Who runs your life, who tells you what to believe, and why?

Why do we believe the things we do?

Why do we ignore entire issues or the views of others?

Why do we choose to fight instead of listen, reason and compromise?

Why do we so willingly give up our own democracy?

A Pew Trust study found that the rehtoric of opposition to health reform, as voiced on the floors of the house and senate and in committee, has certain blatant roots. The exact word patters and slogans used by both Republicans and "blue dog" Democrats repeat word for word statements in "talking point" memos and press material from three specific large Washington lobbying groups. Two have major clients in the corporate insurance and drug industries and the third is a wholly owned subsidiary of a conservative "think tank". All three are well financed. Against the words in their speeches, statements and in the media are word for word from these lobbying firms, with little or no academic research or backing. Pew Trust is a neutral research organization.

Knowing the motives and financing behind what you hear summarized, boiled down or simply distored in the media is more important than other. That means understanding the bias, prejudice, stereotypes, demographics, motives, filters an mission of all sources and understanding your own as the receiver.

Then too, know who pays the media. This includes advertising (heavy in drug and insurance industry interests) and actual ownership.

Over the past thirty years small family owned media has been eaten up, and even large media companies have become part of even larger corporations. This is called "free enterprise" by Republicans and conservatives. This free enterprise reduced the number of independant and local voices in media and centralized policy and content in very specific, money controlled centers. We have evolved into a corporate democracy, or a representational shareholders government by default.

Where there were ten radio stations or more with their own staff, ownership and bias, we now have three (two or one) media groups, part of larger corporations who tell them what to program, believe and what agenda to push or sell.

Where we had two to six television newsrooms, we now have coops and in many markets no local news staff (the news you watch may be produced somewhere in right to work Virginia and presented a if it is local).

Where we had several or many local newspapers in many markets we have one, or increasingly none.

And each remaining station is reducing staff, letting higher paid experienced people go to be replaced by inexperienced staff new to the city or market.

Now slogans from professional PR companies, passsed on as "grass roots" or given to the speechwriters for politicans and other leaders, are setting policy, believed by millions who never questions the source or the motive behind it.

Will the health care plan cost us billions? Not according to the Congressional Budget office. Not according to unaffiliated auditing firms. And even it did the billions and trillions pale to the cost of war, to the bailouts of corporate America and other expenses begun and committed to under the Bush, and not the Obama administration.

But the lobby firms have placed the words into the mouths of others, and those words have become bible, truth and not even contested by those pre-desposed to beleve what is said.

An we have made this possible with media mergers, Wall Street merging with K Street, decreasing attention spans, decreasing quality of education. increased apathy and taking the lazy way out of believing slogans, platitudes and what the great marketing machine has sold us.