May 12, 2009

Return on Investment

In 2003-04, 93 companies paid lobbyists $823 million and reaped a benefit from Congress of $62.5 billion, a return on their investment of 22,000 percent.

In 2008, companies spent $3.24 billion on lobbyists. The bailed-out banks spent $118 million of that to reap a 258,000 percent return on their investment via TARP.

In April 2009, a Virginia Democratic PAC received nearly $850,000 from outside the commonwealth to flood the media with attack adds directed at Republican Bob McDonnell.

The strategy is quite simple: Special interests spend a lot of money inundating people with statements they think they’ll believe to motivate them to vote for their puppet. The efficacy of this concept was proven by Goebbels, Hitler’s minister of propaganda, who said, “If you tell a lie often enough, it becomes the truth.”

So if one wants to implant into the minds of a large part of the population that one party can do no wrong, while the other can do no right, simply flood the airwaves and print media with that message while denigrating all who offer a differing opinion.

It’s all about marketing a product to an audience desperate for news they want to believe, whether it’s true or not.

Each of us must take on the responsibility to look beyond the slick marketing for the truth. It isn’t about a candidates political party, it’s about his or her integrity. An honest person will listen to our point of view and give us a chance to shape their opinion. An indentured servant will not.

We have three choices: We can ignore the darkness, we can sit around and curse the darkness, or we can light a little candle and shine some light into the darkness.

We each need to decide wisely for the sake of us all.

Rex A. Hoover
Sumerduck

IN LOVING MEMORY OF REX ALLAN HOOVER (1942 - 2017)