The truth hurts

Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels once espoused a philosophy that if you told a lie long enough and enough times, the public will eventually believe it.

If the president's administration now tells the citizenry that the unemployment rate has dropped to 8.6 percent, and that the private sector has created so many thousands of new jobs, then it is indeed a bright spot in a gloomy economy. Unfortunately, it ignores several realities. After all, never let the truth interfere with a good story.

The mainstream media even jumps on the bandwagon and gleefully reports this as a positive sign that the worst is over. One female network minion even conveniently reported that the number was nearly 8.5 percent. When I was in school learning percentages, I was told to round off any number ending in .5 or higher to the next highest whole number.

The reality lies in the facts that the 315,000 unemployed have quit looking for work and have been dropped from the rolls because they are no longer receiving benefits. The thousands of private sector jobs created are temporary seasonal in retail jobs and will no longer be in sight come mid-January.

Yes, the truth does indeed hurt.

JAMES C. ROCHE, Jackson