Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Annette's Cotterpen


I have been trying to figure out exactly how to say some things about the current political season. As is often the case, my wife has said it better and first. Here is what she says:

From Annette Cotter on Facebook

The thing is, you can't just walk up to a counter somewhere and say, "we'd like to buy that position up there, yeah, that one, Presidency of The United States. How many billion? No problem! Here are checks from Koch, Adelson, Perry. We'll take it. We own this empty suit that will fill that position perfectly.”

Tho Citizens United has made it easier, the presidency is not yet an over-the-counter sale. Americans still have a memory, feel a phantom pain of representative democracy, so you'll have to go thru an intermediate step. You'll have to convert those dollars into people believing, voting, electing that empty suit.

How do you do this? And most especially, how do you do it when your agenda is against the interests of 99% of the people? You Lie. Lie Big. Lie constantly. Lie creatively. Lie without guilt. Lie, even after the lie has been exposed. Tell it anyway, again. Hire the most persuasive writers, the best cinematographers 
and flesh out your untruths. Conduct focus groups to see what people like--and say you are that. See what people don't like--and say your opponent is that. Buy as much ad time as it takes to run your lies almost non-stop on all media outlets. Get your own media outlet and call it fair and balanced, and publish your lies there.

Can you lie hard enough to make people vote against their own interests? Can you make the elderly believe Paul Ryan will preserve medicare? Can you make the 99% vote themselves a tax hike while voting the 1% a tax cut? Can you lie hard enough to make them defund their schools, the EPA, the FDA, Planned Parenthood?

Witness last night at the Republican Convention. Before the first speech began, signs were everywhere proclaiming, "We Built It", reflecting the Republican lie that the president had said entrepreneurs had not built their businesses. Every fact check gives them 4 pinocchios and a pants on fire for that misprepresentation, nevertheless, they named the first night of their convention after a boldfaced lie. Then they had the great clock, ticking off the amount of the deficit, implying this had been run up by our sitting president. In fact, W ran up 10.2 trillion. It is now 15 trillion, however most of the 5 trillion charged to President Obama is continuing debts already in place. President Obama is actually responsible for 938 billion of this deficit. The room was filled with lies before the first Republican opened his/her mouth. Even while Ann Romney was saying she met Mitt at a highschool dance, the text crawl beneath the screen said they met in elementary school.

How cynical! How very cynical they are! To believe this will succeed. To believe that people will not find them out and throw them out.

I am not so cynical. I believe they will fail. I believe President Obama will be re-elected.

2 comments:

Tina said...

Three cheers and three amens! So far I think their convention as been a flop---and I hope that all the money spent by all those big money crooks will have been wasted.

Heidi's Cotterpen said...

Bill-Mama - the new blog entry was particularly excellent also - to those thoughts I'd like to add - 'SLAVES built it,' 'ILLEGAL immigrants built it,' and 'outsourced 3rd world laborers built it!' - either for free, without proper recognition, or for pennies on the dollar.' Anyhow, long day, very tired, but we have been watching the current con-vention with jaws a-gaping, and, I'm all excited abt starting up my own great business and-all like all those good republicans did, but...couldn't help thinking the above...still waiting to here the grand buffoon tomorrow p.m. Which I am sure will be just as vacuous and retarded as all that is preceding it.

 

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