- by Alan Adaschik

"None are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe that they are free." - Von Goethe

The Founders were creating an ideal; a government that would serve them and no one else. To say the least, this was a lofty goal because its success depended upon ensuring that men of honor and integrity served in government and because it required the eternal vigilance of citizens to ensure that the fundamental ideals upon which our government was created were not violated. The enemy of the first element of success is greed. It is the basic nature of men to work for their own interests first and everyone else’s second. The enemy of the second element of success is ignorance.

These two enemies the Founders feared most because they knew that greed was a driving force in man, including educated and intelligent men, and ignorance was common and pervasive quality of the electorate. As a hedge against ignorance they gave us a Senate whose members were appointed by the state legislators and an Electoral College to ensure a demigod would not be elected to the Presidency. Unfortunately, they never imagined that tyrants would be able to find so many of the Nation’s educated and intelligent men willing to sell their souls for a few pieces of silver.

What the Founders have wrought has been destroyed. Those we elect to Congress no longer vote their conscience in the best interest of the citizens of this nation, but instead, vote to enhance their personal well-being and they do this by voting to increase the profitability of corporations. A recent example of this was passage of George Bush’s prescription drug benefit program for seniors. This program does nothing for seniors other than make them a captive market for the drug companies while enabling the drug companies to charge whatever they wish for the drugs they manufacture. As a result, drug company profits have soared and our seniors are paying far more for their drugs as a group than their counterparts in most other nations of the world.

George Bush’s prescription drug benefit program is a document several inches thick that was developed and written solely by drug industry lobbyists who presented it to the House of Representatives one day before it came up for a vote. No Senator or Congressmen has read this bill in its entirety. It did not pass on the first several ballots and should have failed because the time limit for voting had passed after the first few failed votes had been taken. However, those supporting this legislation convinced the Speaker of the House to give them more time to coerce and cajole dissenting members of Congress into changing their votes. Eventually, the failed bill passed and most of those who took extraordinary measure to ensure that it would are now working as high paid lobbyists for the companies who benefited from their efforts. As I write, the leader of this group being paid two-million dollars yearly as a drug industry lobbyist.

The present salaries of the former Congressmen who forced the Medicare Prescription Drug program on this Nation are being paid by the drug companies they work for. However, those salaries are really coming out of the pockets of seniors who signed up for this program. Therefore, the truth of the matter is that while the back-stabbing opportunists who forced this program upon the seniors of this Nation were being paid by us to look out for our interests, they were, instead, lining their pockets at our expense. Sixty Minutes recently exposed this fraud on prime time television, but nothing will be done to rectify the situation or insure that it never happens again because Congress has no problems with situations which allow its members to profiteer at our expense and Americans have other things to occupy their minds.

What’s wrong with America? In a word; television!

Before the age of print, life was relatively simple. The tribal mentality dominated society and tribal leaders defined the world within which people lived. When the printed press was developed, this all changed. Ideas could be written down and disseminated to large groups of people. However, when ideas and facts are written down they have to be consistent, coherent, and make sense. As a result, the world within which people lived reflected these qualities and this rationality opened the door to the Age of Reason. The government bequeathed to us by the Founders was a logical and inevitable consequence of the age of reason and if anything can be said about the Constitution and government they gave us is that both are logical and make sense. This was the Founders’ gift to us and because our Constitution is logical and makes sense, today, it is an out of date anarchism that most people do not understand or care about.

We live in the age of television. The medium of print favors logic and rationality, but in contrast, the medium of television favors image and entertainment. Think of the differences between the two! In the old days, people would sit down, alone or at least incommunicado with those around them and read a book over the course of several days. The ideas and concepts in the book came across in a logical and orderly fashion and were considered and examined slowly and in depth. During the age of print, It was the orderliness and rationality of the printed word which shaped the world within which people lived and anything that did not measure up to these qualities was ridiculed and held in contempt.

Television changed all this. Television is an all encompassing form of entertainment that fills a large portion of our daily routine and indeed, many people have several televisions in their homes all on at the same time. And what kind of information do we get out of our television? Sound and video bites that teach us nothing of real value and are designed to make us feel good and be entertained. There is very little on television that demands in depth thought or deep analysis and even when there is, such things pass by quickly to the next feel good item or commercial; the issue in question having been totally lost and forgotten in the flow of the show. Television asks nothing of us other than to buy the things it advertises whether we need them or not and commercial messages rely upon selling things not by merit, but by associating them with a sports hero, show business personality, or some other feel good item.

And so it is with marketing a political candidate. In the early days of our Republic, people read books. As a result, politics reflected the world view established by the printed word and political campaigns also reflected these qualities. Back then, candidates expounded upon issues in length and were measured by how well they made their points, not how they looked, dressed and carried themselves. Speech writers were the most important people to a campaign. Many of our former and most revered President’s, including Abraham Lincoln, would not make it past the primaries in the campaigns of today because substance takes a back seat to appearance and marketability. The Lincoln-Douglas debates were lengthy affairs with the longest going on for seven hours and people sat and listened to every word being said. It would be impossible to hold the attention of the electorate for that long a period of time in the world of television. After all, by doing so one might miss what Dr. Phil had to say about cheating husbands.

Today, everything about a political campaign is image and impressions. Substance and issues never come into the equation unless they are presented as feel good items. Reason, logic, and common sense no longer are relevant or have any bearing. Instead of speech writers, the most important people in a campaign are marketing professionals who spin webs that have nothing to do with facts and reality. Even in the political debates that are held, image and appearance are everything. The debates are short in length and candidates are only given a limited amount of time to make their case and only two or three minutes for point and counter point. What they say is not important, but how they say it is and even more important is how they look when they say it. People no longer focus upon what is being said, but instead react to who made the best presentation. Unfortunately, they vote accordingly, unless of course, they are the kind of person who consistently votes for one party no matter what anyone says or does. This makes the decision to vote easy. My party right or wrong and the country can go do hell so long as my side won.

Television is a medium that has taken over our lives and now shapes the world within which we live. Ideas, concepts, logic, and reason, no longer have relevance or meaning to the modern American. All we care about is feeling good; feeling good about ourselves and feeling good about the Nation we live in irrespective of reality and truth. This is why Americans living today do not want to hear about our government having been overthrown. This is a horrible thing to think no matter how true it is and how can it be true? Turn on your television and nothing has changed. Everything is wonderful and there is nothing evident to be overly concerned about. Look at all the good looking, intelligent, and successful people on television who are all oblivious to fact that our government has been overthrown. My God, they have riches and adulation beyond our wildest dreams. How could something as horrible as a coup have taken place? They certainly do not think so and why should I. After all, they are far better off than me and I have a right to feel as good as they do.

Americans are like lemmings. They are all moving in one direction toward a cliff and television keeps them heading in that direction. There is an old expression that the medium is the message, but it is truly far worse than this. The medium and the media are tools our Masters use and it is through these tools that they keep us compliant, ignorant, loyal, and subjugated. This is why our oppressors will win. They know that because of television, people no longer know how to think and will believe anything you tell them so long as it packaged in a way that makes them feel good about themselves and their country. This is what our Founders feared most and thanks to greed and television, their worst fears have been realized.