Government health care and the flaming paper bag.

“It’s time for health care reform.”

This new piece of PR features a few teary, doe-eyed people repeating the message. It’s off the screen even before you can try to figure out which party is pitching to you now.

I’ve written before about the marketing tools being thrust at us in every minute of every day. But most folks without PR training, just don’t realize how pervasive this is. It’s not just visual – it’s visceral. Terminology like “grassroots” and “Astroturf” and phrases like “around the kitchen table” and “economic downturn” is all part of the total package. But there are other mechanics at work – leading lines, use of backgrounds, contrast colors, visual arrangement, accompanying music, transitions, logos, repeated and sometimes subtle use of branding. There’s just so much spin involved in everything we see and hear.

And if you’re not looking for it – well, you’ll simply say to yourself “ahh, that was nice,” or “that guy or gal looks or sounds honest.” Or, if the PR handlers are real good, and their delivery medium is very sharp, it is possible most people will never even notice they are being sold a paper bag filled with crap.

So is it any wonder that we are sitting here just a few months into the new administration, wondering if the next generation will even grow up free? Is it so mysterious that we have tea parties sweeping the nation?

Please check your doorstep now. They haven’t just sold you a bag of crap – they’ve delivered it. That’s what is on fire on your front steps! The crap in the bag is Cap in Trade and Universal Health Care, and they expect you to do the flame dance and spatter that hot poop all over the place.

So, if you really want to be one of the “repeating stations” for these sales machines, do the front-steps dance and bask in the gleaming, fake smile of people like Nancy Pelosi and give those like her, power over every aspect of your life.

But know this. Not everyone is going to be dancing with you.

There will be a large number of people who’s lives will have been wiped out by the huge tax hikes necessary to fund these ridiculous programs. There will be many who simply won’t survive it at all – either being consigned to slow death in the waiting lines to see their government appointed doctor, or collapsing in their homes from freezing in winter temperatures, heat exhaustion in roasting summer temperatures, or starvation because they can’t afford to pay for food and green electricity at the same time. But they won’t wipe all of us out. Some of us will remain.

So stomp on that flaming bag. After all, the PR squads are telling you it is a huge emergency, and it just HAS to be done NOW!

But you’ll be replacing those shoes, and doing some painting. And I guarantee you the stink will still be there. Government health care is like any other government power; once it is taken up, it will never be put down. The stink remains.

And you in Congress – you who deal in the contents of those paper bags, light them up and run back to an easy retirement in your mansions on the coast– you are being watched by all the rest of us who won’t do the dance, and will not go easily. We’ll be waiting at the end of it all. We’ll be waiting for the chance to vote you out.

And we’ll be coming for you.
We’re coming for you all.


-We the People