Sanders - Is An Earthquake Coming?

Sanders Campaign: The Media "Responds"

Corporate Instructions: "Ignore"

Commonly prevailing logic dispatches this "new face" in the Democratic Party primary to the status of a  political "curiosity." Visitors to this blog have heard every corporate "opinion" pundit obediently parrot the inane collection of think tank talking points about the Senator's announcement, each one attempting to plunge the Sanders' campaign further down the "rabbit hole" which has been so painfully excavated by the comic desperadoes from the perennially failing Republican clown car of Presidential "dreamers."

[MeanMesa makes a distinction between even the comparably fuzzy designation of "Presidential hopeful" and the cold, tedious realism of "Presidential dreamer." The corporate media is, apparently, under orders to continue the use of the designation of "hopeful" until the last possible moment when -- frantically jumping from a flaming, private jet over Iowa -- the inauthentic "star" of one of these billionaire-driven fiascoes officially becomes a "dreamer."]

The established bastions of "free speech," that is, the corporate American media industry, at first, no doubt, considered pitching a "broadcast tantrum" over the stark, anarchic "unfairness" presented by the possibility of a candidate such as the only narrowly known Sanders whom has not been defined by their relentless, commercial bias. [Don't kid yourself. The media moguls get paid plenty to create "name recognition -- and, of course quite selectively, "even more" about the candidates they have also been paid to publicize.]The heavily soiled US media has long considered "candidate definition" to be an exclusive privilege for which only the sold out networks are "uniquely qualified" to handle "for the democracy."

"If voters want to know something about a candidate, they should just go along with the information and opinions that we've broadcast for them."

Of course the corporate media's interest in "candidate preparation" is not driven solely by back room phone calls from the billionaires who own them. Once the amusing "dust up" of the primaries is completed, huge advertising buys to promote the survivors will be waiting just around the "electoral corner."

So, where does this leave Senator Bernie Sanders amid the chaos of all this monetized, manipulated, corporate media PR muck and maelstrom?

Sanders himself is a remarkable candidate, but what if we are seeing the faint first glimmer of something destined to become orders of magnitude greater than his candidacy?

All the "Important" Reasons

 Why Sanders Isn't REALLY Important

Pay attention..."Believe..."

this message is from your media.

Literally moments after the Senator announced his candidacy, the far right, "wing nut" pundits were already receiving "important management editorial guidelines" upon which they were ordered to base their commentary -- or "non-commentary" -- concerning the "news." Not surprisingly, the folks who own the US corporate media and control its broadcasting content already absolutely detested exactly everything that has absolutely anything to do with Bernie Sanders' platform.

Even the tediously relentless litany that "Hillary couldn't be trusted" was interrupted briefly -- just long enough to insert a few dozen repetitions of the urgent new talking points. A veritable legion of right wing "scandal hunters" were immediately unleashed from the corporate skyscrapers. The old bird had to hiding something somewhere -- something that could gain traction with the trailer park crowd of the GOP base.

The talk show prep gangs were frantically struggling to locate the most intimidating portrait of Joseph Stalin they could find in the FOX research archives. Meanwhile, the "psych-handlers" responsible for anchoring sarcastic one liners in the nearly brain dead, Pavlovian, FOX blond "hostesses" scrambled with their "now, repeat this back to me" demands while fumbling threateningly with their cattle prods.

The Wing Nuts Spring Into Action! [image MeanMesa]

Interestingly, the right wing "mouth junk" experts completely skipped over any of Sanders' policies in their instantaneous derision of his candidacy, instead focusing very strictly on politics and dogmatic ideological talking points -- many of them only narrowly removed from the glacial anti-Soviet US propaganda of the 50's and 60's.

The "detail free" nature of all of the GOP campaign points to date is an interesting one. The Republicans have been consistently weak on policy proposals for decades, turning, as an alternative, to constantly repeated strings of "political rhetoric" to replace the more normal approach of describing "policy proposals."

Listen carefully to what the GOP's candidates are saying as they campaign. 

Much of the GOP's jingoistic, Christian "heartland narrative" is derived directly from fundamental features of that same old anti-Soviet propaganda. The government's investment in promoting that material so effectively during the Cold War was astronomical, and the oligarchs have plainly come to consider its continuing durability in their information challenged GOP base to be a cost savings opportunity, replacing the expense of generating any hazardous, newer propaganda narratives to replace it.

What is so blankly missing in the right wing political narrative is any direct counter or contradiction to Sanders' policy propositions. This is what a block of hastily organized, "corporate, ideological, ad hominems" looks like when the script's authors have been shoved beyond the established boundaries of their field. Still, very obviously, "the show must go on..."

Insightful Observations from the Alphabet Networks. [image MeanMesa]

The "non-FOX" -- albeit more and more "FOX-like" -- corporate media networks are having their own embarrassing crisis with the Sanders announcement. The networks' corporate business plan for "reporting" election campaigns is easily discerned.

Their "idea of a good time" is to sell hundreds of millions of dollars worth of time to sterile opposing candidates primarily arguing with each other over either raw, half-baked ideology or fabricated scandals and gaffs.

To some extent this under-cutting propaganda flood is working. Even those who whole-heartedly agree that Sanders' platform is exactly what the country needs, preface statements describing their enthusiasm with "Of course he can't win..."

Sanders doesn't fit into that scenario at all, and should his populist campaign platform trigger the response from voters that MeanMesa is anticipating, the network "cookie cutter" approach to monetizing the 2016 election -- just as they have monetized previous elections for decades -- may be unraveling at the seams as we speak.

The billionaires hate -- and fear -- "real politics."

What the Earthquake Will Look Like

It may not be quite the earthquake we first imagined.

While it may be quite socially amenable to speak of politics' capacity to be "full surprising," it would be a mistake to proclaim that politics is "full of surprises." In this case, although "the dog has been waiting under the dinner table since before the meal began," there is no reason to proclaim "surprise" when, given the opportunity, the dog treats himself to the untended chicken thigh resting at the edge of the table cloth.

The point? The missing chicken thigh is not really a surprise...or an "earthquake."

We will have to look beyond the candidate to get a glimpse of the "earthquake" to which we refer, here. In fact, we will also need to look beyond that candidate's political platform in our search for the "earthquake." Granted, Bernie Sanders has already established himself as a candidate quite removed from the contemporary "norm" -- representing an entirely new phylum and species of primate so far as the clown car is concerned, but even with respect to the already announced Democratic candidate, Sanders may be literally light years distant.

When we come around to Sanders' campaign, we are already -- unavoidably -- noticing an important new "political direction." He is speaking in a almost brash, undeniable way about his plans and about his policy proposals. While this rather bold trait of his may be a shocking departure from politics as we are accustomed to it, a clear view of the actual "earthquake" to which MeanMesa is referring may still remain elusive if not out rightly mysterious.

So, it's clearly time to move ahead --  that would be to move on to the "earthquake."

As Americans we have been very patiently, very tediously, fed a very carefully fabricated myth regarding the vast bulk of the American electorate. Further, the fabric of that myth was not a mere coincidence any more than the "weaving" of that myth was simply an understandable accident or innocent over sight.

The myth?

This was the myth that a strong, stable majority of American voters were driven exclusively by right wing ideology. The myth repeatedly painted a grisly picture of a violently reactionary, maniacally religious, raging, screaming, tea bagger majority. At least millions, but more likely billions, of dollars were pumped into obedient, wholly owned media corporations to "install" the  myth -- as a sort of "default reality" -- in as many minds as possible, including those far afield politically from the right's information challenged base.

As a result this toxic myth's credibility has inched toward a flimsy, undefined, yet unilateral materiality to the extent that far too many American voters have passively grown to accept it without actually examining its "inauthentic credibility."

Now, the oligarchs who have been calling the tune for so long see the very real possibility of a very expensive -- at least for them -- federal government "lurking in the shadows" just beyond the 2016 election which may be slipping out of their monetary grip. They have invested heavily in the "care and maintenance" of that myth, and they have also become equally heavily reliant on its continued domination of the US "political mind."

Unfortunately, for those with ambitions to even further reduce the struggling electorates' already flickering hope for some sort of "recovery" from the most recent Republican looting spree, the environment for frustration and distrust is ripe with opportunity. These are the "years of pain," economically -- the perpetually lingering "toothache stage." Wall Street has recovered beautifully, but everyone without a lobbyist remains stuck at the bus stop.

The oligarchs, having already ordered their obedient media to strip away any inconvenient facts, intended to simply "fuel the fires" of malcontent while cleverly directing "the blame" for this economic mess at any political adversary they chose. Obama, himself, foolishly uttered a prescient note to this effect years ago:

"You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them," Obama said. "And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."   [Read more  here - HUFFINGTON]

Notably, however, for the oligarchs to actually use this sentiment effectively for their take-over scheme, it must be re-framed into an ideological and abstract media package which can gain traction among the otherwise disinterested, grumbling GOP base.

Concerning that base, what has looked increasingly like an insurmountable wall of distrust and discontent in the past years represents the tectonic fault. If, indeed, there is to be an "earthquake," it is precisely the fracturing of this tenuous PR thread which will finally trigger it.

Those billionaires still actually able to perceive the events around them have suddenly become quite nervous. However, although the large remainder of billionaires not in this first set are still relying on Rupert Murdoch to tell them "everything they need to know" about modern reality, they may look back at these times to realize too late that they were simply continuing to pour big cash into buggy whip futures.

To the distress of apparently both parties in the coming election, the "earthquake" will not be another political "love affair" with a smooth talking "alternate" candidate. Instead. its foundation will lie deep below the current "fist fight in the parking lot's" visible asphalt surface, and its "action of motion" will be occurring directly beneath the heretofore remarkably stable enmity the billionaires have worked so hard to create.

  The "Obama hating," "government hating," "don't trust anyone," "everything is hopeless" crowd is getting ready to change its collective mind in a big way.

THAT will be the "earthquake."

The actual cause will not be anything as startling as, for instance, the prosecution of the last administration for war crimes or the banksters for the damages they inflicted during the 2008 "correction." Rather than such dramatic "water shed" events, this shift in the minds of the GOP's base demographic will resemble the proverbial "pork chop pared by a dozen knives."

It's going to "drift" into the consciousness of those erstwhile outraged, unsettled, intentionally suspicious, perpetually incited Republican voters like the fog at an autumn dawn in Maine. Although Bernie Sanders -- as a man, a Senator and a candidate -- may very well prove to be the "mechanism" which instigates this shift, it will be his message which actually moves the political soil under our feet.

Sanders has no intention of proffering up an alternate ideology, one which might compete with the road weary, heavily armed "death march" on the right or the whimsical yet "less than reassuringly pragmatic" idealism of the loudest voices currently claiming to represent the "left." [MeanMesa considers this element of the "leftist" demographic as little more than stoic eschatologists, bravely marching forward to certain doom but offering very little by way of plans or proposals which might actually "exist" in this universe much less mitigate our difficulties.]

Ironically, we've seen an excellent example of the "collapsing side" of this prognosis this week. The cataclysmic train wreck on the Washington - New York route makes this point. 

Just as the news was being reported, the Republicans controlling the House of Representatives cut the additional funding from the AMTRAK budget which might have paid for the necessary safety equipment. [Boehner snapped at the reporter who attempted to get him to concede this connection.] 

First, this isn't ideology, at least not pure ideology. But second, this is exactly the kind of "news" which can reach through the craftily induced fog protecting the oligarchs' position with the right wing base. It deals with them.

It turns out that this troublesome Republican base understands train wrecks much better than the ALEC authored, fantastical liturgy about drowning "small government" in a bath tub.

Political Fracking - Sanders Style

Oooops. The earth is moving under our feet!

Think of examples such as this train wreck as "fractures." It is typical of the precise type of weak points where Sanders' down to Earth, populist policy proposals can enter the political discussion -- even on the right. To the chagrin of the billionaires and their networks, Sanders is "full to the gunwales" with an almost limitless supply of such points -- every one of them focused on a "fracture" fastidiously constructed by those same worried billionaires.

Heh, heh. Importantly, a reminder -- because it's been such a long time since we've heard such things, these "points" are called "populist points." And, at least for the time being, those "populist points" are planted in a garden very, very distant from the ideological "weeds" being juiced up to counter them. The usually eager and obedient network "news" rooms are beginning to spin out of control. They have no idea what to do with this.

Added to the "unpleasant chowder" already boiling in these networks' "head offices," all this attention to "POPULIST POINTS" is introducing the serious threat of a "bottom line" problem with the profit centers in their "election season business plan!" It turns out that the networks' dream of peddling the usual truck load of meaningless election campaign "got cha'" doesn't really work when a bunch of nasty "populist points" have penetrated the normal "foot ball game" reporting.

In the eyes of the networks this is probably even far more threatening than being drenched with a tub of ice cold Gatorade that's "turned" from the hot sun.

The Republicans have now developed a long, embarrassing history of elevating politics far above policy. The advantage of this approach is that it eliminates any need for proposing any actual "risky policies." Instead, GOP politicians and pundits focus on rhetoric about ideology as the highest possible priority when measuring the effectiveness of their attempts at communication.

It would be nice to say that Democrats do exactly the opposite, but that would clearly be stretching the facts. MeanMesa will go as far as saying that Democrats are inclined to do this less. This means that the Democrats have, actually, proposed new policy on a frequent basis even though in some cases that policy really did turn out to be quite risky politically.

Sanders is introducing a new campaign "business model." Whatever the outcome of his efforts, he will not be beholding to a "pocket billionaire," he won't be funneling hundreds of millions into media buys and he won't have to pay additional millions to put "paid for" campaigners and canvassers on the street.

He is already counting 100,000's of "ready to go" volunteers and a few million dollars in his war chest from campaign contributions averaging $43 each mere days after his candidacy announcement.

Keep track of the voices who hate him the most. That should be more than ample evidence to convert you if you're still undecided.