If Political Parties Were Computer Systems…

If political parties were computer systems… who would be what?

The conservatives would be a database: ask them a question and they repeat to you what is stored in their database.

The liberals would be a processor: ask them a question and they throw all the variables into their algorithm and say what ever comes out, indifferent to either the variables themselves or the result that is produced.

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That’s not to say that liberals are necessarily smarter. After all, imagine this: 5 apple seeds + 1 desert = green future. That is clearly not correct (you’ll need some water, right?). But if you have enough liberals working together then you will probably get a solution that is meaningful.

And understanding conservatives as a database, just repeating their mantra tirelessly over and over, helps to explain one of the great riddles of the modern conservative movement: why do business conservatives and religious conservatives ally themselves in the republican party? Shouldn’t they have opposite motivations and agendas? The answer is in the fact that they all, as individual people, process the world around them in the same way, like a database query system and this like-mindedness is the lubricant in their unnatural relationship. And because they do not have processing power, they are unable to figure out that they are supposed to be enemies.

Searching kids lunchboxes … what are the options

February 14′s article, State Inspectors Searching Children’s Lunch Boxes, made several rounds through my facebook feed. The idea, I must say, does wreak of heavy-handed socialism.

We all sort of know where the problem came from: snack food companies targeting their marketing efforts at kids, for generations.

Coke, for example, has realized great profits by creating an association between their product and world peace, good times, coolness, etc. And of course Cheetos, McDonald’s, and all the rest, it’s no wonder that kids opt for a small bag of potato chips and a Sprite rather than an apple and a grape juice (which doesn’t even sound exciting). In a unicorn-happy world these companies would prioritize ethics and health rather than profit.

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Let’s have a small lesson: what’s the difference between marketing and hyper-marketing?

Marketing is:

I made some shoes; they have good arch support.

Hyper-marketing is:

I made some shoes; they have good arch support; girls will take your pants off.

Hyper-marketing is at the core of hyper-consumerism (which is at the core of pop-culture, which is at the core of pop-politics … oh, and obesity).

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Our very-free American marketplace fosters hyper-marketing, even though it has the ability to do so much damage. In a perfect world, average people would be insightful and strong-willed enough to resist the messages of corporate America. But keep in mind that the marketing agencies employ sociologists and psychologists to customize messages for various consumer sub-groups, and they work to build messages that are irresistible.

Now kids are getting so unhealthy that they are coming down with diabetes in their youth. Lawmakers, afraid to touch corporate America, are instead trying to fix their mess by regulating people’s behaviors: corporate America gets a free pass, we get regulated. And, remember, if we don’t get the oversight, we end up fat and costly to the insurance companies and the system in general. We cannot be allowed to get so fat.

So what to do?

Choose ONE:
A – regulate the marketplace (don’t brainwash my kids, I wont brainwash yours).
B – regulate the people

Who spiked the Simple-Man’s koolaid

Today while listening to Charlie Daniel’s Simple Man on youtube I developed a new theory. That song identifies a classic pattern: historically, good honest workers revolt against

A) crooked politicians,
B) over-reaching capitalists, and
C) society-destroying criminals
.

But today it seems that they are only revolting against Obama and Democrat-politicians … so why is the pattern different?

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Here’s my theory: With the implementation of trickle-down policies in the 80′s and then NAFTA+ in the early 90′s, the American economic environment began to heavily favor the tycoon-capitalists over the common working men (tycoon-capitalists are not the same as mom-and-pop-capitalists) .

Historically in these types of environments two phases follow:
1 - society splits into an aristocratic class and a peasant class,
2 - then the peasant class (usually a combination of the Working Class -to power the revolt- and the Intellectual Class -to steer the revolt) collectively rises against the aristocratic class (usually a combination of the Politicians and the Wealthy).

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And because this pattern is so identifiable, any political historian back in 1995 could have predicted the outcome of the, then, setup: within 2-3 decades the common man was going to revolt … So what to do?! …

… develop a propaganda machine to manipulate that fate, of course.

(At this point it is important to recognize that partnerships between the Working and Intellectual classes make for strange bedfellows … the tycoon-capitalists will identify and exploit this!)

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They decide that they need to get control of the Working Class before the forecast revolt will begin one day, and, most importantly, before the Working Class partners with its old ally-in-revolt, the Intellectual Class. And so were born FOX News and Rush Limbaugh.

Yes, those are good ol' trusting, Family-Values Americans dancing a jig.

Rush Limbaugh and FOX News, the voices of the tycoon-capitalists’ propaganda machine, would be used to:
1 - gain the trust of the Working Class,
2 - direct them against the Intellectual Class.

And so once the revolt would finally happen (as history predicts), the Working Class would NOT go after the power class, but rather would go after their historical ally, the intellectuals. And this is the polarization that we have today.

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Some will argue that the tycoon-capitalists would not do this because in deflating the lower and middle classes, they would be shooting themselves in the foot by effectively impoverishing their consumer base. But that is only in a closed society where they necessarily need the American consumer. But America is in a global marketplace, and America’s 200 million potential consumers is small in comparison to the worlds roughly 3 billion in developed and developing countries.