The Tea Party movement threatens to be a very big presence in the coming mid-term elections. The people at the rallies are true believers, come at their own expense, and wave homemade signs. Some slogans are really very clever. You may not know the gatherings are heavily sponsored by major corporate donors. There is a lot of money spent on advertising. This does not mean those corporations started it, but they sure do like it. I’m sure they do have a lot to say about what is addressed, the main concerns raised, but I don’t think we can say they control it. They are probably taking advantage of something which is quite real as a grass roots movement. However, the movement has been compromised, and it will get worse.
Back when the radical progressives wedged open the representation of their viewpoints in the Democratic Party, it was pretty much the same. Except, the money came from typical liberal sources — foundations, limousine liberals, news organizations, etc. Today virtually every cause which clings to the progressive-socialist-communist axis is funded that way, though a few corporations have been more open about it.
The whole thing of political activism is long studied organization, heavy investment by something with a big bank account, and carefully planned attention getting activities to sell their message. There is not a single voice in the political arena which isn’t funded by deep pockets. The few without such funding are simply not heard. They don’t get any press coverage, and only the most obscure blogs, and the various groups of ditto heads of whatever stripe don’t echo their talking points.
Those who get the press are professional liars. All of them. That is, in one sense or another, they are struggling to steer money and power back to some thing which is most certainly going to hurt us. Most of “we the people” have no idea just how badly we are being hurt until way late in the game.
The truth is so very much simpler. You can offer it all day long, but you’ll find precious few takers. At the same time, truth which is heard — really heard — requires no funding and pushing to be accepted. Our biggest problem is getting it heard. In this world of vast resources buying earth-shattering noise which drowns out truth, and doing it for so very long, most people can’t recognize it.
The sad part is it matters. You see, the truth is written into the very cosmos. The lies are like an attack on reality. Reality has this strange tendency to hit back. Yes, it takes a long time as humans measure such things. And frankly there is no PR team to clarify things, so most folks won’t recognize just why their world is coming apart. But truth will not be denied.
Lies are very expensive, indeed.
