What if you could turn propaganda into destination television and browsing favorites? Social pressure would then take over when, in intimate groupings, the dubious factoids and ad hominem smears could be made cool.
She/he might say "x,y,z" and going along or providing a topper would be so much more sociable than slamming the door emphatically shut on such utter bullsh*t. What if you could stigmatize facts into no longer being necessary for thinking and feeling? Demonize journalism as being biased and not worth your time?
It's all about the gut to the hidden persuaders.
The country wasn't always as corpo-centric and consumerist as today.
After riding the country into The Great Depression like Slim Pickens in Dr. Strangelove, the country was easily persuaded to link in commonweal. The villains of the piece were correctly called out. WWII also was no small cause for cooperation.
A new liberalism, exemplified by The GI Bill, took hold. The taxes required to fund a better life for all, while never celebrated, were dutifully paid and rewarded by an upward mobility unparalleled in our history.
The rich paid a lot but my how they also got a lot. Research and infrastructure, trade protection and diplomacy. An expanding middle class had stay-at-home moms. (The kids must think we make this up.) The poor were helped in their subsistence.
Imagine there had been no Vietnam War. Imagine a country which could have found the decency that escaped Joe McCarthy. As the fading from memory, John Boehner has said: "if ands and buts were candy and nuts every day would be Christmas."
Relegated to the fringes since the 40's, the right wing publishing houses and periodicals inched closer to mainstream in the 50's and 60's until the freakish coalition of Dixiecrats, defeated but re-invigorated Birchers and emerging direct mail technologies met a willingness to hold the breath until every last vestige of The New Deal was eradicated.
It took the now-sainted Ronald Reagan to flip off the Great Society once and for all with his likability and quips. He had earned his B-movie credentials and put them to good use for 8 years.
Essentially he broke government right in front of you to prove to you that government doesn't solve problems. From trickle-down "voodoo" economics which failed within months of enactment into law to cementing the notion that adding a corporation's shareholder profits to the costs of government somehow helped the taxpayer, he was a game changer.
Yet, despite all the invoking and inveighing, he would be persona non grata in the party in whose name he ran and served.
The death of Antonin Scalia brings into sharper focus how people with real power affect us. There's the power to entertain and then there's the power to infuse a personal belief that freedom of religion is not freedom from religion into one's interpretation of the 1st amendment.
That maybe an aspiring college student of color should attend a traditionally 'of color' institution with lower admission standards. That enough is enough with this enforcing voting rights. That you can't make him eat his broccoli, god dammit.
We're all in mourning mode here at the Lone Guy Sitting at a Dell Saloon. Especially this guy.
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| "Money talks" - now with 100% more irony |
