Tuesday, October 8, 2013

How the “Public” taboo deceived America



In Europe if a maniple of politicians hijacked a whole country and the ransom was Public Health you would see riots in the streets, while in America it is considered “Business as Usual”. 

America is kept in hostage by a maniple of crazy cyborgs who hide themselves behind the flag of the Republican Party and a resuscitated Astroturfed organization called Tea Party, which is clearly sponsored by a private organization whose only interest is annihilating any possible chance the American people get their deserved Healthcare Assistance.

How can it happen that the Land of the Freedom is being hijacked by an obscure Mr. X who is so evil that his personal greed puts at risk the health of 150.000.000 people? 

According to a Harvard Medical School Research Study, about 45.000 people have been dying in America in the past 12 years due to a lack of Healthcare coverage. That means 540.000 people died because they had no health insurance.

In today’s world you can perpetrate a genocide and no media talk about it? How can such an operation can take place while the only reaction is some liberal pundit who talks about “Republican Hypocrisy?” or “GOPs act like kids”?

The answer is Deception, operated through Fear and Pride and the creation of language taboos thanks to an almost infinite budget.

Since the end of World War II, after having defeated the Nazi, America had a new enemy: Communism. Being America the homeland of Business and Capitalism, the Soviet Communist Regime was perceived as pure Evil, or better “the Evil Empire” as Ronald Reagan once said. 

In the 50’s America was fighting the Cold War against Communism, a war that was not fought with conventional means but basically relied on propaganda and clandestine operations and the continuous subsidizing of the various anti-communist governments around the world. Like Pinochet in Chile, Batista in Cuba, Somoza in Nicaragua, Marcos in the Philippines, the Shaw in Iran. All these dictators were sponsored by the U.S. Government to fight against Communist rebels. And that’s just fine.

During 1948-86, military purchases cumulated to $6,316 billion, averaging about $162 billion per year, or 7.6 percent of GNP. To this budget you have to add almost a similar amount for the so called “Black Budget” which is the government's illusory and tangled accounting of what it spends on intelligence gathering, covert operations, and - less noticeably - secret military research and weapons programs. By estimates of those who watch it, the black budget may have hit US$30 billion a year - a figure larger than current federal expenditures for education. 

This budget was used to build up a series of propaganda initiatives to fight Communism, both overseas and domestically where the War on Communism turned into a War against Social justice and the Welfare State. In practice it was a war against the very concept of "poor" and the "cultural" heritage of this enormous effort is what we are witnessing today as the main (non) reasons shown behind the Government shutdown: "We don't want to help you" where "you" is the majority of the American people. 

The money spent during the Cold War for the propaganda against Communism was so enormous that still at today in America, Communism is considered “the worst enemy of the State” like anything that gets slightly close to its meaning.

Still at today you see these people who define themselves “Republicans” raving their meaningless rants against Socialism, Stalinism, Communism, Marxism and so on.

In May of 2009, conservative pollster Frank Luntz released a memo, "The Language of Healthcare 2009: The 10 Rules for Stopping the 'Washington Takeover' of Healthcare." In that memo, Luntz advised conservatives to use phrases like "rationing," "Washington takeover," "government run," "government takeover," and "bailout" when addressing health care reform."The effect of that is that public policy is harmed if the public cannot weigh in intelligently on what is being proposed and what is actually happening"

What do we have to make of all this? simply that Language is important because it's the main disinformation tool when you fight against an enemy using non conventional means. It's called Psychological Warfare.
But the American people is not an enemy you have to deceive! Or not? I mean why Republicans and Fox News should use propaganda and disinformation within the American Audience?

However I ignore how much was the budget at Luntz's disposal, but during 40 years of Cold War the propaganda budget was of almost $10 trillion that has been spent to convince Americans: 1) you can’t trust the government 2) everything that is government-related is Socialist and consequently evil 3) if you claim any entitlement from the government you are a selfish individual who wants to depend on government like a parasite. 

The exploitation of the Cold War budget was meant to completely destroy concepts like “Welfare state”, “Public Service”, “Poverty” and by creating a linguistic taboo zone. 

These words mentioned above became so much of a taboo you couldn’t even name them while in good company.

At the end of the day, what these “people” managed to do was to create a sense of fear among the American people with everything that was “Public” related. In addition whoever was asking for "Public" help or Government help had to feel ashamed. You don't hear many people using the word "Public" Don't ya?

"Public" is an adjective you won’t find in any American news media, no matter how much “liberal” it is, you won’t find it. The few things that pick “Public” as an adjective have negative connotation: “Public School”, “Public Hospital”, “Public Enemy” and “Public Servant” which is the title of those who work for the Federal Government which is the number one enemy of every good American (according to the GOPs).

The American people are so scared about the Government and the concept of Res Publica, that they don’t even know what the concept of “Public” is really about. And I am not talking of uneducated folks or the man from the street. I am talking about educated people like academics and journalists who have been “educated” (read “restrained”) almost to their unconscious level to keep away from everything that might be considered as “public”. So how can they stand for something Public if they are scared of it? They are so much scared that they are not even able to know what the word “Public” means.

When I wrote my article on the new restrictions that were put in place on Facebook, most of my friend’s reactions were along the line “in America we don’t care about Facebook, basically it’s a non-topic!” 

Like if Facebook being a private company has nothing to do with the concept of “Public”. The truth is that when you offer a service to the public, that service becomes a Public Service so it’s not a mere business anymore. So if you put in place new restrictions on a Public Service that’s a restriction you put in place against the public itself. But if you ignore what is public you don’t even know what is "yours". And what you are entitled to.

And that’s exactly what’s happening with the Affordable Care Act, the American people completely ignore to what extent the concept of Public is able to affect your personal sphere.

Indeed still at today the “Public taboo” is worth the money it has been spent for to be in place: 40 years of Propaganda that costed $10 trillion

The greatest of all American taboos is the term “working class”. Back in the 90s, America was still on the economic wave of the former decade, if you did ask around, to every person you knew, you weren't able to find anyone who said “I belong to the working class”. Today neither. I don't think in America you can find many people who claim to belong to the "working class". Because the working class is a communist category which found no place in the Public (again!) imagery.  

Why? Because that’s a taboo that was built with the Cold War money, and what they bought was abolishing the term “Working class” and changing it with the better “Middle Class”, so that people would have felt better, I mean in America we don’t have a working class, we have only Middle Class and the richest 1% of the whole world to which everyone in America one day will belong to. That’s the American Dream!

Indeed the American Dream was injected like heroin within the whole American society so that even the poorest unemployed guy who lives in the Detroit suburb, he would never think of subscribing to a Union and take it to the street. Absolutely not. Because in the collective imagery belonging to a Union it means you are a Communist a subversive, a parasite who wants to be entitled because is a selfish individual. That guy down in Detroit he has to think like a businessman and go get a job and become rich so that other people around him will become rich too, that's altruism! And that’s what you are supposed to do. Get rich or die trying.

In the American public imagery (sorry for the public) or in Hollywood movies there is no hero who belongs to the working class and leads a Trade Union to victory. When you say “Union” in America your mind goes to Jimmy Hoffa, the mafia and his unknown burial site. Hoffa was not a hero, but a corrupted crook. Who would ever be associated with such a dark figure?

Another aspect of this story that doesn’t add up, it’s what is called “Republican hypocrisy”. Last Wednesday because of the government shutdown the Washington Memorial was closed, a few Tea Party cyborgs like Michele Bachmann were able to show up and pull a couple of veteran’s wheelchairs while being photo-op’d.

If those veterans had some blood in their veins they had to refuse the help of those tea-party people but they did not. Instead those veterans were even happy to get together with those cyborgs. They completely forgot that less than a year ago, former Republican candidate Mitt Romney said “time for Veteran’s healthcare to go private”. We want to cut your healthcare but we pull your wheelchair so that we can be portrayed as compassionate cyborgs.

What’s even worse, nobody in the “liberal media” used the Romney’ statement to object against such an awkward move. Actually what happened was that Bill Maher made the greatest mistake ever by saying “nobody said they were the brightest generation”.

No surprise these people are able to hijack the government if the other political side let them do it. 

Indeed it is probably better that Democrats do not respond to such an escalating Brinkmanship strategy. Why? Well because these “people” are willing to bring the conflict to the maximum level, because what they really want is chaos in the streets. 

When the chaos will hit the streets, President Obama will have lost all of its credibility and a new “Order” will be in place, under a new Republican President who will sign a Super Patriot Act where rights and entitlements will be completely cancelled. 

This is the war of the Rich against the (poor) American People and nobody wins.

E Pluribus Unum