A few misconceptions

Misconception #1 Our health Care System Is Broken

Our health care system is not broken. It is working flawlessly. Just not for the vast majority of Americans. If you're a major stockholder of an HMO or an insurance company though, then we have the best health care system in the whole world.

Misconception #2 The Mainstream Traditional Corporate Media is Broken

The big media isn't broken either. They aren't incompetent or unqualified. Those people on TV are doing a great job. It's just not the job we think they're doing.

The big media's role is to keep us docile and complacent consumers. Stupid even. What Herbert Hoover liked to call happiness machines. I often hear people say, "Where's the outrage?" - after some revelation surfaces about yet another atrocity by someone in power. The outrage got lost somewhere between 60 Minutes and Desperate Housewives. Probably during a commercial for a shiny new combustion engine device.

The most accurate way to look at television is as one big infomercial. But they're not just selling little products. What they're really selling is one big product - American life. Complete with soccer moms, and breakfast cereal dads, and happy kids with headphones. What they're selling is a belief system. That cheap products from Indonesia and China will fill our emptiness. And what that doesn't provide, pharmaceuticals will. And no matter how shitty your job, your life gets, you can come home, turn on the fantasy box, and escape for an average of 5 hours a night.

Is it a conspiracy? It was in the beginning. The power class saw television as a way to manipulate the masses and shape society around the capitalist, consumer economy. They were also scared to death. They saw the mass rioting and upheaval during the Great Depression. A lot of it was filmed, but you probably won't see it on television.

But now it's just a norm. Everyone who works at a network, or in a newsroom for that matter, knows the boundaries. And they know what the masters in the boardrooms like. When it was decided to sell the Iraq war, for example, it didn't take a memo. It's a lot like when you go to a dinner party, no one has to tell you not to urinate on the houseplants.

Misconception #3 The Democrats Are Spineless

Another misconception is the idea that the Democrats are spineless, weak, pussies, or however you would put it.

In fact, to the extent one can generalize, the Democrats in power are strikingly agile creatures. You see, they have a much, much harder job than Republicans.

Republicans only have to serve one master. They are expected to be the party of big business, the wealthy and powerful. Their only selling point to the less well-offs is that if, one day, the less well-offs should become well-offs too, the republicans will save them a place at the trough. This seems to be effective on a good number of people.

The Democrats, on the other hand, are traditionally known as the Party of the People. And apparently, this has traditionally meant that in the age old conflict between the well-offs and the not so well-offs, the Democrats would be siding with the not so well-offs.

But in the late 60s, some powerful business leaders got together and decided that it would be better for them if the Democrats started acting more like Republicans. And so they schemed to start using their money and power to bring that about.They formed little groups like the Business Roundtable to exert their influence and they funneled vast fortunes to elect these new Republican-like Democrats and, though they couldn't buy them all, they eventually got so many that they reshaped the party. Why, they even got a Republican-like Democratic president.

But this created a bit of a problem for these new Democrats. Like wolves in sheep's clothing, they had to do costume changes every time they went from the cloak room to the courtyard.

What we interpret as weakness is really the intrinsic strain of internal conflict. What we hear as the voice of timidity is really the thrashing of a forked tongue.

The simple truth is our leaders know who brung em to the dance. And they're not about to leave with the bussboy. Or Howard Dean for that matter.

To the extent one can generalize. And that's a problem in itself. Congress is a club. And so complex are the machinations, the cover they can provide each other makes it hard to tell where anyone really stands on anything.

Until they vote on something really important. But even then, you never know. If my memory serves, 62 House Democrats voted down the Markey amendment preserving Net Neutrality. Coincidentally, that was just the number of votes needed to defeat it. One never knows.

But it doesn't take FISA warrant to know that what they say behind closed doors and what they say up front don't exactly mesh.

So, let's cut them a break. It's really, really hard to keep the military industrial banking media Wall Street complex happy and us progressives too.