In the case of many consumer products it's too expensive to produce differentials of quality, so instead we get Maxwell House and Folgers and a competition of images and slogans which are nearly indistinguishable. Similarly, for obvious reasons, it's undesirable to present differentials of policy and character in the candidates (except for the gourmet brands as noted) and we get images and slogans, again tending toward a soporific same-oldness. It's pretty funny, then, to see Reich and Danner huffing themselves up about the vacuousness of it all, when the election discourse produced by advanced marketing tools of the establishment to which they belong is doing _exactly_ what it was designed to do.
What I wonder is, what produces minds like Reich's? When speaking to us cognoscenti, we who know the score, why doesn't he wink or even crack a smile? On the other hand, if I'm so smart, why don't people read to the end of my stories?
Of course, no one will see that question.... just as well, they might answer it. (Gordon Fitch)
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Quit you're whining Gordon, I read you.
As to how could an apparently smart man like Reich, can be so dense? It is a mystery.
In former days of advocacy, I have sat in meetings with the minor powers that be and argued in rational terms for changing x,y,z, which would have cost next to nothing, and in which neither side had a direct personal interest at stake. Who knows why the establishment simply refuses to understand the consequences of their policies and refuses to change them.
We can always put up a theory and claim class interests, ideological blinders, or some other causal explanation. But none of that seems to get down to how it is, you can look them straight in the eyes, knowing they know what you are asking for or arguing against, and watch their brain turn off, like a switch. They don't care and they don't want to hear it, period.
Rational discourse doesn't work. You have to find some means to exercise power and lever the motherfuckers the hard way.
Chuck Grimes