Elections Run by Same Guys Who Sell Toothpaste by Noam Chomsky

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For many years, election campaigns here have been run by the public relations industry and each time it’s with increasing sophistication. Quite naturally, the industry uses the same technique to sell candidates that it uses to sell toothpaste or lifestyle drugs. The point is to undermine markets by projecting imagery to delude and suppressing information—and similarly, to undermine democracy by the same method.

In the year 2000, there was a huge fuss afterwards about the stolen election, with the Florida chads and the Supreme Court. But ask yourself who was exorcised about it? It was all among a small group of intellectuals. They were the ones who were upset about it. There was never any public resonance for this. In the current election it’s being reiterated. There’s a big fuss among intellectuals about the vote in Ohio, how the voting machines didn’t work, and other things. But the interesting thing is that nobody cares.

Why don’t people care if the election is stolen? The reason is that they don’t take the election seriously in the first place. They reacted about the way that people react to television ads. It’s a mode of delusion. If the Democrats want to succeed in that game, they’re just going to have to figure out better ways of delusion.

There is an alternative, and that is to try to run a program that’s committed to developing a democratic society in which people’s opinions matter.

http://www.chomsky.info/talks/2005012502.htm

Noam Chomsky said:

"In the year 2000, there was a huge fuss afterwards about the stolen election, with the Florida chads and the Supreme Court. But ask yourself who was exorcised about it? It was all among a small group of intellectuals."

I am glad to know that makes me an 'intellectual'.

Not enough people were concerned.

about chads. As long as there appeared to have been a dispute about some technicality, the public waited for it to be solved by "experts". The next thing they knew, the battle was settled by the Supreme Court.

It's all sizzle and no steak.

In the years since I've been on DU, my own writing has made clear to me what my most important issue is, and it's definitely NOT being addressed by any of the candidates.

is that the admen run the GOP administrations, or at least remain very powerful front men, after the election. In the Democratic Party, they return to their high paid jobs as corporate lobbyists.

Maybe Shakespeare was totally wrong. Come the revolution, the admen have to go first, followed by the lawyers.

It started when Rupert Murdoch threw that fundraiser for Hillary.