When facts fail, the operatives for corporate America simply ramp up their efforts to build resentment against the public and private sector. DMI's Amy Traub elaborates:

It's easy for the Right to tap into all the misperceptions they've fostered about public pay and government spending and argue that "the people you're supporting with your tax dollars are living better than you are," as one Fox commentator said.

Make no mistake about it, that's a broad-based anti-union argument...Once they've successfully mobilized resentment against other working people--whether it's public workers, or, for that matter, immigrant workers--it becomes harder to hold businesses accountable for not creating quality jobs.

It becomes harder to argue for a public jobs program that would put our unemployed back to work.

It becomes harder to argue for the benefits of unions at all, because solid wages and benefits won through collective bargaining have suddenly been turned into something to be resented, rather than something to aspire to in your own job.

It's classic divide-and-conquer politics: pitting one group of American workers against another, with the hope that you'll forget or ignore the corporations and Wall Street bankers who caused this mess.

When digging for the truth, look at what critics of public services don't say.

They don't talk about reigning in hedge funds after they ransacked the U.S. economy. They don't talk about the pensions of the super rich - like BP's Tony Hawyard and the nearly $1,000,000 pension he'll receive after overseeing one of the largest environmental disasters in United States history. And they certainly don't talk about how Wall Street reform that will regulate big banks and protect U.S. consumers from this kind of economic calamity in the future.

No, instead the enemy is the parks and recreation officer who maintains your park. The operator who answers your 911 call. The math teacher who taught your kids fractions and long division.

Public services are being used as a red herring for the reckless business practices of the investment and banking community. It's a smokescreen tactic that the right has been nurturing to deflect attention from the real causes of our economy's problems. Read on to learn more about fighting back against the tide of misinformation against public sector workers.