Does Advertising Rule

I'm still struggling to figure out what makes things happen the way they do. So this blog post is related to that.

Does Advertising Rule? The many appeals during elections such as the ones going on now, constantly ask for money for spending on advertising, saying the good guys won't get voted for unless they get advertising money spent on them. And lots of advertising money, in the millions of dollars each. It seems to be in the belief system of America that whoever advertises most wins the right to control the country for the next umpteen years. The advertising can include the forms of bashing the rivals, proclaiming the greatness of the candidate, and/or just yelling "vote for candidate x."

Insofar as this is accurate, then the folks who put the most money into the advertising, tend to be those who have plenty of money, and thus tend to specify who rules the country for the next go-around, Senators and Representatives this time. People with the most money to spend on such things tend to know how to play the system so as to gain wealth, and thus tend to spend on advertising to get those elected who will tilt the system such as to enable the wealthy to gain more wealth.

Somewhere in it all supposedly are the vast majority of Americans. Who are casting the majority of the votes. Yet the way they choose who to vote for apparently is only partially influenced by their belief in the competency of each candidate, and far more by the impact of the advertising blitz that has impacted them. Since the more wealthy folks tend to be the ones who own and run the businesses that provide jobs for the vast majority of Americans, the need to keep one's job at a place which easily determines the political leanings of each employee - and probably shares in in a political database in some instances - this also can influence the majority of Americans' vote. Since the wealthy in recent decade or so have been hiring the workers offshore to replace American workers - who require much higher pay because their housing costs vastly more than does housing of workers offshore - so as to maximize the business people's coffers, they can scare their remaining workers even more, pressuring them to vote for a particular political party.

Advertising also leans heavily on the tribalism type motivation, so-and-so candidate is a member of the Republican tribe or a member of the Democrat tribe, or some religious designation tribe, or even the tribe of one's home town. for the most part. Some people are heavily influenced by this kind of belongingness membership factor, vote for one-of-us. Nevermind if he/she can do the job best; and after all, how do we know if a candidate can do a job well? That he/she has a record of voting the party line, means that he/she is a reliable parrot for - whom?

The ultra powerful impact of advertising - including the low-key advertising utilized by one of the political parties all year long - is also displayed in the ability to get Americans to forget what was done to the country by the previous administration's eight year rule, taking a surplus down into the biggest deficit in recent history (whose pockets did those missing trillions go into, I wonder), from where the current administration is struggling to get the country going again. All this is apparently forgotten in the hubub of advertising's calls. We all make mistakes, of course, and we can forgive and move on. And we are conditioned to let the other team get up to bat in turn. But to do so ought to be based on a clear demonstration of having learned from mistakes and figured out a much better approach for next time. By a political party waving the American flag and declaring they are Americans thereby, but then sitting on their hands and not helping the elected folks get the country running again, is puzzling to me. It is like saying "We won't play unless we rule." Does this eventually wear America down so much they give in and let them rule again?

This is all quite a complex mixture of causes and effects. But per the above, at least to me, a few of the factors seems to be appearing out of the chaos. And the implications are not all that comfortable or provide optimism for the future. Yet is loudly said that it is the best system possible, and it prevents tyranny. I wonder. Tyranny takes many forms, and often involves lots of deception and trickery beside occasional physical arm-twisting. The loudest voice - advertising - seems to rule.

Establishing a big picture responsible national authority

Laying awake this morning, thoughts were something about how to preserve the technological development stimulus of business competition to make a better product for the customer, as proven by what the customer base is buying; while also having a larger governing influence that is making sure that the big picture's resource details are also getting filled in, even if businesses are not taking care of all of the needs for some reason or other.

Also related is how to suppress the use of intense advertising to control the customer's urge choices to buy, such as was being done by the American automotive industry causing customers to buy ever more gigantic gas-guzzling SUV's as their sole means of transportation including commute to work, grocery shopping and soccer-moms taking their urchin to the field to play, all of which could be easier done in a small hatchback using half the gas for the trips and being far less dangerous in traffic accidents; all caused by the giant corporations playing on the public's fears of the other drivers and preparation for mass exodus into the wilderness areas, armed with high power rifles to acquire food in a time of sectarian upheaval in the US, appealing to the "survivalist" mode of thinking too; a man could acquire a woman to have children by providing her with a house and a SUV for protection of the family, thus making more profit for the auto mega-corporations and the gas companies, much of that fuel having to be bought from the middle-east oil fields, paid for somehow in trade by a country increasingly unable to manufacture their own goods, gas only to be merely burned up in the daily job commute and soccer-mom trips, but the payment in real goods still having to somehow be paid in trade to the middle-east.

The "big picture" was clearly lost in that system, causing great stress to the country and the world.

Another example is in the American health care system, where tunnel-visioned guidance has bypassed cost-effective potentials (for example, where is the honest intelligent comparison of the efficacy of the various Rife & HRClark electrohealth devices, so widely and well proven by vast numbers of experimenters around the world now, especially integrated into the many discoveries published by HRClark; or the many holistic whole-person-health methods; these would cut into the business profits of the megapharmaceuticals to a significant extent, thus are suppressed, at the tragedy of the public's health), since corporate R&D is guided toward maximum business profit, not maximum customer need-filling at low cost. The virtual franchise on health care is erroneously enforced by governmental authorities, believing the existing business medical system has done the full science behind their services and no one can do better. But the science was guided by businesses who were guided by the requirement to pay maximum dividends to investors, thus only weakly linked to efficacy in maintaining optimum health for the population. As a result we have a poor health population and enormous national burden in health care; should this be any surprise knowing the system was ever guided in development toward maximizing profit by health-related businesses?

By having the big picture available and in reference, hopefully the nation could begin fixing these major goofs we got ourselves into. Expecting businesses, corporations, to fill in all the needs of the nation with good efficacy is mere fantasy; corporations do not want such a responsibility either, they are just there to get a piece of the action. If a big picture responsible national authority were established, the "action" could be more optimally fulfilled.

How to stop such a big picture authority from becoming taken over by politics and vested interests, lobbyists, corrupting the vision and the responsible governance? That part I don't know, but it seems likely that it needs to be directly accountable to the nation of individuals we are, and on a fairly quick basis.