In case you didn’t know, I live in Washington, D.C., and work in the policy space, specifically the so-called “public interest.”

The nature of my work is communications, which takes on many forms. At the end of the day, however, it’s all messaging, and it’s all political. Typically, I’m tasked with analyzing/describing/translating issue-specific concerns, but I also try to hold in my mind the larger issues that thwart favorable outcomes.

The public interest is difficult to define, particularly in terms of the government’s responsibility to recognize/protect it. The basic idea is this: people should not be exploited by industry or find their liberties impinged on just because there exists the potential for financial gain. The public interest could be everything from making sure that the toothpaste we import from China isn’t toxic to defending free speech to maintaining automobile safety standards.

You don’t have to be a flaming lefty to understand that some things are plainly in the public interest. Yet our side is continually forced to make this case to policymakers, industry, funders and even the very public whose “interests” we’ve chosen to advance and protect.

I’ve distilled the myriad difficulties we encounter every day down to a single conceptual problem. I am officially outsourcing the solution to anyone who feels like taking a crack at it. There is no “right” or “wrong” (nor is there right or left) — this is merely a thought exercise that happens to have real-world implications.

PROBLEM 1: The government doesn’t want to do hard work. There’s a million reasons to serve the public interest: controlling costs; retaining a competitive advantage globally; driving innovation; creating opportunities; promoting market competition; furthering democracy and civic participation. But the issues are complex, intertwined and evolving. The bureaucracy is impossibly slow and resistant to change. Even where government recognizes that a job needs to be done, there’s no incentive for them to do it well. Profit is a far better motivator, and the private sector has all the motivation it needs to make things happen. At least that’s the theory.

PROBLEM 2: The markets simply will not embark on work — however necessary it might be — unless there’s a path to profit. And some things that desperately need doing are not ripe with earnings potential. Even where private industry can be cajoled (typically through tax breaks, kickbacks and horse trades), it often fails to serve the needs of the public. The pursuit of cost-cutting efficiencies inevitably trends towards monopoly and consolidation. Although free market champions consistently tout consumer choice as a naturally-occurring benefit, it’s largely a myth. So is their belief in the energizing effects of competition. Industry hates competition and will do everything in its power to eliminate it. This, of course, takes the form of influencing policy, usually with money. And the more money floods the system, the less the policymakers are inclined to work (see problem #1).

SOLUTION?

Thanks to Shane of the Government for the second pic.

Education reform would appear to be the next Obama administration effort to clean up another Bush-league mess — in this case, the educator-and-student-detested “No Child Left Behind” program. Susan Engel‘s New York Times Op-Ed outlines priorities in curriculum, namely the core skills a person needs to help them learn rather than the regurgitation of mandated facts. This portion jumped out at me:

During the school day, there should be extended time for play. Research has shown unequivocally that children learn best when they are interested in the material or activity they are learning(…) A classroom like this would provide lots of time for children to learn to collaborate with one another, a skill easily as important as math or reading. It takes time and guidance to learn how to get along, to listen to one another and to cooperate. These skills cannot be picked up casually at the corners of the day.

An organization called Peace First aims to arm children with the skills to create peaceful communities and efficient group relationships. They foster the kind of personal empowerment that can only come from helping and collaborating with others. From their website:

Peace First has taught over 40,000 students critical conflict resolution skills; created over 2,500 peacemaker projects that improved communities and instilled a sense of civic engagement in students; recruited over 4,000 volunteers who provided 400,000 hours of volunteer teaching service; and trained 2,500 teachers in conflict resolution and classroom management skills. We have seen remarkable results in each of our schools: a 60 percent reduction in violence, but more importantly, a 70-80 percent increase in instances of children breaking up fights, including others and helping one another—resulting in better schools and better potential for each child in that school.

One hopes that their model of success will be recognized and applied to all grade schools as part of core curriculum. Right now, their methods benefit just four schools in New York and a number of others in Boston and Los Angeles.

In her Op-Ed, Engel also suggests the following criteria for thriving learning environments:

In this classroom, children would spend two hours each day hearing stories read aloud, reading aloud themselves, telling stories to one another and reading on their own. After all, the first step to literacy is simply being immersed, through conversation and storytelling, in a reading environment; the second is to read a lot and often. A school day where every child is given ample opportunities to read and discuss books would give teachers more time to help those students who need more instruction in order to become good readers.

Children would also spend an hour a day writing things that have actual meaning to them — stories, newspaper articles, captions for cartoons, letters to one another. People write best when they use writing to think and to communicate, rather than to get a good grade.

The idea of fostering enthusiasm for learning by including materials that “have actual meaning for them” is vitally important. Media literacy must take precedence in a cultural environment flooded with information. My first day teaching in an early childhood learning center, I noticed immediately that most of the children’s clothing and even diapers had licensed cartoon characters on them. I found that children as young as 14 months had distinct awareness of media commodities such as Mickey Mouse and Big Bird. However, many of the adults around had never considered the powerful subliminal associations formed through such deeply integrated visual stimuli.

In recent years, media and access to information has become omnipresent, and the ability to directly participate seemingly effortless. The use and distribution of images has become as important as verbal literacy skills. Yet the ability to assess and critique media, much less understand the legal implications of distributing content via new media, has not advanced at the same rate. A fine example of this is (at the time of this writing) 1,031 people’s willingness to participate in American Apparel’s “Search for the Best Bottom in the World.”

Organizations dedicated to the self-empowerment of girls, which aim to foster a healthy sense of self-image, such as Hardy Girls Healthy Women, make the following claim in their letter-writing protest of American Apparel’s “model” search:

American Apparel is directly and unconscionably undermining girls’ healthy development by equating confidence with looking sexy, winning with being judged on their appearance, and personal value with 15 seconds of fame.

So let’s talk about fame — either the kind that lasts 15 seconds, or the kind that gets people quoting that very phrase for eternity. Andy Warhol himself landed on Forbes‘ yearly list of top earning dead celebrities, which itemizes the amount earned in life and in death, typically on intellectual property but also on their own image. For example, James Dean, who commonly makes the list, acted in a mere three films during his life, yet his profile is ubiquitous. And licensed carefully by a crack team of copyright attorneys, I’m sure.

For years, feminists have complained that the female body has been commodified and exploited, associating a woman’s sexualized body (and in the American Apparel case, which is a pretty standard one, sexualized body parts), with something which can or cannot be owned according to the affordability of the product it represents. The argument is that when free access to a desired commodity is denied, the price inflates and violence is used to gain or deny access. This structure is commonly seen in the illegal drug trade, for example. A precedent of the correlation between women in media and pathological violence is described in Eldridge Cleaver‘s autobiography Soul On Ice.

Clearly, the motivation to enter these kinds of contests is not monetary (the top ten rated receive a grab bag worth $300 of American Apparel items! Whee!). The grand prize winner wins a flight and three-day stay in Los Angeles, where they will be required to participate in a panties-themed photo shoot, presumably to be used in advertisements for the company doling out the “prize.” All images submitted by any contestant become property of the company (again, that’s more than 3000 people). All monetary value remains firmly in the hands of the advertiser. They make millions and you might get a bag of panties.

I believe the key motivation here is inclusion, participation, a chance to be assessed favorably in a collective environment. Without the opportunity to participate in a cooperative group in school, and the alternative of having their use of sexuality condemned by a progressively prudish feminist “left,” young women seek a chance to prove that their physical, intellectual, and emotional property is theirs to control without mitigation from political interests. Yet where ideologies enforce codes of morality, businesses literally offer incorporation — albeit in a very, very bum deal.

My point is, if a cartoon of you is going to end wrapped around someone else’s bum, be sure you’re getting royalties. Your ass is worth it.

Polish that monocle, ye virtuous Captain of Industry, and step lively, for today is Ayn Rand‘s birthday!

I gotta admit, this information caught me off guard. I’d love to have had something pithy prepared, maybe another entry in our world-famous “The Contrarian vs. Objectivism” series. Alas, I fear that the Black Queen of Capitalism has me dead to rights, and I’m out of ammo.

So, I give in. The white flag is waving. Time to set my sights on noble activities like undermining the public sphere and complaining about how the “moochers” are sapping the productivity of America’s great men and women. Maybe I’ll arrange for a little “rape-fantasy roleplaying” for later — Ayn would certainly approve!

The following is a little experiment. I’ve been thinking for a while that it would be fun to post occasional rants from a “real live conservative” to counter the ever-present librul/socialist/commie/fascist slant on these digital pages.

Certainly, it could foster discussion and spark a lively debate. Still, I gotta tell you that as an editor, it’s really hard to read an oppositional argument and not want to discredit it, line by line, as I tidy the text for publication. But that’s what the comments section is for. I encourage you to use it. (I know I will!)

Today’s post comes from our friend Chris Stecher, a feisty, freedom-loving conservative whose arguments on Facebook I have the enjoyment of regularly invalidating. Even though he’s dead wrong on a whole spate of stuff — from media rules to the myth of the free market’s “invisible hand” — he’s got heart and a great sense of humor. So let’s give him his due as he talks out his ass about Super Bowl ad buys, abortion, homosexuality and the Supreme Court.

His bio follows the post.

—————————–

Let’s Talk Super Bowl. Or more specifically Super Bowl commercials, a subject about which I can speak with some authority, having spent most of my adult life (such as it is) working in advertising and marketing.

In my biz, the Super Bowl is the Holiest of Holies. The prime rib. The most treasured of ad buys. The white whale of product marketing. In recent years, a 30-second slot during gametime would run you upwards of four million bucks. And, economic downturn aside, you’d currently have to shell out two million and change for a spot.

This year, CBS has been getting a lot of heat running a pro-life advertisement during the Super Bowl. (Some might say that negative press is still good press, and I’m inclined to agree.) The ad features Tim Tebow, a Heisman trophy-winning quarterback for the Florida Gators. As the story goes, Tebow’s mother had been faced with a difficult pregnancy and was advised to have an abortion. To which she said (my words not hers), “fuck you.” A good decision, as it turned out. Because despite the “expert opinion” on her pregnancy, Tim not only survived, but flourished. I see it as another example of the left wing, pro-abortion sect getting it wrong. I have other examples of this, but we’ll have to save them for another time. [Ed's note: the Tebow story is highly suspect; read more here.]

Of course, there are other ads that oddly enough will not be seen at this year’s Super Bowl. I’m gonna come right out and say that one of them is, well, gay. Not SUPER gay, mind you. More like the guy down the hall from your office gay. He doesn’t flaunt his orientation, but you know because at that last after-work party he showed up with a guy named Doug — both dressed immaculately — and talked about vacationing at Fire Island. So, yeah, that level of gay.

I had the opportunity to see all the ads that got axed by the NFL. As a conservative, I was prepared to have the ManCrunch.com ad piss me off. I’d braced myself for some crazy, in-your-face, dude-on-dude session. This would have given me the opportunity to grill all my gay friends about how they put their lifestyle in our faces, and therefore should expect a certain level of indignation.

I saw none of that. What I did see was an ad that should not, on any level, piss anyone off. I saw gay camp (as in “campy” camp, not a place with rentable canoes). I saw a poorly produced spot. I did not see an ad that CBS said no to for absolutely stupid reasons. Bottom line: this commercial should never have been refused if said advertisers were able to pony up the cash. Period.

Now, lets go look at the law for a second. The Supreme Court recently rendered a decision on campaign financing, with its rationale for overturning restrictions based in the First Amendment right to speech. Or in this case, a corporation’s right to “speak” using cash as its vocal cords. Now, I happen to believe that if you or your corporation have money, then you should be free to make whatever contributions you want to the candidate or campaign of your choosing.

I look at it this way: if you like a candidate and you want to help out, you can spend your time doing so. (Maybe if you are unemployed you don’t have this time, but whatever.)

Maybe you’re a business. Or maybe you’re rich but you don’t have the sort of time needed to volunteer or otherwise offer your services. But you still want your voice heard. So you offer what you do have: money. In place of boots-on-the ground or phone bank work, cash is what you have to give. This helps the people on your side (well, paid people, anyway) speak for you.

But I digress. We were talking about advertising. Which, is, interestingly enough, almost the same conversation. In the upcoming off-year elections advertising is going to (as it always does) come into play. And I, for one, love it! Part of it is the fact that I am not only an advertising junkie, but a political one as well. Where others might bemoan the ceaseless (and some would say mindless) chatter that is radio, TV and print buys, I eat it up.

Why? Because, this my friends, is AMERICA. We have a neat, democratic style of government. We get to, from time to time, vote! This is a gift we have! Yet sadly, a majority of American citizens during major elections treat this gift like a holiday fruitcake your aunt gave you for Christmas. Let me put it more plainly: they shit on the gift.

There are men and women, putting their lives on the line in foreign theaters for the simple right to be able to choose the leaders of your town, county, state and country… yet you CANT BE BOTHERED to VOTE?

Again, I digress. Back to the Bowl: if my side gets to put an ad on the air that’s anti-abortion (which I support), then the left should be free can air an ad promoting gay sex, or whatever the hell they want. (I would’ve thought they’d prefer an anti-fur or a pro-abortion spot, but whatever.)

It is free fucking speech. That’s our country. Its what we fight for, and its why, when we wake up in the morning, we can drink our coffee, look at the news and appreciate what we have.

Chris Stecher has worked most of his “adult” life working in the field of advertising and marketing, when he wasn’t doing other odd jobs such as executive chef, craps player, taxi driver, and professional grifter. All of this with only two years of college in Hawaii. He now enjoys a life of semi-retirement, working for a small-town newspaper in a rural ski mountain village, and living with his 3 birds. Interested parties can seek him out to hear him tell his tales for the cost of a Mr. James Daniels on the rocks.

‘Empty out those old piggybanks!” read the sales flyer that turned up in my mail slot this weekend. Although participation may vary, the European hypermarket réal is accepting euro (€) predecessor Deutsche Mark (DM) as payment at its stores from today through Saturday, the 28th of November.

The réal plan is an interesting one.  On one level, the store is hoping to reinvigorate the stagnant economy by encouraging consumers to spend currency that has not held value since its cancellation on 28 February, 2002.  On another level, réal is re-opening the debate over participation with the unified currency of the European Union.

réal operates some 440 stores in five European countries, Germany, Poland, Romania, Turkey and Russia. The first three of these are member states of the EU, while the balance are part of the Union’s sphere of influence through the European Neighbourhood Policy. Among these five nations, only the Federal Republic of Germany officially uses the euro as its currency. It should also be noted that réal acquired all properties from Wal-Mart following the retail giant’s abandonment of its German mission in 2006.

Whatever the potential political ramifications of réal’s DM payment scheme, I would be remiss not to point out that plan perfectly coincides with what is busiest day of the American shopping year. Just as Valentine’s Day and Halloween before it, Black Friday is slowly colonizing European society.

Capitalism and culture make curious bedfellows.

Of the many transgressions against logic and civility committed by Glenn Beck, perhaps the most heinous are his spurious rants about the national economy. By delivering his deceptions in a ready-to-swallow gelcap of panic and hostility, Beck perpetuates the economic illiteracy of a great many Americans who will subsequently vote against their own (and my own) economic self-interests. And this country takes another bold step towards global irrelevance.

Beck has lately devoted enormous energy to the national deficit, for which, of course, he blames Obama. This ignores quite a number of facts. In times of significant economic stress, with unemployment at a quarter-century high, it is more important to focus on job creation and the health of the financial sector, which lubricates markets and, in turn, stimulates occupational growth. Has the Obama administration made mistakes here? Surely. But by simultaneously castigating the president for stimulus and dismissing environmental initiatives, Beck is deliberately thwarting recovery and foreclosing America’s best shot at future growth through the research and development towards, and patenting and licensing of, green technologies.

Let’s get back to the deficit — the convenient boogeyman of freedom-loving patriots everywhere. Though the current president has committed to spending that will increase the deficit, it by no means matches the previous guy’s policies, which were not enacted for the benefit of getting through a massive recession, but rather to expand American capital markets and provide crony corporations with cushy contracts while stripping away anything resembling a tax obligation. All that money, straight out of the Treasury and into the hands of shareholders, never to be paid back in any way shape or form.

George W. Bush inherited a budget surplus of $230 billion, which folks like Beck always fail to mention. This is money that could have been used to reduce our national debt. But instead of, ahem, capitalizing on this windfall, Dubya proceeded with policies that would erase the surplus almost overnight, while ballooning the deficit to previously unknown proportions. Here’s how he did it:

• Tax Cuts: Bush’s aggressive tax cuts were subsidized by the national debt to the tune of $1.35 trillion in 2001 and $1.5 trillion in 2003. Of course, these tax cuts favored the wealthiest 1 percent of the country, leaving the rest of the us stuck with an IOU. In total, that’s almost $3 trillion that Bush and his corporatist cronies “stole” from freedom-loving Americans. But you won’t hear that from Glenn Beck.
• The War in Iraq: Conservative estimates indicate that this unnecessary adventure has increased the deficit by $3 trillion. These figures were arrived at by several respected economists, and reported on by most news outlets not named Fox. I’m not gonna mention American casualties, as we all share that in that loss. But I will bring up the Iraqi civilian deaths — over 100,000 to date, far more than under Saddam Hussein — as well as the millions of citizens who have fled the country since the start of US occupation.
• Other policies: Dubya didn’t stop at irresponsible tax cuts and wars of convenience. There were numerous fun ways to encumber the nation with debt, and he took every opportunity to do so. In the course of his presidency, Bush increased our debt burden by $4.9 trillion — a whopping 86 percent. If I were a Democratic leader — say, the fella at the head of the party — I’d be clobbering the GOP with this figure at every available opportunity.

Bush also presided over the Wall Street derivatives and credit-default-swap binge that brought on the global economic downturn and likely permanently damaged a key sector of US growth — the housing market. Certainly, Dubya didn’t instigate these trends, and there are plenty of Democrats to blame for the lax regulatory policies that hastened the collapse. Yet the cancer in the home ownership market, with its foreclosures and unsalable properties, has now spread to the commercial sector, which means we’re hardly done feeling the effects. Rather than assigning blame for this situation, I’m merely using it as an example of the tremendous handicaps facing Obama on almost every front.

Another important thing to keep in mind is that some of Obama’s contribution to the debt comes from putting straight the untold number of “creative accounting” arrangements authorized by Dubya. Bush had a lot of really neat ways to obscure the true costs of things, from the “emergency supplemental spending” for Iraq and Afghanistan to the inflation-indexing of the Alternative Minimum Tax, to playing fast and loose with Medicare, to ignoring or improperly accounting for the actual cost of natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina. Then there’s the evisceration of the public sphere, which only continues due to the shedding of jobs at nearly all levels of the economy.

Yes, the stimulus package has increased our national deficit, and there are likely going to be associated costs in reforming health care. But the former is now largely viewed as having staved off total system collapse, and the latter will (hopefully) drive down long-term health care costs for Americans and their employers, which should have positive economic (and quality-of-life) multipliers.

Glenn Beck is offensive for countless reasons, but by using his powerful megaphone to deliberately obscure factual reality, he is committing a kind of treason, albeit not one that comes with conviction in a court of law. And there’s nothing we can do about it but tell the truth and hope that enough voters get the message. That, and work to reform media to allow for more voices in American broadcasting with a realistic and forthright read on contemporary American civics.

End Transmission.

Greetings. My name is Nicholas, and I’m The Contrarian Media‘s Teutonic Correspondent. For you Americans not hip to transcontinental lingo, this means I live in Germany.

With five major parties, German national elections are an entirely different affair than those of North America. Political groups campaign for the most support possible and then meld themselves through coalitions with some of their nearest political allies — all in an attempt to craft a stable (and hopefully cohesive) national government. Frequently tenuous, this year’s Bundestagswahl (national election) is certainly no exception.

Chancellor Angela Merkel‘s party, the Christian Democrat Union (CDU), is under fire nationwide, and facing a possible rift with its coalition mates, the Free Liberal Party (FDP) and Bavaria’s Christian Social Union (CSU) over economic policy disagreements. This unrest has opened the door for Frank-Walter Steinmeier of the Social Democrat Party (SPD). Steinmeier, although not specifically an advocate for change, is criticizing what he perceives as Chancellor Merkel’s complacency and lack of action on economic and employment fronts.

All of this comes to a head with next Sunday’s (27.9.09) national election. As a point of preparation, the Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung (National Office for Political Development/Affairs) has created a machine to help voters make their choices. The Wahl-o-mat, as it’s known, provides a measurement of the range of the user’s political ideology, which it subsequently compares to the platforms of the five major parties in contention. Nifty, huh?

The Wahl-o-mat’s designers have been careful not to explicitly suggest how to vote, but instead measures an individual’s political orientation and allows the voter to apply the results as they see fit. Will this type of system be helpful in steering voters more towards issues-based voting, with less focus on image and delivery? Time will tell, but in the meantime, I am glad that my German tax euros are supporting a program that the promotes an informed electorate. Just like America! OK, maybe not so much. . .

Dead-on observations like the ones Mr. Bob Herbert presented in this recent New York Times Op-Ed can leave me in a something of a crisis. Women’s prosperity and well-being are so important to me, and I feel that our lives should be a higher priority across the globe. Current conditions for women cause me much dismay — I cope with it, for lack of better methods, by doing what I do well to the best of my ability. I’ve been in a creative whirlwind, which is why you haven’t heard much from me. I’ll show you the paintings later. But back to information dissemination.

As Mr. Herbert explains, Americans cope with violence in their communities every day. Hate crimes toward women are particularly common, yet infrequently addressed. But as more people engage in women’s concerns, clear facts emerge: the world community depends on half its population to provide talent and other resources that increase security, economic stability, and peace.

I was charmed by a reaction to BBC News’ question, “Can Women Solve Africa’s Problems?”

You know God could not be everywhere so He made women to spread His love. Mrs Sirleaf would make a great president, I think. African women are strong and capable of such delicate responsibilities as presidency.

Josephat M. Mwanzi, Tanzania

Whether “spreading love” is a gender-specific pursuit (or whether I believe in dualism at all), it is apparent from the history told in the Tribeca Film Festival Best Documentary winner, Pray The Devil Back To Hell, that women can stop a war. And it is no small part of my interest that the women of Liberia used music as a primary weapon. Fela Kuti, the Future is here.

Now, I’m not trying to promote the idea that women are mystical magical creatures with extraordinary powers, though they are. It’s not going to do anyone any good to be made into a cartoon. The fact is that human beings, when they access their humanity, are extraordinary, mystical, magical. Often this power is accessed through adversity, a condition with which women tend to be intimately familiar.

Okay. Get Inspired:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uon9CcoHgwA

Beyond acts of incredible courage, beyond the horrors that women around the world suffer each day, economists and foreign aid workers are finding that investing in the advancement of women and girls is buying into a bull market. Education, family planning/reproductive health, and microbusiness loans for women are routinely reinvested directly into families and local economies, strengthening developing infrastructures in very tangible ways. This business model seems to work in poor and isolated communities in the far corners of the earth as well as here in the U.S., where women enjoy “freedom” and “lack of discrimination” (which is to say that while we still get murdered a lot, we aren’t set on fire as frequently.)

In an excerpt from their book, Half The Sky, journalists Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn explain many of the critical issues facing the world community. As you may expect, while there numerous anecdotes of heartbreak, there is also evidence of soaring success.

Tererai began to study on her own, in hiding from her husband, while raising her five children. Painstakingly, with the help of friends, she wrote down her goals on a piece of paper: “One day I will go to the United States of America,” she began, for Goal 1. She added that she would earn a college degree, a master’s degree and a Ph.D. — all exquisitely absurd dreams for a married cattle herder in Zimbabwe who had less than one year’s formal education. But Tererai took the piece of paper and folded it inside three layers of plastic to protect it, and then placed it in an old can. She buried the can under a rock where she herded cattle.

Tererai, I might add, has been accomplishing all of her goals, earning her Ph.D. and reinvesting her education into her home community. This whole process started for her because one person, at the right moment, told her the definition of a word she previously did not know — “achievable.”

It’s not enough just to learn a new word. Words are idle unless you have faith in them, and are willing to act upon them with diligence and patience. Like Tererai, I’m going to put my hopes for women and the world in a bottle and chip away at accomplishing those goals until I can dig up that list and cross things off. I hope that we all do. By putting a small amount of faith in the world’s women, we may one day discover a jar unearthed and find that, say, the drug war has ended.

More on that some other time. Much love to all of you.

[Special thanks to Emily Mitchell for sharing the NY Times Magazine article.]

]]> http://www.thecontrarianmedia.com/2009/08/woman-is-the-method-of-the-future/feed/ 0 http://www.thecontrarianmedia.com/2009/08/feel-like-a-liberal-think-like-a-conservative/ http://www.thecontrarianmedia.com/2009/08/feel-like-a-liberal-think-like-a-conservative/#comments Thu, 20 Aug 2009 17:03:05 +0000 Norton http://www.thecontrarianmedia.com/?p=6843

The Democrats had better not pussy out on health care reform just because vitriolic rednecks are calling them pinkos. Those vitriolic rednecks are your constituents, too, buddy, so you had better give them what they want. But first you had better tell them what they want.

See, we all want (or rather not want) the same thing, really — to not have a lack of quality health care and to not lose our shirts via bankruptcy/taxes/what-have-you. But to win the hearts that are still beating wildly from eight years of right-wing/hawk fantasy threats, it’s really not going to do you any good to use your “big-city words” or to mention that the last America had a balanced national budget was under the (furtively whispered) C-L-I-N-T-O-N.

However, for Dems to properly address the concerns of “Real Americans” with regards to health care, they may actually have to use a few of those big words, and maybe even some graphs and charts. I’m thinking that a Powerpoint presentation featuring free-roaming mustang animations for the blue states and Fudgie the Budget Bird for the red states may be in order. For now, I’m just going to share with you the simple letter I wrote to my Congresswoman:

Dear Congresswoman Velazquez:
Thank you for your service to our community. I am writing to urge you to pass legislation to reform health care. I agree with the need for a public option, as I, like many people I know, cannot afford health care. However, more pressing is the need to regulate the industry. It is run so poorly and inefficiently that costs have increased exponentially over the past decade. I agree with the President that information systems need to be streamlined and that preventative health care are priorities. Medicare and Medicade comprise an enormous part of our government’s budget: if we are unable to make medical care more efficient, my generation (I am 32) and the following ones will be left with crippling debts and deficits to pay for.

Perhaps with the example of an efficient, well-run government health option, the medical industry will be forced to provide their customers with the non-extortive, truly healing services that every human being deserves. The economic collapse caused by the real estate fall-out last year was due to an industry left to run wild, preying upon customers who trusted them with their money. We put our money and our very lives into the hands of the health care industry, and we put our trust in our government to make sure that we are treated fairly and with dignity. For a long time now, things have been unjust for many Americans, and our dignity has been undermined by a monsterous industry with an appallingly bad business model, which is slowly bleeding the stability of our economy dry. It is time to change this, and with your support, you can be sure to receive my vote in the next election.

I wish all the best to you and your family. May all of your challenges be met with courage and rewarded with success.

Many thanks,
Susan Norton

Did you notice how I used the words “fair,” “just,” and “dignity?” I read the post about propaganda. I’m not ashamed.

The Bush administration had some of the most astonishingly awesome marketing techniques I have ever seen. Jon Stewart commented about this the other night, and about how the Democrats need to streamline and simplify their messages on health care reform. Recently, to take emphasis away from that commie “government option” part of the legislation, supporters have tried to point out that providing health services is not the only issue. It’s not. But it is a solution to a very real and very bad problem. So Dems, please, say that.

For all my sardonic-ness, I respect the American public and find us mostly reasonable when we’re not drunk out of our minds on advertisements. However, some of us are still hung over from unending shots of Bush’s snake-oil. [Ed's Note: it started waaaaaay before Bush.] So please, Democrats, let the conservatives know that this legislation is indeed about what is so precious to their Home, their Family, and God:

Money.

Here’s where you find the contact info for your representative:

https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml

[Ed's Note, Part II: Still planning on writing an essay about how Obama has utterly failed to use his mandate and unprecedented political capital to pass meaningful health care reform. As a political game theorist, I no longer even care about the outcome — I'm just appalled by the poor maneuvering and waste of strategic resources. Stay tuned.]