Blogger Dave Johnson has posted three interesting charts of the economy that shows that the harsh criciticsm of President Obama’s handling of the economy is unfair — particularly when compared to George W. Bush’s handling of the economy.

Johnson writes, “We all want to fix the terrible problems the country has. But it is so important to know just what the problems are before you decide how to fix them. Otherwise the things you do to try to solve those problems might just make them worse. If you get tricked into thinking that Obama has made things worse and that we should go back to what we were doing before Obama — tax cuts for the rich, giving giant corporations and Wall Street everything they want — when those are the things that caused the problems in the first place, then we will be in real trouble.”

Spending

Deficits

The Stimulus and Jobs

How is it that the political interests of white poor people, like “Joe the Plumber” are seen as identical to billionaires like Donald Trump and Rupert Murdoch? According to an article by history professor Jeffrey O.G. Ogbar, “How Conservative Myths Stoke Racial Fear,” many poor whites are taken in by a “twisted right-wing version of history. .. an outright fabrication of the country’s history. … In the right wing’s twisted version of history the United States, at its founding, was a bastion of fairness and opportunity.”

Ogbar quotes Michele Bachman as saying  for “different cultures, different backgrounds, different traditions. … It didn’t matter the color of their skin … [or] language … or economic status. … Once you got here, we were all the same.”

What about slavery? Ogbar writes, “The right has relied on outright fabrication of the country’s history by insisting that institutionalized racism hardly ever existed.” He says, “In the end, we witness a unique moment in human history in which the most ardent defenders of the rich happen to be the poor and working class, whose sole sense of confraternity rests on twisted history and nebulous notions of white racial victimhood and rage.”

Ogbar says, “Studies find that with identical résumés, those with white sounding names have a 50 percent higher response rate from prospective employees than do those with black sounding names. Whites on average outearn Latinos and blacks, with or without controlling for education.”

From the article:

The right cultivates a mythic landscape of current racial politics, as well as the careful — or careless — manipulation of history. One of the master manipulators is GOP presidential hopeful Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota

Earlier this year she told an audience that the United States, at its founding, was a bastion of fairness and opportunity for “different cultures, different backgrounds, different traditions.” She went on to say (in an awkward sort of way) that the U.S. was a “resting point from people groups all across the world. It didn’t matter the color of their skin … [or] language … or economic status.” She was on a roll: “Once you got here, we were all the same.” Even assuming that she was talking only about the men, I still say, uh, no.

But wait; what about slavery? Her answer: “The very founders that wrote [the Constitution] worked tirelessly until slavery was no more.” Hmmm. Wrong again. In fact, not only did the Founding Fathers not work tirelessly to end slavery, but most were wealthy because of slavery. More than half of them amassed great wealth on the backs of the thousands of people whom they enslaved.

Slavery was so essential that the Continental Congress deleted language that condemned the Atlantic slave trade from an early draft of Declaration of Independence. These architects of the Early Republic were loath to condemn the slave trade that had been so central to their wealth and the future wealth of their new nation. And after the American Revolution, almost every state enacted laws that prevented people of color from voting, serving on juries or testifying in court. The first federal law regarding immigration mandated that only “free white persons” could become U.S. citizens. …

John Adams was … the only one of the first five presidents not to enslave people. …

Bachmann says that European immigrants “did not come here for the promise of a federal handout … or a welfare payment.” Instead, they came here for the “limitless opportunity” that the “most magnificent country” in history afforded them. …

European immigrants did get special federal handouts in the form of white-only citizenship rights: Germans, Greeks, Jews, Irish, Poles and Italians were never barred from the “white only” military, voter rolls, juries or federal jobs, unlike people of color. Keep in mind that citizenship itself was limited to “free white persons.” When more than 90 percent of black people were enslaved in the U.S., the Homestead Act of 1862 gave millions of acres of land to white immigrants. Yep, federal handouts.

There’s no need to list the horrors of white supremacy from the Colonial era through the civil rights movement, but the more significant point — that pundits are engaged in historical mythmaking — should not be lost. It is an insidious and troublesome practice of politicians and firebrands who have relied on a mythic history of whites: as people who never got special treatment and did not get federal help but who now face hoards of lazy, welfare-recipient minorities who are undermining the essence of American democracy and civilization.

This myth is grafted onto a national political agenda that aims to constrict the very opportunities that have lifted millions of Americans out of poverty over the generations: public support of education, housing and health care expansion. The myth attempts to close doors to education and services that have benefited Americans across the country. It convinces working-class and poor whites that they must oppose legislation that seeks to address the particular challenges they face as a class.

At the Ohio Apportionate Board public meeting today at the University of Dayton, the acting chair, State Auditor, David Yost, I thought set an affable tone. No doubt his agreeable personality has been a big boost to his political career.

Every ten years, after the results of the U.S. census are affirmed, Ohio’s 99 House Districts and 33 Senate Districts are redrawn so that districts have approximately the same populations. For this reapportionment, each House District should contain 116,530 citizens and each Senate District should contain 349,590. The board is holding 11 meetings this week around the state to hear from citizens about how best to organize the state into legislative districts. At the Dayton meeting about 50 people were in attendance and there were interesting comments from a stream of citizens. Yost reminded speakers that his committee deals only with the state legislature, not the federal.

The first to speak was Martin Gottlieb, who surprised me by saying he recently had retired as editorial and political writer of the Dayton Daily News. I hadn’t realized he had retired. I will miss his columns. Gottlieb pointed out that Montgomery County is fairly evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats, but none of the five House Districts in Montgomery County ever have competitive races. He pointed out that the sixth Senate District is ridiculously shaped, as if making a doughnut around Dayton, “in search of Republican voters.”

Darrell Fairchild, of Lift Greater Dayton I thought made the most compelling statements. He evidently works with a lot of poor people. He said Montgomery County’s legislative districts should be divided in a more balanced way so that people who he works with are encouraged to participate in their democracy. Speaking from a wheel chair, he said that he experiences much apathy towards democracy because people feel the system is fixed, and feel their engagement would make no difference. Fairchild pointed out that the Apportionate Board, itself, is fixed — with a membership that has a 4 to 1 advantage for the Republicans.

I hadn’t planned on speaking, but at the last minute decided to do so. I was the last speaker and pointed out that though Kettering is much smaller than the size of one House District, we are divided into two districts. I pointed out it is not obvious where the lines are drawn because people living in the same zip code have different representatives. My point was that House Districts should have some geographic logic.

One thing I learned was that the Ohio Constitution agrees with the point I attempted to make — districts should have geographic logic. Some people I spoke with after the meeting indicated that, in their judgment, the 2001 apportionment was unconstitutional and that in 2001 there should have been a court challenge to the actions of the Apportionate Board. The feeling is that this year, unless there is a big improvement in the results of the Apportionate Board, the constitutionality of the results will have a court challenge.