Debate? No. Demagogy? Yes!

It’s really interesting to me (and not in a good way) how the sheeple in the public and Congress are so easily swayed by “The Big Lie”. Then again I’m also amazed (and not in a good way) that people hang on every venom-coated word spewed by the “fair and balanced” pundits on Fox News and talk radio.

It helps clear up a lot of questions about how Goebbels was so effective.

Long time readers of this blog know that I try to not complain about something non-trivial without proposing a solution–even if it’s an off-the-wall solution. That’s because while the squeaky wheel might get the grease, that only works so long as the thing causing the wheel to squeak doesn’t cause the train to derail because you didn’t address the problem, only the symptom.

Most of my professional life has been focused on problem solving. I long ago learned that if someone calls you in because something doesn’t work and then asks you what’s wrong and you reply, “It’s broken,”…well, they don’t think that’s too helpful. They expect you to fix it. In the same way, when we elect people to public service, when journalists are elevated to be a prominent voice, you expect them to address the difficult tasks of recognizing and fixing problems.

When I look at our healthcare “debate” I see a lot of problems, only a few of which are related to healthcare.

• Politicians more beholden to re-election funding than they are to representing their constituents.
• A public that is more interested in having a government of the sheeple than in taking the effort to contribute constructively to the discussion.
• A large political/religious movement that has conspired to foster ignorance: both in not providing adequate education and in embracing a pride in letting others do the thinking for them.
• A journalism movement more concerned with raised voices and self-aggrandizing bluster than it is in actually being an impartial observer and reporter of events.
• Total misunderstanding of civics by just about everyone.
• Presidents lacking either brains or balls.
• A business culture that believes that greed is good, and is more than capable of not only greasing palms but of convincing those in “power” that trickle-down economics is a sound policy to sell.

Oh, I could go on. There are so many problems that if this was an ordinary complex system I’d say commission a re-design in anticipation of replacing the patchwork system that is quivering from its own weaknesses. There is, however, a common thread that needs to be addressed not only for progress to happen, but to prevent a possible tragedy.

We get this definition from Wikipedia:

Demagogy (also demagoguery) (Ancient Greek δημαγωγία, from δῆμος dēmos “people” and ἄγειν agein “to lead”) is a strategy for gaining political power by appealing to the prejudices, emotions, fears and expectations of the public — typically via impassioned rhetoric and propaganda, and often using nationalist, populist or religious themes.

Sound familiar? It should. It was practiced to great effect in the 1920s in parts of Europe. The result? 50-70 million people dead. Given the might of the United States, is it no wonder that I have some concern?

Right now, the problem, as I see it, is that certain groups have allied to act as a sort of cabal to sow foment in order to advance their own (presumably) separate agendas. Talk radio. The political Christian Right. The corporate class. Most national politicians. Fox News. More. You see it constantly. The name-calling. The shouting. The fabrications. It’s ubiquitous. They had a name for the message being advanced as well about 80 years ago: the Big Lie.

Demagogy and the Big Lie tend to march in goose-step with each other. The net effect is to so poison the well of serious discussion and debate that the sheeple most easily lead freely cede their rights to the larger movement. It’s possible that we’ve passed a tipping from from which there is no recovery. I’d like to think that is not yet the case. So, what are some solutions?

The true conservatives need to either take back the Republican party or break away from the budding fascism (yes, I said it) to start a new conservative party founded on the fundamental political principles of this country of debate and compromise. A large part of the problem is that Colin Powell, Joe Lieberman, John McCain, and others who are true conservatives in the historical sense are standing by and doing nothing to stop the demagogues from seizing control. Gentlemen, it’s time that you stand up and act like the patriots you’ve proven yourselves to be. Make our founders proud.

There needs to be someone other than topical comedians actually calling out the blusterous and hypocritical ego-maniacs. How about this radical idea: a return to journalism. Yeah, it might be boring. Yeah, it might not get the sensational ratings. There comes a point when ethics must hold sway. Until that happens, the “fourth estate” is nothing more than a tar-paper shack on an otherwise weed-ridden vacant lot.

Looking to healthcare: you need to stop having the politicians talking about this. Except among the aforementioned cabal, it’s generally acknowledged that healthcare is broken. That the people who are most to blame for breaking it are the ones arguably trying to fix it is a lot like having the iceberg come to the rescue of the RMS Titanic. An independent body–consisting of people from all four of our classes (corporate, near-corporate/upper-middle, working, and poor) as well as medical doctors, advisers from several countries with systems that work better than ours, academics to address the psycho-social realities of the United States, and other less-influencing advisers (such as from the CBO and GAO, and the ABA)–should be convened for the sole purpose of constructing a workable healthcare plan.

One problem that’s not going to be solved quickly is that there is a very deep streak of supremacy in this country. Often it’s “white” supremacy, but it isn’t exclusive to that group. Just because the Klan has (for the most part) removed their hoods doesn’t mean that their spots have changed. There are many veins of “oppose that which is other than me” that course through the land. It’s a lot of fear combined with a very small number of sociopaths who love nothing more than to fan that fear.

We need to fix the education system. The American “Experiment” is dependent on one thing: an educated populace. Sadly, we don’t have that. Americans, as a whole, are now amazingly ignorant. That any learn anything within the public school system we now have is more a testament to individual drive than to anything praiseworthy in the system that ostensibly teaches them. Of course, our rarefied cabal doesn’t crave an educated populace. The educated are harder to manipulate. Is it no wonder that in strongman regimes it’s the intellectuals that are the first to be driven out and/or killed?

There is a lot of anger that’s spread throughout our society about a great many things. People aren’t just frustrated about healthcare or political corruption, they are tired of more work for less pay…if they have a job at all, they see wars in foreign lands that don’t actually seem to be about much of anything tangible, they hear a lot of talk and experience anything approaching constructive action. It’s exactly in this sort of environment that the demagogues are able to thrive like bacteria in a petri dish.

America is in dire need of a slap upside the head. Maybe it’s too late to do any good, but if we wait any longer it will only be worse.