From outside the box

I've been trying to figure out why we accept the fact that the more money a candidate has, the better chance they have of winning. For the most part, they use their money for TV advertising. TV advertising is either cheap emotional feel good sound bites or negative hits against an opponent. The adds don't really address issues to any degree. So what does all of this say about the voting public? I'll tell you what it says....that we have the awareness of a brick wall. We are swayed by feel good sound bites and cheap psychological mind tricks that corporations have been using for years to get us addicted to junk food, make us think we need things that we don't, and believe in things that are not true.

Candidates claim on one hand that the American people are smart and have a good grasp of the issues and on the other hand they make their TV adds that prove they don't really believe we are as smart as they are telling us we are. This is our fault, not theirs. It's our fault because these adds work. We have allowed ourselves to be dumbed down to the level of allowing others to tell us what makes sense and what we need to survive and be happy. Politicians, corporations, and religious leaders know this quite well. They know what scares us. They know what makes us feel good. They know what we want to hear. They know what we react to. They know how the subconscious mind works. They know how to subliminally exploit our fears, our needs, and our desires.

The issue here isn't really about intelligence, were all quite capable of grasping the issues the candidates are talking about. What they are exploiting is our reactive nature. The more self aware an individual is, the less reactive they are. The less aware, the more reactive they are. Dogs are very reactive. Most of us rate somewhat higher than dogs on the scale of awareness and reactivity, but many of us do not. Many sporting events and rock concerts can attest to this fact. Leaders tap into this part of our psyche to start wars. Corporations use it to sell products. Musicians use it to sell music. Religious leaders use it to sell the fear of God.

It really boils down to just being aware. We need to know what, when, and why we are reacting to something. If we all took total responsibility for our actions and reactions, it would be a different world indeed.
We could not be "sold" on anything. All products, beliefs, political issues, everything really, would have to stand on it's own merit and logic. Honesty would prevail. Candidates would be real. What a world that would be!