Friday, April 9, 2010

The Message Behind the Message

How Web adds are being used to counter act negative sentiment over Obama's 2009 Stimulus Package.

Recently I was just cruising online when I noticed an add link that read, "Go back to School with Obama's Stimulus." Of course the headline was just a hook used by online institutions to get your name and address etc. But the message behind the add was obvious. Obama is that good guy who passed the stimulus that is really helping people get ahead.
What is omitted in the statement is:
1. The stimulus did not create jobs like promised, therefore we languish as a nation in a jobless recovery.
2. The stimulus bailed out Lenders and Insurance Companies but no regulations were ever enacted that guarantee those bailouts would benefit job creators.
3. The stimulus was chock full of pork barrel projects designed as kick backs for campaign political favors to special interests and big business, as well as long standing far left liberal objectives that do nothing to help the economy recover, except that a few jobs will be created as a result of their implementation.
Consider Nancy Pelosi's two million dollars pork project devoted to studying the environmental impact on field mice in the San Fransisco Bay Area as an example here.
No doubt a couple of environmentalists will be kept busy for a few years taking samples and doing objective studies for this project. Whether those scientists will be new hires or already working for the University that gets the bit is up in the air. However, it is clear that the University getting the bit gets 2 million dollars, and Nancy Pelosi gets the kick back from the University which now has a good reason to push support for Pelosi on students and faculty in upcoming political elections.
Now I have heard senators and others argue that the whole reason we have such representatives in Washington is to make sure some of the tax dollars get funneled back to our state. In their opinion people like Sen. Pelosi are just doing their job when they get pork barrel projects inserted into Bills on the floor; And to be quite honest there is an element of truth to that. However it is clear that the agenda of some legislators is not to represent their constituents or even the overall welfare of the their state, but to achieve some personal ideological objective through the power provided by holding the office.
In the case of Nancy Pelosi her views on conservation are clearly at the extreme left of the spectrum which is fine for her. My only concern is how can we truly serve this nation by catering to such extremes. In my opinion while a Senators personal worldview my be extreme to the left or right, that same Senator has an obligation to their constituency to divorce themselves from that personal agenda in some measure in order to truly serve the will of the people. That is if I truly want what is best for them.
So while some may argue that Nancy is simply doing her job in the above scenario concerning the field mouse study, I would say she is merely serving her own personal far left activist tendencies as a Senator. Further more I submit to you the reader; that it is this type of catering to the extremism that has all but destroyed California business sector and brought us to the brink of ruin financially as a state.
Now Senator Pelosi would have you believe that her study is a jobs creator. And while we have admitted that some jobs would be created by this study. Those jobs create by the study would be limited and temporary. However the impact of her study could have long range implications for business and jobs. Because as it goes the next time someone wants to build a parking garage or a business park of any kind, fees will need too be paid to see if their project in any way endangers the now recorded mouse habitat. Then if it is determined that their project encroaches on the habitat of the mouse it will take courts actions and lengthy litigation or negotiations to over come the objections imposed by the two or three scientists who made 2 million dollars for the University that is now beholden to Nancy Pelosi. Mean while the project which would have created sustained employment beginning with its construction and followed by the businesses that would have resided there is held up by the result of the pork barrel project that was supposedly supposed to produce jobs.
What an irony such things are, but it goes on all the time by progressive politicians like Nancy Pelosi. This is why a more balanced approach is needed in government and why so many people on the left and the right are up in arms these days.
People are tired of activist politicians who only agenda is to remain in office so they can serve their own personal self interests. People are tired of corruption and waste in the system. People are fed up with backdoor last minute pork barrel insertions into House Bills designed as kickbacks to special interest or as political sway over a predetermined electoral demographic. Such legislating doesn't serve the true needs of the people or the State, it merely serves the interests of the politician who benefits from it. And the American electorate seems to finally be getting the message of this.
After years of simply voting on the basis of party line or personal benefit we are beginning to question the motives and overall effects of certain extremist politicians who promise us hope and change only to constantly retract from their campaign promises. Then when pressed we find that the only thing that is changed is their position, and the only hope we have is that in just a couple years we can rid ourselves of them. Yet we must live with the fallout of their poor decisions long after their departure. Which is why people are motivated at this point.
Voters are more up on the issues than ever before. Even with all the misinformation and lack of objective reporting in the news media people are not just swallowing information hook line and sinker. They dig more now then before, they question more now because they know that a politician in most cases is just that, a politicians.
So the subliminal message that Obama is a good guy and the stimulus is a good thing encapsulated in the words, "Go back to school with Obama's stimulus," actually translates to my brain, "Go ahead go back to school, don't worry about the cost we'll just tax your kids for it later." No thanks!

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