This thread is for posting about how institutionally the American political system is stacked against any kind of meaningful change, from the right or the left.


The is currently at the top of the rec list at kos, and it kinda blew my mind.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/12/1 ... -You-Fools

No One Is Going To Save You Fools
by thereisnospoon [Subscribe]
Wed Dec 16, 2009 at 05:28:17 PM MST


Before I explain the generic insult, let me first make something perfectly clear: I am your enemy. That you don't know this is understandable: after all, people like me prefer it that way. But until you understand just what you're up against and why, you're going to continue to lose, and look like fools in the process.

Barack Obama has indeed sold you out. He and many of his Democratic colleagues have sold you out on healthcare, and they've sold you out on financial reform. You were looking for a savior, and you've been had--not an altogether atypical result for those looking for a strong leader to "save" them.

He hasn't done this because he's a bad guy. In fact, he's a great guy. I think he's doing pretty much the best job he can. He's sold you out because he's not afraid of you. And really, if I may be so bold, he shouldn't be afraid of you. You don't know who really runs the show, and you're far too fickle and manipulable to count on.


The first thing you need to understand about healthcare reform is what Jane Hamsher identified long ago: nothing--absolutely nothing--is going to trump the White House's deal with PhRMA and the insurance industry. The question you need to ask yourselves is: why? If you're intellectually mature enough to get past "personal betrayal" as your best answer, you'll be on the right track.

While you ponder that one, you might want to also consider why nothing has been done--nor will anything serious actually be done--about financial industry reform. Standing up to the financial industry in the current political environment should be a no-brainer. So what in the heck is going on here? If you can think past shadowy conspiracy theories and possible personal enrichment for the Obama family, you'll be doing the kind of thinking that will help actually solve the problem.

The problem is people like me, and the people I work for. I'm what they call a Qualitative Research Consultant, or QRC for short. Here's my website. There's even a whole association of us who meet regularly to discuss ideas and tactics. Together with the AAPC, the MRA, the AMA, ESOMAR, and a whole host of other organizations you've never heard of, we have more power and control than you know. We're extremely good at what we do, and we do it all behind the scenes, appealing to and manipulating your subconscious brain in ways that your conscious brain has little to no control over.

Give us a little money to test some things out, and we can work magic. Our business is persuasion, and we're very good at it. Just watch PBS Frontline's series, The Persuaders to get just a small inkling of what you're up against. We can make a company that earns a 38% gross profit margin manufacturing purely propriety products seem hip, cool and progressive. We can take sugar water and sell it back to you as a health drink, and even Whole Foods shoppers will believe it. We can take 30 different brands of vodka with almost exactly the same ingredients, and make you understand instantly just what kind of person drinks which brand, and how much you should expect to pay for each, without a moment's thought. For any given category of products, I can show you a bunch of different brands, and you'll be able to tell me a wealth of information about each one, despite the near absolute similarity of their actual products to one another. One exercise we QRC's like to conduct involves actually turning a brand into a person in a group discussion; it's called personification. And you wouldn't believe how effectively and universally we can tailor a brand's image, right down to what kind of car that "person" would drive, and what music he/she would listen to. So much attention has been paid to Naomi Klein's outstanding Shock Doctrine, that few pay much attention anymore to her far more provocative and important work No Logo. If all Americans truly internalized the message of No Logo, people like me would be out of work, and we could really reform this country.

For a little coin, we can even make poor people hate inheritance taxes, just by using a few little words that work. The biggest difference between Obama and FDR/LBJ is that people like me weren't really around back then. As the TV show Mad Men can show you, our industry was just getting off the ground in the mid-1960's. And while it's true that the Democratic ad consultants of the 1980's and 1990's and early Aughts were wildly ineffective, that says far more about the prevailing consultant class in the Democratic Party than about the power of ad consulting in general.

So here's what you have to understand. If the health insurance and financial industries really felt scared by any particular politician or political party, or their lobbying efforts were inadequate, they could throw them out of power in a heartbeat. With a wave of their hand and a few billion dollars or so in our direction, the pharma companies and Goldman Sachs could absolutely destroy the Democratic Party in 2010 and beyond. The only reason they don't do so is that it's cheaper and easier to buy a few key Democrats off instead, and intimidate the rest. Plus, they don't have to run the risk of a right-wing populist backlash, either.

That's why Barack Obama can't renege on his deal with PhRMA: PhRMA almost singlehandedly destroyed Hillarycare in 1993, and spent the money to tip the balance of the elections in 1994. They can easily do it again. So could Goldman Sachs and the rest of the financial vampires. Rahm Emmanuel knows this, too: the deals are in place in return for their holding their fire.

And each and every one of you is being taken for fools. You work for an election or two to put chosen leaders in place, and expect those leaders to work their "leadership" magic to ram reforms down the throats of the corporate sector, failing to understand just how fully the corporate sector holds the cards. It's not the campaign contributions: it's the persuasion money.

You're looking for a savior. And like that Savior of biblical fame, s/he isn't coming, as long as there are people like me out there. I personally won't work for a company or organization that goes against my personal convictions. But 99% of us certainly will.

If you want to win, you will ORGANIZE. You will organize in the same way the Right has done for the last 40 years, and you will spend money on persuasion, where it really matters. You will, in short, make the politicians as afraid of you as they are of them. The Right has built vast networks of think tanks, newspapers, periodicals, cable news channels, and political advocacy organizations to spread their finely tuned, well-honed messages. Their politicians may fail them, and their actual policies may be deeply unpopular, but their message machine nearly always works its magic to get them what they want, even when Democrats are in power.

That's partly because the American political Right never quits and never gives up. They know that organization is the key to their success, and they don't trust politicians to do their work for them. Democrats, on the other hand, get disappointed and quit when our politicians don't pan out the way we wanted. That's why we lose.

As the healthcare debacle went on month after month, I didn't ask myself why the Democratic politicians weren't pushing single-payer or Medicare for all. I wanted to know where the Left-leaning organizations were. Where were the think tanks, the message machine, the newspapers, the whole infrastructure? Where were the national, well-tested ad campaigns pushing Medicare for All? Where were the free screenings of Sicko at major movie theaters across the nation, complete with sponsored food & drink for those who attended and signed up to take action? Where were the mid-cycle ads done by Madison Avenue professionals targeting specific Senators and making them deeply uncomfortable? Where, in effect, was the message campaign?

It didn't exist. What we had were labor unions and the AARP delivering generic hopeful messages without an ounce of the power or creativity that one might find in a random Budweiser ad.

If you want to win, ORGANIZE. Develop parallel organizations willing to persuade with the power and intensity of a corporation. As long as people like me are out there, and most of them are willing to work for the highest bidder, you'll need to stop looking for saviors, and instead learn to fight fire with fire.

The upcoming battles won't wait for us, and there won't be anyone coming to save us but ourselves.

These are interesting pieces.

actually shrinking government nearly out of existence would lessen corporate power over it.

But would corporate power in general shrink or grow?

i'm not sure. getting rid of anti-trust regulation would grow corporate power, but the removal of some other regulations would probably decrease corporate power (though i can't think of anything specific off the top of my head).

LOL at anyone who ever thought a politicain from either major party was ever going to change anything for the better. Especially those who love The One. He's the same. They are all the same. Until we remove the government ability to interfere with and control our daily lives in the name of fairness, egalitarianism, and social justice, we will always be at their mercy.

How do you do that when you don't have enough power to make it happen?

I don't know why anyone would be discouraged or upset with Obama's work thus far if you agree with his overall philosophy.

It's not a dictatorship though some would like it to be. He's not a king, he's simply the head of the executive branch. Even with congress being overwhelmingly democrat there are the internal arguments they have to deal with...pet projects petty politics etc. Think about how it went with Bush in office. The first 100 days and that first year he was fighting some ridiculous battle with China over a "spy plane" incident because he was afraid he'd look weak to the international community. The democrats have done more with all the power in this year than the Republicans did for thier cause since 1994.

Obama has actually done pretty well sticking to his agenda and pushing for things he wants to get done really. I don't know how anyone that supports him could look at this year his first year in the presidency and have a problem with his effort anyway.

well if thats what you want, fine, but say goodbye to your weekends, a respectable living wage, health benefits. hey you may even get 8 year old kids on the line with you.
the fact is that government balances out corporate interest by keeping it in check. im not saying one should be any higher than the other, but regulation keeps greed at bay. why can't people see this is common sense.

That's true. I meant false. False! I keep getting those two mixed up. Market place competition is drives those things, not government power.

The Democratic Party seems stuck in the 20th Century, but the Republican Party seems stuck in the 19th.

It's not like the "unfettered capitalism" thing hasn't been tried before. Just look at the turn of the century if you want to see what you get without government regulations or unions. You get abysmal working conditions, child labor, vast wealth disparity, minimal middle class, and a society ripe for takeover by a totalitarian leader.

The "market" will not lead to better conditions for people.

Uh, I respectfully disagree. That's like saying we wouldn't have computers or cars or nuclear power if we reduced government influence. Social norms and morals have evolved. Technology has evolved. People's demands from their employers have evolved. The situations are not at all comparable.

if the author of your original post truly works in that industry i find it humorous that he/she would say "pay us if you want results!" "it works for the republicans!"

it just didn't make sense to me, b/c the GOP hasn't done well in elections for 3 or 4 straight rounds...

Yeah, one problem with the 19th century, I think, is that it was much more expensive and difficult to pack up and move when you don't like the only employer in town. Transportation options alone give workers much more leverage now than unions do.

Do you really think that the 19th Century was a time of unfettered capitalism?

I don't know that it does among the poor. In theory, yes, but in practice there are a myriad of other considerations that make picking up and moving for a job a less viable option than it appears to be to persons with middle class values.

Yes. Prove me wrong.

Why do you think people have evolved demands from their employers?

This is all so middle class of you. Anyone who is scraping by is not demanding shit.

The best removing gov't regulations could hope for would be that unions would re-emerge and the regulations they force the government to impose would be smarter and better managed than they are now. I don't have any faith that they would be though.

Go Pinkertons!

The poor aren't the people who need to move for a job. Entry level positions are more or less the same everywhere. Even if that changes, I think, if anything, poor people more more often than middle class people. What is the turnover in apartment complexes vs. residential subdivisions? Poor people generally don't have a house they have to sell if they relocate.

People who potentially benefit the most from unions are specialized lower middle class workers, and as long as there is sufficient demand for their specialized labor, they can threaten to move. If there isn't sufficient demand for their labor, workers increasing their demands is going to lead to company failure (and loss of jobs) anyhow.