There are factors that mitigate these dangers. Young supporters of GWB largely had/have "stern parent" hierarchical, authoritarian mindsets. Thus they tend to fall in line behind whatever the leader says. On the other hand, the young supporters of BHO seem largely to have "nutrient parent" communitarian idealistic mindsets and they project their ideals onto BHO. However, their ideals vary considerably and these folks are not the "fall in line" sort. (This line of analysis is from George Lakof.) The potential for backlash from the base is very real.
I see the problem of campaign finance as such a basic and stark problem and limitation that it can only be changed if a means can be devised which is likely to have substantial parts survive legal challenge in the next election cycle. This requires collective courage, which is not significantly on display at this time. Obama appears to have circumvented the problem with his web based fundraising, but that is personality based and will be difficult to generalize. Reform of the formal system will require leadership of which Obama is potentially capable of providing, but he has not shown any clear intention of doing so.
The most basic problem is that the attitudes and perceptions of the public have been shaped by 30 years of noxious, self serving theories served up by neo-con politicians and neo-classical economists. Unfortunately, these concepts, through continual repetition, have been wired into the brains of a large portion of the population. This fact has been and will be skillfully exploited by these same interests to resist any fundamental change that challenges their interests.
T. Boone Pickins is showing what is needed to change attitudes on a particular issue: $50million and daily ads that hammer away at a problem and, over time, rewire the brains of a lot of people. What is needed is several other efforts of comparable scope to prepare the ground on other issues, especially campaign reform. Else, our choices could be/(remain?) between various flavors of subtle or not so subtle totalitarianisms.
As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
It is most worrying that the response constituted by BHO's campaign ...
The internet is a broadcast, telecommunication network. A tool, that's all. It amplifies both noise and news of information by multipoint distribution of "speech". Both noise and news have always been features of human media manipulatives, whether sound or object -- reliquaries, press, ale houses, soapboxes and townhalls, teevees or HTML pages. Some people find noise soothing. Some people are able to filter noise. Observing that discrepancy in intellectual capabilities is hardly a "RW Republican" invention, though it is certainly fashionable today to suggest that it is along side a conviction that US political economy was founded 30 years ago and one's political greivances only find expression in self-identification with legitimate regimes. Deflected examination of dysfunctional group dynamics and evidence that governors, worldwide, are unanimous in their preparations to quash civil liberties is what fetishizing propaganda à Lakoff achieves.
The distress expressed by individuals at nodes such as No Quarter rather illustrates that observation. The number of individuals who are willing to declare allegiance to some symbol yet are unable to identify themselves with representative government and to replace offending legislators who indeed they "own" cannot be understated.
That is a feature not a bug of continuous totalitarian indoctrination.
There are factors that mitigate these dangers. Young supporters of GWB largely had/have "stern parent" hierarchical, authoritarian mindsets. ...
I understand that John Dean and other authors have popularized these pseudo-psychometric, demographic models since the 2000 presidential election. That is to understate decades of clinical psychology, psychoanalytic treatments, and semiotic praxis ... Piaget, Fanon, Taylor, Adorno, Allen, Drucker, Lacan, Arendt, Barthes ... the knowledge base of the western canon goes on and on. It is deep. The Tavistock Clinic for example was founded in 1920 to formalize palliative treatment of endemic, pervasive combatant disorders emerging from institutional ruin. But US consumers, in particular, are trained to accommodate infantile prescriptions for adult conflicts before voluntarily seeking psychotropic treatment.
Dissociation, that is a feature not a bug of continuous corporate hygeine.
I see the problem of campaign finance as such a basic and stark problem and limitation...
There will be no legal challenges to the premises of campaign financing. Campaign financing is not a "problem" legislators care to solve. The SCOTUS long ago ruled that money is protected speech, for all practicable purposes, a ballot coefficient and a asset within the US "election" market. Occasionally elected officials renegotiate accounting terms, or game rules, typically after detecting some "competitor" innovation in revenue collection. Mr Obama has demonstrated unequivocably his disinterest in public financing by rejecting the scale "inefficiencies" of restricted funding. If that judgement did not make clear his philosophical and commercial priorities, read again the copy in that splash page: "Own a piece of this campaign" says all one would need to know about mass marketing consumables and the investment quality of finance capitalism, generally.
US voters are buying themselves a cipher and him a 747. cf Piaget on participatory realism.
Solicitations for "private" campaign funding and "soft money" funded broadcast electioneering ought to be abolished. But these are features of totalitarian franchise.
The most basic problem is that the attitudes and perceptions of the public have been shaped by 30 years of noxious, self serving theories served up by neo-con politicians and neo-classical economists.
Again, presentations of normative attitudes and perceptions of legitimate federal governance are not products of the last 30 years of US intellectual history. These are artifacts of relentless, material Euopean feudalism and regency which is, furthermore, based dogmatically on reverence for Platonic-Roman antiquity.
God willing "citizens of the world" will never own a productive asset but our inalienable "right" to make payments in scrip to banks and in blood to the homeland.
T. Boone Pickins is showing ... What is needed is several other efforts of comparable scope to prepare the ground on other issues, especially campaign reform. Else, our choices could be/(remain?) between various flavors of subtle or not so subtle totalitarianisms.
I see, the next opportunity to disrupt US totalitarian jugernaut is to turn-over all incumbents in congress, both chambers. Cold turkey intervention by each voter. Otherwise, legislation that institutionalizes debt production enacted will not be reversed. For every single "short term recommendation" proposed by Paulson and endorsed by BHO on the trail to "modernize" FRB regulatory authority was finalized this weekend.
That is a feature not a bug of continuous totalizing infrastructure.
Mr Pickins retains multiple law firms who employ an army of associates who supply him and his agents legal bases for business decisions. Doubtless he is aware of recent changes to US Tax Code and eligibility of corporate entities for new streams of federal financing. Are you? That's all I'm asking. Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
