God’s Favorites

From AlterNet.org by Brad Reed, “Since this past Christmas season coincided with the final campaign push before the Iowa caucus, every Republican candidate for president worked extra hard to out-pander one another in claiming that God is supportive of his or her particular flat-tax plan. But you have to wonder watching some of the Republican debates and press conferences if the GOP hopefuls have actually read the New Testament. Say what you will about Jesus, but he didn’t seem like the sort of guy who would support showering rich people with tax cuts, gutting social programs for the poor and middle-class, or launching multiple wars with Middle Eastern countries. Yet these are the sorts of things that his purported acolytes have been endorsing throughout the year, all the while claiming to be Jesus’ number-one fan in the whole world.”

Really? I don’t think Jesus would like the fact that this slate of Republican candidates is pandering to rich people and trashing the downtrodden. Wasn’t it He who said, “Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” Matthew 19:23-24 Wow! I guess they missed that.

One of my favorites examples was when candidate Herman Cain announced that “if you don’t have a job and you’re not rich, blame yourself.” Or when House Speaker Boehner points to President Obama and says, “where are the jobs?” And in the next breath says to the Occupier crowd, “why don’t you go get a job?” Or when ex-Candidate Bachman offers her wisdom for people with no health insurance, “find a job that provides health insurance” while her party criticizes the president because there are no jobs to be found and fewer companies are providing health insurance.

It’s bad enough that these people constantly contradict themselves with “fact-free” comments, but when they claim to be God’s favorites, they wander over the line. The line I’m referring to is the line between reality and fantasy that got lost long ago in American politics. But the deeper question is why has the American voter succumbed to it.

I think it has a lot to do with two major American institutions: The main stream media and the advertising industry. The media is driven by the bottom-line; i.e., profits. News is anything that enhances circulation. Circulation is what drives advertising rates. And advertising is anything anyone wants to claim about their products and services. There aren’t any real checks and balances on the claims of advertisers. We’ve fallen into a trance and absorb the tag lines as if they were reality. The more we fall for them, the more we believe anything we see written, hear said, or watch on TV.

We live in a mass-illusion created by advertisers and spinmeisters, whose only job is to convince us that we should buy their product, service or political point of view.  In The Hidden Persuaders, first published in 1957, author Vance Packard explored the use of consumer motivational research and other psychological techniques, used by advertisers to manipulate expectations and induce desire for products. Fast forward to today and  these techniques have been perfected and absorbed into politics.

The fact that any of us believe anything said by any politician on either side of the aisle is proof of the efficacy of these methods.

Well, I did have one question left unanswered about the GOP candidates: Three of them claim that God told them to run for president. Which two are wrong? I thought I had my answer when, on the 700 Club, Pat Robertson said that God told him who would be our next president. But then he said he couldn’t reveal the winner’s name. It must be a  Republican. According to Robertson, God doesn't support President Barack Obama's agenda.  It’s good to have friends in high places.

Robert DeFilippis