Have you ever wondered why Republicans are so interested in encouraging people to volunteer in their communities? It’s because volunteers work for no pay. Republicans have been trying to get people to work for no pay for a long time.
- George Carlin
Like a lot of folks who inhabit the left side of the political spectrum, I find myself pondering our collective future in the wake of Wisconsin’s recall election. If there had ever been any uncertainty about the power of money and propaganda, Scott Walker’s Pyrrhic victory should have erased any and all doubt. A plurality of Wisconsinites were convinced to vote against their own interests by consultants and propagandists, who used the millions supplied to Walker by his ultra-Conservative billionaire supporters to purchase all manner of disinformation. They were able to minimize the damage Walker has done to Wisconsin by painting him as the Governor who would restore Wisconsin’s greatness by destroying the influence of evil, corrupt public employee unions. That Walker has been actively working to destroy unions, the middle class, and equal pay rights seemed to not even matter in the end. The propaganda worked
Move along, people; no one’s destroying the middle class. Nothing to see here….
What happens when we don’t (or can’t be bothered to) pay attention? What happens when Fox Noise Channel, Karl Rove, and the rest of the Right-wing Disinformation Machine work overtime to hammer home talking points predicated on Josef Goebbels’ “Big Lie?” What happens when we vote reflexively, because “we hate Liberals,” or “Obama’s a Socialist,” “unions are evil,” or whatever canard we happen to swallow without question? We end up with a Congress that has an approval rating of 9%…while we berate that Congress for malfeasance. All this while we’ve managed to conveniently forget that WE elected the nonentities in Congress….
If the American Sheeple could be bothered to pay attention, if they could be rousted from their slumber and convinced to look past the propaganda and talking points, they might finally understand the corruption, greed, and self-interest that’s endemic in government. They might also understand their responsibility in creating the system they love to complain so volubly about.
We get exactly the quality of government we deserve, and if we can’t be bothered to pay attention we have no right to complain about a system that our ignorance, inattention, and indolence created.
