A very good point. And you know what I find most amusing/ironic/sad? The people who are stoking the fires, who are bankrolling the disruptive protests, who are rallying the insane participants to fight the specter of Socialized Medicine, are the very people who have the most to gain from the populace not paying attention to financial matters - ultraconservative billionaires, rich media moguls, and wealthy talk-show hosts. Whereas the people who are actually listening to them and doing their dirty work are mostly those who have the most to gain from reformed healthcare - blue-collar, lower-middle-class workers. Ebert put it remarkably well in a blog post of his own - "Since when in America did the Have-Nots become the We-Don't-Wants?"
What really makes me sad is that they don't even realize how they're being played. So many people were never taught to think critically about claims like "death panels", and so many people have been implicitly told all their lives that they're never going to be able to do anything about what the folks in power do. So they resent their powerlessness in the face of things like the financiapocalypse, and all they need is someone to tell them "This person is trying to pass laws that will kill your grandmother!" and despite it being a blatant lie, they suddenly have a target for all that resentment and/or rage. The fact that said target is trying to act in their self-interest, or that there are other, far better targets for their rage (the financial market, anyone?), or that they wouldn't be so powerless if they organized together and made demands for transparency and accountability rather than raging out about Nazi!Obama, is completely lost in the tide.
Or as a friend of mine put it, "Why do you think Republicans' educational policies are so universally awful? They don't want people thinking about their government!"
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2009-08-19 10:25 pm (UTC)What really makes me sad is that they don't even realize how they're being played. So many people were never taught to think critically about claims like "death panels", and so many people have been implicitly told all their lives that they're never going to be able to do anything about what the folks in power do. So they resent their powerlessness in the face of things like the financiapocalypse, and all they need is someone to tell them "This person is trying to pass laws that will kill your grandmother!" and despite it being a blatant lie, they suddenly have a target for all that resentment and/or rage. The fact that said target is trying to act in their self-interest, or that there are other, far better targets for their rage (the financial market, anyone?), or that they wouldn't be so powerless if they organized together and made demands for transparency and accountability rather than raging out about Nazi!Obama, is completely lost in the tide.
Or as a friend of mine put it, "Why do you think Republicans' educational policies are so universally awful? They don't want people thinking about their government!"