decisions. In an earlier controversy, Justice Scalia refused to recuse himself from a case challenging VP Dick Cheney’s Energy Task Force after the two had gone duck hunting together in 2005.

In an era of seemingly endless chicanery at the highest levels of government, the American public is certainly entitled to a higher standard of conduct from the highest justices in the land.

Before I conclude this post, first a word on setting comment boundaries. No personal attacks on the justices or their spouses, no rumors about their private lives, and no Ann Coulter recipes for creme brulee.

Dividing by faith

Oh, little children, I believe
I'm a Methodist till I die
I'm a Methodist, Methodist, 'tis my belief
I'm a Methodist till I die
Till old grim death comes a-knocking at the door
I'm a Methodist till I die

-traditional-

The author Robert Pirsig traces his collapse into madness to a casual statement by a colleague, that "they don't teach quality any more." I've had many, and because I'm not schizophrenic, they are far less bathic descents that quickly float back up like Queequeg's coffin. Like Job, I've escaped to entertain thee and I won't be talking about motorcycles, the doctrine of transubstantiation or the Metaphysics of Quality. It's been done. This is about bumper stickers -- the ones that come in colors and proclaim:





I continue to see these stickers on cars, proclaiming the concept of belief as a virtue and by the fact that it is being so advertised; a virtue that in some way is meaningful to advertise. Like all philosophies and especially those condensed into two words, it conceals a philosophy. Like all words Believe is a prejudice.

So let's ask what qualities define belief and make it something to wave like a banner? Does it need any, is the quality of all belief the same and indeed can the nature of belief have a quality beyond the nature of the belief?

I can guess, knowing some of the people to whose vehicles the stickers are attached, that it's an advertisement for some specific assertion and that it's a religious assertion and that it's displayed as a rebuttal. I say this because there's so often some specific attention being payed to a challenge; a real or fabricated challenge to a religious proposition or assertion that is congruent to the cyclical outbreaks of these printed adhesive credos available on line for $4 plus postage. Every time it's Christmas, every time someone complains about his kid having to say "under God," every time someone repeats Washington's and Jefferson's claim that ours is not a Christian Nation and needs to remain so, out come the stickers. Thus, I have reason to doubt that the thing behind the assertion of belief is the natural born citizenship of Barack Obama, the antiestablishmentarian nature of our Constitution or confidence in the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.

Many of the vehicles do have other stickers advertising themes and shibboleths of the religious right such as the chrome fish and the logos of football teams and motorcycle manufacturers. But of course I BELIEVE does not specifically say that the owner of the vehicle believes in Krishna as the Lord of Light or Osiris as the ruler of the underworld: that he likes Harley-Davidsons and the 'Gators' is beyond the scope of this investigation and its doubts. Nonetheless, I have some degree of confidence that I know what the sticker means.

So is it belief as a virtue of absolute value in and of itself that is to be applauded or is it the specific nature or quality of the belief? Perhaps the ambiguous silence of a sticker is a way to avoid the explanation that might be required by an inquisitive intellectual, should one be found in these parts. As any belief, abstract or specific, rational or irrational; any disbelief in fact can equally be expressed by I BELIEVE , the probability of a specific credo justifying the immodest bit of sticky-backed braggadocio is strengthened if not proven.

Let's propose that I believe there are no spirits or gods or souls and no purpose to existence that concerns us in any way. Can we say that belief then has only an absolute value and the polarity, the direction, the vector is meaningless? Perhaps I've shown that to be logically true but still, owners of sticker emblazoned trucks will not think so.

No, it's a particular belief or set including certain beliefs that is virtuous to a degree to specific individuals and sets of individuals -- and others to a different degree. Have I shown that belief as belief can have any value and so must be as un-virtuous as it is virtuous? If there can be an equal and yet opposite belief to any belief one can assert, it must be so.

If, of course the vehicular assertion is not to be applauded, or at least not universally to be applauded, one has to consider that it's intended to be an affront, a rebuttal to one or many who do not believe in general or in a specific proposition. It could be intended both ways, making it serve as a tribal totem distinguishing between those who do and those who do not: a more literate and up-to-date version of the untrimmed beard, unusual dress or even circumcision.

I'm different because I believe and because I'm proud of it, I say I'm better because I BELIEVE. That would of course make a specific belief, or as some prefer to say 'belief system' a test of virtue and of membership. Does belief , if belief has all possible values, allow everyone into the group of believers? It does not, only belief that lies substantially within that system or universe will do. Again we see that I BELIEVE has no value independent of the content of the belief. The virtue to be proud of lies not in the believing itself.

So it's likely, I should think, that the virtue of the virtue lies in the object of faith; the specifics and not the faith itself even though some seem to think of faith in and of itself as being worthwhile and not necessarily only virtuous by virtue of the content. One has to ask, would the faith promoter see virtue independently and I suggest that the simple substitution of objects would produce at least a spectrum, a ranking of value. Is faith that Refafu will make the rain stop or that we hear the hammers of Thor in the storm or that Jesus is Lord whatever that means, the same as faith that there is an intelligence behind the universe or behind the manifestations of existence? And of course, can we rank faith by it's intensity? Am I better if I'm willing to die so as not to contradict my faith or allow anyone else to contradict it. Am I best if I'll kill you to stop contradiction? Martyr or madman, it depends on whether it's your belief or some other. I suspect that here again, the virtue of the virtue is a virtue that hinges on the personal faith of the faithful. Both faith and belief can and so do have all possible values, ranks and properties.

Indeed can we say that one belief is better than another if all belief is beyond any comparison that involves observable demonstrations? At least one common belief is that God cannot be tested -- at least not successfully -- and of course most religious beliefs cannot be successfully exposed to experiment. We can't show that prayer works in any unambiguous way. The weather is what it is, justice is what we make it and even if you postulate that God is behind our sense of justice, we can't demonstrate it as God is so often used to support injustice and there are more convincing arguments for it from other sources.

There are no valid proofs of the existence of anyone to pray to and all attempts I have yet seen to prove any god would, if not essentially fallacious, prove an infinite number with infinitely different attributes. How then can we assign relative values to belief in divinities; one or many?

Dividing us by faith, by belief, whether by the existence of these or the nature of these is the virtue of putting an I BELIEVE sticker on your car. Further, since no one would be putting an advertisement for inferiority on his property, it's an assertion of superiority; an assertion that seems to fit the definition of vanity and indeed, if any belief will do, a gratuitous vanity. If only one belief will do, it's still a self appointed vanity since belief is optional if we are rational. If we are not rational, why are you reading this? I'm better if I believe in anything and I'm better still because I choose to believe in the divinity of a mythological figure, but at any rate, whether it's Jesus or John the Baptist, I'm at least one of the better sort.

When we divide by belief, are we dividing by zero? Well, when the denominator decreases in value or absolute value, the result approaches the infinite: approaches all values. Can I say that the attempt to divide us by something of no determinable relative value results in a meaningless number? I think I just did. To get back to Heisenberg; back to things that are beyond the need for belief or faith, the only universal certainty is that the more of it we ask for, the less we can possibly have and there's no way around it. It's not faith, it's the law.

Tat Tvam Asi. You are that you are, no more, no less -- and that applies, I think, to everything else that is. The sticky piece of plastic ruining the finish on your car makes you no different than the convictions it pleases you to have and nothing you do and nothing you believe extends to the world outside your head. How you treat other people will however.

All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts we make the world.
This is the law,
Ancient and inexhaustible.
You too shall pass away.
Knowing this, how can you quarrel?

-The Dhammapada-

Shoot, Shooter, Shot: the Quotidian Language of Mass Violence

Semantics are often dismissed as trivial, but they are sometimes significant in a way that extends to larger social phenomena. Le mot du jour is "shooter." How many times have you heard or read this word in the last ten years or so? It's everywhere. Once upon a time, the doer of a violent deed involving firearms was generally referred to as a murderer, killer, assassin, or some other term appropriate to the individual case. Those words are sometimes still used, but not as much today. They're being crowded out by the all-purpose term, "shooter." My purpose isn't to condemn everybody who uses the term, but the only thing I can say in favor of it is that it's better than calling a murderous rogue or homicidal bank-robber a "gentleman." But that isn't saying much.

It's fair to acknowledge that the word "shooter" entails some opprobrium for the person referenced by it: you probably wouldn't say or hear a sentence such as, "the shooter was defending his home from armed robbers." No, you hear it only in reference to people who have committed a crime or even a mass murder. Still, it's often employed in such a way as to bestow a status akin to normalcy on whomever we're talking about: not so much in the sense of, "What do you do for a living, Frank?" "Me? I'm a shooter" but perhaps worse than that: it isn't so much that we're saying a shooter is like a bricklayer, baker, or candlestick maker, but we may be granting him a special, heightened status. We're bestowing occupation-bling, I suspect: a shooter isn't just any fool; a shooter is someone who gets his or her name in the paper in big bold-face type, often while the victims go largely unlamented and scarcely named. It's almost glamorous to be a shooter, it wood appear, like something straight out of a violent rap video. There is collusion in this act of bestowing, a cooperation between language and social fact: the truth is, our society has become so depraved and violent that hearing about "shooters" isn't out of the ordinary. Recently came Tucson's turn -- it's a nice, laid-back university town that deserves better than to become famous for a murder spree with political implications.

I think it's worth considering whether this kind of term is doing some damage, or is evidence of some damage, to the country's social woof and warp. To me, the word is just as likely to obscure what we are trying to understand as the metaphysical term "evil." It's satisfying to declare someone or something evil, but when we do that, we short-circuit genuine analysis. It's easier to use the almost morality-free, decontextualized word "shooter" to describe the perpetrators of certain kinds of gun violence. This is not an argument about gun control, it's an argument about a word and what our current way with it may reveal. What does the unreflective, repetitive, media-disseminated usage of the term "shooter" reveal about who we are and where we find ourselves at the present time?

Bye, Bye, Keith Olbermann (Updated)

UPDATE (Saturday, Jan 22, 2011) - Law Professor Marvin Ammori of the University of Nebraska in today’s New York Times:

“Keith Olbermann’s announcement tonight, the very same week that the government blessed the Comcast-NBC merger, raises serious concern for anyone who cares about free speech.  Comcast proved expert in shaking down the government to approve its merger. Comcast’s shakedown of NBC has just begun.”

There were no rumors, no advance warnings, no fanfare.  Countdown with Keith Olbermann aired last night for the last time. Here is the video:



According to an MSNBC spokesperson, The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell will replace Countdown at 8 p.m., and The Ed Show will fill the 10 PM time slot. The spokesperson denied any connection to the recent acquisition of NBC by Comcast.  Bullshit, I say.  For background, here is a post I wrote over a year ago::

Bye, Bye, Miss American Pie - Bye, Bye to Liberal Media 

Act 1: Last August, Comcast removed MSNBC from its Digital Starter Package and moved it to one of its premium offerings.  Of course, Fox News remained in the basic Starter Package because Comcast is a conservative media conglomerate ... According to beachwriter429 at Daily Kos:

What this means is that one now has to pay an additional $17 per month ($204 per year) to view anything progressive enough to even remotely balance out FNC's right wing extremism (…) The neighbor who alerted me to the situation is an attorney, and he thinks this appears to be to be an FCC/Fairness Doctrine violation.

Act 2: Some Daily Kos readers in the Jacksonville area ganged up on Comcast with a letter writing campaign. In response, Comcast restored MSNBC to all customers and sent this reply (excerpt):

Thank you for the email. First and foremost, I wanted to let you know that today we restored access to MSNBC for all of our digital cable customers in the Jacksonville, Florida area (…) Please know that this week's disruption was not at all targeted at MSNBC - it was due to some changes to our digital channel security system (…) This issue was isolated to the Jacksonville area, and we have no reason to believe that Comcast customers in any other areas experienced any interruptions of MSNBC.

Except for the fact that Comcast customers in the suburban Philadelphia area still paying extra for MSNBC (and how many other markets that we don’t know about).  Comcast is lying. 

Act 3: Advance the calendar to November 4, 2009. In the Pittsburgh area, MSNBC has been replaced by the Golf Channel. When an irate Comcast subscriber called to complain, this is what Comcast said:

I was told that at my level of service, basic cable, it is no longer available. No way can I afford to upgrade my service, (and nor would I....it is Comcast after all) so no more MSNBC for me (…) The agent on the phone also told me that Comcast had nothing to do with this decision, but that because MSNBC is a national cable network, it was no longer available in a non digital format. Oddly enough, CNN and Fox are still in the same place.

Act 4: If you can’t beat them, buy them out:

General Electric and the cable giant Comcast have moved closer to a deal giving control of NBC Universal to Comcast (…) After a series of meetings last week, the two companies reached a tentative agreement on Friday over the main points of a deal …

Does this mean bye, bye to Keith Olbermann? Bye, bye to Rachel Maddow? Bye, bye to liberal media?  Sorry folks, but this wave of media consolidations spells b-a-d * n-e-w-s ! Once MSNBC is gone, that leaves only us, the netroots community, to keep the liberal flame from flickering out.

A year later, the deal is done, which is why I am willing to wager that Keith Olbermann is the first casualty.  And the worst is on the way:

Letting one company control the pipes and the content that flows over those pipes is a formula for abuse.  Comcast-NBC could soon hike rates, take away your favorite channels, or even stop you from watching your favorite shows online.  Comcast has already targeted Netflix and other companies that compete with its video and Internet offerings. This warning comes from Josh Silver of FreePress.net:

Today's deal, combined with the FCC's recent loophole-ridden, fake "Net Neutrality" rule, sets the stage for Comcast to turn the Internet into something that looks like cable TV. 

You might be saying, "I'm not a Comcast customer, so I'm not worried." But Comcast will jack up the prices that other cable and online distributors pay for NBC content, and you'll pay higher prices -- we promise. 

You might be saying, "I can just get a new Internet provider if I don't like it." But there's almost no broadband competition. And as TV, radio, phone and other services increasingly become Internet-based, cable will be the only connection that's fast enough to deliver high-quality media and services to most Americans. 

You might be saying, "Why should I care about a business deal between two giant companies?" But this merger is certain to be the first domino to fall in a series of mega-media mergers. The FCC's blessing of Comcast-NBC will embolden companies like AT&T or Verizon to try to gobble up content providers like Disney and CBS, creating a new era of media consolidation where even fewer companies control the content you watch and all the ways you watch it.

The Comcast-NBC merger is a catastrophe for the public and for the future of media, technology and democracy. It's time to get mad … and time to get involved.

They call me Mr. President

There's a difference between comedic impersonations and bigoted mockery; between comedy and things that make racists, bullies, mean spirited, angry people laugh. One could invoke the German Schadenfreude; yet the laughter when a clown slips on a banana peel isn't quite the same and isn't as universal as the sound that comes from the man in the white sheet laughing at the humiliation of another man.

Ive seen enough bullies in my day. I've seen some of them confronted and heard the common refrains of "I'm the victim here" and the almost inevitable " didn't you know I was joking?" So I wasn't surprised to hear Glenn Beck whine to Meredith Viera that his detractors didn't have a sense of humor adequate to know that when he advocates beating a public official with a shovel or tells us of the need to shoot Democratic leaders in the head, it's those dumb liberals who are humorless.

For the most part, the law has never found incitement amusing: shouting fire when there isn't one - for laughs. Even those orating innocently about a strike have been punished in America because someone used the occasion to toss a bomb. You don't make bomb jokes in the airport and you don't joke about killing democrats to an audience you know to include deranged and armed enemies of Democrats - even if for no other reason than avoiding making yourself look bad. But looking bad is just what many of these frustrated losers want to do.

But times seem to be changing and that old time evil is bubbling up again, or at least some groups now have enough power to make the clowns take off the blackface and to think twice about anti-Semitic rants and maybe be a bit more circumspect before going after Homosexuals Females and all the other pet victims of the Right.

Mexicans? Chinese? Well they are still targets of opportunity for those willing to descend that far. Some comedians don't realize they're being offensive to people who don't deserve it, some of them don't care as long as they get an audience and others couldn't get a job unless it was entertaining bigots. So if Margaret Cho makes jokes about her Korean family, we don't cringe - unless we are her relatives. When Michael Richards goes on an N-word binge we question his sense of decency -- to say the least.

Watching Dennis Leary's charity benefit the other day, I was appalled at his crude attempt to make fun of the world's most widely spoken language. No, not the real difficulties of speaking, it but with facial contortions and weird sounds that didn't seem funny or sound anything like Chinese to one familiar with the language. Bad taste I think, and enough to alienate a lot of people to the objectives of his charity.


And then there's Limbaugh.

What is an American president called when he visits China? They call him Mr. President. He's only called a Marxist tyrant by detritus like Limbaugh and the lumps of fecal matter that follow in his wake. We employ a host of people to promote American interests, to show the world our best face and we have this inflated rubber gasbag mooning them.

What is Chinese President Hu Jintao called when he's a guest here? The "Chicom Dictator " says Rush. "Ching chong, ching chong, chong" mocks the flatulent Palm Beach Bastard Billionaire, who makes a living lowering the estimation of my country in the eyes of the world. Condescending, contemptuous and contemptible: "Ching chong, ching chong, chong" while millions of Americans, with or without Chinese origins cringe.

No, Presidents from Nixon onward have been treated well in China, it's only in the sewers of the American Right that President Obama is called a Marxist tyrant by detritus like Limbaugh and the lumps of fecal matter that follow in his wake. We employ a host of people to promote American interests, to show the world our best face, to induce them to trust our intentions and yet we have this inflated rubber gasbag mooning them while his adolescent friends laugh and mock.

Of course he knows what he's doing, and of course he doesn't care if he puts a white sheet on Uncle Sam and confirms the belief of billions that we are a nation of snarling pirates who don't deserve respect or trust or cooperation. He'll keep doing it as long as we let him, support him, laugh at him, watch him and patronize his unworthy, unscrupulous and unAmerican sponsors.

The Dumbing Down of the Right

Rush Limbaugh, never one to shrink from looking like a complete douche and already angry because he had to cancel his annual trip to the Dominican Republic to avoid their cholera epidemic, vomited up another spittle-flecked rant against all that is good and decent. Or, to be more accurate, showed his hatred of anyone with an IQ higher than 40.

Shortly after Obama’s speech at the memorial for the victims of the Tucson shooting, the Fox “News” show Special Report had a panel of bloviators (Brit Hume, Charles Krauthammer and Chris Wallace) who had the unmitigated gall to suggest that Obama had given a good speech. Limbaugh, practically choking on the bile rising up in his corpulent throat, spewed the following fascinating statement.

”They were slobbering over it for the predictable reasons. It was smart, it was articulate, it was oratorical. It was, it was all the things the educated, ruling class wants their members to be and sound like.”

Now, Krauthammer, who looks a bit like a cartoon child molester, didn't really appreciate that statement. But he actually managed to make sense in his response for once.

"As one of the three slobberers...I find it interesting that only the ruling class wants a president who is smart articulate and oratorical in delivering a funeral oration. It's an odd and rather condescending view of what the rest of America is looking for in their president.”

Unfortunately, there’s a portion of the American people who feel exactly that way. It’s a strain of anti-intellectualism that’s all too common in the right wing.

Joe (the "Plumber") Wurzelbacher, known liar and serial wife beater, got his fifteen minutes of fame based on a complete lack of understanding of government, taxes, or pretty much anything else. Sarah Palin, an articulate but sadly undereducated woman, seems to appeal to the great unwashed because she's "one of them" (despite having all her teeth and a seven figure income).



Ignorant of history, opposed to science, they hate anyone who seems to be "better than us." Which, for the most part, is anybody who can read at better than an eighth-grade level.

You know, I wasn’t particularly impressed by ABC’s recent revamping of “V”, but I used to watch the original show avidly when I was a teen. Still, there was one plot device that I never liked (I thought it was a little weak): one of the tactics employed by the aliens in their quest to enslave humanity was to demonize scientists and educated people as "enemies of the people."

But looking at America today, I’m suddenly seeing it in a whole new light.

Technology, Unemployment, and Our Children’s Future

By Hunter Richards

(The following is a guest post by Hunter Richards, a blogger for Software Advice. Hunter graduated in 2010 from Washington University in St. Louis with degrees in economics and film studies. Besides business software, his background includes government and non-profit work; he has worked for Senator Blanche Lincoln and the International Dark-Sky Association, a non-profit organization that works to curb light pollution.  In 2008, he was an intern for Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

Despite the tremendous benefits of information technology (IT), it comes at a human cost - the displacement of less-skilled employees. As software and systems automate an increasingly large portion of business processes, the displacement is affecting a wider set of workers. So despite an improving economy, 9.5% unemployment might last longer than many think.

Here we walk through a fairly simple story of man versus machine. It’s not a new story, but we went to the effort of pulling together and visualizing the relevant data.

Our conclusion? Drop the Wii-mote and hit the books.

IT spending has risen dramatically over the last 40 years...

IT spending has steadily risen since 1970. Trendlines and new opportunities like cloud computing suggest that the current dip in spending is only temporary.

...making us more productive...

Technology has made labor more productive. There’s a long-term upward trend in labor output rates, and it isn’t slowing down.

...which has led to rapid growth in corporate profits.

The resulting productivity has been great for business - greater productivity means higher profits. But these profits don’t benefit everyone. They accrue to the executives and shareholders.

IT is slowly replacing many functions. There’s an ever-widening divide in the labor market between skilled occupations and what one might call “low-level jobs” - simple clerical roles, plant-floor workers, and low-level support roles.

While national unemployment rates have ebbed and flowed...

...the uneducated are consistently left behind...

This polarization between highly-skilled and less-skilled workers is part of what’s eroding the middle class, pushing more and more people into the low income bracket.

...and wealth has shifted toward the highest earners.

The less-educated workers who manage to keep their jobs are falling further and further behind in the national income distribution as the relative value of their services declines.

Alas, high-tech industries are growing...

So how can you avoid being replaced by a machine? You’ll need to be one of the people who work in an advanced field that still requires highly-skilled human capital. Take the IT field, for example. The Tech Pulse Index tracks the growth of national economic activity in technology by combining data on employment, investment, production, shipments, and consumption. The Tech Pulse Index has risen sharply (with the exception of the dot-com bust around the year 2000), reflecting continued demand for high-tech workers. The same is true in other engineering disciplines, healthcare and finance.

...but an advanced education is required.

Are we educating people enough to slow the widening of labor market gaps? The graph above shows the percentage of all 18- to 24-year-olds enrolled in degree-granting institutions since 1970. There’s an upward trend, but is it growing fast enough?

IT is good for society in the long term, but it’s a double-edged sword when considered together with labor market trends. Sure, the current economic despair owes its severity to many different issues - offshoring of jobs, the real estate collapse, and the national debt are just a few - but education and income disparities are long-term problems that demand attention. We must align education growth with productivity growth to close the gaps.