All We Need Is Better Liberal Messaging

I used to think like this concerning voters, and how so many of them vote against their economic interest, and just need some good ole liberal religion and dem party platfoming as the party that cares about the working man or woman. I don't think this so much anymore, at least to a large degree outside the margins.

They are busy, certainly, but they are most of them, at least versed in the meta of the big issues in this country. I think they get as much minutia as they want, and have fairly well thought out,  at least in terms as knowing want they like and don't like about the parties and their positions on issues.

People are tribal, above all else,  and in this country that usually boils down to race and religion. Economics only plays a larger role in times of economic deprivation, and is reciprocal to the level of that deprivation.

We have more white people, so we have more white people voting for that tribe they belong to, all else being equal. And they are not only the majority of citizens in this country, they are also more religious, in a fundamentally religious country.  And that usually carries specific strains of protestant thinking that is also enmeshed in the political world, and democracy, as they practice it.

Most white people are not stone racists, but they fear the different to varying degrees. And that is not just the purview of white people. It is human nature, and primal. These are the reasons they vote for republicans, that tell them what they need to hear for comfort, outside of the realities of basic economic needs. That can and has trumped this id fueled mindset, but not to a degree, yet, in the mostly wealthy and plentiful nation on earth, for the reasons for basic survival. There is some of that going on now, and a general feeling of things going south. But it hasn't made most of them hungry enough,  nor deprived enough of the  other basics of comfortable existence.

And what I believe now, is that will be the only time they become teachable beyond the cultural signposts of their tribe. That doesn't mean liberals and democrats should not continue loudly to educate them. Just that expecting positive results from this teaching, is likely to lead to disappointment, and thinking we just have to do more of it, and they will get it. Persons of color in this country know deprivation quite well, and the pain of rejection and repression. There is no real reason why most white people should understand this, having never experienced it. At least in most of our lifetimes. It's a hard school breaking down primal fear, and kinship with the familiar, and letting go of all the wasted energy to remain king of the American Hill. Though demographic changes may well fix that.

So what do we do. We keep trying to elect people who get it, and keep trying to pass laws that will change peoples lives for the better. One foot in front of the other.  The logic of reality will do the rest. If we are lucky, and it's not too late.

Why Conservative?

My experience in life around all sorts of people with all sorts of personality traits, has taught me there is a minority subset of persons I believe to be fundamentally wired to be conservative, and wingnutty as well. If I had to put a percent around it, that could be the number 27. I don’t have any scientific data to back that observation up, but am convinced of it.

I don’t know if there is a corresponding congenital liberal, likely cause I am one of some stripe. So that muddles the mind a bit for the sake of objectivity.

But most republicans, I think, are not predisposed or destined to be wingnuts by their genetic wiring. Whatever else may lead these kinds of conservatives to act like they do, seems to have a common thread of lack of empathy, or concern for their fellow humans. They may care about family deeply, and even others for their own reasons. BUT, they have the option of simply not giving a shit about people in general, and by coalescing around a political gathering point, like a pol party, provides all the reinforcement needed to not give a shit, if they so desire. There is safety in groups no matter what the issue, but the GOP lends a fig leaf for those who choose to be assholes, if they so desire.

I see the GOP, above all else, as the lazy party full of morally lazy people, because it takes effort and pain to give a shit about your fellow man. And is easy to throw up all sorts of meaningless placards of this or that philosophy or belief, to justify going thru life a self absorbed dickweed. Things like the GOP mantra of ‘personal responsibility”, to not lend a hand to the hungry or the sick, in a manner that makes a difference.

Of course, until they, the wingnuts, gets caught with their hand in the cookie jar. Then it is somebody elses fault, probably a liberal to blame for their failures, some how, some way.

A Good Word For Our Government

I am not afraid of my government. I suppose that is because having worked in it for more than a few years, I have an idea how it functions. The right wing is the worst demonizing and fear mongering about men in black doing this or that evil thing to them, on a whim. And while there is certainly concern about too much power currently given policing agencies throughout the state and fed government, that is mostly a function of a right wing court for several decades, and too many citizens favoring tough policing, and that excesses won’t happen to them. But there are those on the left who feed this paranoia outsized to reality.

Our fed government is, and has been, and should be considered one of the good things about this country, and is actually very resistant to much tampering by politicos from any ideological stripe and ill intent. It is like the immovable object and irresistible force all at once. And has been built over the centuries to resist change and manipulation for broader pol purposes.

If you have worked for any federal agency, you would know that everything, and I mean everything, is under this or that regulation, that almost always chugs along as a force unto itself, toward whatever purpose it was created by congress, in the first place.

This mindset is reinforced by many layers of oversight, both internal and external to any one agency or department. It is a matrix set in near concrete, and only changes slowly, or by direct congressional mandate.

That does not mean what congress directs the government bureaucracy to do should be taken as something that should be done, but it does mean, it can within human imperfections, be expected to do what it is ordered to do by the congress and the president and the courts.

This bullshit about blown up fear from right or left that the government is a big boogyman out to get your ass, is simply, by and large bullshit. And most of the time, when folks in positions of responsibility go off the reservation, they get caught at it. It is very difficult to get away with misbehavior for very long, even at the top levels, without people finding out.

So, by all means, keep an eye out for shit like the Patriot ACT to remain temporary, and restrained, and other borderline shit, and agitate like hell to curb excess police powers the courts and congress have created, but fuckers like Chuck Norris, the right wing in general, and some on the left. Give it a rest, trying to make citizens terrified of their government through exaggerated accusations, without any or much evidence, to back up such claims.

We really do, with all our many other problems, have a solid federal government, that moves like a mindless robot doing what the regulations say it should do.

Building A Better Wingnut

Wingnuts are all about control, and they don’t want government doing good things for people that need it, because they lose control of those people for their own political designs.

And that control is greatest when counting possible votes in the future, due to the lizard brane knowing it is lizard, and therefore predatory, for wealth and concentration of wealth by whatever means necessary that is stealthy enough to slip by the rubes what they are really up to.

The reason they are against a government safety net, besides not personally caring about those in need, is that without that gov help, the hungry and desperate would turn to their allies in the wingnut churches. Where loyalty and survival are traded for the mind, spirit, and a loaf of bread, to ultimately keep the jeevus party in power with the political and religious strings attached to anything they provide for the needy.

Amarillo Brew Crew's Girls jumping on trampolines

Mitt Romney versus Reality

girls on trampoline