Tea Party: “Is There a Difference Between Cinco de Mayo and Chinese New Year?”

Fight Citizens United by Filtering Out False Political Advertising

The mid term elections of 2010 have been memorable for sheer goofiness as well as for the corporate funded blanket of ugly, false and misleading political advertising that has been lowered over the public airwaves. With the addition of a mountainous heap of money provided by greedy plutocrats, election cycles have become national holidays from reason and sanity that fall between their mates, Halloween and Thanksgiving.

I have little trouble tuning out most of this detestable crud, knowing as I do that it’s filled with half truths, distortions and bold faced lies. In this sense the supreme court’s licensing of corporate political advertising in campaign ads is little different from the every day advertising for goods and services that absorb a large percentage of air time on nearly every channel.

I’m not a believer, I don’t buy disposable mop heads that promise to revolutionize my life, or small sheets of fabric to place in the dryer to protect myself from static cling. The hundreds of millions that corporate America is spending on this election is wasted on me and on anyone else who doesn’t believe that signing up for a “free” credit report will improve your credit or that tax protection and relief ads which promise to negotiate with the IRS will actually do anything but empty your pockets more efficiently.

I’m a relatively old guy who learned long ago that the words “new” and “improved” in advertising usually refer to nothing but the label, that “free range” and “organic” seldom mean what they pretend to convey and though I may enjoy the next novel I read, or the next film I see, I’ll bet it’s not a “blockbuster.” The same is true of political advertising.

The Citizens United decision handed down by the John Roberts Supreme Court of Corporate Appeals was a terrible (and I believe corrupt) decision that will have devastating effects on our electoral process if it is not reversed, but there is another way around it in the short term. Filters. Personal filters for hype and BS when exposed to political advertising have become a dire necessity for modern living, and crucial in making informed political choices.

People need to filter out lies and distortions and the fact that so many are either unable or unwilling to instantly disregard the blatantly obvious flimflammers and hucksters and their attempt to push unqualified, unprepared candidates with records undistinguished by accomplishment and unblemished by experience should frighten everyone who cares about the future of this country.

From Delaware to California, from Florida to Nevada to Illinois and Connecticut the political snake oil salesmen of the Republican and Teabagger party, these slick well paid representatives of the corporate world are pushing products that fit the marketing axioms of “creating the perception of value” and “cheap and easily repeatable.”

Teabagger and Republican office seekers have been conspicuous this year for their almost universal ignorance of the problems and aspirations of the constituencies they seek to “serve,” of the constitution that governs that service and the institutions that they are applying to “serve” in. They are there because they are bought, paid for and will follow instructions from the boardroom while ignoring the turmoil in the street.

Two quick examples should suffice, Christine O’Donnell’s ignorance of the first amendment as it concerns religion and the writings of Madison and Jefferson on the subject and her inability to name a single sitting Democratic senator even the one from her own state, and the fact that Sharon Angle is somehow confused by and can’t tell the difference between Cinco de Mayo and Chinese New Year.

There are very good reasons why this pack of harebrained hacks was chosen and so lavishly backed by the big money crowd that wants to take us back in time to the glory days of the robber barons.

These nitwits, these Teabaggers, these Republicans are more than willing to return us to a dollar a day, seventy hour work weeks, debtors prisons, indentured servitude, three cornered hats and dancing the minuet.

Filter them out, don’t buy what they’re selling, pay attention. Fight the tyranny of corporate political advertising.

Bob Higgins

Originally posted at my site Bob Higgins