Saturday, April 19, 2014

PROPAGANDA



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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