I'm Right Again Dot ComA New Commentary Each Wednesday September 24, 2014
THE PURPOSE OF A PAC IS TO HIJACK OUR MINDS
By definition, the purpose of a Political Action Committee (PAC) is to employ experts able to use every psychological trick, every means, every advertising medium, at any cost, that could permit clever operatives to hijack the minds of We, the People.
Through access to the makers of public policy whose attention has been bought, opportunists giving money to the candidates' campaigns believe they will be allowed to advance the fortunes of themselves, companions, partners and the corporations they own.
Far too often, this wish is fulfilled by avaricious office holders.
There has been an exponential growth in the amount of aptly named, "Dark Money."
Rule number one for a political campaign: Begin by attacking the opponent and continue to degrade them in every possible way. Photo-shop the ugliest image of your opponent that can be produced. Attack their motives, even their sanity. Refuse to support any and all measures the opponent proposes. No sly innuendo should be omitted.
Rules number two through one thousand: Over-spend the opponent. Corner the market. Buy everything. Attempt to follow every bit of time purchased by opposing candidates with another broadcast, mailer or newspaper display. Make sure that everyone's evening meals are interrupted often by robo-calls and the landscape is littered with hideous political signs that keep growing larger and staying up longer with each succeeding year. Do all of this relentlessly, without pause
This expanding industry is insidious: deceitful, treacherous and enormously wasteful of our resources. It produces nothing that is good and useful for humankind.
The word "excess" does not not appear in the lexicon of most of today's politicians, and/or parties.
These policies, if continued, can only end ruinously.
Oh yes, the purveyors of space and time in the public media are intoxicated by this policy of spending billions on advertising. Why wouldn't they?
No one knows this better than me. I peddled advertising for more than 50 years. I was very good at the art, yet I was always wary of politicians. Yes, I met many good and trustworthy public servants, but I never let one buy me as much as a cup of coffee.
A few more words need to be said: Among the beneficiaries of the art of character assassination are the broadcast personalities and bloggers who masquerade as pundits these days in order to support the obscene salaries paid by advertisers who agree with their radical views. No aspersion or innuendo in the art of character assassination is unacceptable. If need be, we need to boycott their sponsors—and let the fact be known.
Here is something else that is vitally important: Broadcasters are by definition, temporary concessionaires of publicly owned frequencies. It has been rare, but there have been instances where licenses have not been renewed when the public interest was ill served. That even happened once in our home town of Tucson, Arizona.
Why would huge amounts of money be gathered and spent to batter our minds continually in order to persuade us to elect a candidate for say, a seat in the U.S. Congress that pays $174,000 annually? (Let's ignore the perks for a few moments).
Because propaganda, no matter how bad or how untrue, works!
Joseph Goebbels, Adolph Hitler's closest confident, the one person who chose for he and his family to join Adolph Hitler and Hitler's mistress, Eva Braun, in suicides in the Berlin bunker, was the greatest mind hijacker of the 20th century. We all know what resulted.
Nothing in this age makes me more anxious that that little disclaimer that flashes by for an instant on the bottom of a political advertisements on television. I have done a bit of research on the talking heads seen on many of them and found that some are longtime political activists and even onetime office holders. Politics is their business. They are not your run-of-the-mill man or woman on the street. They are not to be trusted, because they have not made full disclosure of their backgrounds.
Most of the time, I have no idea who is supplying the dark money.
Furthermore, the Supreme Court recently made its most harmful ruling since 1857 in what became known as the Dred Scott decision (than an African-American could never be a citizen), when the present court decided that a corporation had the same rights in the political arena as a voter.
SOLUTION: Someone once said that Lincoln could never get elected today. This needs to be changed. American citizens 18 years of age and older should continue to be allowed to vote, but only individual citizens should be able to contribute directly to the campaigns of as many candidates as they believe they can afford, with no middleman organization involved.
Here's the kicker: the amount of each contribution to each candidate they support financially should be limited to a nominal amount, say $50 or less, and there should be a cap placed on the extent to which any person can contribute to the election of an aggravate number of office seekers or party.
We need to outlaw PACs, all organizations formed solely to raise money for a political candidate or issue. They, in themselves, like corporations, are not voters.
We need to outlaw "Dark Money." If it requires changing the Supreme Court in order to accomplish this, keep in mind that their decision of the moment was not ordained by the Deity. Justices do not serve, or for that matter, live forever. The Dred Scott decision was effectively overturned by the Emancipation Proclamation.
I realize that the media is not ever going to recognize that this radical idea I've espoused was ever mentioned, but I know of nothing as important to our democracy and of our very lives, as doing this. Change is not only do-able but is a righteous, absolutely necessary goal, if this democracy is to survive.
-Phil Richardson, Observer and Storyteller.
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