If you're the most despised entity, how do you get what you want?

[Uncle Joe]

One way to do it is to run your pleas through a third party, in this case the Chamber of Commerce, but that's only one aspect.

The other is to use reverse psychology, the "please don't throw me in the brier patch" approach and make no mistake about it, the for profit "health" insurance corporations know they're despised, they were told as much as if they couldn't read it for themselves.

Consider what the public would have thought had the for profit "health" insurance corporations not run any opposition or supported this bill? Would the American People have wondered why, particularly after Harry and Louise?

I believe if that scenario had taken place even more red flags would have been raised in the publics' mind in regards to mandates without a strong public option and such.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/joe_conason/2010/03/1...

(Scarborough also asked, perhaps sincerely, why the insurance companies haven't run their own "Harry and Louise" campaign to kill this bill if they actually hate it and don't secretly see it as a subsidy to them. The answer is that Frank Luntz warned last year against raising the industry's profile in a debate where they are the entities most despised by the public -- and that they have instead run their campaign against reform through other corporate outfits, notably the mammoth U.S. Chamber of Commerce.)

[Cal Carpenter]

1. It's not a popularity contest

It's all about the benjamins :shrug:

[Uncle Joe]

4. It's about Cognitive Dissonance.

You are correct about one thing it's also about the Benjamins and no one knows that better than for profit "health" insurance corporations.

[dflprincess]

2. All that and make a whole lot of "contributions"

to the lawmakers who control your fate.

[Uncle Joe]

5. Absolutely,

unless you're one of those people; who believe other people can't be persuaded by money.

[Cal Carpenter]

8. It doesn't matter what we believe

The system is set up to reward greed and concentration of power/wealth. It's no accident that things are happening this way.

If someone can't be persuaded by money, they aren't going to get very far. Or they are going to be used as a pawn (like the way Kucinich is effective at rallying the 'left' of the Dem party and keep them on board - whether or not he is sincere doesn't even really matter - it's the role he plays).

Personally, I think most regular everyday people can't be persuaded by money - but we reward the ones who are - the ones who make it to DC as politicians, the ones who go on reality shows in hopes of winning $50k or getting famous. And those people are all larger than life - in our faces all the time. It makes them seem much more prevalent than they really are.

But on the ground, in reality, most people aren't like that. They are just stifled by a system that makes you basically a nonperson unless you manage to be born into (or miraculously rise into) the wealthy corporate or political class.

Cognitive dissonance comes from thinking that we (normal people) can influence the politicians and their corporate supporters enough to make them actually work for the common good, when this is impossible due to a SYSTEMIC reality. Believing that we have an actually democracy where the people influence elections and policy, and where civil rights and fairness and justice are even in the picture - that's the cause of cognitive dissonance.

The example in the OP is not an exception, it is the norm. It really is. Nobody in DC can or will (or for the most part wants to) change this.

eta: I realized after hitting post that I was sort of replying to your post #4 in addition to this one at the same time, sorry if it's confusing, heh.

[Uncle Joe]

9. I agree with most all of what you say, my post #5

was just a lighthearted jab toward those people that believe bribery/lobbying has no effect on political decisions.

Post #4 was referring the mass public Cognitive Dissonance, the American People would be dealing with if the "health" insurance corporations; didn't oppose this bill, given their history, the outright abandonment of universal coverage without serious debate, and the discarding of a strong public option in spite of already strong majority support for those policies.

I believe the Cognitive Dissonance experienced by the public would have posed too great a political risk, had the "health" insurance corporations not opposed this bill.

This would've been the straw that broke the camel's back on the current corporate supremacist trend.

[Cal Carpenter]

12. Gotcha

It's funny, I have so much to say about this whole topic (HCR) that when I suck it up and finally reply to a post I include 15 extra thoughts that have been spinning around my head from reading all the different threads about it.

But yeah, I'm with you. I think that much of the reason the system stays in place is because of divide and conquer, and if there isn't some illusion of 'us against them' amongst normal people, then we may figure out that the 'us' is almost everyone and the 'them' is like 1% of the population whose soft, privileged asses we could kick quite easily :)

[leftstreet]

10. +1

Cognitive dissonance comes from thinking that we (normal people) can influence the politicians and their corporate supporters enough to make them actually work for the common good, when this is impossible due to a SYSTEMIC reality. Believing that we have an actually democracy where the people influence elections and policy, and where civil rights and fairness and justice are even in the picture - that's the cause of cognitive dissonance.

:applause:

[Deep13]

3. Buy it. nt

[jgraz]

6. How is the Chamber of Commerce legal? Don't we have anti-trust laws?

This seems like straight-up, anti-competitive collusion to me.

[Uncle Joe]

7. I wonder who's funding their commercials,

"health" insurance corporations through the Chamber or the Chamber of Commerce; itself out of their general budget?:shrug:

[RaleighNCDUer]

11. it is curious that a couple months ago, when the tea-partiers seemed

to be having some effect and the bill looked like it might not pass, suddenly there was a spate of anti-teaparty newscasts, and a dearth of anti-bill advertising.

They want to oppose it, but not TOO effectively, it seems.

[Uncle Joe]

13. Just enough to put up a front.

I'm also convinced the Republicans want this bill to pass, because it serves their political interests.

They got what they wanted without voting for it, when the mandates hit the fan after the next Presidential Election, the Democrats will look like the bad guys.

Had the Republicans sincerely engaged in debate on the moral, fiscal, logical implications of this bill on the grounds of best policy, the bill would be more progressive than it is now, but the corporate owned Republicans didn't want that.

So by totally opposing it for political purposes, knowing they couldn't stop it anyway, they received a gift for their primary corporate constituents, while the Democrats abandoned their prime constituency in order to a get a bill passed and "save face."

I believe the Democrats would better off politically and the nation would be better off from a policy standpoint if they either killed this bill or at minimum included a strong public option.

[Political Heretic]

14. K&R

[Uncle Joe]

15. Kicked for the 8:14 CST crowd.

[depakid]

16. Luntz must have just been laughing at the administration and the Senate

as over and over and over they associated themselves with the about the most despised entities in America!

One cannot underestimate the amount of credibility and political capital that they've spent over this- nor can one imagine how, as the abuses and double digit increases continue, just how much this gift will keep on giving through the next two election cycles.

All one can do at this point is shale their heads and hope that Republicans will continue to appear to be outright lunatics, so that the argument can be persuasively made that they're not only no help but are unacceptably worse.