Imagination: More Important Than Knowledge? Republicans Know This Well.

I had it up in my classroom for a while in a poster. I had forgotten all about it.

But I saw it again in another blog: Imagination is more important than knowledge. The quote is attributed to Albert Einstein, who should have known. He was known for not saying much, so if he said anything, it was best to pay attention.

Republicans certainly have. They've concocted, not only recently but through the years, a number of fantasies that they're still clinging to. And their followers have immersed themselves in these imaginative fictions.

Let me point a few of them out:

• Trickle-down economics. Not the oldest one, but the one which has defined them in terms of policy. It's the signature of Reaganism, which has kept America from getting better, creating huge gaps of economic inequalities. It's the idea that if you give business owners bigger tax breaks, they'll automatically put their savings back into their businesses, hire more workers, and raise salaries. No, they didn't. They bought more stock and made that money expand for themselves. They doubled down on their selfishness. If that wasn't so, why did the economy nearly fall apart in 2008-09? Why do business owners continue to insist that a minimum wage of $7.50 is enough, that somehow that will carry people through the pandemic? Through anything at all?
• Transgenderism is a fluke, a construct. Guard your public bathrooms. Remember that scare tactic? You know, transgenderism is for male perverts who want to see women in their underwear. Where are the examples now? Any reports out there? No. I haven't seen any. But the fear created has its own lasting force; imagination basks in fear. If it happened in one place, it can happen everywhere.
• Unions ruin America. This one is the oldest that I know of that endures until today. It began after World War II, when the country was producing at full force, when we were about to enter an unequalled era of dominance. Republicans waited until they had the numbers, then struck back against the unions that had organized during the Great Depression, when they were truly needed, and the right to organize and strike were established. They passed Taft-Hartley, which created another damning phrase, right to work, which is in itself a lie and a deception. Yet, it floated into our lexicon and remains there today. It got put there to protect businessmen. The rest of the one-two punch, trickle-down economics, is listed above.
• Saddam Hussein helped plan 9/11. No definitive connection was ever established. That's because there wasn't one. But this was heaped into the same cauldron of lies as weapons of mass destruction, another play upon our imaginations. Not that there never were any, but that only the bad guys had them, were about to use them again, and so Hussein had to be wiped out. Bush-43 and his Voldemort, Dick Cheney, used that phraseology many times in the run-up to the unnecessary war, but 43 did not use it in his war message. That's because he knew there weren't any, at least not there. We're still in Iraq. Our people are still getting killed. It's much easier to get into wars than get out of them.
• The pandemic is a hoax. Masks are unnecessary. So are vaccines. Okay, but there are, as of last night, 512,000 reasons why that's nonsense. And nobody, not one, person who has been vaccinated so far has even gotten sick, not to mention dying. Word to the wise: Follow the science. Get your shot or shots. Survive. Rekindle hope. Move toward herd immunity.
• The 2020 election was rigged. Fake ballots were imported. There were "irregularities," which is a phrase implying, but never proving, things that might have happened. One more time: The Georgia Secretary of State, who voted for the losing candidate, said that, indeed, fake ballots were invented using names of dead people. Out of five million ballots, exactly two--not two million, not even two thousand or two hundred, but two--were discovered. No Secretary of State in any other state, investigated or not, reported anything else. It was a lie, the Big Lie (not that the above aren't small), that's still being forwarded by people who are too scared to admit otherwise because people overall are too scared to admit otherwise, because--well, you'd have to ask them. It will be rolled out again this weekend, when the losing president will explain his loss by claiming he got screwed.

All this baloney is still being clung to. All this is based on imagination and the fears that are engendered because of them. Millions upon millions buy in. Yes, it is possible that mass hysteria can still reign, even now in the 21st Century. Clear-headed people need to step up and deny it at every turn.

Be well. Be careful. Wear a mask. Four days until a second vaccine shot. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark