I recently posted a link to an article that focused on the disinformation that was being disseminated surrounding the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline. The basic thesis of the piece was that special interests, through their purchased representatives, were managing the news. The financial benefits to those special interests were being hidden behind a smoke screen of news focused on job creation and the lack of environment risks.

Most of the people who responded to the piece focused on the real problem – the manipulation of the issue to the benefit of what is now being called the 1%. Many picked up on the fact that the special interests would reap profits while the project left the public with the exposure of cost overruns and the cost of cleaning up after environmental disasters. But there was another type of response. What I call political hackery. The roots of these responses are buried deeply  in the re-tribilazation of American society that has occurred during the last several decades. We now have citizens to whom it is more important to be a Democrat or Republican than an American – to whom tribal affiliation trumps national identity.

A Reply I Got:

I presume you will post the same type of article on the propaganda from other perspectives. This was the most unprofessional article I have read in some time. Maybe you should read the pork that was attached to the Health Care Reform Act, all by the way added by Democrats. Every bill ever introduced carry’s with it unrelated pet projects. It is why Reagan insisted on line item vet.

My Response:

Thanks for demonstrating what has gone so wrong with this country. At least your request that I publish “propaganda from other perspectives” seems to recognize that it is all propaganda – just sometimes yours and sometimes theirs. In other words, that you are advocating a propaganda exchange rather then a serious discussion.

Your ‘two wrongs make a right’ formulation is the reason why Americans are disgusted with this ‘it’s all their fault and we are your only salvation’ rhetoric. There’s a reason why politicians and political hacks have approval ratings south of syphilitic whores.

Why isn’t it enough to point out the behavior and the effect that it is having on the social and political fabric of the country? Why is it necessary to reduce attempts at discussion to some adolescent ‘gotcha’ game? “Oh, you think we are bad, take a look at them.” What the hell does the Health Reform Act, which was BTW passed with Republican votes, have to do with the subject of the article? Why can’t people like you focus on real problems instead of asking for ‘balance’ designed to deflect attention and discussion from those very serious problems?

Why? Because political hackery and this mindless partisan bullying is a stain on the flag and constitution. Because the simple-minded are not capable of participating as citizens in a democracy without resorting to tribalistic thuggery. Because their whole world is reduced to ‘us versus them’. In other words, because they are children. Personally, I am not interested in your suggestion that we need to ‘balance’ criticism of one side with criticism of the other.

In my view, this country would be better off identifying those to whom being a Democrat or Republican is more important that being an American and then revoking their citizenship. People who see fellow citizens as the enemy are not Americans. They are domestic terrorists who have, at their core, the intention to undo the work of the founders and putting in its place a new theocracy based on their own authoritarian views of how the country should be run. I prefer my vision of America to yours.

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Add your comment below. Let me know what you think. TP

I don’t know how many of these screw ups it’s going to take before American citizens come to the realization that the culture and leadership of investment banking firms like Goldman Sachs is a cancer within the Republic. The latest golden moment came before Congress when Jon Corzine was politely grilled by lawmakers after his stupidity, arrogance and blatantly criminal behavior lost well over $1 billion of MF Global Holdings clients money.

I admit that it was a real struggle for me to watch the entire testimony. I don’t know which was more appalling. The site of elected officials on their knees sucking this jerks flaccid phallus for the grin on his face when he realized that’s what they intended. After all, Goldman Sachs is one of the biggest campaign contributors on the field and every one of these bought and paid for pieces of garbage have either received or hope to receive contributions from them. So individual clients of MF Global lose 1 billion two. But that is a minor issue when compared to posing for cookies from Goldman Sachs.

Corzine’s defense was that, despite having been CEO of Goldman Sachs, a United States Sen. and governor of New Jersey, he was just a simpleminded shit who had no idea where the money was. The defense, in and of itself, is offensive enough. But the site of elected officials, whose purported purpose is to represent and defend the interests of their constituents, buying this crap uncritically was an offense to the entire idea of elected government.

If this was the only event – read major financial screwup – that connects back to Goldman Sachs it would be one thing. But that is surely not the case. The investment banking firm, in league with others on Wall Street, clearly caused the financial crisis that almost brought down the global financial system. The combination of greed and predatory behavior when it comes to clients reduce the system that ignored long-term risk in favor of short-term gain.

A recent documentary, To Big Fail, does a fair job of outlining the evolution of the second major screwup. Once Goldman Sachs and the other investment banks on Wall Street almost brought down the global financial system, who did the government and the Federal Reserve turn to? Why Goldman Sachs of course.

I urge you to take the time and make the effort to view that documentary. The treasury secretary at the time, Hank Paulson, was a past CEO of Goldman Sachs. Timothy Gardner, another major player in the bailout of Wall Street, also came through Goldman Sachs and the Federal Reserve. If you watch the documentary you come away with the clear impression that these two people were dedicated to shoveling more money at Wall Street, bailing out their buddies at the expense of the American citizen and making sure that more financial power would be consolidated within fewer hands.

And now were back to Corzine. Let’s face it sports fans, Wall Street owns a United States government. Occupy Wall Street has it right. The Congress of the United States is merely an unincorporated arm of the investment banking firms. If you doubt that, take a look at the response of the regulators to the accumulating information regarding the imminent failure of MF Global.Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Gary Gensier, a clearly bought and paid for employee of the federal government, “stepped aside” from the investigation. When it came to a choice between doing his job and protecting the interests of his friends, Chairman Gensier’s decision was apparently very easy. Screw the American people they are only paying my current salary. My allegiance is to those who will pay my next salary.

It is one thing to bitch about the news. That is what the special-interests expect you to do. You will talk and bitch and blow off steam. But you won’t do anything. Maybe they have it right. Maybe they have you figured out. But there are other American citizens that are clearly not responding in that way. The Occupy Wall Street movement is a frontal assault on the culture of corruption, greed and outright criminal behavior that has leached out of Wall Street and into the American federal government.

If citizens don’t act the result of this financial train wreck will be the same as the ones that preceded it. The people who caused it will be called in to manage the aftermath. They will benefit from that position and, in the end, will be more powerful and wealthier. The people who put their faith in Corzine and MF Global will be screwed unless the bought and paid for Congress decides that the American people should cover the cost of Corzine’s stupidity, negligence and criminal behavior.

Only the American people, through their action, can break the fraternity which almost bankrupted this country and brought down the global financial system. None of the members of the fraternity are going to do dick about it. They’re all members of the brotherhood that is dedicated to supporting each other’s interests and screwing anybody who is not a member of the brotherhood. If you’re not a member, you’re a blip on their radar screen.

These are truly the times that try men’s souls. At least those who have even a modicum of common sense. The political elite – and I use the term elite disparagingly – clearly operate under the assumption that American citizens are morons who will uncritically accept whatever garbage is being served. But it’s far worse than that. They have decided that it really doesn’t matter if citizens can see through the veil of stupidity and simplemindedness that is being deployed.

In a recent interview attempting to support his candidate of choice, the present governor of New Jersey contended that president Obama needed to be removed from office because he caused the job losses and the current financial crisis. Okay, I’m willing to accept that there is a certain percentage of the American population who are so stump-dumb that they will accept such an intellectually insulting comment. But thinking people have to be offended not only because of the stupidity of the remark but by the assumption on the part of the speaker any sentient human being would accept such a formulation.

The core question becomes “how dumb do these people think you are?” Well according to the present governor of the state of New Jersey, you are stupid enough to be considered not part of the human race. You are a dumb consumer of political garbage that he and his compatriots can manufacture and cram down your throat.

The suggestion that the current president caused the economic and employment challenges that the country is facing is so simpleminded as to bring into question the intelligence of the person uttering it. Because it is unreasonable to contend such things with a straight face – because it is so patently obvious that the current challenges Americans are facing have their roots far before the current administration took office – such partisan crap can only be taken as an attempt to manipulate those people who are so intellectually challenged that there is actually a chance that they will buy into what is being offered. In other words, the current governor of New Jersey is not talking to you if you actually think. The governor New Jersey is only talking to people who don’t think.

What is truly amazing about this approach to public discourse is that thinking people will see alternatives that unthinking people will completely miss. Here’s an example. Four months we have all been watching the carnival which the Republican search for presidential nominee has become. Recently I was having drinks with a number of senior Republicans and the topic of the next not-Romney came up. The flavor of the month, Herman Cain, had begun the entirely predictable dissent to a crash landing. The next flavor of the month, the former speaker of the house, was lining up. I listened to the partisan stroking until I couldn’t take it anymore. I made two observations.

The first was that Newt Gingrich is a highly polarizing figure with in the Republican Party. That reminded me of a recent experience that the party had gone through. My observation was that a Gingrich run for the presidency would look a lot like the last presidential election in which a relatively unpredictable party maverick had run against the current president and lost. The comment created considerable discomfort. I probably made it worse by observing that the only way that Republicans would back Newt Gingrich is if they were convinced they were going to lose the election. In an impish mood, I suggested that the half-Governor of Alaska was probably available.

I began my second observation by saying that I actually had the ideal candidate who was not-Romney. Here was a candidate who could mobilize and excite the base. Here was a candidate who was not a chameleon on critical issues. There was a candidate who had a very good chance of winning the next presidential election. By this time, as you can imagine, they were all leaning forward and listening intently. I decided it was time to bring my candidate out into the open.

The not-Romney candidate – the antidote to Gingrich – the one certain to restore the fortunes of the Republican Party is none other than Barack Obama, the current president of the United States.

As you can imagine, the response was initially dismissive. But at least one of those present had the courage to ask the question. “How will Barack Obama restore the fortunes of the Republican Party?”

“That is the most important question that the party presently faces”, I offered. “It’s time to flush the toilet and clear way all of the crap that has been accumulating within the senior levels of the Republican Party. It’s time to resolve the conflicts between the tea party and the party elite. It’s time to redefine what it means to be a Republican and offer a positive, rather than negative, context for party action. Just like “only Nixon could go to China”, only Obama can reach out and press the lever which will begin the process of redefining the party. Right now you got nothing but midgets and loudmouths. That’s a hell of a way to run a party.”

In a recent entry, I outlined the risks of engaging in idolatry. That piece was focused primarily on political candidates and how they’re manufactured reality was often at significant odds with who they were as a person. In this piece I want to extend that argument. In the December 7 issue of the Washington Post there is an article titled”despite law against it, stealth commercials frequently masqueraded as TV news”. The article by Paul Farhi describes how an individual posing as a news source was actually paid by the company that made the products she was raving about.

As Paul observes in the article, such behavior is prohibited by law. But the person committing the behavior clearly saw themselves as above that law. That says something fundamental about what some Americans have become. Much of what they do is based upon a calculation of financial benefit. They remind me of a person I knew many years back. He was the quintessential salesman. We often said that Frank would sell syphilis if the commission was high enough.

I believe it is a good rule of thumb to assume that everything that you see on television is a manufactured reality and therefore untrue. I also suspect that it is also useful to consider every person you see on television as a fraud who is misrepresenting who they really are mostly for financial gain.

Whether it is a political candidate or some bought and paid for piece of crap parading as a news source, the essential dynamic is the same. Their objective is to distract you from the truth and get you to focus on the manufactured lies that they are peddling. The dynamic is the same. The intent is to turn television into a nonstop infomercial. Given what you pay every month to watch television, you will pardon me if this approach seems a bit perverse. I suggest it should be seen as perverse. For reduces you to the minor role of consumer. It reduces you to the role of buying this crap uncritically. In other words, they don’t expect you to think. They only expect you to believe what they’re telling you.

So Allison Rhodes makes her rounds slinging her endorsements for the people who have paid her. And when asked about the situation her response is that she ‘sees no issue in accepting payments for recommendations because her enthusiasm is genuine’. This ignores the fact that the behavior is illegal Whether she believes what she saying or not. She is acting as a paid spokesperson for a company’s product while putting herself forward as a news source. That is a crime. Rhodes is breaking the law.

Of course, she gets away with it because the retailers have already made the campaign contributions necessary and hinted at the job opportunities sufficient to buy off both the government and the regulators. The situation is allowed to continue because Rhodes is not the only person that has been paid off.

And then there’s the offered explanation. Her “enthusiasm is genuine.” Anybody got a good idea as to how we verify that? Certainly Allison Rhodes as a suggestion. We just believe her. We just believe the person who purposely misled us under the proposition that this time she is telling the truth. And what is the foundation of this proposition? It is the assumption by Allison Rhodes that you are an uncritical moron. That you will buy this crap. That when she says that her enthusiasm is genuine you accept that in the face of the fact that her enthusiasm as personal commercial implications. In the face of the fact that those commercial implications may override her judgment as to the safety of the products she is advocating. I don’t know about you, but I’m not about to buy that argument. And I’m certainly not about to do business with any company that approaches me through shams posing as news sources.

If Rhodes misrepresented then you should take all of her statements about the company and products she is ‘enthusiastic’ about as misrepresentations. Everything she says should be taken as suspect. Her credibility is zero so, anything she says should have zero credibility.

Now if everybody else would adopt the same approach, much of this behavior would disappear overnight.

You see, there is one unavoidable fact that Allison Rhodes and the company’s she represents wants you to ignore. They are desperately afraid that you will remember that the ultimate power is in your hands not theirs. You can decide not to do business with the company that engages in this kind of behavior. You can decide not to believe people who attempt to confuse or manipulate you for their own personal gain. You can decide not to believe politicians who are constantly “reinventing themselves” in order to gain your support. You can decide. The fear they deal with every day is that you will decide. That you will decide to become something other than an uncritical recipient of the crap they’re putting out. That you will decide that being an American citizen entitles you to better treatment – that you are entitled to be treated fairly.

I believe the time is coming  when Americans will do so decide.

December 4th, 2011

One of the principal themes of this blog is that Americans are increasingly expected to treat manufactured realities as actual. The past week has provided an over abundance of examples of precisely that formulation. Most of them have come out of the Republican Party’s efforts to select a candidate for the 2012 election.

The first example is a decision by Herman Cain to “suspend his campaign”. If you listen to Mr. Caine’s explanation, and if you are gullible enough, you might come away wondering why an individual who at one time was the front runner would suspend his campaign based on such flimsy reasons. But, of course, the Cain campaign, professional politicians, campaign advisers and financial supporters of candidates expect you to buy whatever rationalized crap they deliver: and to accept it uncritically.

To draw in a theme from other postings, you are expected to be a naïve consumer of this political garbage rather than a sentiment customer that needs to be convinced. In other words, the Cain campaign is treating you like a mentally challenged dog.

A second example comes in the form of the resurgence of a once discredited politician who is now considered the front runner. Newt Gingrich seems to be following in the footsteps of John McCain. You remember McCain don’t you? He was the candidate who was considered dead and passed by until he staged a last-minute resurgence. Gingrich, like McCain, is busy putting out remanufactured realities in the hope that Republican voters will accept them as fact. and, from the polls, it appears to be working.

Well, we all remember how well that strategy worked for McCain. Information-light voters, like the ones who backed McCain and presently appear to be infatuated with Gingrich, are notoriously fickle and subject to buyer’s remorse. The important factor here, is that the Gingrich campaign understands that and, in fact, is counting on the ease with which these information-light voters can be seduced by gossamer manufactured realities.

It would be easy, particularly for Republican voters, to see these examples as an attack on the Republican Party. But, I would argue, they highlight a broad and deep cynicism that has infected the American professional political class. Given another time and another election, I am certain that the examples I would select would involve Democrats. If you move beyond the simplistic tribal reactions and consider the underlying dynamics which leads political parties to treat Americans as consumers of crap, you come to a place presently occupied by the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Unlike the Tea Party, which bought into the partisan structure of American politics, OWS appears to be founded on the assumption that all politics is corrupt, captive of special interests and dismissive of the masses. In an important way, OWS is an evolutionary advance. Rather than working within the political parties, OWS is functioning in the broader, civil space. The organizers appear to understand that affiliation with either side will co-opt their movement and substantially reduce its impact.

In a fundamental sense, OWS is saying “We will no longer buy the crap that you are presenting. We will no longer accept your manufactured realities. We have no interest in talking to the bought-and-paid-for representatives of the super wealthy and the corporations.” Or to put it another way “we will no longer live in De Nile”.

One of the major changes in the last several decades has been the relationship between the companies that produce goods and the individuals who purchase them. In the early part of the 20th century these individuals were called customers. the relationship between them and the companies which produce the goods and services was dominated by the demands of the customer.in those days the mantra was “the customer is king”.

Over the last several decades that relationship – the dominant customer serviced by the Corporation – as been reversed. As customers were gradually transmuted into consumers, the balance of power shifted. During the middle part of the century and idea emerged that would fundamentally alter the balance of power. That idea was “manufactured demand”. The idea behind manufactured demand is relatively simple. In a wealthy society, people have virtually everything they need but business has to find a way to sell them more stuff. That’s the real challenge. How do you get people to buy stuff that they don’t really need?

The doctrine of manufactured demand suggested away to solve this problem. If you could, through advertising and social pressure, generate a feeling that something that was not necessary simply had to be purchased you could open up a new source of revenue and entirely new markets for products that were not needed but desired. It is on this crucial point that the difference between customers and consumers turns. A customer begins with a need that a provider of goods and services seeks to meet. It’s as simple as that. A consumer is first either told or convinced that they need something – hence the term manufactured need – and then given the opportunity to satisfy that manufactured need through a purchase.

A critical difference between a customer and a consumer is that, while a customer pays close attention to the value acquired, a consumer find satisfaction in the simple act of purchasing. This distinction is critical to the success of attempts to convert customers into consumers. You see consumers are on the critical acquirers of goods and services that in many cases offer little if any benefits. A couple of examples might serve to illustrate the point. Companies come out with increasingly sophisticated cell phones. I was recently watching a television commercial for the latest BlackBerry model. The manager, or at least the actor portraying the manager, was a lightweight bit of fluff who pointed out to a sequence of his employees that the new phones would allow them to do lots of things which detracted from the efficiency and profitability of the company. I was stunned that a company such as BlackBerry would offer a commercial which contended that their product would have such an impact on an organization. But upon reflection I realized that the company considers purchasers consumers rather than customers. The sale of their product depends upon the consumer feeling that it is a must-have.

After watching the BlackBerry commercial, I became sensitized to the pattern. It is absolutely amazing how many television advertisements convey little if any information about the product or service being offered. Instead, these advertisements focus on such things as improved social status, higher levels of happiness and keeping up with the Joneses.

Each individual has the option of acting like a customer or becoming a consumer. Each of us has that option. As a customer weekend demand fair value and products and services that meet real needs. We can insist that companies provide such value based upon our own personal decisions as to what is useful and what is pure overhead. If we choose to become consumers, we give up that prerogative. If we choose to be consumers, we become the victims of manufactured demand.

The truth is that the power is still in the hands of the individual. It is still there. It is simply not being used. Today or tomorrow you will face precisely this decision. How will you make it?

Anyone who has been paying attention to the Republicans attempt to find the “ideal candidate” has felt as if standing on a curb watching a parade pass by. Or maybe it is that the parade is standing on the curb and we as observers have been passing by.

If there is a lesson to be garnered out of the Republican experience I would suggest that it relates to the unreliability of images presented by politicians. At least some part of the Republican electorate seems to have approached the process as some sort of ‘reality show’. They have begun with the premise that what is presented to them is reality and have routinely accepted it as such uncritically. Of course, in each case they have ended up realizing that what they were sold was misrepresentation and misdirection. One idol after another proved to have feet of clay. It is easy to see what that says about the candidates but more importantly I suggest a need to focus on what that says about the voters.

Now I want to make it clear that I’m not picking on the Republicans to the exclusion of the Democrats. My thesis here is that both parties engage in presenting manufactured realities which they expect their constituents to accept uncritically. It is just that the Republicans have, in their carnivallike wanderings through the woods, presented the tendency and its implications in such high relief that the run-up to the 2012 presidential election will probably go down in history as the classic example of the risks information-light voters assume.

The GOP’s wandering through the woods has clearly shown the risks that those who would choose to be more the focus of attempted manipulation than as serious and sentient human beings incur. The cynical nature of those who have sequentially packaged and put forth candidates is difficult to miss. The flavor of the month may be dumb as a stump but it is never put forth that way. One candidate after another seem to have assumed that their followers lack the ability to see through the gossamer of their lives and misrepresentations. But it is important to remember that there are citizens out there who bought this crap and have marched to the rhythm of a series of false drums. My core question here is “what does this say about those who have been so manipulated that any suggestion that they are thinking human beings seems overly adventurous”?

One can only hope that human beings are still capable of learning. Learning that what is presented is almost always a lie. That what is omitted is almost always the truth. That politicians are desperately afraid of a thinking voter: so much so that they spend huge amounts of time and money trying to persuade that voter that they should give up thinking and simply accept what they’re being told.

The Republicans set out to follow this proposition in earnest with the selection of their last successful presidential candidate. Lacking in experience, curiosity, an understanding of the functioning of Madisonian Republicanism, the so-called “pastor in chief” converted a flourishing economy into a debt ridden society which seem to have as its sole purpose to redistribute wealth upwards. It is certainly worth noting that Americans not only elected but reelected and administration that has done more damage to the country and society than any in history. And administration that systematically worked to redistribute wealth upwards, that supported and extended deregulation and allowed Wall Street to gamble away the American future, and administration that then decided that Wall Street’s exposure should be covered by the American taxpayer, and administration that pursued unilateral action into wars and seriously damaged the international reputation of the United States. In short, the American people elected and reelected and administration which was fundamentally counter to their own interests.

The subsequent selection of their last vice presidential candidate showed clearly that the Republicans intended to pursue the strategy and, in fact, deepen its impact on American society. The parade of manufactured realities that has constituted the search for a candidate to oppose a sitting president seems to indicate that the party has lost the ability to pursue alternative strategies. In other words, all they can do is select false idols, polished them up and put them forth as real options. If you stop to wonder why such a strategy is being pursued, all you have to do is look behind the idols and all will become clear.

You see, idolatry as an illusion, has a use to those who would control the political process and government. The manufactured reality that the offered idol represents is only the first part of the value. The second part of the value is that any individual would allow themselves to be packaged in such a manufactured reality will inherently be malleable by those individuals who are seeking a puppet that they can control. And therein is the major risk for the so-called “information light” voters. By buying into the manufactured reality as a substitute for an informed voter, the voter essentially gives up the most powerful prerogative that they possess – the right and ability to think critically about their choices and to act responsibly upon their decisions.

The central operating thesis of James Madison’s government is that the people are the most powerful political force. The strategy I have described has as its principal objective to defang that power and to turn American citizens into American subjects. To the extent that voters become “information light” they submit to this transformation. As they do so, they give up their right to be considered free people and adopt the mantle of the slave: slave to those who would steal their children’s future, redistribute the wealth of this country to the wealthiest and return human society to a variation of the feudal system.

1. No Tenure / No Pension.  A Congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office.

2.  Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security.  All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people. It may not be used for any other purpose.

3. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do.

4. Congress will no longer vote  themselves a pay raise.  Congressional pay will
rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.

5. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.

6. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people.

7. All contracts with past and present Congressmen are void effective 1/1/12. The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen. Congressmen made all these contracts for themselves. Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their term(s), then go home and back to work.

I just read in this morning’s paper that the approval rating for Congress is now down to 9%.  Here’s an idea that just might bring the whole country together again. Warren Buffett, in a recent  interview with CNBC, offers one of the best quotes about the debt ceiling:

“I could  end the deficit in 5 minutes,” he told CNBC. “You just pass a  law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of  GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for re-election.  The 26th amendment (granting the  right to vote for 18 year-olds) took only 3 months & 8 days  to be ratified! Why? Simple! The people demanded it. That was in  1971…before computers, e-mail, cell phones, etc.  Of  the 27 amendments to the Constitution, seven (7) took 1 year or  less to become the law of the land…all because of public pressure.

Warren Buffet is asking each addressee to forward this email to a minimum of twenty people on their address list; in turn ask each of those to do likewise. In three days, most people in The United States of America will have the message. This is one idea that really should be passed around.