How the “Public” taboo deceived America

In Europe if a maniple of politicians hijacked a whole country and the ransom was Public Health you would see riots in the streets, while in America it is considered “Business as Usual”. 

America is kept in hostage by a maniple of crazy cyborgs who hide themselves behind the flag of the Republican Party and a resuscitated Astroturfed organization called Tea Party, which is clearly sponsored by a private organization whose only interest is annihilating any possible chance the American people get their deserved Healthcare Assistance.

How can it happen that the Land of the Freedom is being hijacked by an obscure Mr. X who is so evil that his personal greed puts at risk the health of 150.000.000 people? 

According to a Harvard Medical School Research Study, about 45.000 people have been dying in America in the past 12 years due to a lack of Healthcare coverage. That means 540.000 people died because they had no health insurance.

In today’s world you can perpetrate a genocide and no media talk about it? How can such an operation can take place while the only reaction is some liberal pundit who talks about “Republican Hypocrisy?” or “GOPs act like kids”?

The answer is Deception, operated through Fear and Pride and the creation of language taboos thanks to an almost infinite budget.

Since the end of World War II, after having defeated the Nazi, America had a new enemy: Communism. Being America the homeland of Business and Capitalism, the Soviet Communist Regime was perceived as pure Evil, or better “the Evil Empire” as Ronald Reagan once said. 

In the 50’s America was fighting the Cold War against Communism, a war that was not fought with conventional means but basically relied on propaganda and clandestine operations and the continuous subsidizing of the various anti-communist governments around the world. Like Pinochet in Chile, Batista in Cuba, Somoza in Nicaragua, Marcos in the Philippines, the Shaw in Iran. All these dictators were sponsored by the U.S. Government to fight against Communist rebels. And that’s just fine.

During 1948-86, military purchases cumulated to $6,316 billion, averaging about $162 billion per year, or 7.6 percent of GNP. To this budget you have to add almost a similar amount for the so called “Black Budget” which is the government's illusory and tangled accounting of what it spends on intelligence gathering, covert operations, and - less noticeably - secret military research and weapons programs. By estimates of those who watch it, the black budget may have hit US$30 billion a year - a figure larger than current federal expenditures for education. 

This budget was used to build up a series of propaganda initiatives to fight Communism, both overseas and domestically where the War on Communism turned into a War against Social justice and the Welfare State. In practice it was a war against the very concept of "poor" and the "cultural" heritage of this enormous effort is what we are witnessing today as the main (non) reasons shown behind the Government shutdown: "We don't want to help you" where "you" is the majority of the American people. 

The money spent during the Cold War for the propaganda against Communism was so enormous that still at today in America, Communism is considered “the worst enemy of the State” like anything that gets slightly close to its meaning.

Still at today you see these people who define themselves “Republicans” raving their meaningless rants against Socialism, Stalinism, Communism, Marxism and so on.

In May of 2009, conservative pollster Frank Luntz released a memo, "The Language of Healthcare 2009: The 10 Rules for Stopping the 'Washington Takeover' of Healthcare." In that memo, Luntz advised conservatives to use phrases like "rationing," "Washington takeover," "government run," "government takeover," and "bailout" when addressing health care reform."The effect of that is that public policy is harmed if the public cannot weigh in intelligently on what is being proposed and what is actually happening"

What do we have to make of all this? simply that Language is important because it's the main disinformation tool when you fight against an enemy using non conventional means. It's called Psychological Warfare.
But the American people is not an enemy you have to deceive! Or not? I mean why Republicans and Fox News should use propaganda and disinformation within the American Audience?

However I ignore how much was the budget at Luntz's disposal, but during 40 years of Cold War the propaganda budget was of almost $10 trillion that has been spent to convince Americans: 1) you can’t trust the government 2) everything that is government-related is Socialist and consequently evil 3) if you claim any entitlement from the government you are a selfish individual who wants to depend on government like a parasite. 

The exploitation of the Cold War budget was meant to completely destroy concepts like “Welfare state”, “Public Service”, “Poverty” and by creating a linguistic taboo zone. 

These words mentioned above became so much of a taboo you couldn’t even name them while in good company.

At the end of the day, what these “people” managed to do was to create a sense of fear among the American people with everything that was “Public” related. In addition whoever was asking for "Public" help or Government help had to feel ashamed. You don't hear many people using the word "Public" Don't ya?

"Public" is an adjective you won’t find in any American news media, no matter how much “liberal” it is, you won’t find it. The few things that pick “Public” as an adjective have negative connotation: “Public School”, “Public Hospital”, “Public Enemy” and “Public Servant” which is the title of those who work for the Federal Government which is the number one enemy of every good American (according to the GOPs).

The American people are so scared about the Government and the concept of Res Publica, that they don’t even know what the concept of “Public” is really about. And I am not talking of uneducated folks or the man from the street. I am talking about educated people like academics and journalists who have been “educated” (read “restrained”) almost to their unconscious level to keep away from everything that might be considered as “public”. So how can they stand for something Public if they are scared of it? They are so much scared that they are not even able to know what the word “Public” means.

When I wrote my article on the new restrictions that were put in place on Facebook, most of my friend’s reactions were along the line “in America we don’t care about Facebook, basically it’s a non-topic!” 

Like if Facebook being a private company has nothing to do with the concept of “Public”. The truth is that when you offer a service to the public, that service becomes a Public Service so it’s not a mere business anymore. So if you put in place new restrictions on a Public Service that’s a restriction you put in place against the public itself. But if you ignore what is public you don’t even know what is "yours". And what you are entitled to.

And that’s exactly what’s happening with the Affordable Care Act, the American people completely ignore to what extent the concept of Public is able to affect your personal sphere.

Indeed still at today the “Public taboo” is worth the money it has been spent for to be in place: 40 years of Propaganda that costed $10 trillion

The greatest of all American taboos is the term “working class”. Back in the 90s, America was still on the economic wave of the former decade, if you did ask around, to every person you knew, you weren't able to find anyone who said “I belong to the working class”. Today neither. I don't think in America you can find many people who claim to belong to the "working class". Because the working class is a communist category which found no place in the Public (again!) imagery.  

Why? Because that’s a taboo that was built with the Cold War money, and what they bought was abolishing the term “Working class” and changing it with the better “Middle Class”, so that people would have felt better, I mean in America we don’t have a working class, we have only Middle Class and the richest 1% of the whole world to which everyone in America one day will belong to. That’s the American Dream!

Indeed the American Dream was injected like heroin within the whole American society so that even the poorest unemployed guy who lives in the Detroit suburb, he would never think of subscribing to a Union and take it to the street. Absolutely not. Because in the collective imagery belonging to a Union it means you are a Communist a subversive, a parasite who wants to be entitled because is a selfish individual. That guy down in Detroit he has to think like a businessman and go get a job and become rich so that other people around him will become rich too, that's altruism! And that’s what you are supposed to do. Get rich or die trying.

In the American public imagery (sorry for the public) or in Hollywood movies there is no hero who belongs to the working class and leads a Trade Union to victory. When you say “Union” in America your mind goes to Jimmy Hoffa, the mafia and his unknown burial site. Hoffa was not a hero, but a corrupted crook. Who would ever be associated with such a dark figure?

Another aspect of this story that doesn’t add up, it’s what is called “Republican hypocrisy”. Last Wednesday because of the government shutdown the Washington Memorial was closed, a few Tea Party cyborgs like Michele Bachmann were able to show up and pull a couple of veteran’s wheelchairs while being photo-op’d.

If those veterans had some blood in their veins they had to refuse the help of those tea-party people but they did not. Instead those veterans were even happy to get together with those cyborgs. They completely forgot that less than a year ago, former Republican candidate Mitt Romney said “time for Veteran’s healthcare to go private”. We want to cut your healthcare but we pull your wheelchair so that we can be portrayed as compassionate cyborgs.

What’s even worse, nobody in the “liberal media” used the Romney’ statement to object against such an awkward move. Actually what happened was that Bill Maher made the greatest mistake ever by saying “nobody said they were the brightest generation”.

No surprise these people are able to hijack the government if the other political side let them do it. 

Indeed it is probably better that Democrats do not respond to such an escalating Brinkmanship strategy. Why? Well because these “people” are willing to bring the conflict to the maximum level, because what they really want is chaos in the streets. 

When the chaos will hit the streets, President Obama will have lost all of its credibility and a new “Order” will be in place, under a new Republican President who will sign a Super Patriot Act where rights and entitlements will be completely cancelled. 

This is the war of the Rich against the (poor) American People and nobody wins.

E Pluribus Unum

GOP's Astroturfing defeated by Consciousness

On Facebook it's plenty of anti-conservative groups and social pages publishing cartoons or funny images portraying the latest devilish outburst of these "wingnuts", as Right Wing Extremists are usually called by the liberal media.

You can read the latest Bill O' Reilly's nonsensical rant about "Obamacare promoting selfishness" or Ken Cuccinelli raving that "oral sex is a communist plot". 

For some reason, wingnuts use harsh and blatant tones like if they're always addressing a brawling crowd in a night cellar.

Instead this is not something to laugh at. These people's communication strategy is extremely and carefully pondered. Their nonsensical rants over extremely sensitive social issues are all part of a nefarious strategy to attract the sympathy of their audience segment and beyond. 

The GOP's communication strategy is basically focused on one single keyword: Emotions. 

Playing with emotions is the key to reach the people's emotional sphere bypassing their consciousness and rationality.

By Doing so they make people let them into their emotional sphere so that they can prop up their huge clashing contradictions, because average people's mind relies on the very basic principle that "seeing is believing". 

Just an example: after having tried to repeal for 42 times the Healthcare reform which aims at saving the lives of about 50.000 people each year and tried to cut $40 bn of food stamps which support 40 millions of American citizens and after having threatened to shut down the government to defund Obamacare, Republican Senator Ted Cruz was portrayed while praying hand in hand with other "people" in front of the White House. A real display of hypocrisy indeed.

However instead of having bystanders spitting on his face, (they probably hired an army of policemen plus private security) he made himself the opportunity to take this picture:

What he was praying for? These are the kind of questions average people don't ask themselves, as average people only see the exterior side: "this humble politician asks for the help of god". It doesn't matter if he's a mass killer. He's praying hand in hand with an elderly citizen, a woman, a pastor and a black man. This picture is a flashy postcard that aims at representing a stereotyped old fashioned image of a society, (which doesn't exist anymore), tied-in by the faithful Republican man. 

Although in this picture there's nothing of today's real society, there is no same-sex family and there are no children. This picture is Astroturfing(1) at its best. 

First of all this picture lacks authenticity because these propaganda amateurs made two major mistakes: 

1) the first is they "forgot" to include children and they did it on purpose because otherwise the attention would have been focused on the kids instead of Ted Cruz whose face is the missile that has to reach the emotional side of the audience. 2) The biggest mistake is represented by the fact that praying is a very intimate moment and such a public display of "faith" is at least anachronistic, because people today do not pray in public and it belongs more to a psychiatric environment rather than politics. 

Praying is a moment of intimacy between yourself and God, so the public display of faith is something that only prophets and saints have done in the past and Republicans chose to present a medieval setting which confirms their refusal to accept reality and their living in total denial. 

The intentions of this very-non-subliminal message is "Ted Cruz is a prophet". A prophet that aims at cutting people's food stamps and healthcare assistance. Amen. 

However in order to be successful, such a public performance needs extremely talented players because otherwise, (like in this case) the outcome can be a total disaster and it can produce opposite effects of what you desired in the first place.

While Astroturfing is a wonderful idea, you always have to consider that human beings are substantially "living Consciousness", who carry values and beliefs, (unless they are complete sociopaths).

Unfortunately for these amateurs, Consciousness is unable to lie and you can't hide it in a box and unless you hire professional actors, Consciousness always outs to manifest its real feelings, despite what the script says. Nonetheless even if these people perfectly knew it, they insisted using non-professional actors for these public display of religious faith.

Archetypal postures is a subject of study within the discipline of Anthropology, the science that studies human behavior. If you look at the praying picture above and focus your attention on the green-dressed woman kneeling on the right side of the picture, you will notice that her head does not bow down straight ahead but it's clearly turned to her lower-left, while usually when you pray you bow the head down as a sign of submission to God, not towards the left or the right. 

Why this woman turns her head to her left-down side instead of bowing her head straight ahead? 

Shame. 

Despite what she's been told to do, this woman's consciousness made its way up to the surface and she's actually not even looking left, she's looking away in sign of shame. She feels ashamed of what she's doing because she knows what she's doing is not ethical and not moral according to the values she grew up with. 

This posture not only is able to literally kill the picture, but to completely destroy the whole plan of showing faith, because the picture thanks to this woman, acquires a new meaning and the new meaning is "the revolt of Consciousness". You can tell her attitude is coherent because she's the only one who doesn't hold the hand of the fellow next to her, interrupting the human chain while the old man next to her he's hiding himself too, but he's not displaying the same level of shame she is.

Unfortunately for these "Astroturfing amateurs", Consciousness always outs, and what's even worse is that the photographer (just for pure luck) was able to catch one of those rarest moments in life in which you see Consciousness in action. 

That woman's unique pose indeed represents the moment in which Consciousness embodies an archetypal feeling that is already present in the collective imagery, which is something that takes place once in a million times. And that feeling is Shame. But not simple shame, Universal Shame. The Archetypal Shame. The picture was probably taken by chance or by a unique combination of factors that happen when the Universe collides together with Consciousness.

That picture will go down in history as a  legendary iconic image of Consciousness Awakening and its value is incommensurate. 

What really makes it a bad-luck event for Ted Cruz and his gang is the fact that Archetypal Shame is universally recognizable because archetypal postures are the most powerful way to transmit a message to an universal audience. 

Indeed while trying to Astroturfing religious faith and submission to God, Ted Cruz managed to do something that completely destroyed the chance of any future attempt towards that direction by anyone. 

Because that woman, (whose identity is unknown) will be remembered in history books as the manifesto of  the power of Human Consciousness. That means "you can't lie to your own Consciousness", you can't stage a fake feeling such as compassion or faith because Consciousness will always out and completely destroy your pathetic attempt to stage the most desperate of human acts: praying. 

Humans pray when they are desperate, when they need the help of a superior force. These people are not desperate for help, (indeed they are but in another sense). These are just political cyborgs who are told what to do and they do it, but one among them has some Consciousness left. And that's when the real miracle happens!

This is the greatest lesson these "people" could have ever received: if you carry things too far that's what happens: you get punished by your own meanness! That's what Consciousness usually does...and you can tell this is exactly what happened here because the effect that this picture produces is the exact opposite of its initial intentions.   

Indeed all the Democratic forces on the planet should say "Thank you" to Ted Cruz, because thanks to his hypocritical initiative and his absolutely contradictory nefarious intentions, once again Consciousness prevailed. And that's a lesson these people won't forget. 

This picture in my opinion not only represents the end of these people's Astroturfing Politics, but the starting point of a new era, the era of the inevitable truth of Consciousness.

E Pluribus Unum

(1) Astroturfing is the practice of masking the sponsors of a message (e.g. political, advertising, or public relations) to give the appearance of it coming from a disinterested, grassroots participant. The term astroturfing is a derivation of AstroTurf, a brand of synthetic carpeting designed to look like natural grass.

Gianluca D’Agostino is an Italian journalist and Scholar has a Ph.D in Theory of Information and Communication. He worked as Researcher at the Department of English of Stanford University and was Visiting Scholar at the Media and Communication Department of Fordham Uniersity NY an at the Film Studies Program of UC Berkeley. He also worked for CNN and Associated Press.