Political Labels Part III

The notes that I took directly underneath the “pinnacle versus progress” had a little diagram. Bear with me while I try to explain it. I wrote four words: Liberal, Republican, Conservative, and Democrat. Connecting the words in a circle were four arrows. In the big empty space in the middle, I wrote Meaning.

The lecturer had started out his talk with an example of advertising in politics. Rather than advertising just now creeping into politics, that was always the purpose of advertising. The father of modern advertising was Sigmund Freud’s nephew. Now, I don’t believe in nepotism or even hereditary gifts (you know, that somehow the nephew was born with all of Freud’s knowledge), but the point made was that the nephew very well knew of his uncle’s legacy. The nephew (didn’t grab his name, too lazy to google) made no bones about using advertising for political purposes. His book on the subject was allegedly titled “Propaganda.” That was before the word got such a negative connotation. Anyway, this was in the early twenties.

What I’ve noticed since that time, is that politcal movements are increasingly advertising oriented. One of the main concepts of advertising, as I understand it, is to sell something to someone that they don’t really need. The most effective way to do this is through branding. Advertising spends billions of dollars getting us to associate certain brands with certain experiences. Likewise, in politics, advertising brands politicians (and oh how I sometimes wish it was with a cattle brand) as representing this or that. In Montana, politicians always represent Montana values, while never really explaining what those values are. We saw branding in the last senate election when Jon Tester was shown holding a hunting rifle on his ranch when he apparently had not had a hunting permit for a number of years. However, a good advertising campaign (campaign — such a war-like word except the war is for your brand loyalty and association) will convince us, usually psychological techniques that anything can represent anything else.

Now, let’s take a little side trip. I’ve recently become interested in tribalism. No, not those tattoos or even Native Americans, but humans tendency to form little tribes, clans, or BFFs. We congregate with our sports teams, represent our local city or state, or defend someone’s musical selection as long as it matches our own. Tribalism, I believe, held an important key to Homo Sapien Sapien’s survival into the modern era. Humans want to engage in tight-knit groups. It’s only since the French Revolution that we’ve really stepped up nationalism. Before then, we didn’t really identify with a such a huge political entity as an entire country. So, it sort of makes no sense to only have two political parties represent a country that about as large than all of Europe.

Though, as many in the blogosphere know, we don’t have two politcal parties. I would argue that we actually have sort of a paradox. We have both numerous political parties and only one political party.

Numerous political parties: Each region has its own interpretation of the main political party. That’s how we can have a Democratic Governor in Montana and a Republican Governor in Massachusetts. Each region dictates its own interpretation of the political party.

One political party: Taking a far enough step back, you see both political parties saying essentially the same things while only changing the labels. Plus they flip-flop whenever political advantage might be had. Many of the same corporations are the top donors to both parties. Both parties are run from the top down with political consultants running from party to party, paycheck to paycheck, indifferent to any classical merit of the party.

That’s what I think my diagram was portraying: the one party system that seems to dance around meaning. The advertisers have gotten so good at building political brands that for a large swath of Americans, it doesn’t matter what their candidate actually does or says. A recent study showed that many ardent Bush supporters believed that Bush approved and was implementing the Kyoto Accord. Both political parties flip-flop their traditional stance every few years or even every few months.

But with humans tendency and needfor tribes, how does this actually translate for us? We pick a side and then we fight the other person. We subscribe to our media outlets. We support each other in branding the “enemy.” We believe that “God” or “Reason” or “Over-arching philosophical system” is on our side and the enemy is crazy, stupid, or heretical. We get caught up in this race, this dance to catch the enemy’s tail that we don’t even notice that a giant void opened in the middle, the void of “meaning.” (“Meaning” meaning actually agreeing that certain words mean certain things or that things should get done that help us rather than harm us.)

I don’t know how true this trilogy of tripe actually is, but it sort of makes sense to me. With all this partison bickering us constituents engage in, both politcal parties are accepting huge checks from most of the same corporations. And while the public continues to get this shaft in regards to education, transportation, prisons, health care, and trade, Corporations get NAFTA and a nice big war.

Should have known…

My wife works around televisions and said that all the news channels were blaring such breaking news as whether or not Anna Nicole Smith died in a cloud of scandal. Because, as we all know, if Anna Nicole Smith ODed then that threatens the fabric of our democracy. She was such an icon, such a skank, such a cockpole that three men admitted to being her child’s father.

My wife came home and told me that she thought something was going on. She even ranted to her mother that something important was happening or else the networks wouldn’t be focusing that much attention on a stupid blond.

Was she ever right. Yesterday, the Inspector General (sounds like something out of Les Miserables) determined that the “Pentagon manipulated pre-war intelligence.” Basically, the secondary reason we went to war, you know the reason directly after WMDs and right before it morphed into saving the world for “democracy” was Iraq’s alleged link to Al Qaeda.

Even the Misssoulian has noticibly neglected to mention anything about this. I guess they must be afraid to lose their valued Bitterroot subscribers.

If the executive branch uses false information to come to false conclusions to fight a phony war then I believe that constitutes a breach of national security and a treasonous activity. Engaging in phony wars should not be an excuse for executive immunity. Two more years is too long.

Staying the Course

Nothing stays the course. Not rivers. Not rocks. Not stars. And especially not people.

A river that doesn’t stay the course, that is constricted by artificial means to follow one channel, becomes sick and everything within it begins to die.

I don’t think anyone is stupid enough to think that when Bush says “Stay the Course” he means that we will use the same tactics to meet an everchanging enemy. I think part of the misunderstanding is that liberals interpret it that way. Bush’s Iraq mantra seems to refer to the quixotic mission to force a round democracy into a square Middle East. While I think that this is a lofty and admirable goal, using brute force to acheive it is stupid. I don’t know of a single person that develops beliefs merely by being told to believe in it. Rather, changing a world philosophy, at best, is a slow, laborious process. The American revolution didn’t start overnight, and it didn’t start with the Boston Tea Party. If anything, it started with the Seven Years War and perhaps even further than that. As far as I can tell, history is not easily broken into chapters with completely self referential events. However minutely, everything has the potential to affect everything.

I was watching the Godfather Part II again last night. It had been years since I had last seen it. I never truly appreciated how complex and how many issues this movie explores. Another time and with a few more viewings, I might even argue that Part II is a more sophisticated movie than Part I. One scene that resonated with last night’s viewing occured when Michael Corleone went to Cuba. Though the corrupt government officials attempted to steer him clear from the guerrilla violence, he saw “a man kill himself with a grenade and take out a captain with him.” When he expresses his doubts about continued investment in Cuba to his “business partners” and adds that the rebels will win. Why? For the simple fact that they are willing to die for their cause even if it will only wound the other side.

This, from my “liberal” viewpoint, is how I view Iraq. While we may call them terrorists, guerrillas, insane extremists, or Islamofasciasts, but by any other name, these unpaid fighters are willing to die for their cause.

I know we can’t just pull out, but how long are we willing to “stay the course?” Will the mission be accomplished in five years? Ten years? Twenty years? To engage in perpetual ideological warfare (i.e. the cold war, war on drugs, war on terror) reminds me of the novel 1984. We are no longer there to deter weapons of mass destruction (though none were ever found), to topple a dictator, or to fight a war on terror. We are apparently fighting a war to not appear weak and to “stimulate” the economy, both of which are not happening.

I don’t know exactly what to do. I’m neither a policy maker or a military analysist. I don’t even have enough time to more adequetly understand the quagmire we call Iraq. The one thing I do know is what my father always said while I was growing up:

If you do the same thing you’ve always done, you’ll get the same result you’ve always got.