Monday, August 08, 2016

Politics and Deception

Observing the media descriptions of the US political party conventions and the reactions of politicians, I am struck that lying has becomes normal. How is this possible in an educated country?

John Whitehead suggests that the reason is that Politics has become Entertainment.

Politics is entertainment. It is a heavily scripted, tightly choreographed, star-studded, ratings-driven, mass-marketed, costly exercise in how to sell a product—in this case, a presidential candidate—to dazzled consumers who will choose image over substance almost every time.

This year’s presidential election, much like every other election in recent years, is what historian Daniel Boorstin referred to as a “pseudo-event”: manufactured, contrived, confected and devoid of any intrinsic value save the value of being advertised. It is the end result of a culture that is moving away from substance toward sensationalism in an era of mass media.

As author Noam Chomsky rightly observed, “It is important to bear in mind that political campaigns are designed by the same people who sell toothpaste and cars.” In other words, we’re being sold a carefully crafted product by a monied elite who are masters in the art of making the public believe that they need exactly what is being sold to them, whether it’s the latest high-tech gadget, the hottest toy, or the most charismatic politician.

As I read this I thought more of 2 This 2:9-12.

This is not it, but I can see how it could happen.

3 comments:

August said...

It's just part of the leftist onslaught. Love and hate no longer mean what they are supposed to. Marriage is no longer marriage, but some sort of cohabitation that two people of the same sex can engage in.
Often times the media is just making stuff up.
In this election, I think the normal politicians who have been in charge have committed crimes, but that the normal political process for the Republicans and Democrats to not prosecute each other. Usually politicians only get into trouble if they anger their own leadership.
But now they are worried because if Trump wins, he will find plenty of F.B.I. investigations that have just been put on hold due to the blackmail situation in D.C. and he will also find it in his best interest to start prosecuting. Most of D.C. will want to stonewall him and let the economy tank so that they can get someone else in in four years. The way to stop that is remove and replace people, which is extra easy when you've got decades of provable malfeasance.

So they are going to lie, especially in an effort to keep traditional democrat voters voting democrat. If the rank and file ever stopped being triggered by lies and read Trump's policy positions, they'd be voting for him in November.

Anonymous said...

Chomsky is often correct, but he needs to look at himself, because he's part of the problem. In the US, nothing matters except what's cool, and the Left decides what's cool. Chomsky is a darling of the Left, which is controlled by essentially the same people who burned their brassieres and did LSD and idolized Noam Chomsky in the '60s. I'll take him more seriously when he gets honest about the fact that the media are part of a leftist oligarchy that is trying mightily to cover Hillary Clinton's misdeeds and catapult her into office. If I want to know what's really going on in my own country, I have to read the foreign press because the American press is essentially an extension of the same set to which Clinton belongs--and Chomsky. Chomsky is afraid of corporations and mass communications only as long as they help the opposition, which actually is pretty seldom.

Anonymous said...

August, that was a good comment. Your reference to Trump's policy position reminded me of the fact that the people who accuse him of not having any real policies are the same ones who interrupted him twelve times during his first major attempt to lay out his economic plan systematically.

With reference to your remark about Trump pursuing prosecutions if elected: this is the first election we've ever had in which one of the major candidates is likely to go to prison if she loses. If Trump wins, Jeff Sessions likely will be the new Attorney General, and his native state of Alabama has a nice, new medium-security federal prison for women...