by John Lawrence
With the passage of the Health Care Reform Bill, one would think that most Americans would be rejoicing in the fact that they won't ever have to lie in a hospital bed and get a letter from their insurance company that they've been dropped. They should be rejoicing that they can never be denied coverage because of a preexisitng condition. And the list of things to rejoice over goes on and on. I suspect that the majority of Americans are rejoicing. But there's a vocal minority who see this bill as the end of civilized life as we know it. How can this be so? It's so because the right wing spin machine has gone into overtime and overdrive. They realize that it's possible to convince a certain number of people that what is actually good for them is in fact bad for them. It's not enough that they convinced a lot of poor whites to vote for Republican Presidents that have systematically transferred wealth from them to the upper classes. They now delight in the fact that they can convince people of absolutely anything. For example, they can convince people that down is up, that white is black, that a mini Krystal Nacht is absolutely justified, that drinking paint thinner is the latest diet craze. Whatever!
TV advertising moguls must be feeling a sense of power knowing that they can get anybody to do and say anything based on their representations of a fact, a person or an issue. The Republican party and the Tea Partyers have long been into demonizing things they don't like. Calm debate? Phooey, who needs that? You just demonize the other side. That's how you win. You make preposterous claims about the other side with absolute authority and that carries the day. After all that's how good lawyers make millions - by convincing juries that black is white, that up is down, that their client is innocent when they know he's guilty. That's how they make their money. They've managed to convince millions that health care reform which might save their life some day is the absolute ruination of life in America. Next they'll convince people that they should all eat dog food. After all didn't Jim Jones convince a whole bunch of people to drink Kool-Aid laced with cyanide? Reagan managed to convince some people that ketchup is a vegetable, that selling arms to the Ayatollah was a good idea. How stupid and gullible do these people think we are?
A major subject in elementary school should be critical thinking. Not only should young people be taught to question authority, they should be taught to question EVERYTHING - especially TV advertising. How many times do I need to see the Boniva commercial? I was informed about it the first time I saw it. But I'm subjected to it over and over and over again. The same thing goes for political ads. But the right wing has a special niche: they plug into all the resentment, anger and hatred that's out there. They demonize. They ridicule. They cast aspersions. They castigate. In short they use any possible negative psychological technique that they can to intimidate or to incite a riot or even mob violence. One would have to study the Ku Klux Klan to get an idea of the techniqes of psychological manipulation that use hatred and anger to motivate people and buy the snake oil that they're selling.
And of course salesmen and saleswomen are what these people are - salesmen and saleswomen of hate. They like to strut around with guns strapped to their hips - "open carry" it's called. Talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck like to whip up hysteria because that's what drives up their ratings and makes them more money. Hitler only whipped up mass hysteria for political gain. These guys whip it up for financial gain. And of course hypocrisy is an immense component of their sales campaign. Any salesman is engaging in hypocrisy if he doesn't really believe that what he's selling is good for you, only good for him in that he'll make money off of you. But these guys have turned hypocrisy into an art form. They pride themselves on the fact that they can convince you of something which they know in their heart is bad for you. They will do their utmost to tap the latent anger and hatred that resides within all of us at some level. They will appeal to the basest of human instincts. They know that at some level, black, white or brown, we are all racists.
Hitler, after all, only appealed to racist pride to win over his converts. The Sarah Palins, Glenn Becks and Rush Limbaughs of the world bring out the worst in people over health care? That's pretty amazing. Hitler was a talented speaker who was the first to acknowledge in his autobiography, Mein Kampf, that he got to where he got to solely based on his ability to manipulate crowds with his speaking ability. Today we have a whole assortment of mini Hitlers like the aforementioned whose motivation is primarily financial. They are lining their own pockets as they proceed to whip their audiences up into a political hysteria. Suddenly people who profess to be outraged by abortion language in the new health care bill which doesn't even exist are threatening to kill the (live) children of politicians who voted for the bill. So kill the innocent who are alive in the name of stopping the killing of those who are as yet unborn? Does this make any sense? The talk show hosts and political agitators from the right have made an art form out of illogic, hypocrisy and outright lying. It seems that some people would rather believe a lie that's based on hatred than the truth that's based on compassion. It's all about venting their anger. And the demagogues are only too willing and interested in showing them how to vent their anger and which are the appropriate targets for doing so. It's Germany in the 30s all over again or deja vu all over again as Yogi Berra would say. Only this time you have multiple mini Hitlers in it for financial gain instead of one megalomaniac who really believed in Aryan supremacy.
Reality has certainly been fictionalized and sad to say people are only all too willing to believe the fictionalized version rather than to accept reality itself for what it is.
