In my continuing effort to explain to myself and others why American politics is the pathetic state that it is in, I offer this.
No industry, besides the death Industry of the MIC and the Medical/Pharma industry spends more money on research than….the advertising industry.
The money the advertising industry spends on research is all spent for one basic reason. To manipulate you.
To find ways to jiggle your mind and emotions. To subtly or blatantly affect the two major response centers in the human brain, the pleasure center, and the fear center.
Billions and billions of dollars have been spent learning how to do this since the first broadcast advertisement on radio was wildly succesful. It works. There is no question that it works. And there is no question that advertising has played just a huge roll in makinf America into the obscene consumer culture that it has become.
And of course, all of those techniques have been translated into politics in general and of course political advertising specifically.
As we all know, The Republicans use these decades of research to stimulate and manipulate the fear center of the human brain….and we are watching it at work as their fear based campaigns are rapidly sinking public support for Health Care Reform.
They are the pied pipers of politics, leading a dull-minded (from decades of unconsciously absorbing advertising and being dumbed down by the educational programs dictated by Republican dominated government) populace once again down the road of acting against their own self-interest through sowing fear.
This cynical and repulsive practice sucks, but it works. The only question is…how do we counter it?
Do “we” become just as cynical as they are and instead of doing the (quite apparently) dull and fact filled but semi-honorable messaging the Dems now engage in…..start learning how to counter their fear based advertising by researching and deploying equally manipulative levels of advertising and messaging that stimulate the pleasure centers of what used to be a nation of citizens….but have now become, after decades of programming (literally!) a nation of political consumers?
Iow….should we start a War of Advertising Manipulation between the (Democratic) pleasure center and the (Republican) fear center of the human brain?
Or should we just find better ways to communicate and market the truth and the facts and hope that enough people/consumers catch on……and stop buying what the Pied Pipers are selling?
Frustrated with the health care ‘options’ coming out of Washington, D.C., six “Mad as Hell” Oregon physicians are taking an unprecedented road trip across America to lobby Congress for a single-payer health care system. 
