The question is whether we know that we are being played. Or, if we are vulnerable to the manipulation because we don't believe anybody would do such a thing and can't see the purposes in it.
I guess that the silver lining is this: given all the resources that have been put into attempting to manipulate us, to corral us into an American Shopping Mall of the mind where we believe the BS, but not our own lying eyes, to disunite and demobilize us, the conservatives haven't succeeded in totally taking over - and therein lies the chance that progressive thinking may still in the end, prevail.
We all look at what we can see, and think that is all there is. That is the human condition and human ego.
We are given only some of the story and think there is no manipulation of the story. That is because we don't want to believe that there are organized efforts with huge multi-million dollar budgets aimed at persuading us through a variety of subtle and not-so-subtle means. It is frightening to consider, if you let it sink in.
The great problem with a college education is that, until you learn from experience to deconstruct it, you believe in information. So it may take five or ten years after graduation to begin to peel the layers back and begin to see that what appears to be going on is not necessarily what is going on. Most of us learn this only through some pain by leaning heavily on mistaken assumptions that give way under us like a rotten railing.
That is a lot of what we are dealing with right now. The Republican Party has been advantaged by a conservative effort that has been very deliberate and very well funded for some 50 years, to control the way the public gets information, and to control messaging. They have bought out the media on purpose, and they have created an entire field of endeavor based on proliferating new uses of PR skill, and ways of lying. The great inspiration behind this is the realization that the "Enlightened Public" depends on the sources of that enlightenment, so the public can more or less be held hostage by the 4th Estate.
They hire a lot of college graduates every year who come out of journalism and PR programs to work in careers built on creating the story of how things are, and supporting the premises on which Republican politics are based. They even hire bloggers. It isn't exactly public what they are doing.
What, after all are all those newly minted geniuses supposed to do, go work for newspapers?
Democrats generally do not do this because it is harder to promote consistent messages based on a more considered approach to questioning what the true facts are and what the right solutions to our problems are. In reality, it is more in doubt.
Reading through probably thousands of comments, I am struck by how many progressives seem to be vulnerable to this propaganda effort because everyone believes it to an extent, althought believing themselves to be smarter than the average person who believes the Republican PR machine. This could be because not everyone majored in journalism or English.
A lot of people apparently are surprised to learn that conservative political efforts hire bloggers to muddy the waters and try and demobilize Democrats. To me what is surprising is that anyone should be surprised.
Look, this is a battle. This is not a TV show. What it will take to win the battle to create policies that really address the complex problems that we really face, will be first, winning the battle to achieve a realistic and honest concept of what is really going on. That will take accepting the responsibility for achieving sufficient discipline to really become media literate and politically literate as well as just English literate.
When a game level is won, in electronic games, the reward is entry to the next level of difficulty. Same here.
The electoral victories of 2006 and 2008 mean that the game has ramped up.
Consider the ruthlessness and the seriousness that would cause the oil and extractive industries, banks and other multinationals to spend some 50 years constructing a media infrastructure to influence the public.
I would recommend reading Naomi Kelin's "Shock Doctrine" and really thinking about how the Friedmanite revolutions in South America she describes might be testbeds for promoting the same economic policies in the US in the future.
I think that is a contemplation that ought to be a priority for anyone looking ahead to the next several decades. The possibility exists that, at some point, conservatives will get tired of trying to win over through lame maniupulation instead of better rationality and will then go for the guns.
The game at this point, is to win over the hearts and minds of the swing voters. The only real issues that should be under debate are what will do that, given the MSM's being under thrall to the corporatists, and what are the ultimate goals we need to focus on as a society whose future is ever more complex and difficult.
Citzenship means taking responsibility and being, at some level, an actor. Being a member of an audience means choosing which channel to watch and critiquing what others do who are actors. Since we live in an age of constant entertainment it isn't any wonder so many people confuse the two.
If we are to raise consciousness in the public, we must adopt a raised consciousness about the true nature of the circumstance we are in.