Remember the old 50's theater screen announcement, "Watch for pick pockets!" just before the show starts? Knowing in advance when this line was flashed on the screen, the operatives would time their entrance to carefully watch for hands reaching for pockets. Then each pickpocket would have a target, and know exactly where the valuables are located on that victim. Pickpockets depended on a good theater manager concerned enough about thievery to flash that warning on the screen. The problem was complicated by bringing this concern to consciousness in the crowd and created the ideal environment for pickpockets.
Our media today, whether wittingly or not, has become part of our burgeoning problem of pickpocket politics. We are now down to the weeks leading up to the mid-term elections. Pickpocket political paranoia is just beginning to heat up in the media. Watch, listen, and laugh at it, or cry, for our country.
They'll be taking your social security! Destroying the economy! (the left wing media)
Socialized medicine! Failing schools! Gays in our military! (the right wing media)
But trust us, we will protect you from gays, terrorists, Republicans, Democrats, Tea Partiers, Muslims, Jews, Frenchmen, Mormons, Irishmen, Japanese, Germans, Russians, illegals, non-English speakers, you-name-it ethnic minority. (all our media)
We hear the particular sound bite that tickles our fancy, and our hand dutifully goes to our pocket. It's as if the pickpocket sentry dutifully notes identifying marks to guide the operative to the correct victim, and we are had by our own fears of being had.
Investigations reveal the big moneyed interests in keeping us, the people, hyped up with indignant rage over how the bailout money was spent, how the health care reform laws were made, how the school reform package was assembled, how the wars are (were, or will be) going. Multiple billions from this small group funds political parties and fringe pressure groups to keep our dander up, and it pays off handsomely. For one example, look up "Koch reality scare" on Alternet, Ha'aretz, Guardian, Consortium, Huffington, Newsmax, Human Events, or your favorite non-mainline media source.
The mainline media, including NPR, FOX and talk radio, is largely bought off by these few who own billions in the energy and transportation sectors and the military/industrial complex. They have vested interests, and manipulate news to justify firing of honest reports who depart from their corporate party line. That small group needs the wealthiest 10 percent of our country as well as many of the middle class to cooperate with the scary language to make the scam work. Many of us who get duped are well-meaning, honest people, just like the manager of our local theater in 1955. Others, the few who are the real source of our pickpocket politics, scream against government regulation, and then scream equally loud about their patriotic fervor, and then further, rip us off.
In contrast, there are about 100 of the wealthiest, but responsible, loyal citizens of our country. Many, led by the Gates family, are members of "United for a Fair Economy" (look this up). They signed a statement earlier this summer promoting a large tax increase. Remember seeing this in the news? Know why not? They also repudiated the "End death taxes!" pickpocket proclamation of a decade ago.
Few are the politicians who avoid pickpocket politics. These few process decisions based on principle and truth instead of power and influence. We have them in Montana, and a few other states. Yes, some are in congress, in both parties. But I must confess that all I have heard so far from the "Tea Party," and disappointingly much from the new Republican platform "Pledge to America," are the alarms of pickpocket politics: legitimate concerns timed and phrased to end up building big money power and influence, and rip off our tax moneys.
Here in Big Horn County live people whose values are old-fashioned and honest. If we do spread pickpocket politics, it's not because we have selfish motives. Many of us have learned to be wise to the alarms. This more rational, careful commitment to the common good pervades our schools and college, the county officials, the farming and ranching community, the reservation, the Crow Tribe, and the variety of religions practiced here.
This is still God's best place. There's a lot about life here, not just on the back 40, that I'd just as soon not see change, especially under the paranoid pressure of pickpocket politics.
--David Graber
Hardin, MT
Sept 24, 2010
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