Class Math: The Mythmakers

What about those people who paid for, among others, the “Job creators” myth, the ones for whom political influence is an element of profit?

I realize I can scarcely post to this blog without making reference to the “lies” and “manipulations” of certain classes of people, or to their ability to buy “impressions” that serve as a substitute for the truth. Yet, absent some kind of explanation, people might think that I am making things up, that I have embraced some sort of conspiracy theory, and that I, not they, am guilty of lies and manipulations.

But while it’s still a conspiracy, it’s not a theory any more. The steps in the process are all more or less in the open now. You don’t have to use your imagination to supply missing ones, or substitute passion for understanding, any more.

Here’s how it works, step-by-step. Keep in mind that this is all in addition to directly supporting the candidates the mythmakers favor, and therefore is not determined by any candidate’s views, policies, opinions, or publicly-held positions.

Buying the Impressions:

1.       The Few – really the big bourgeoisie, but generally speaking the Few – have interests to advance or protect.

2.       It’s easy – it’s natural – to formulate opinions expressing such interests, both directly and as a guide to public policy.

3.       The opinions constitute a message one would like to share.

4.       It’s lawful to promulgate, publish, broadcast such messages…

5.       …and to do so under some name or form other than, as I do, in one’s own proper person.

6.       The message requires a medium.

7.       The medium must be paid for.

8.       So form an organization.

9.       Give it the money. (Who gives it is still the great secret.)

10.   Get your similarly situated friends to give it money.

11.   Package the message. The organization designs the packaging; the buyers, naturally, approve it.

12.   Buy impressions. There are plenty of vendors in the market and vanishingly few have any scruples about it.

13.   Measure the effect and adjust the package as necessary.

For example, whence these distorted advertisements about right-to-work legislation in Wisconsin? That’s a 20^th century issue – from before the Big War. Why is it coming up now? Well, because the unions, weak as they are, are about the only entities the big bourgeoisie have to fear, and they would like to make them weaker. For another example, just today there is a report that Mr. Romney has had to repudiate advertisements funded by a Mr. Billionaire Ricketts.

Next: Why are the messages, like the ones in my examples, always and in principle lies and manipulations?

Making up Lies

1.       The message couldn’t start off any truer than an opinion. The Few are not philosophers, nor are philosophers among the Few.

2.       Is the opinion thus ever anything more than a more or less direct expression of self-interest?

3.       If it weren’t, why the anonymity of an organization? All those names are either tautological or fraudulent in themselves. All Americans are “for prosperity” – with a small “p.” The question is: whose? Why not use personal names? That would be unmistakable and truthful. As it is, we don’t know quite exactly whose interests are being served, and only by inference what class of people they belong to.

4.       The message is bent and spun. The Few would like to take the hopes and fears of the many, and match them up with their own exaggerated ambitions. And they have running dogs to help them. But the interests don’t really match. They don’t match at all: that’s the point. So now it begins to look like manipulations…

5.       …and finally passes to lies. When a string of manipulations and half-truths achieves a certain level of intensity, and something is needed to top it off, where else can you go? And it’s not just getting carried away or getting careless; it’s open, conscious, purposeful lies.

We’ve all seen political advertisements we don’t believe. Why believe any of them? Just think about where they come from – who pays – and then decide what to believe.

There’s another way, metaphorical for now, of looking at this. False opinions are sticky. Hold one and others will stick to it. Pretty soon you’ve got a whole view of the world that is irretrievably false – and a following besides. Think Rush Limbaugh. Jefferson Davis. Adolf Hitler. Sensible people proceed quite differently, as I’d be happy to explain in another place and time.