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TechnoratiTuning Out the Braindead Megaphone
If you're having trouble remembering what the recent election was all about, rest easy: you're probably not going senile - you're likely experiencing the momentary effects of brainwashing. For weeks, your television, newspaper and radio have been telling you America is a "center-right nation" that elected Barack Obama to crush his fellow "socialist" hippies, discard the agenda he campaigned on, and meet the policy demands of electorally humiliated Republicans.
This is the usual post-election nonsense from the Braindead Megaphone, as author George Saunders famously calls our political and media noise machine. When George W. Bush wins by 3 million votes, the megaphone blares announcements about a conservative mandate that Democrats must respect. When Obama wins by twice as much, the same megaphone roars about Democrats having no mandate to do anything other than appease conservatives.
It's confusing, isn't it? We hazily recall backing Obama and his progressive platform. Yet, the megaphone's re-educative shock treatment aims to wipe away that memory and conjure eternal conservatism from our spotless minds.
Luckily, we have polling to maintain our sanity. Public opinion surveys show most Obama voters knew the Illinois senator is a progressive when they cast their ballots - and those votes for him weren't just anti-Bush protests, they were ideological. According to a post-election poll by my colleagues at the Campaign for America's Future, 70 percent of Americans say they want conservatives to help this progressive president enact his decidedly progressive agenda.
Sensing the enormity of these numbers, Obama seems ready to back a "big bang" of far-reaching initiatives. "We can't afford to wait on moving forward on the key priorities that I identified during the campaign," he said in his first radio address as president-elect.
Based on advertisements, Obama identified no more important priority than guaranteeing health care for all citizens. As the Campaign Media Analysis Group reported, he devoted more than two-thirds of his total television budget to ads that included health care themes. Consequently, a Pew poll found 77 percent of Americans said health care would be a decisive concern in their presidential vote.
The moral case for universal health care is obvious. In the world's richest country - in a country that builds lavish sports stadiums and showers Wall Street with trillion-dollar bailouts - 18,000 people die each year because they lack health insurance. We permit this annual massacre while our wasteful system exacerbates our debt and saps our economic competitiveness by forcing us to spend more money per capita on health care than any other nation. That said, if morality alone prompted solutions, this problem would have been addressed long ago. Overcoming inertia on such a thorny issue requires budget pressure - which Obama definitely faces. While some claim the deficit should preclude bold health care legislation, it's the other way around. The Congressional Budget Office says America's fiscal gap is "driven primarily by rising health care costs," meaning a fix is an imperative. "People ask whether (Obama) has the fiscal breathing room to push health-care reform," economist Jared Bernstein told the Washington Post. "He doesn't have the fiscal breathing room not to do health-care reform."
Additionally, as with everything in Washington, a political motive is needed for action - and even conservatives acknowledge Democrats have such a motive when it comes to health care.
Fifteen years ago, Republican strategist William Kristol warned that the Clinton administration's universal health care proposals represented "a serious political threat to the Republican Party" because, if passed, they "will revive the reputation" of Democrats as "the generous protector of middle-class interests."
As we all remember, Democrats failed to capitalize on the health care opportunity. But Kristol's prophecy was correct then, as it is now. With huge Democratic majorities in Congress come 2009, only the Braindead Megaphone is in Obama's way.
29 Comments so far
Show AllIf electing Bush 2x shows that we're center-right nation, it should be remembered that we didn't elect him twice...he stole the election last time around...
As to Obama, let's wait and see before we kvetch. Give him a chance. Judging by his previous performance, his staff /cabinet will not make policy, they will execute it. So it may turn out that his choosing experienced staffers will work out. Medea Benjamin is great, but she doesn't have the right officials/ congress staffers on speed dial... Rhambo does... O's choice for Treasury Secretary is brilliant, one of the only two fed finance officials who warned against the derivative madness...
Sam Abrams
mas.smarba@gmail.com
Sirota writes:
"The moral case for universal health care is obvious."
-----
This is a change of tone from Sirota's health care piece "HHS Chief Daschle Says States Will Play Major Role In Health Care Reform" which immediately preceded this one, http://action.credomobile.com/sirota/2008/11/hhs_chief_daschle_says_states.html, in which he applauded the appointment of hapless hack Tom Daschle to HHS, and opined that ... but go read it for yourselves.
California's legislature has TWICE "passed" universal health care, only to have it TWICE vetoed by the Austrian Achtung-er, Obama's comrade in "post-partisan" flimflam.
The answer is NATIONAL HEALTH. Right NOW.
By the time of Obama's ascension in January, a lot MORE people outside the insured elites, people who can't afford ANYthing, are apt to have URGENT need for medical care, and ZERO ability to pay for it. There are a million people or more involuntarily living outside ALREADY, for God's sake.
If The One -- who's already backed off even on the public promise to his children that "You’ve earned the new puppy that's coming with us to the White House" -- doesn't declare NATIONAL health right after he's sworn in, the best course of action for advocates of actual "change" might be to occupy the Post Offices, and block the freeways until a General Strike, followed by National Health . . . happens.
This only SOUNDS extreme: if there are billions for the banks, the mobsters who "represent" us can, surely, get 'er done on National Health.
Obama, along with the wife and kiddies, already has public-paid lifetime medical everything, by virtue of his marginal (and now prematurely curtailed) service in the US Senate.
Note, meanwhile, that the news networks are now "crediting" Obama's Treasury appointment with pausing the stock-market slide that began with ... the appointment of Daschle.
The oligarchy's conservative megaphone wants to convince the liberal public, many of who have been previously brainwashed into calling themselves progressives or even conservatives, into thinking they are truly conservatives. If the public believes most people are conservative that would justify any conservative horror show the oligarchy can cook up.
The Right Wing Noise Machine (or as Sirota prefers, the Braindead Megaphone), has finally reached the spot that any propaganda organ of a flawed ideology reaches when their paymasters have inevitably fumbled: they rail using themes that are taken seriously only by their hypnotized adherents. To completely tune them out is a mistake though, progressives must not repeat the error of the past of ignoring their opponents and allow them to "sneak up" on them like they did with Grandpa Caligula (Reagan) in 1980.
"Know thy enemy, know thy self" Sun-Tzu
www.wunderman-comics.com
I may be wrong-- not for the first time-- but I remain skeptical of the wishful theory that Obama is at bottom a progressive who has craftily and stealthily gotten himself elected by expertly submerging his progressive beliefs and intentions behind a Clintonesque neo-liberal centrist mask.
This view essentially credits Obama as being a brilliant political strategist and tactician who knows better than to step on the mines of reaction sown onto the political field-- or perhaps it would be better to use the metaphor of a mythological hero who magically quiets and lulls a bestiary of reactionary sentinels into submission and sleep while he steals into the castle of power and takes the throne.
This view presents several fatal problems, not least of which is the fact that ever since Obama castled behind his right rook after the primaries, he's done nothing but surround himself with Democratic neo-cons and neo-libs, and taken anti-progressive positions on major issues, e.g. FISA and the Wall Street "bailout".
So even if he effectively fooled his opponents and We the People into electing him, it's hard to believe that he can and will promote progressive policies with the administration he's choosing.
Moreover, one would have to accept that Obama's persistent WYSIWYG mantra during the campaign was merely clever camouflage. So if he suddenly radically shifts his approach-- and, for the reasons stated above, even a mildly progressive agenda would represent a radical shift-- he may be fairly called out and castigated for what amounts to profound hypocrisy.
Both his partisan opponents and the non-progressive and anti-progressive constituencies who supported him because of his seeming conservativism would have a field day crying foul and expressing their justifiable feelings of betrayal.
Also, it's worth noting that this notion that Obama is a progressive Trojan Horse conflicts with an alternate position often voiced by hopeful progressive supporters in the blogosphere, which is that Obama actually is by nature a cautious and conservative centrist without much inherent enthusiasm for the progressive changes Sirota and others champion.
However, since Obama has resolutely declared that as president, his duty and inclination is to effectively "channel" the power of We the People and implement our wishes, progressives have a mandate to "hold his feet to the fire" and demand progressive policies and programs.
These perspectives are not infrequently conflated, although in fact they are mutually exclusive: either Obama is a closet progressive who will carefully begin tilting popular opinion toward supporting progressive policies, or he is a neutral placeholder who is capable of being programmed by We the People to espouse progressive policies. Seems like an either/or to me!
IMO, whether by chance or design, I believe that Obama bamboozled moderate and credulous progressives by creating a populist campaign organization that seemed anti-establishment and counter-institutional. For instance, many blog commenters still perpetuate the myth that Obama's campaign was primarily bottom-up, as if his funding came exclusively from ordinary people of modest means but exalted hopes scraping nickels and dimes together.
Sorry, the more I think about it, the more Obama strikes me as a latter-day "Music Man" with a gift for touching the hearts of the unwary by offering to bring an end to the Trouble in River City.
• just my 2¢
This is a wonderful piece of writing. Would that commondreams would trade in the never-ending Norman Solomon for Two Cents.
Thanks! I'm flattered. ;)
• just my 2¢
"With huge Democratic majorities in Congress come 2009, only the Braindead Megaphone is in Obama's way."
False.
The Braindead Megaphone is on Obama's side. Obama is now defined as the leftmost boundary of permissible liberalism. This gives him cover to appease the most retrograde elements with policies that screw everyone else.
I predict that, as with Bush and the Republican base, Obama will maintain the support of those who his policies disadvantage.
David,
You state:
The moral case for universal health care is obvious. In the world's richest country - in a country that builds lavish sports stadiums and showers Wall Street with trillion-dollar bailouts - 18,000 people die each year because they lack health insurance.
The misdirection from "universal health care" to "universal access to insurance" is a not-too-subtle one, but it is working, and this trick is trotted out every time the Democrats discuss healthcare - don't confuse health insurance with health care. Health care makes you well, insurance makes you poor.
In Massachusetts, I'm required by law to buy health insurance. The only policy I can afford has so high a deductable that I will end up paying out of pocket for the health care anyway, PLUS I'm being forced to buy insurance. So, I don't buy the insurance, I'll pay the penalty - I believe it is the cost of 3 months insurance. Screw 'em. :)
I'm certain the Obama plan will be to force us to become customers of a useless industry designed to profit from human misery. One person's personal tragedy should not be a money-making opportunity for others, that's the simple idea of universal health care.
Universal health care is a basic human right, insurance is not.
Tanstasfl.
Sioux Rose
It's insane that Mass could force a consumer to buy health insurance, given that for-profit "industry" is far more interested in a profitable bottom line than actual deliver of well being!
As a parallel, I went to pay my car insurance yesterday. It was $66 in August, then "they had a rate increase" to $69 a few months later, and this week it's $73. The consumer has NO input into these "rate increases." An article recently published stated that Florida insurance had in its coffers about 1 billion. Sounds like a lot but a disaster like Andrew takes about 9 billion to clean up. I get the feeling if a big enough weather event came down the pike, we home owners would get the same "there's nothing left in the pot" answer that too many with health issues meet when after paying in they are unconscionably told, "Sorry, we don't cover THAT disorder."
It just seems like usury in every quarter, while the ones running policies like gaming tables in Vegas distort the benefits to insure their own massive gains. In short, it's time for a Christ like force to throw over the tables of the moneychangers who have moved their temple to Wall St. And I still find it incredibly powerful symbolically that the split of those towers seems to have foreshadowed the schisms in our actual economy, as sector after sector comes begging for financial assistance to remain viable.
Obama is not progressive or liberal, but a neoliberal; so is most of the country, in it's ignorance. That means a little bit of personal liberty while we conquer the world and maintain or extend the empire. Obama's objection to invading Iraq was on grounds of it being a strategic mistake, not on being wrong. (If he thinks we can be 'successful' in Afghanistan then he's already lost his way.) Most of what is now called 'progressive' simply isn't.
Do we really need to be reminded how much politicians lie, even when they are skillful at it? Do we need a refresher course in what wishful thinking is? Already, we have forgotten 2006? (Wake up Sirota!)
Oh, what tangled webs we weave when first we practice to believe.
Now get back to work, progressives! We're burning daylight.
David Sirota must be sniffing glue. This is dangerous talk, calling Barack Obama a progressive or a liberal or a socialist is not a good thing. This is what got us into trouble with Clinton. Clinton was labeled a liberal, a lefty, you still hear pundits squawking about it "Bill Clinton went to far left in his first 180 days" Blah de blah blah. Allowing conservative leaning centrist to be labeled as progressive is nothing short of dangerous. It then allows the far right to claim the mantle of conservative leaning centrist and we see where GWB and his "compassionate conservatism" has gotten us.
"Never underestimate the power of very stupid people in large groups."
- John Kenneth Galbraith
Yeah... like how many weddings will Obama be required to bomb before the progressive moniker is taken from his public relations bequeathed titles?
Really... do any of these people READ who the guy is lining up to take over the world with? Yikes. Closing Guantanamo to placate the people who bought the jive about hope... and then lining up the most militaristic doodahs he can find in the Democrat party to continue sending unmanned drones to blow up whole villages of desperately poor people ("but they killed a very important chauffer of one of the Taliban's most fearsome leaders!!!! Isn't THAT progressive?")
Next time you go to a wedding think about who else has been invited.... Does Uncle Joe have any ties to the Weathermen or SDS?.... you might be among the acceptable numbers of the collateral damage dead!!!
Boy am I glad I voted Green… I won’t have to struggle to figure out how to cover my bottom and my ideological outlook when it becomes entirely too clear that the Dems have done duped the gullible “progressives” again…
You absolutely must watch the episode of Frontline titled: SICK AROUND THE WORLD.
I give it my highest rating...5 stars.
The reporter visits five countries and examines their healthcare systems, talking to doctors and administrators. It's a straightforward, educational and very entertaining piece of reporting.
Among the highlights: He asks people from several countries if they've ever known anyone who went bankrupt and lost their house as a result of a catstrophic illness. They look at him like he's from Mars. Most patients never even see a bill. Another highlight: An MRI in Japan costs only $80.
It goes without saying that all five country's healthcare systems are not-for-profit and single payer (as it is in every industrialized country in the world).
The last country he examines (if memory serves) is Taiwan.
Taiwan is in the process of setting up a national healthcare system. To determine what the best system is Taiwan is investigating the healthcare systems of other countries who have had great success. They explain that they will then put together a system made up of the best elements of those systems. (Isn't this the approach we should expect from the scholarly Obama?)
Unfortunately, our President-elect determined his healthcare plan by calling the insurance lobby.
The episode can be found here. (It is presented in five ten-minute segments). Please tell your friends and family to watch to help demystify single-payer. The episode will really work for your Republican friends who dislike Michael Moore and discount his movies as it is presented without any political bias.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundtheworld
Did anyone else see the commerical that Obama ran on his healthcare plan during the final weeks of the campaign?
It made my blood boil.
Here's the text of the ad:
Announcer: "On health care reform -- two extremes. On one end, government run health care, higher taxes. On the other, insurance companies without rules, denying coverage. Barack Obama says both extremes are wrong.
His plan: Keep your employer-paid coverage. Keep your own doctor. Take on insurance companies to bring down costs. Cover pre-existing conditions, and preventive care.
Common sense for the change we need."
This is nothing more than Obama trying to BURY single-payer healthcare by misrepresenting it as a government run tax boondoggle.
The video of the ad is here if you wish to watch it: http://blog.cleveland.com/openers/2008/10/ad_health.html
Obama doesn't have a healthcare plan at all.
None.
Zippo.
He has a plan to help insurance companies sell policies.
Any healthcare that results from this business arrangement is incidental.
Wow - everyone has already hit the nail on the head.
"you're likely experiencing the momentary effects of brainwashing. For weeks, your television, newspaper and radio have been telling you America is a "center-right nation"
Nope. I Don't own a television machine.
"Braindead Megaphone" is a good description for it.
How can I describe living without a TV?....Freedom.
I suggest everyone try it.
"Braindead megaphone," how apt! Let me point out also the propaganda aspect. I left TV behind in 1973, when I moved abroad the first time. It was so liberating, I never returned (to TV). And, let's not forget radio; left that behind in '91, when I had to turn it off for a fasting regime and started to expand my consciousness naturally and hear faraway sounds. My home is a haven of silence, save the breeze in the palms and the birdsong. Aaah!
I have a TV but only watch sports on it. The few times I've watched the news on it briefly, I've just laughed at it and turned it off. If the policy makers in Washington are basing their decisions on what some idiot says on TV, there truly is no hope. I mean, who cares if someone labels things center-right, center-left, or Venusian-lunar. Just weigh the important factors and do what's needed.
"Public opinion surveys show most Obama voters knew the Illinois senator is a progressive when they cast their ballots"
Sirota is a complete moron.
--
Eric Patton
Cincinnati, OH
ebpatton@yahoo.com
http://www.new.facebook.com/people/Eric_Patton/663783881
I don't get it - I have read a lot of Sirota's blogs and articles and this one seems out of the blue. In the past, he consistently pushes for the populist wing of the Democratic party to ignore/overtake the DLC establishment - it is the whole theme of his book "Uprising." This article flies in the face of many things I have read by him in the past.
Referring to the Democratic Party as being "the generous protector of middle-class interests" couldn’t be further from the truth. Neither party is even remotely concerned with the “interests” of the middle-class. Just look at the treatment of the middle-class. Blamed by its corporate and political bosses for the state of the economy today. It’s pretty clear that no one is looking out for the interests of the middle-class today, and that’s why they are taking such a beating in D.C. today.
Hoa binh
I have to wonder what planet Sirota's been vacationing on, because on this one Obama hasn't offered up any conceivable version of universal health care reform. He will keep the insurance companies and big HMO-like goliaths firmly at the center of his plan, will not get near single payer, the only truly universal plan anywhere in evidence, and at best will tweak the current dysfunctional system so some children will have access. Nearly all the rest of us will be left to deal with the worst health care system in the Western world, that will doubtless only get worse. As WTF says, Obama is on most issues an arch conservative, which is why the braindead David Brooks megaphone supported him, among many other conservative brain-deads. Many Republican voters deserted McCain for Obama because they found nothing to object to in his campaign promises. The fact that he isn't going to touch the real power brokers in the current health care system of insanity determined many of those votes. Sirota should know this, but obviously doesn't, or refuses to see it.
"Public opinion surveys show most Obama voters knew the Illinois senator is a progressive when they cast their ballots"
David Sirota, like most Americans, is blind to the fact the Obama (and most Democrats) is an outright conservative, as he continues to yell mightily into the braindead megaphone that is the topic of this op-ed. Please do not sully Progressives by aligning us with almost everyone in both Republican and Democratic Parties.
I question Sirota's motive for writing such a blatantly inaccurate article such as this.
I thought Sirota was saying that the public knew (thought/expected) Obama to be a progressive, not that this was Obama's ideas about himself. The point being that there is an opening and opportunity in the public arena for Obama to move to the left.
Will he do it? Well, that's an entirely different question. Sirota seems to be asking for the public to keep up the pressure on Obama and the democrats to enact the public's expectations. I think that's a good idea. Sirota is trying to advocate for these positions by claiming these are positions the democrats already have, and may be to some extent true of some democrats. It's simply a rhetorical technique.
Yeah... so far public pressure from the academic progressive left has really gotten results.
Upon re-reading some of Sirota's op-eds here at CD, has this fool ever said anything truthful? He gives Progressives a bad name.
Have you ever said anything truthful? America IS a center-right nation. Why do you think we elected Bush twice in a row?
Obama may be a progressive, but that doesn't mean he can govern that way. If he wants to accomplish anything, compromise will be necessary. We knew that when we voted for him. Except for the crazies here on CD, the whole country understands that Obama will have to move slowly when rolling back the abuses of the Bush years. He can't re-shape the country overnight. He's not even President yet! If people like you had their way we'd be stuck with McCain.