After Magritte

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We sold our souls for $300.

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Stories - Not just for Bedtime anymore

People like to hear stories. People really like to hear stories that reinforce their worldview. This is a marketing rule. Tell people a story they want to hear. That is how you sell anything from Ronald Regan to I-pods. The press, being lazy and stupid, likes to tell the same story over and over again. They also like to make love to their wives. Fortunately, the current story is that Bush is historically unpopular. Nixionesque. That now colors almost every story about him. While the press could not be bothered to hold Bush accountable for the Iraq debacle previously, now they do – because it fits in the current story. Back in 2003, the story was still war on terror, so the press was pro-war – it fit the story. Bush has a huge problem because the press is not going to change this story any time soon. Sending the national guard to Texas is not going to cut it. Even the lazy, stupid press can sniff this out as a publicity stunt. The press may even stick with the current story as Bush rattles the sabers with Iran.

The best part of Bush II is that this is the end of Ronald Reagan’s story for republicans. The idea that the government was bad (except the military) was Regan’s genius. All problems came from the government, so we needed to cut taxes and make the government smaller. Regan wrote the story of politics in the early 80s and that story has been the base story for politics since then. Democrats were pointy heads who didn’t understand that the government was the enemy of regular Joes. Anything could be filtered through this story: welfare queens, deregulation, tax cuts, health care.

However, the colossal cluster fuck of the last 6 years has written a new story. Katrina let us know that, yes, we do need the government sometimes and the republicans are not competent to run it. They will play politics and screw things up. They are not to be trusted. If this story catches and holds, the republicans will be in serious trouble for decades. And that warms the heart.

Bye Bye to Reagan and his hateful legacy. He set this country back so far with his demonizing of the poor. It kind of pisses me off now, all these Johnny come latelys who were pro-Regan and now hate Bush. Yeah, I used to mug old ladies, but I am definitely against murder. Thanks for everything, fuckers. Little slow on the uptake, I guess. But, it is process.

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