Having grown up in one of the most conservative and Republican
places in the country -- East Tennessee -- I understand why many of the
people who are showing up at town hall meetings this month are
reacting, sometimes violently, when members of Congress try to explain
the need for an expanded government role in our health care system.
I
also have a lot of conservative friends, including one former co-worker
who was laid off by CIGNA several years ago but who nonetheless worries
about a "government takeover" of health care.
Is there a difference between covert propaganda and secretive campaigns to shape public opinion on controversial issues? The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) apparently thinks that there is.
The ability of the corporate state to
pacify the country by extending credit and providing cheap manufactured
goods to the masses is gone. The pernicious idea that democracy lies in
the choice between competing brands and the freedom to accumulate vast
sums of personal wealth at the expense of others has collapsed. The
conflation of freedom with the free market has been exposed as a sham.
The travails of the poor are rapidly becoming the travails of the
middle class, especially as unemployment insurance runs out and people
get a taste of Bill Clinton's draconian welfare reform.
A right-wing group called Conservatives for Patients’ Rights is airing
a political attack ad against the idea of a public option for health
insurance by turning upside down an analysis showing that 119 million
Americans would jump from their private health insurer to a government
plan if one existed.
The strategic communications
specialist advising a financial industry effort to enhance Wall
Street's image has plenty of experience in spinning the American
public: In the Bush White House, he was one of the aides in charge of
the administration's fact-bending campaign to sell the Iraq War.
The continuing saga of the Pentagon pundit program just keeps getting curiouser and curiouser, as Alice in Wonderland might say.
Barack Obama is
a brand. And the Obama brand is designed to make us feel good about our
government while corporate overlords loot the Treasury, our elected
officials continue to have their palms greased by armies of corporate
lobbyists, our corporate media diverts us with gossip and trivia and
our imperial wars expand in the Middle East. Brand Obama is about being
happy consumers. We are entertained. We feel hopeful. We like our
president. We believe he is like us.
"I want to make sure that we strengthen prohibitions against
domestic covert propaganda campaigns aimed essentially at breaking down the Constitutional barriers between who controls policy and who makes war," stressed Representative
Paul Hodes.
