American political commentator and television host Bill Maher had some interesting things to say on his show last week, specifically about the nearly 68 million American
millennials and Gen Z. Maher is a “Boomer.”
“You know the reason why advertisers in this country love the 18-34 demographic…because it’s the most gullible. According to a Gallup poll, 36 percent of millennials think it might be a good idea to try Communism. The problem isn’t that I don’t get what you’re saying or that I’m old. The problem is that your ideas are stupid.”
The reality is that most people never had the chance to decide to “try” communism. It was imposed. The notable exception was India. In 1967, the Communist Party of India was the fourth largest holding seats in the Parliament of India, the Lok Sabha. The largest percentage of seats came in 1989 with 6.55 percent. But as of 2019, that percentage has dropped to 1.49 percent. While the CPI fields many candidates in local state elections, even in the strongest CPI state of West Bengal, CPI holds only 9 percent of the local assembly seats.
We think of “democracy” as being able to vote for the government. That is only one part of the democratic process and maybe not the most important. Democracy is about the people being able to advocate—an activity that seeks to influence decisions within political, economic, and social institutions.
The advocacy ability of the people is what has created the frequently adversarial relationship between the leaders and the followers. From Charles Hugh Smith: “The state tolerates polite advocacy because it is easily dismissed, but it views dissent as a threat, and responds accordingly. When the people realize advocacy is an empty promise of political influence and they move to dissent, the state’s powers of suppression are unleashed.”
Government manipulates—with the active help of media—to further fear-driven crisis policymaking.
“Nothing like this has ever happened before,” which requires that “unless the government intervenes, the situation will get worse and worse.” To speed a huge, complex, “anti-terrorism” Patriot Act bill through Congress in 2001, George W. Bush invoked the shadow of another terrorist attack. “The situation we face could not be more serious” and “we can’t afford to wait” are key fear-mongering phrases.
Government can get away with these actions—which in most cases assumes to outweigh its costs and potential negative consequences—for several reasons. We are told that government officials know or can quickly determine how to solve the problem. Therefore, the people are forced into accepting the “we must do something” mode because doing “something” is better than doing nothing.
In the wake of the Global Debt Crisis, President Obama announced that there was no need for fact-finding, study, and debate even though neither house of Congress stopped to hold hearings on the bailout/stimulus legislation. Most members had never read the entire bill. Obama: “We can’t posture and bicker. Endless delay and paralysis in Washington in the face of this crisis will only bring deepening disaster.”
Another manipulative scheme is to have the “administration” and “opposition” join hands in unity. “Working together” can often mean “working together for our benefactor’s interests.” “Too Big To Fail” always seems to come ahead of the “Too Small To Complain” businesses and individuals.
Finally, if and when a policy is not working as planned and promised, there is always the “Final Solution”: Pour in more money. But that is fine because, as we are told, it is really not “our” money and government knows how to spend it better anyway.
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