Is American Politics REALLY Worse Than Ever ??? -- Part II

Part I is here.

. . . and, if so,

SO WHAT?

Things are different than they have ever been and some things are worse than ever. These times are not the times of Eisenhower, Daddy Bush or even Bill.

• Cheney's exploitation of Vice-Presidential power and prerogatives was a first - the product of a smart man with a life-time of experience in the web of bureaucracy (rather than - or in addition to - the jungle of politics). He played the administrative system as a virtuoso - placing his own team in 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th echelon positions to accomplish both public and private objectives, beyond nearly all scrutiny and as he - personally - saw fit. >This link is just one example of many, many, many>link<.
• Obama isn't respecting/using/playing the system. He doesn't even know the system. He never learned it and never acquired significant experience in it. He's just the outsider/foreigner/amateur doing what he thinks is best or what he wants without understanding or respect for the existence of any precedent, rule or system. He doesn't seem to know (or doesn't acknowledge) that systems, rules or precedents exist.
• Obama's first year has seen a series of new laws of more than a thousand pages each suddenly appear - written by unknown/unaccountable outsiders and unread by the Congress that passed them. This is dereliction of duty by the Executive and Legislative branches of government.
• First, Baby Bush and then - on a much larger scale - Obama have encouraged and enabled (through guarantees) debt on an unprecedented scale (as measured per capita or percent of GDP).
• American Presidents' posturing in foreign affairs is nothing new. The Cold War constrained such posturing. Bill Clinton blew a massive once-in-a-millennium opportunity to make-over the Russian system in the chaos there after the Soviet system disintegrated. In the post-Soviet era, US hegemony has been used for little good and little evil. Now a new world order is upon us with a new nuclear proliferation and with extremely odd urgency (collapsing birthrates in Russian and Iran make power-plays a now-or-never proposition); it won't be fun and it won't be familiar {a separate post on this will be forthcoming}.

but . . .but . . .SO WHAT?

Most voters under 40 don't care.

• They don't care whether American politics is worse than ever. They never knew politics, or media any other way. Politics is just the way it is.
• They don't care about foreign affairs, except as they affect soldiers' families or prices.
• They don't care about ObamaCare, except as a tax.
• They don't care about government indebtedness or spending, except as a tax.
• They do care about the economy - their own ability/security to earn/spend money for themselves and their families. If there is a "new normal," they don't understand/believe/trust/like it. As my dark-side hero once said, "It's the economy, stupid."

Blogging's been light

because I've put a great deal of time into proposals that are sitting on desks all around the world.

Only one person (Karl Rove) has been courteous enough to send a reply. From the rest there has been non-resonant silence, as though the world had lost the capacity to harmonize or even echo.

If the people in politics have any remnant capacity for shame, they have lost the sense of when to use it.

Aesthetics . . .Memetics . . .& . . .Mammon

The card above is a typical business card. Perhaps the name is overly large, but this is a sole proprietorship and the proprietor has both the right and the role to play.


How, then, does the card on the right differ? It gets in your face, as they say. Your eye remains on the card, rather than falling off the bottom as one's eye does with the card above (and with most cards, because of how the white space dominates).

The typeface on the card on the right is called Broadway and it conveys the legendary energy of the theater and of New York. It fills the space - all of the space. The placement of the symbols in the corners (just outside of the vertical line of the name) keeps your eye on the card. The contrasts of black, grey and bright colors imply a variety of activity and information.

At the top, the typeface is sans-serif - modern and cool, understated, sophisticated, if you know the code. If you don't, it's just another card.

Here, on a 7 sq.in. piece of paper, you have an example of how information can be communicated . . .or not.

Scale these insights to the United States' 300 million people, whose differences emanate from age, education and culture, and the fracturing of "mass communications media" to the point where what remains "in common" demands attention.

Consider the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on advertising and politics - most of which pass by most people completely unnoticed. Consider what that people "know" and act upon without ever realizing where the "information" originated.

Introducing . . .ta! da! . . Memetics & Marketing!