4:26
a.m. Sigh. I blame my daughter, Charli. That long conversation we had last
night about the upcoming election switched my brain on early.
While
discussing the Iowa caucuses and her generation and her millennial brother’s
cohort, she mentioned my Facebook feed. I mostly post highlights of my daily
news reading to share as an alternative to the broadcast media poured in our
ears. I know too many non-readers and folks that avoid politics. They remain
willfully uninformed, and as my daughter pointed out, that hurts us all. She clearly understands the price she and her peers
are going to pay for the civic laziness of her elders.
Flashback
to 1980 and an election I know I am going to miss by 4 months. My father, from whom
I inherited my news and political junkie-ism, was reading candidate policy
proposals. He informed me, then a senior in high school, I’d be looking at less
college financial aid under a Reagan administration.
Meanwhile,
everywhere I turned in rural Iowa, people were besotted by Ronald Reagan. I can’t
tell you what policies they liked. I don’t remember them ever talking policy.
Instead I got the usual claptrap about his storytelling and likeability.
Even
at 17, I understood it was an act. But then Reagan was an actor. It should have
been obvious, but when it comes to voting I have learned the hard way, people
don’t think. They react.
Which
explains our current predicament.
Of
course, my 12 years working in marketing communication and public relations at
a medium sized insurance company also made me painfully aware of how our news
and information is carefully crafted to work against us. My first day in the
department, the boss who hired me pointed to a shelf with resource books,
including one titled, “Words that Sell.”
We
the people have been sold a bunch of messages designed to help narrow monied
interests. We’ve been sold a bunch of entertainment to keep us voting stupid.
And
I’ve spent the last two months watching hearings full of Republican congress
critters (to use Jim Hightower’s term) that apparently also believe the lies
they’ve been sold about Democrats and liberals. They seem to be totally
ignorant of history, the Constitution and for those espousing Christianity, the
Bible.
Small
wonder though. We’ve had a cable news apparatus in place for 30-plus years now,
not to mention Uncle Milton Friedman’s market fundamentalist version of capitalism
for even longer. It can be boiled down to this simple description: greed is good. But it’s been sold under the holy
label of Capitalism.
And
who’s sold it to you? Why those monied 1%ers who want it all – everything.
And
how have they sold it to you?
By
buying up every media source (including textbook publishers) they can get their
grubby hands on and pouring “Conservative” news in your ears. By pouring political
contributions into the political parties, but mostly to Republicans. By
contributing funds to universities to fund new professorships, particularly in
economics and business. By creating Conservative and Libertarian think tanks to
develop research that supports their narrow ideology and suppressing any
results that don’t fit said ideology. By creating lobbying groups to develop corporate-friendly
model bills for state and federal officials to pass. By weakening public
education to create a less informed electorate. By aligning with socially
conservative religious leaders to convince voters to cast ballots against their
own economic interests.
By
co-opting labels like conservative, liberal, Republican and Democrat, left and
right and by shaping news media to report spectacle over substance, they have
sold voters lies.
I
am sure many of my “conservative” friends think I am just a deluded “liberal,”
or as I have been called: a libtard, creepy liberal or little girl. They prefer
to stick with their adopted labels rather than consider that I care because we
are getting walloped by the same economic forces. And I care that they have
been missing from the civic conversation.
What
I love about America can’t be expressed by waving a flag, thanking a soldier or
wearing a damn pin. It can only be expressed by participating.
We
live in a democratic republic, which means we must participate to preserve our rights.
Not
just by voting. We must stay informed, communicate with officials, including protesting
if necessary, pay our taxes and serve as jurists. It’s work. But I see a populace
that has been ground down the point they have either given up or they believe a
pack of lies.
I’m
not asking you to believe everything I do. I’m not telling you how to vote. I
simply want you to open your eyes and ears to new and more information. I want
you to consider alternative viewpoints. I want you to engage your brains and
think critically.
And
for God’s sake, turn off the talk radio and cable news and read something.
