The Role of Hope in the Politics of Democracy

Ridiculing Hope and Change

After being thoroughly looted under the autocracy,

 no one could afford much more.

MeanMesa has to suspect that the "Hope and Change" campaign motto adopted during the Obama candidacy had to be, at some point, "run by" the candidate himself. All the inevitable ridicule and sardonic squealing the motto would undoubtedly draw in the future were surely elements in the calculus employed to reach the final decision to use it.

Interestingly, the concepts of hope and change are actually so closely laced together in terms of human sentiment and behavior as to be inextricable from one another. The title of this post cites "hope" specifically, but most of the things possibly said about hope will naturally also entail the concept of "change."

The relationship between the two is intricately causal. Humans devoid of hope have no logical foundation for dreaming of change, a necessary precursor to potential action. Instead, humans devoid of hope are stranded only with the cold comfort of perpetual desperation [One form of the Latin word for "hope" is "spera." In the English word, desperation, we see the Latin origin -- de...spera...tion.]

A Quick Visit to Philadelphia, 1760

The country's founders lived in a world where democracy was considered an academic curiosity attributed primarily to the classical politics of places such as Athens and Rome. The world around them as the time of the Declaration approached was populated almost entirely by monarchies of various sorts. Worse, those monarchies -- especially the most geo-politically powerful among them -- were ossified relics already in power for centuries. In almost every case they had patiently adopted an arcane collection of, shall we say, "bad habits."

We are all familiar with the history. As the founders thought of a new model for the government they were considering, the list of "common choices" was not particularly promising. There was, of course, the "monarchy idea" which was already growing quite unpopular in the Colonies, but there were others. Theocracies, autocracies, dictatorships and good old fashioned war lords were a few.

When these men "selected" democracy, many of the moving parts of such a plan remained ill defined. Granted, there had been a good deal of writing and thinking done on the subject, but the task of formulating the "nuts and bolts" practicalities required to create an operational model was daunting.

They did pretty well.

One way to look at their solution was that they wanted the citizens of the new Republic to have a way to meet the challenges facing them based on their own plans and values, hence the "representative" part of the idea. Citizens, they assumed, would hope that changes could be made, problems solved and progress, generally, realized, and those hopes would pilot the government's actions more or less along the lines of a majority opinion in such matters.

The idea which was being rejected by these founders was the European model where policies and changes seemed to descend from the powerful in a way essentially independent of the hopes of the citizens. The European plan worked well enough until the "citizen hope" level finally grew enough to permanently challenge it.

In the United States all of this would be accomplished in the mechanism described by the Constitution. There were always plenty of "loose ends" in the system, but in the long term the Constitution's proposal turned out to be a good one. "Citizen hopes" occasionally raised hell in the Republic before they were finally sorted out in the democratic process, but centuries passed without any guillotines.

The point here is not to write another history of the United States, but, instead, to simply point out without any "hemming and hawing" whatsoever that what these men proposed was a representational democracy which would be controlled by, yes, politics.

Politics as Pandora's Box

Politics and Pandora [image source]

The mythological story of Pandora may be fascinating, but here we must consider specifically "the box" part.

Zeus gave the gods-crafted Pandora as bride to Epimetheus, along with a box with a warning label telling the couple never to open it. Epimetheus was dazzled by his bride, Pandora. Perhaps he forgot the advice of his prescient brother. Perhaps he thought they were supposed to hold the box in safe-keeping for Zeus against his return -- that it wasn't a gift, at all.

Pandora Opens the Box. 

Epimetheus insisted that his wife obey the letter of the label. Unfortunately, one day Pandora's husband left her side for a few hours. Pandora was gifted with curiosity as much as the other attributes given her by the gods. For her the box was a gift, not something to be kept in trust. What business had Zeus to tell her not to open it? Perhaps she'd listened to her brother-in-law's tales of tricking the king of the gods. Perhaps she saw nothing to fear. Maybe if she just took a quick peak.... Looking around to make sure no one was watching, she opened the box Zeus had given them just a crack. As Pandora did so, ghostly forms gushed forth from the crack. Pandora had unleashed all the evils now known to man. No longer could man loll about all day, but he would have to work and would succumb to illnesses.

At the very bottom of the container was the last thing to come out. It was something that wasn't evil. We call the good that Pandora unleashed by the name of hope.                       [Visit the site here.]

There are various "embellished" interpretations of precisely what Zeus's world wrecking, suddenly released evils were, but most versions arrive roughly at this list:  disease, despair, malice, greed, old age, death, hatred, violence, cruelty and war. The mythology's "implied" message is that before disobedient Pandora's curiosity unleashed these things, the world was a peaceful, well fed happy place.

While the democracy designed by the founders certainly didn't "unleash" such grave dilemmas as Zeus "punishments," we can see that it has done fairly well at "unleashing" quite a collection of humanity's ugliest appetites. But the last "item" to fly forth from the bottom of Pandora's box was, famously, hope.

This post is about the role played by hope in the politics of democracy.

Hope, Risk Taking and Politics

The mechanism of the interplay between hope and change usually accompanies a question of risk taking. In the "devoid of hope" sense, risk taking demands that there be "odds" which can be weighed to potentially justify taking action. Vast political ambitions have been founded on creating odds justifying such action or, in more cynical cases, "establishing the perception" of such odds.

The counter policy also holds true. When the prospect of "taking action" based on hope must be squelched, materially decreasing the odds to a more pessimistic state or, of course, decreasing the perception of the odds to such a state by an artificial manner is, predictably, the usual mechanism.

This kind of political manipulation of the electorate, MeanMesa dares to presume, is, at least, probably one of the wicked little vapors which emerged from the founders' "political box" if not, in fact, from Pandora's. In any event precisely this style of "odds manipulation" -- and especially the manipulation of the perception of the odds -- has become absolutely nothing less than a burgeoning "career opportunity" for the denizens of the oligarchic think tanks now infesting the country.

The point here is that not far below the necessity of such schemes manipulating the odds or the apparent odds lies the dynamic of the hope which drives the risk taking in the first place. In other words anyone "betting the farm" on artificially manipulating the odds arising from dreams derived from a certain kind of hope will, sooner or later, need to address the hope directly. Naturally, too much out of control hoping can throw a wrench in just about any such scheme. Most of them are, instead, counting on the political inertia to be found in lots of voters with plenty of cynical, hopeless pessimism.

Predictably, this is an the outline of the orders issued to the oligarchs' think tanks. If voters can be reduced to a hopeless, frightened, angry desperation, all sorts of political "opportunities" will emerge from the ensuing mayhem -- none of them boding well for the democracy.

Risk Taking: The Order of the Day

Americans are quite used to handling politics this way.

While things were "rolling along" in a more or less usual manner in the democracy, no one had perfect hope, that is, an impossibly high quality of hope predicating action to be undertaken with perfect odds of success. There are always risks. For example the founders themselves found the idea of adversarial conflict between counselors and prosecutors at trial to be a great way to insure dynamic legal verdicts.

Voters were faced with "taking risks" as they elected candidates to run their government, and the risks were always there. The winning candidate might have deceived his constituency during his campaign. Once elected, those in power might have abandoned their campaign principles or even the personal positions they had traditionally held. These are all risks. Every one of these decisions is weighed by a voter as the likelihood of one of these outcomes is estimated. In other words the "odds are established," then the risks are taken, and the ballot is cast.

The thread of hope runs inextricably through all of this. Political campaigns become, generously perhaps, "risk management" exercises. Fears detected in the minds of the electorate must be addressed and assuaged to make the odds of them materializing seem less likely if the candidate is elected. Likewise, a candidate's campaign must work to make the odds of realizing dreams and ambitions -- hopes -- held by the same electorate either to be greater, or at least, appear greater.

The Right Wing's Necessary War on Hope

A great deal can be garnered from an objective examination of the general theme employed in the right wing's propaganda effort, but perhaps the most chilling revelation will be the obsession with deforming hope and exploiting the consequences. Let's look a little more closely at that conclusion.

The idea that hopes [Fears can be presumed to be "hopes of avoidance."] entertained by an electorate are, at least theoretically, the "engine" driving representational government openly invites those wishing to manipulate the process to address hope itself. Should the hope of some portion of voters become somehow controllable under the assault of carefully designed propaganda, the consequential "impulses of hope" directing the government would also become conveniently controllable.

Want to be a tea bag? [image source]

In the traditional case hope is "transitive." One with hope is "hoping" for "something." Although this hardly seems to be "rocket science," it represents precisely the deceptive tactic incorporated into the right's propaganda program. While the strategy itself may be somewhat obscured by design, an over view of the issues presented in the propaganda still expose the larger, underlying purpose in a very revealing way.

It won't require looking at too many of the doggerel "protest signs" at a tea party anti-immigration rally to begin to get the picture. Those voters operating under the influence of the propaganda's maxims are, in fact "hoping" for things. For example, they probably might be hoping that the United States population demographic return to the Caucasian majority of the halcyon days of 1950.

Other sign bearers might be hoping that taxes be reduced to an unworkably low rate, that public schools cease teaching science, that the enfranchisement of certain voting blocks be truncated or that their personal Biblical priorities about abortion and gay marriage become statutory law, and so on. We are familiar with the varying "messages" of the propagandized minority.

However, considered in a larger picture all these "hopes" share at least one chilling commonality. None of them -- not a single one -- is ever likely to be realized. In most cases there is not even so much as the existential possibility hosted by the most unlikely of all possible "special conditions" imaginable which might ever develop into anything even remotely similar to the "completely corrected dream world" of their political fantasy.

The propaganda, once it is stripped of all its incendiary psychology, is merely enticing these poor sign carriers to hope for impossible things, in most cases grumbling that they "feel" that "everyone knows this is right." Once this is accomplished by the relentless application of right wing propaganda, there remains no likelihood whatsoever that any of these carefully manicured "conceptual victims" will ever take another breath of satisfaction or contentment for the remainder of their painful, hopeless lives.

It is, of course, only when they are in this precise state that the oligarchs' think tanks officially consider such a political base properly prepared to enter a voting booth.

We cannot fail to appreciate the exquisite work of psychological manipulation which has delivered these educationally challenged voters to such a widely held, grim, political eschatology -- or the apparent permanence of it. It is absolutely a "challenge well met" when a right wing American -- traditionally an impressive example of hope -- can be transformed into a grumpy, desolate nihilist.

When MeanMesa ponders a possible "path back" to some sort of functional politics, this is what springs to this tired old mind first.

July, 2014: Austerity Crazed GOPs Dump Another $287 Bn onto the Deficit

Just a Wee Bit of US Budget and Deficit History

The GOP would like to pass a law against even remembering this stuff...

The National Debt comes from the yearly Federal Budget deficits. Since there is already a deficit for this year, the $287 Bn unpaid House bill be will added to the National Debt.

So, let's start by getting something straight. The US Federal Budget deficit is best considered as a percentage of the US GDP. Of course, the whole calculation is riddled with carefully crafted "economic doodads" masquerading as some sort of "expertise" purposely intended to be quite beyond the meager comprehension of American tax payers, but -- since this is the way we officially calculate the monstrosity -- we may as well pay attention to what we are being told.

Now, the "getting something straight" part.

There have been exactly two Presidents in the last four decades who have over seen an actual reduction in the deficit during their terms: Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Naturally, no one would even remotely suspect this with opinions based on the drivel of the US failed domestic media, so let's take a look at a few charts which tell what has actually gone on with the deficit since Obama was inaugurated in 2009. [The data shown is probably as accurate as someone without his own think tank can expect -- from the Congressional Budget Office, October, 2013. Read the entire article Deficits are Rapidly Shrinking - Crooks and Liars]

Remember, the decreases shown in the deficit as a percentage of the GDP are being generated by two important forces. The first is by a reduction in the amount of federal spending, and the second is because of an increase in federal revenues.

[Note: The 2014 deficit figures appear to be headed for the rate shown -- when this chart data were calculated, the 2014 figures were "forecast" figures.] The actual decrease in the amount of dollars spent by the government is really the central issue with this post. Sure, it might seem to make sense to reduce the annual federal deficit to zero -- that is, reduce our spending to match our income, but when President Clinton's budget looked like it might actually do that, the economists warned him away from going that far.

There are a few very influential Americans who make fabulous incomes from the interest they receive from the Treasury for financing the national debt.

Just as the federal deficit is based on two factors, so is the federal revenue. The issues creating federal revenue are first, tax rates, and second, [GDP] the size of the economy. [The red bar at the left shows the forecast revenue for 2009, but it was an estimate prepared before the awful gravity of the Bush W. collapse had been completely measured. The actual revenue during Obama's first year was about $300 Bn less than forecast.]

Federal spending -- the current "screaming point" of the GOP tea bags after their rhetoric about "jobs, jobs, jobs" cratered from Congressional ineptness -- is what it costs the government [in dollars] to pay for everything it buys each year. The reason we can say that the deficit is "shrinking rapidly," is only partially the result of actually spending less, but also partly the result of having higher revenues as the collapsed economy painfully heals.

The first [top] chart shows exactly what is meant by "measuring the deficit as a percentage of the GDP." Things looked pretty grave in 2009 after the US economy had contracted at -6% for a couple of years thanks to the Republican looters. However, that deficit percentage started down the next year and has continued to drop since then.

The next chart shows that the deficit itself -- this time in actual cash trends instead of as a percentage of the GDP -- also began to decrease steadily. The next chart shows that federal revenues began to increase steadily once the Bush crime family had been retired back to Texas and Wyoming, while the last chart shows that federal spending -- again, in actual dollars -- has stabilized and remained fairly constant even though the GDP has -- finally -- begun to once again increase.

That last chart shows federal expenditures roughly constant in the range of $3.5 Tn during the Obama Presidency. If any of MeanMesa's visitors is inclined to ask, "So what?," have a look at what these figures looked like toward the end of the W's catastrophic reign. [Data: US Department of  the Treasury, Office of National Debt, 2007]

Toward the end of the Bush W. term, the national debt was adding around 1/2 Tn dollars per year

 The GOP's Famous History
 of Good "Business Sense"

Borrowing trillions to create a nasty clutch of over fed "job creators"

Now, why are we beginning this post will all of these deficit and revenue charts?

They explain the scale of what the House Republicans are trying to do. $287 Bn may not actually seem like that much to Americans already exhausted by Washington D.C. billion dollar shenanigans, but spending just a few minutes with the CBO data [above charts] puts the cold-cash magnitude of this 10 year tea bag looting scheme into clearer perspective.

Right here, we can dedicate absolutely no more than a couple of paragraphs to the hideous screaming hypocrisy of these sold out GOP dead enders. We have to look no further than some of their stinkiest "deficit reduction" budget cutting ideas. 

For example, the 2012 "Ryan budget" proposal aimed at a $1.4 Tn reduction in federal spending, a feat to be accomplished by slashing programs for food stamps, emergency housing, heating assistance and Medicaid, just for starters. [Read more: ALTERNET and The HILL] The point here is simple. That $1.4 Tn "savings" would gut most of the already tattered "safety net" into oblivion, leaving the streets of the United States looking like a poorly functioning third world nightmare.

The approach taken by the tea bag controlled House has been similar to what we might expect from a "one trick pony." Everything that costs so much as a single dime of Federal tax money must be off set by cuts and "savings" extracted somewhere else from the budget.These now famous "off set" demands extend to everything from limiting the percentage of income for student loan repayment to rebuilding the New Jersey shore after hurricane Sandy.

The GOP's Promise
 of Prosperity Through Austerity

Ever see a bridge built with a tax cut?

But wait. What about the tea bag obsession with an "offset" for every dime of federal spending?

Where, exactly, is the "off set" for the $287 Bn in the business tax reduction bill? 

Well, there isn't one. Even more interesting, all the corporate media "mouth junk" experts haven't even mentioned the matter with so much as a single one of their usual, hand wringing, whimpering gasps.

The tea bags hill billies who can't so much as draw a breath of air without wailing about "the debt" have not only remained eerily silent, they were the back room cheer leaders powering this thing through the House of Representatives. Of course, it wasn't really their idea. They were "just following orders."

Let's see. Who will get the benefit of this latest scam? Oh, that's right -- the JOB CREATORS and the ...uh... CAPTAINS OF INDUSTRY who will be "investing in America" to get the smoldering remnants of the US economy resuscitated after the last time.

Give MeanMesa a break. Just like most folks visiting this blog, that nonsense didn't make sense the first time they trotted it out for us. Or the second. Or the third.

MeanMesa's Theory 
of the Theoretical "Normal" Business

Let's pretend for just a moment that you are a small business owner. No, you "don't listen to both sides" and then troll Stephanie Miller's show with a fist full of breathlessly delivered, frantic, canned right wing talking points. We'll pretend that you are REALLY a small business owner with an actual small business somewhere in the United States.

The "small business owner" label is important because it is precisely this group of people who are the central "engine" which can restore what's left of the American economy by creating jobs, making business investments and so on. For this post, this is even more relevant. The "small business owners" are the folks the Republicans intend to "help" with their $287 Bn dollars worth of tax cuts. 

[Of course there's a troubling "disconnect" between what we might consider a "small business" and what the owners of the GOP might consider a "small business." For example, the GOP thinks that Bechtel, the largest engineering and construction company in the US and the fourth largest in the world, is, in fact, classified as a "small business." Read more about Bechtel  here. Read more about the conveniently strange definition of "small business" used by the GOP Washington Monthly, 2010]

Setting all this aside, let's say that your particular "small business" is, actually, small -- that is, quite a lot smaller than these phony Wall Street gargantuans who just use the description to get fat GOP tax loop holes. Right away, MeanMesa should warn you. If your business is so small that it doesn't have lobbyists with check books, you'll not be seeing any of the $287 Bn worth of "business tax cuts."

Well, when you started your small business, you had a business plan. You investigated how much it would cost to provide your product or service, how much you could charge for it, how much your expenses for doing business would be and so forth. In fact, with respect to these expenses, you added up gas, rent, electric, insurance etc. but you certainly were sure to include taxes. You were going to have to pay taxes.

After all this went into the total, you looked at your plan to see if it would work. MeanMesa emphasizes taxes here because taxes are not a sudden unanticipated surprise to anyone thinking about a small business. If your "business plan" wouldn't work -- because of taxes or anything else, you "went back to the drawing board."

However, right now -- after these same Republicans totally wrecked the US economy with their eight year looting festival during the Bush W. autocracy -- they would like very much to cut your taxes right now. You know, cut your taxes as a "special House GOP Capitalism favor" to you, so your "small business" can grow, grow, grow and create lots of jobs after you patriotically reinvest the extra money you'll have from the savings you got from the tax cuts.

Now, the House tea bags don't like to careen into a potentially shady plan like this without plenty of accompanying drama for media cover. The GOP is basically a sham. Policy means nothing to them if it doesn't wind up either deregulating something or plunking wads of tax money into the pockets of the Party's owners.

So they added to their proposal this, for them, dramatic threat: "Unless we can give $287 Bn dollars worth of these tax cuts to businesses, they will go out of business because their taxes are so-o-o-o very high already. Why, these poor businesses never, ever, thought that they would ever be paying such horridly unfair taxes like these. We desperately need to fix this so the economy we wrecked in 2008 won't stay wrecked -- at least, won't stay wrecked for our friends."

And, of course, those "friends," just by an almost unbelievable, happy coincidence, are either the owners of the Republican Party or, sometimes, just really close friends to the owners of the Republican Party. In any event, let's just say that every one of these businesses about to be saved by the tax cuts, at the very least, has lobbyists.

The owners of the GOP have also spent plenty of dough insinuating the idea into their base of education challenged hill billies that taxes -- practically any taxes whatsoever -- will drive every American business somewhere else in practically no time at all. This is possible because those hill billies have also been led to believe that there is, somewhere in the world, a wonderful tax and regulation free paradise where American corporations can go to enjoy all the "liberty" and "free market" freedom they deserve once they escape the liberal tax oppression here.

Of course, there is. We call it Somalia.

There's "Predictability" 

and Then There's "Predictability"

The GOP's current "problem" keeps changing - 

jobs then debt then predictability then certainty.

No matter the name, it's always taxes and regulation.

The GOP voices have an unsettling thread of eerie unanimity running through them. There are plenty of GOP voices -- screaming and squelching in the halls of the Congress, blathering endless hatred and fear on right wing radio and sandwiching worn out ideology with grotesque self righteous arrogance on their daily television shows.

However, the really creepy part of it all is the mysterious synchroneity. On any specific day -- beginning early in the morning East Coast time -- a certain word or phrase will appear in what may at first appear to be some sort of reasonably sincere discourse about something. However, an hour later on a different right wing show perhaps in a different time zone and issuing forth from a different right wing mouth, precisely the same word or phrase will mysteriously appear again.

By noon time, that certain word or phrase has become a repetitive litany, chanted by the reactionary "faithful" across numerous networks, radio and television shows and as embarrassingly often as possible by wing nut Congressmen and Senators fortunate enough to find themselves facing a microphone. By dusk that certain word or phrase is frothing from the barber and the beer drinker -- usually between burps -- from Bangor, Maine to Tijuana.

Further, there has been an interesting "collection" of these unusual words repeated and repeated in exactly this fashion by the right wing "spokesmen." For example, in 2009, the GOP spoke relentlessly, hour after hour, day after day, saying "Jobs, Jobs, Jobs." After utterly failing to actually ever do anything about "Jobs, Jobs, Jobs," that particular talking point was retired in favor of "Debt, Debt, Debt."

Once again failing utterly to do a single thing about the "Debt, Debt, Debt" -- except, of course, to make it worse -- the latest example of these strangely repetitive talking points has become "Predictability, Predictability, Predictability." The right wing tax rate nonsense in the section above, is, in fact, precisely an issue derived from this specific talking point.

Often, the "Predictability, Predictability, Predictability" talking point is temporarily replaced with "Certainty, Certainty, Certainty." With respect to the onerous, burdensome, horrible, liberal, economic recovery wrecking tax policies of the Obama Administration, the right wing complaint then becomes "Business growth is being hampered by a lack of certainty" -- meaning, of course, tax laws and, quite possibly, also expensive environmental regulations.

One of the too often repeated "redeeming qualities" of this particular stinky little $287 Bn "business tax cut" bill is that it takes what had been -- only a few years back during the brutal onset of the Bush W. Economic Collapse -- a temporary tax cut made necessary because the economy had been tanked by the looting and makes it permanent.

In right wing lock step talk, that means that the House bill would "add certainty" by making the low tax rates frantically adopted amid the smoldering wreck of the 2009 economy "permanent." In case you're still wondering, that would be "permanent" regardless of the economy doing better than it was in 2009, and if the cuts couldn't be made "permanent," it would amount to making the "uncertainty" facing business plans even greater.

[Read the entire Huffington Post article Huffington Post]

Huffington Post

House Votes For Tax Breaks To Add $287 Billion More To Deficit

Michael McAuliff

Posted: 07/11/2014 

WASHINGTON -- The GOP-led House of Representatives embraced a former stimulus measure Friday, voting to make it and another related tax cut permanent, adding $287 billion to the deficit over the next 10 years.

The largest part of the cut, worth more than $263 billion, is making permanent so-called bonus depreciation, which allows businesses to write off the cost of capital investments and improvements much more quickly.

It was enacted twice during the administration of President George W. Bush, and the most recent version expired last year. The idea behind it is that if lawmakers give businesses a break during tough economic times, they will speed up major equipment purchases and stimulate economic activity.

Those who support making such a stimulus measure permanent argue that it would give businesses the certainty to be able to plan their investments.

The President has hinted that he will VETO the bill if it ever reaches his desk.

MeanMesa's compliments to the President.

5/4 The GOP Billionaires: Just How They've Gotten This Far

Ooops. 5/4? Frequent visitors here know all about how "chatty" MeanMesa can become once something gets the "dander up." This billionaire business is nasty. 

The "Tactical Mechanisms"
of the Plutocrats' Coup d'etat

To control the United States in the way they want, they must control the democracy.  While out right and immediate control through, perhaps, force of arms is still out of reach in these ambitions, other avenues are disturbingly available to these oligarchs.  We can easily discern just a few of the primary avenues.

1. Through Corrupted Politics

The oligarchs are astonishingly cynical.  They are convinced that when enough money is made available to a political campaign, the character and qualifications of such a candidate mean almost nothing.  Because an interested, educated electorate -- as envisioned by the country's founders -- would make this approach unworkable, the plutocrats began to target the populations' education and interest levels directly -- with some remarkable success.

The candidates that they manage to elect are necessarily subservient to them.  They were hoisted into office on the false premise that their campaigns were financed by constituents when the cash actually came to them from rather demanding billionaires through their Super PACs,

These candidates, once in office, fully realize that the same subversion of the democratic system which placed them there can be made instantly available to a more dependable and obedient replacement.  The investment required from a billionaire to elect a Congressman represents almost nothing.

The Koch brothers, for instance, have a personal wealth of $39 Bn -- 39,000 million.  A "campaign contribution" of one or two million dollars, while able to totally submerge most election opponents, amounts to almost nothing to them.

2. Through the Media

While Murdoch's FOX News Corp is the most obvious among the sold out media, the largest five "non-FOX" networks [CBS, ABC, NBC, PBS and MSNBC] are held -- and managed -- by six massive corporations.  Although MeanMesa visitors are likely to look to the internet for their information, the majority of American voters rely on these network "news" outlets.

The main propaganda work is accomplished through syntactic nuance.  For

Everything's just fine. (image)

example, the President doesn't actually ever "do" things, he "tries to do" things; when there is little validity to one side of a conflict or argument, the "news" reports two equally valid sides; and, when a "rebuttal" is to be aired as "news," the time allocated always favors the Republicans.  There are plenty of examples.

Why would we expect otherwise from wholly owned, dutiful servants working  under direct "editorial" orders from their owners?

3. Through Managed Education

Most billionaires could not possibly care less about public education, but, it turns out, they are not at all pleased with the now rare cases of educational products which are successful.  They were also "born to hate teachers' unions" and "love the interest payments" they get from financing unaffordable college degrees.

These same billionaires hate a public acceptance of climate change, any growing interest in renewable energy, negotiated international relations instead of war or any reasonably objective teaching of history or science.  Because these billionaires are within striking distance of owning most of the real estate in the country, they naturally hate the property taxes which fund public education.

While they have absolutely no interest in wide spread, high educational outcomes, they are organically attracted to social failures such as home schooling, religious colleges [Regent University et al.], high drop out rates, dumbed down textbooks [the Texas Board of Education] and so on.  All these alternatives to actual, functional education not only produce future voters without any bothersome critical thinking skills, but they are also cheaper -- easier on the tax fund and the tax rates -- which makes them an irresistible target for the plutocrats' political manipulation.

4. Through Incendiary Social Culture

Any public issue -- abortion, gun ownership, gay marriage, health care, jobs programs and so on -- offers the billionaires a ready made target for their political schemes.  As mentioned before, the oligarchs have essentially no ideals or personal interest in any other these superficial incitements, but they are quite willing to invest heavily in maintaining the inflamed hysteria among the easily manipulated, poorly educated, low information base voters upon whom they periodically rely to elect their puppet politicians.

The amount of corporate money required to sustain these artificial incitements in between political elections amounts to chicken feed -- and it's a remarkably good investment.

A Not Too Promising Future

The billionaires in the long term want a "plantation society" to replace the democracy -- an unavoidable explanation of why their reactionary social engineering schemes are so popular in the economically failed Southern US states.

However, in the shorter term, the interests of the anti-democracy types are "closer to home."  The billionaires cannot avoid being fixated on some aspects of the American economy.  They literally salivate every time they see the abbreviation "Tn."

The Social Security Trust currently holds $2 Tn in cash reserves, the health maintenance industry in the US represents $6 Tn annually, the Department of Defense budget runs around $700 Bn annually [over $1 Tn when all the "doo-dads" are added], the US stock exchange holds around $16 Tn [Until the next time the oligarchs empty the cash register as they did in 2008.  It went down to around $9-10 Tn after the Bush W. cronies were through with it.  The tax payers pumped in around $2 Tn to prop it back up on its feet.]

Every subtle bit of mind bending propaganda -- on any issue -- billowing forth from these self-proclaimed "masters of the universe," their obedient politicians, their sold out media or even from the mouths of oblivious hill billies in their voter base targets precisely these reservoirs of someone else's wealth.

Watch out.

GOPCon Crisis at the Talking Point Factory!

 A MeanMesa Fiction

Neo-Con "Talking Points" Campaign (Image source)

The junior executive found himself in the fifth floor restroom of the Karl Rove Memorial Information Complex.  He nervously adjusted his tie in the mirror as rubbed his moistened index finger along his teeth.  He was practicing a few variations of what he always considered to be his most confident smile when the older gentleman entered.

As his senior approached the next mirror in the elaborate room, he smiled and nodded as subserviently as possible.

The older executive spoke first.  "Gotta look sharp for the big meeting.  This one could be important for your career future here at the 'possum werks.'  I'm expecting all hell to break loose once the big boys' guy shows up."

Puzzled, the younger man hesitated, contritely remembering his junior position.  However, finally his curiosity bested his caution.  "Are you anticipating some difficulties in the conference, sir?"

After a condescending "Harumph" rolled from the mouth of the senior officer, the older man turned to say in a falsely quiet voice, "You may be too low in the organization to have much perspective about what's going on, but this whole propaganda campaign is turning into a rolling train wreck. Let's just say that a lot of your bosses, you know, middle management types, are standing in front of the train.  I hope they've got their resumes ready.  This thing's going to be a meat hook festival."

At this point, the senior advisor seemed to suddenly have a sinister look on his face, a look which would routinely follow a "strategic moment" in the old man's thoughts.  "You know, I like you, kid.  You can sit with me back in the back of the room.  We won't be out of sight, but there will be plenty of eager beaver fools jammed up close to the podium, trying to kiss ass.  When it gets dramatic, they'll be the most convenient targets for the wrath of the owners' agent."

The pair exited the relative calm of the men's room into the frantic turmoil of the corridor outside, continuing their talk.

The young man asked, "If you don't mind, sir, what did you mean by 'owners' agent' when you were talking about the meeting.  I thought we were working for the CATO Institute.  I mean, that's whose name is on my paycheck."

The older man chuckled.  "I'm talking about who owns us and the CATO Institute and the Heritage Foundation and Americans for Prosperity and the American Cross Roads and the rest of them.  Don't tell me that you actually thought we were a non-profit or something."

Fearful, the younger man replied, "I guess I hadn't ever really thought about it.  I have just tried to do my job, keep my head down and go with the flow.  I was in charge of emailing the talking points out to all the conservative radio pundits every morning.  Sometimes, I got to send encrypted messages to the Senators."

He paused for a moment, then continued.  "I mean I never made any talking points myself.  I just forwarded what was coming out of the Psychology Department.  And, what do you mean by 'train wreck?' I looked at poll numbers last week and everything looked pretty good."

The two continued toward the executive elevator.  The senior man obviously had a key.  Once within the quiet of the personal elevator, the older man continued the conversation.

"Well, for one thing, the Wisconsin thing was supposed to be done by now.  The schedule called for the power plants to already be in the hands of the Koch brothers and for the public employees' pension fund to be transferred to the state's coffers by now.  I mean, what could be simpler than that?"

"But here we are.  The Wisconsin capitol is still stuffed with the damned socialists, and their $78 billion dollar pensions fund is still in the bank where it was a month ago.  Now the thing is spreading all across the country.  All the tea bags we spent so much money electing are getting recalled.  The phony budget crises that we put together for all those states are falling apart because the facts got out into the damned blogs and Maddow and Schultz and the rest of them."

"Hell, we're even losing control of the networks we own.  The story got way too stinky for our operatives to keep it off the air, and now, millions of Americans have heard about it.  The owners are pissed, and they're ready for blood."

The younger man's face was turning a sickeningly, pre-vomit grey.  Finally, he squeaked out, "Do you mean the Koch brothers?"

The senior man chuckled again.  "Oh sure, the Koch brothers.  But you need to know that there is a covey of billionaires out there with steaming check books and no results.  Looking over the whole bunch of them, the Koch brothers come out as good guys."

"We tried the Huckabee Kenya, Kenya, Kenya, mao-mao, mao-mao, mao-mao things and it beached six hours after we put it on the air.  We tried to bury the fact that Libya was only producing 2% of the world oil supply to cover the speculators raising the gasoline prices sky high, but that thing is falling apart, too.  Hell, even the damned Muslim, Muslim, Muslim things is becoming contradictory.  If we could have gotten the President to send troops in to save his Muslim brothers, that might have worked, or even if we got him to back Gaddafi.  I mean, the opportunities were all over the place.  But no.  We had to screw around and mess up the whole thing."

Patting the perspiration on his forehead with his handkerchief, the younger man asked, "Do you mean that our 'bosses' were willing to start a war?"

His companion chuckled again.  "We could go with either way, just so long as we were able to trash Obama along with the unions.  We got the hill billies fired up enough to start shooting, but that black guy out maneuvered us on this one.  The owners have kept the economy wrecked and unemployment high getting the country ready for the 2012, but nothing seems to be sticking."

"That's why there are going to be heads rolling in this meeting.  Christ, you could get promoted.  You know, moved up to the front ranks with a big raise.  Just stick with me, kid.  Stay close and, for God's sake, don't say anything."

The uncertain younger man's face was pale as he followed his older friend past the line of guards at the door of the sub-basement, ultra-secure conference room.