Let's discuss this rationally like the tiny mammals we are in a big universe.
So this whole Citizens United thing. So it basically comes down to what is spent on a campaign. Doing *What* Exactly? Well, ADVERTISING.
Advertising is manipulating the idiot to do something you want by pummeling them with images and names.
Why are we outraged by this? I'm sitting here trying to understand the crux of the problem and it's not Citizen's United, it's people. People are manipulated with gross distortions of reality through media. I paint {polital figure} in {image} on {tv/newspaper/blog} and people lather in whatever direction I want them to by sheer volume of input.
Is this the fault of the politician? Is this the fault of the contributory? Is this the fault of The System or The Man? No. It is The Fault of The Person that allows themselves to be manipulated by images in the paper and on TV.
If I spend a million to get John Smith an ad, what am I doing, exactly? I am showing his face, his words, and perhaps some music that's all emotional and "patriotic". Allowing that person to say *words* that *resonate* with a person/people. What does this mean? Advertising. Coke-a-cola vs Pepsi. How many eyeballs do you get. How often? When? (After Dinner when a person is sedate, consoled, had a fight with the Better Half? Emotionally charged, sedate...Hit them now and hard.)
What does it mean?
It means that people are so absorbed in ADVERTISING that they make poor decisions because they're flooded with the image they want to see when they're most "psychology available". A person sees a dozen ads for "A" and two ads for "B" they associate "A" as being better.
Here is the problem my fellow citizens. Psychological manipulation. It's Easy ... so very easy.
The problem is NOT how much money is spent, or by who ... it's what the ordinary citizen does with that information, those images.
People are stupid cattle. Let me say again: People...are...stupid...cattle. Herd Animals. We're animals, nothing more. The politicians know that, and more so, their media "experts" know that because we watch too much TV, see too many ads. We think you're smart. We aren't.
Conservative.
Liberal.
Progressive.
Worthless labels but isn't it nice and comfy to believe that it's that easy? It isn't.
THIS person says ten things you like but three that you don't. Fuck that person, find a person that represents YOU and drag THEM on to the stand.
The two party, the us and them, the if your not for your against system is trash and the three compromises we make are awful.
Thinking, being a responsible citizen, reading (bills) is a time consuming burden. Few people knew about bills like SOPA (say) until we took the toaster away (a basic appliance, like Wikipedia) and people Freaked. It's about *attention* and people just don't have it anymore. Attention Spans of a termite and about the usefulness.
Run an ad, sway opinion in huge swaths of humanity.
It's difficult sometimes to explain why a toilet backs up when a city's combined-sewer-overflow is overrun by six days of rain in say, SoCal. People get angry that the commode is backed up and why wasn't this fixed before? (Pipes are a certain diameter and the earth just slammed it with a ballion gallons of water...) BUT MY TOILET FLOODS! Sucks to be you, huh? Get a mop, and next year vote to build a better sewer than a statue of {pick local cultural icon} in bronze because it looks nice. A politician will raise hell about this or that, someone will fight with them. Then it's on and on TV. Local folk will be enraged about this or that little inconsequential thing.
The problem is that a four foot pipe should have been a six foot pipe.
But now people are all, "lathered up", if I can show my midwestern roots. Now it's fighting.
Fix the damned pipe. Dig the fucker up, put in one that handles the flow in a crisis and toss a park over it. Call it a day. Cheap, useful.
Instead this guy or that gal with a head full of politics will tell you that this or that should have been done and at this time and everything else is wrong and we need money for this or that...
Is the pipe fixed?
Well, let's fight more. Who gets the contract and let's build this statue or you can't have money for that pipe. Oh yeah? Well, I want the gas station to have a face lift or you can't have your statue.
Small, weak and insignificant. Little animals. How cute.
The earth is still flat, and the universe still revolves around the earth.
Millions have been spent, soundbites galore. Suits and posturing and posing. The cost of fixing the sewer would have been a cool million.
And the sewer still isn't six feet, it's four.
This is the legacy we leave behind.
There is too much talk about we and them and to little "us".
The pipe is still four feet, and it will back up again next year during the rain.
Cheers.
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