Speak a BIG LIE long enough and it catches on and other marketing wizardry

UPDATE: November 6, 2013 - Bill passed, challenged by opponents and upheld by the Supreme court. Now the debate gets especially convoluted and just as ugly. The implementation of the health.gov website is abominably bad. As a consultant who has worked on implementation projects and go-live support, this was to be expected. Did they test enough? No. Can you ever test enough? Not really. The final test is when you flip the switch.

In hind site, rolling out the site to a small group first for enrollment would have been brilliant. However on none of the projects have I worked on has this been done. The requirements are gathered, the configuration is completed. The database is tested in units and for integration points. You never really get it fully tested until you flip the switch.

In every implementation I have worked, it takes at least of month to get the bulk of the issues resolved. The first week is crazy. People hate it. Why did we have to do this? Then once all the issues start getting resolved and they spend time working with it, it becomes much easier. It is not the roadblock to productivity they experienced during the first few weeks but the medium used for daily activity.

The kinks will get worked out in the website and the enrollment process. Then the biggest nightmare begins for Republicans begins when the public discovers that they have better and affordable health care.

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Polifact.com's "Lie of the Year for 2010: 'A government takeover of health care'", article by Bill Adair and Angie Drobnic Holan reveals how Frank Luntz, consultant to leaders of the GOP sold them first on the Big Lie. It is the artistry of political consultants to swizzle and spin the truth into either a golden goose or an ugly monster depending on the need of their clients. In this case, the client was the GOP leadership and they needed a way to turn the concept of overhauling the abuses and inefficiency of the health insurance industry into an ugly monster. Short and sweet, Frank Luntz came up with a good sound bite: "Government Takeover." Those two simple words are an arrow in the heart of the organization that is fueled by the ideology of "Less Government is Good Government."

You don't want too many words to get in the way of your message. It can't be too heady, don't confuse your audience with too many facts. Go for the heart of their rally cry. If the rally cry is "Less Government" then the battle cry is "Government Takeover."

If the same consultant had worked for Democratic leadership, the rally cry of "Equal Rights" would be paired with the battle cry of "Basic Health Care for All" and simplified this becomes "Health Care Reform" since less is more, more or less at least when it comes to sound bites. Unfortunately Health Care Reform has no umph. It doesn't make a good battle cry. Another good way to spin for progressives is to make the issue a war, such as a "War on Hunger" or a "War on Illiteracy." The problem with the health care reform act was that Democrats have not made it an official war. I have to admit it's not easy to do. War on the Insanely Wealthy who Control who gets Health Care Based on their Own Corporate Profit Margins and the Demands of their Shareholders is not a politically sound tactic since insurance companies contribute big dollars to political campaigns. And besides, it is just way too long.

The Republicans have been spinning since 2007 on the name of the then candidate Obama. It was made vogue by pundits on right-leaning media outlets to call him Barack HUSSEIN Obama while calling into question the legitimacy of his citizenship. With a name as foreign as that, he couldn't be a true citizen even if his mother was from Kansas, the heartland of America. That was a good spin to make him the ugly monster by way of connecting him to the abusiveness and foreignness of dictator Saddam Hussein.

This "big lie" took on the short impact version of simply Obama being the big ugly after Barack HUSSEIN Obama was said enough times. So now, in 2010 Obama can effectively be morphed into ObamaCare with a double entendre effect of Medicare as well as dictatorship. This is a brilliant spin and catchy too. ObamaCare should sound positive but after enough spinning it is equivalent to "Government Takeover" and in short, Dictatorship.

The next step after ObamaCare is solders in black coming to confiscate your guns which is shortly followed by putting all citizens in prison camps. Which in full circle is the end of all government since there is no one left to pay taxes which would fund the prison camps, but no one in that circle of fear takes this illogical thought to it's logical conclusion.

The Republicans simply understand the public psyche and attention span. Republicans cut to the chase and make it butt-ugly simple. And they build well on a theme. To go with Government Takeover, GOP leaders were first to use the term Death Panels. But they didn't apply it to the billion-dollar insurance industry, the ones actually running today's death panels, they applied it to their ever-looming big bad boogy monster - BIG GOVERNMENT. Who can bear the thought of Granny losing out to a Death Panel. That conjures up visions of Darth Vader slicing through Grandma with a light saber.

In fact, insurance companies have been making life and death decisions for decades with actuary tables and by using the measure of preexisting conditions and lifetime limits of coverage and phrases like 'out of network' or 'not in plan.' But no compelling case has been made for the truth. Maybe it isn't politically correct to point the finger at an industry which pours millions into campaign donations and lobbying? Or maybe liberal intellectuals find it hard to simplify this complex issue. Maybe Democrats lack self-confidence. They feel it necessary to fully explain this issue to the public so they understand the dire situation of US health care; but  it is just too many real facts to capture the fervor of the public. Maybe the public needs more of a burly football coach rallying the team when they are down at the half.

The bottom line is that the Democrats trust way too much in the capacity of the general public to absorb lengthy and complex factual evidence in support of the worthy cause of overhauling a multibillion dollar insurance industry. The case can be made FOR the bill in sound bites, just as the case AGAINST it has been.

Let me provide a quick example:

•  Health Insurance companies are the Warlords of health care. 
• Insurance companies measure the value of our lives against their Wall Street performance.
• Health insurance profits come first over lives.
• Who runs the Death Panels? Billion-dollar Insurance companies. A corporate fat-cat decides who gets coverage and what will be covered.  
• The health care insurance industry is out of whack. It's too big. It's too profit oriented. It only looks at the numbers. YOU are not a number. YOUR BABY is not a number. YOUR grandma is NOT a number.

The amazing way the Republicans spun the Public Option was awe inspiring. The public option was not "government run health care" or the favorite Big Lie of the Year: Government Takeover, (shudder) but simply government funded health insurance to be available for purchase by those with incomes too high for Medicare but unable to pay the high costs of commercial insurance. It was to be a competitor to commercial insurance which would have potentially lowered the premiums of all insurance offerings based on this competition. Now competition sounds like something a conservative would be solidly behind, but not if it is proposed by Barack HUSSEIN Obama. In that case, competition lowering the cost of the industry and making it more affordable for all is a very bad thing. It is Government Take Over. It is....drum roll.... ObamaCare.

And there you have it, the progression of unraveling a piece of legislation that would not only reform the health insurance industry into a more competitive business model responsive to the real needs of it's customer base but also an incentive plan to reward hospitals and health care providers for walking into the 21st century of technology by use of the electronic medical record.

 Next time you visit a loved one in the hospital, take note of whether a care provider writes down your loved ones vital signs on his or her hand or scrubs rather than using technology. Or the next time you visit your doctor, look behind the receptionist at that big wall of paper charts. Count the number of times you repeat your information when you go for an outpatient visit. Ask yourself is this efficient or safe? And then go home and play your 3D, motion-activated Nintendo in HD and be in awe of technology in action.

Bill Moyers makes an appeal to the President to refrain from caving on the Public Option. Compromise ended in it being removed from the bill anyway.

Our current health care system is overly dependent on employer provided plans. What happens if your employer goes under or you lose your job? You will discover the real-time death panels already fully operating in this country as is told here:

Fox News subtle attack on Bernie Sanders after Filibuster on Tax-cuts

Promoting Revolution Glenn Beck Style

This speaks for itself.

Close the Circus and kick out the Clowns

Politics and campaigns, no one hears truth in all the clamor and discord. Nothing meaningful is communicated, just sound bites bought from campaign strategists for high dollars. Talking heads spewing empty words that do nothing but pit tax paying citizens against each other. It means nothing and we get nothing.

Those who spend high dollars to make all this happen pull strings to get what they want and the average working citizen is left in the cold. We are all slaves to corporate America even those that don't work in corporate America because their lobbyists control our government. We pay the taxes that give them bailouts and breaks. Sounds like a very raw deal to me.


Stop all the spending on lobbyists and ads. Make the candidates speak for themselves, in their own words. Publish resumes to tell what they have done and plans for what they will do for the good of this country if elected. Set public debates and post them online. And for those in office, publish their votes and the bills they design in every public library. We are flooded with information, but not in meaningful ways. Make it simple and clean and available to everyone.


We elect candidates now in the midst of so much subterfuge; they dodge and the dance and spout memorized lines. You don't get real jobs this way, why should we elect them based on only smoke, mirrors and emotion? It's a job, treat it like a job and produce results for the ones that pay the salary...that would be you and me.


Stop the commotion, get real. It's real when they take the taxes out of my paycheck. It's real when they deal with the communist government of China to borrow almost half of all that they spend and deepen the debt for our children and grandchildren. The national debt is very real. They need to be real with all of us.


Our elected officials need to stand for goodness and truth not Halliburton and Exxon. There is nothing we cannot accomplish in this great country with all of the resources we have, except for the greed that steals it all away. We need to quit standing for the pitiful performance of our elected officials and throw them out when they don't act for the good of the country. Close down the circus and kick out the clowns.

Dear Mr. President...a beautifully written appeal by a constituent and supporter

Dear President Obama,

I am writing this realizing that it will, undoubtedly, never be read by you, but, hopefully it will be a cathartic exercise for me. Even though my words may never reach you, I will know that, at the very least, I have spoken my piece and weighed in with my opinion.

Yes, Mr. President, I voted for you. I donated to your campaign even though times were tough and money was tight. I worked a phone bank on your behalf, knocked on doors, and engaged in many internet activities to help you get elected.

As you spoke in Grant Park on the night of that victorious moment, I stood in absolute awe of you and of my country. As the tears streamed down my cheeks, I danced with a sense of excitement and hope - something I had not felt in a very long time. You were my hero and you were going to make things better - I just knew it.

What happened, Mr. President? Why do we no longer feel that excitement or that hope? Why did you allow that feeling of energy and renewal to die, both in your constituents and in yourself? Honestly, I feel as if someone kicked me in the gut and I can't breathe. It's beyond mere disappointment - it's that feeling of betrayal - betrayal committed by your closest friend…your mother…or your father.

You know, I realize that in the last two years you have experienced the most outrageous obstructionist Congress in our history. I realize that the job you were elected to do has met with serious pitfalls and obstacles. I realize that many of your hopes for the recovery of this country have been dashed and decimated by the opposition.

But, Mr. President, do you realize that those who oppose you so vehemently do so not because of the policies and legislation you want, but because they truly hate you with all the fervor they possess? And, do you realize that they will continue their campaign of hate throughout your term in office no matter how many compromises you make or how many attempts you engage in to placate and accommodate them? Do you realize that Mr. President?

In my lifetime, I have witnessed that kind of hatred, Mr. President, and it was the ugliest of all things ever experienced. To watch this being played out at the peril of an entire nation and a people is devastating. In my lifetime I have watched - not at all silently - as attempts were made to thwart and subjugate any progress made by anyone of color. I have been witness to the oppression and despotism that trammeled all hope and initiative for a better future - a better tomorrow. It took decades to overcome, and we're still working on it. What is currently happening in Washington is just another manifestation of racism and bigotry - and the fear of white people losing power. You do realize that, don't you?

That kind of hatred cannot be legislated out of existence, and no amount of compromise, concession, or accommodation will ameliorate it. The only way to deal with this is to defeat it. The bullies have bloodied your nose - now you have to fight. You have to stand up for what you know is right for you and for this country.

Yes, Mr. President, you can do that - we can do that. But…you have to gather your base - those who have your back. You have to stop alienating your people - those who pledged their allegiance to you through their votes. You must lead with resolve and with determination and without capitulation to the bullies.

No more watered down legislation to appease your enemies. No more buckling demands. No more caving in to tranquilize the radical right. It won't be easy, but this is a fight that we must win.

Yes, Mr. President, yes we can. You have an army at your disposal - all of those millions who cast their votes and signaled that they wanted you to be the change they wanted to see in the world. We still want that change. And, with the right tenor, you could invigorate and deploy that army on your behalf. It means picking yourself up, dusting yourself off, and looking the bully in the eye. It means being mad as hell and deciding that you aren't going to take this anymore. It means having the courage of your convictions and having the guts to say no to those who would destroy us to further their agendas of hate.

If you don't do these things, Mr. President, this country will fail and the blame will rest squarely on your shoulders. This is not the time to cow-tow or to bend over. This is not the time to give away the store or surrender to the oppressor. This is not the time to succumb to manipulation or brow-beating. This is the time to reject the noise of those on the right. This is the time to overpower hate. This is the defining moment, Mr. President.

As we move into a new year, the extremes on the right who permeate our government are hell-bent on seeing to it that you fail. That's their objective…that's their sole purpose for being. That's what the plan has been all along. For you, and for all of America, you must not fail.

If you can reach deep enough and if you have the courage, we can create a better tomorrow. One that dawns on an America that cares for her people. One that assures that no child ever has to go to bed hungry and that no family has to seek shelter in an abandoned car. An America that provides, not just adequate, but the best health-care for ALL her people. A country that values equal rights and human rights across the globe.

Yes, Mr. President, with fortitude and perseverance, we can achieve peace. We can bring our men and women home from the battlefields of unjust and unrighteous wars and can assure the world that we are no longer an insane entity that chooses to annihilate innocent men and women for our own selfish desires. We can break the stranglehold of corporations and corrupt bankers and become a nation that values its' workers and its' citizens.

It will be a dog-fight, Mr. President, but if you refuse to give in, you can build an America that puts people back to work, assures them that their homes are secure, and that their children will be fed and clothed. You can build an America that assures quality public education and assures that every child can attend a university. You can do that…but, only if you will stand and fight and not turn tail and run.

Yes, we can do all of that. And, while we're at it, we can close Gitmo and demonstrate to the world that torture and inhumane treatment of people will no longer be tolerated. We can pass the DREAM Act. We can end Don't Ask Don't Tell. We can end the oppressive laws that dictate who a person can choose to spend the rest of their lives with. Together, we can make America into the truly free country that it purports to be.

The possibilities are endless, Mr. President. But, the timing is not. It has to be NOW. This is the reality. All of these things and more are feasible, but only if you will lead…only if you will be on the front row as we stare down the bullies…only if you will refuse to settle for anything less.

Sincerely,
a supporter 


 
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