Drama Queens

“Politics is the entertainment division of the military industrial complex.” - Frank Zappa

The deal reached between Democrats and Republicans on Wednesday reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend years ago. The conversation started out with him asking me about my disinterest in professional sports. He loved to watch NBA games. I told him sports are boring to watch unless I have a bet on the contest, and I want to avoid gambling. Besides, I told my friend, it’s a racket. All the games are fixed. I don’t see the difference between professional basketball and professional wrestling. To support this argument, I asked him how often the NBA championships go to seven games.

A championship series that goes to seven games generates more advertising revenue than a series that ends in four games. It also provides more opportunities for suckers to bet. So, they make sure that the series is dramatic. It has to come down to the wire. Maybe the seventh game of the NBA championship is a true athletic contest, but the first through sixth games are scripted. Similarly, the government shutdown and the last minute agreement on the debt ceiling were scripted. They were scripted for the same reason that professional sports matches are scripted: to generate advertising revenue.

Someone is keeping track of our Likes and Comments and Shares, as well as the online articles we read about our dysfunctional government. This allows them to target advertisements that will catch our attention. President Obama and members of the United States Congress are merely actors playing out their scripts to get us to agree or disagree with posts so that they will know how we think.

I heard that the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, is self funded. That is, the funding for the program was established when the act was passed into law. If that is true, the Republicans merely pandered to their constituents when they shut down the government in order to block funding for the program. However, the Democrats need to give more thought to reducing our debt. We are getting deeper into debt, and many people are calling the Republicans insane for trying to do something about it. We cannot continue to ignore this problem.