PROPAGANDA
Things are heating up for the
mid-term elections when our leaders will finally be able to spend enough money
to convince an overwhelming majority of voters to throw out the bad guys and
elect honest politicians who will balance the budget, eliminate inequality and
lead us to the promised land. Halleluiah! I never thought I'd live to see the
day.
It's not clear yet how they intend
to do this because, in the past, there's only been enough money to tell us how
bad things will be if the bad guys get in to, or stay in, office. Now, thanks
to Citizens United and McCutcheon, there will be enough money to tell us the
whole story. They'll tell us, for example, how they will eliminate the
corruption of special interest money, allowing the House, the Senate, and the
Administration to concentrate on doing what's best for America.
And, yes Virginia, there is a
Santa.... Wait! No, that's another story.
Back to propaganda: Have you noticed
that there is a pattern in virtually all political messages. They're not
designed to inspire you, making you proud to be a -----. They're designed to
make your blood boil. Our baser instincts are easier to arouse than our
intellects: outrage, revenge, jealousy, fear. The people who write this stuff
are professionals, they understand our natures better than we do. And, they're
very clever, almost always starting with a verifiable fact, or at least a
statement that 'everybody' knows to be true and then, gradually, they
slip into a string of verisimilitudes (statements made as facts, but which are
unverifiable). Being a true liberal, or conservative, you, having taken the
original hook, eat it up. Hurray, money well spent--and the politicians, thus
elected, don't have to do anything. Only an elected
lunatic would want to eliminate this deal.
Come November, you will exercise
your right, fulfill your obligation as a conscientious citizen. You will study
the issues and then do as you always have: vote for the lesser of two
evils, who just happen to be members of your team.
The winners will congratulate
themselves, and the losers will get to work, raising more money and
strategizing on how to undermine the winners. We will join them, gloating and
wisecracking with the winners, or, if our side lost, pointing out the dirty
campaign tactics of the winners and forecasting the ruin to come.
Ah, well, at least it's better than
living in the middle-east where things haven't gotten bad enough yet to start
an improvement.
Speaking of which--how bad do things
have to get here before we deal with it?
Joe Bakewell
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