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Monday, March 1, 2010

Branding and the American Voter

Brands were originally developed as labels of ownership; however, today it is what they do for people that really matters. So what happens if a brand's benefits cease to be beneficial.

The cola wars of the 1980s and 1990s between soft drink manufacturers provide an illustration. Let's say that you have a soft drink that you really like. You believe in the philosophy of the brand and it tastes right to you. Now let's say over time the taste becomes flatter and flatter until it no longer tastes right to you. You still believe in the brand but the quality has degraded to the point where the product no longer truly meets your expectations. Now let's say the other brands have degraded in the same manner. You stay faithful to your brand hoping for a turnaround. But it never comes. In fact, the brands continue to digress until they reach a point where they are actually unhealthy. What should you do?

Today, people in both the Democratic and Republican parties have experienced exactly this level of degradation of their respective political party brands.

Yet many cling to the brand they were raised with believing their brand represents the lesser of two evils. That's the state we find ourselves in.

Elitists today mortgage our future and constrain our individual liberty and freedom. Their overriding concern is not for the citizens, the quality of life for working men and women and their families, or our American way of life though that is their rhetoric. A rhetoric that provides a safe shield for them to hide behind as they pursue what really motivates them: money and power. Both Republican and Democrat elitists, presidents, and congressional leadership manipulate us to accept elitist direction toward a fate not in our national best interest.

Under their direction we have become the world's leading debtor nation fighting far flung wars of empire with radical Islamic terrorists while our borders and ports remain so unsecured that millions violate them every year adding to an already overtaxed society. Under their oversight, we have run thirty-one consecutive years of mounting trade deficits and lost the ability to clothe and feed 40,000,000 of our poor citizens congruent with the aspirations of the country.

Under their watch, we failed to organize and carry out an intelligent foreign policy with Mexico rushing into investment in China instead of America. Under their management, we find ourselves dangerously dependent on other nations for our oil, manufacturing, and even our basic needs in many respects fighting costly entangling wars rather than building alternative energy solutions.

U.S. workers must now compete for jobs in their own country with tens of millions of immigrants, legal and illegal, many whom are taught in our public education system supported by your taxes that Americans are racists when we certainly are not while the country's factories are shut down and moved out of the country and our knowledge-industry jobs are outsourced in an environment where corporate America goes abroad hiring young men and women to come here and take the jobs of middle-aged Americans at half their salaries.

Whole industries have arisen in foreign countries dedicated to producing workers to come here and take your job from you while our government treats these trans-national corporations and special political interests as if they represent the country instead of you.

The loss has been staggering. Between January 2002 and January 2007 our trade deficit set five straight world records totaling over $4 trillion dollars. Since then it's gotten worse. Three million manufacturing jobs, one in every six, vanished. Entire industries are in crisis. In the Southwest entire industries are controlled by Spanish speaking immigrants and no gringos are permitted to work in them. It just goes on and on...

Yet we continue to allow the security and prosperity of future generations of Americans to remain in their hands even as they work to subordinate the interests of the United States to the United Nations, NAFTA, the World Trade Organization, multinational corporations, and even the governments of other nations. Which makes us also accountable for what is shaping up to be the greatest firesale of our generation. Namely, the sell out and sell off of the United States of America for short term profit and an ideology not in the national interest.

Both major political parties are today well-funded marketing organizations, advertising brands that the corporate and special-interest elites manage for their own benefit, with very low approval ratings.

This country's two-party political system no longer effectively represents the will of the people. Yet the brand's consumers persist in the hope that if they can just keep out the other brand, things will somehow eventually turn around. Perhaps it is time to realize that as things stand, they are never going to.

That when the public servants of both brands serve best those who work against the public interest that the purpose of both brands is no longer in the public interest.

They have become incapable of serving the people and guiding the country to a successful resolution of the serious internal and external mounting problems that threaten us serving instead the special interests and corporatists who fund them, direct them, and through them you and I.

This is where populism comes in. Populism offers hope to a broken elitist system comprised of two competing brands that aren't as different as they once were and appear incapable of adequately dealing with the growing problems facing the country to ensure a bright future for the generations of United States citizens that will follow.

Populism is the third way. It is what happens when people realize that doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results is foolish. Populism is by the people, for the people, the common good, and the national interest offering everyday Americans a way out of the social and economic morass we find ourselves sinking in to.

rebalancing act will solve all our woes. It won't. What they are doing is unsustainable and will just result in us becoming more lost as they squeeze the life out of the greatest Democracy on earth.

Like any good nation, we need to take seriously the responsibility we have for our nation first and foremost. Every other nation in the world, good and otherwise, does exactly this. Which means we need to adequately define what makes for a good citizen and put that into practice. It means putting the well-being of United States citizens and their families first as well as developing a productive American domestic and foreign policy with special emphasis on the Western Hemisphere.

It won't be easy. You see American adults spend more than three thousand hours a year watching television, surfing the Internet, reading daily newspapers, going to the movies, and listening to radio and personal music devices. Yet on average, those who still volunteer give only fifty hours a year.

When it comes to politics, the vast majority of voters simply turn on the television and watch the lockstep media elitists and then go to the polls and "pull the lever" for the brand they feel the most comfortable with rather than for candidates and issues that faithfully reflect the values, character, and interests of the nation.

As a nation we vote erratically, carelessly, and often ignorantly. Simply getting a majority of registered voters to vote is a difficult task. It has been argued that the nation doesn't vote in great numbers because of the dismal lack of quality leaders representing a government in the sway of factions and special interests who preach superficial rhetoric as they attempt to figure out what the public wants to hear so they can parrot that back to them. This is not a legitimate excuse. The vote must be cast and cast in a careful and qualified manner. What we need are voters that set aside brands and exercise thoughtful and prudent judgement that benefit the common good and our national interests.

Populism puts the interests of citizens, national interests, and the common good of the country first. It is the opposite of elitism insisting on real representation. Being a populist means being an independent unaffiliated with either of the two major political parties dedicated to the nation's values and founding principles.

There was a time when an American could, on a single income, support a wife and kids and look forward to a secure retirement. My grandfather retired from Ford Motor Company after thirty years and has free medical care for the rest of his life. If you are not a government employee, can you say the same? This American dream has receded and for many it is gone. Yet the greatest threat to the United States actually comes when the elitists seek to erase our borders and our national identity. For the New World Order to be born, the United States must die?

Have we become so brainwashed by indoctrination and so enamored with entertainment diversions that we cannot see this as treason to our republic? Or will we instead continue to follow their programming and allow them to make even the historical right of populism an act of terror so as to protect their position and interests? Make no mistake, the elitists fear nothing more than an awakened American populist movement.

Whether liberal or conservative you have a legitimate responsibility to your fellow citizens and your nation's best interests first and foremost with neighboring countries secondly and right now that equation is broken.

So now you know. Are you going to do anything differently as a result?

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