WHY PEOPLE DON'T VOTE

Decrying the lack of voter interest is a cottage industry. However, I have a question, or actually, a series of them.

Do not the principles of advertising also underlie political campaigns? Are not two of these principles:

1. People buy the package, not the product
2. People respond to cues, not to information.

Let's just say that in fact these principles, and others equally insightful, do organize billions of dollars worth of consumer transactions. Let's also say that they do underlie political campaigns and therefore lead to what is politely called the voter decision process.

Let's just say they do. Then wouldn't it be far better if there were fewer voters, that is, fewer misled, mal-informed people pulling levers in voting booths? We should have campaigns: Stay home you dope! What the hell do you know? Climb back under that rock!!

Why do I buy Tide? Well, because the plastic jug it comes in is attention interuptus orange and the label has a very hypnotic, vaguely mammarian appeal. I believe it's target shaped. It catches my eye. Why do I vote for my US Representative? Well, he has a certain party affiliation, he's tweedy rather than coiffed and he cares about the environment. I do too. That's why I vote for him.

Let me shop, but really, shouldn't I be banned from the voting booth?

WHY PRESIDENTS DO WHAT THEY DO

Were these irresponsible acts by presidents (and are there others equally so?):

LBJ not raising taxes during the Vietnam war, leading to ruinous inflation and the eventual election of Ronald Reagen.

FDR keeping Truman utterly in the dark about momentous issues even as he must have known he wouldn't survive his last term.

JFK getting elected despite serious medical problems and taking mood-altering drugs.

IMPERIAL PRESIDENCY

Was combining the function of Head of State with the leader of the executive branch a fatal flaw in the design of our government? Was it not inevitable that that arrangement would lead to the Imperial Presidency?

SLAVES

How many slaves were carried out of Africa to North America? How many to South America and the Caribbean? Was the number brought to North America once thought to be much higher than the number that scholars now agree on? Were not the Spanish and Portugese more rapacious slave holders than the English?

RUSSIANS AND WORLD WAR II

Everybody knows that the US saved the world from fascism in WW II. But don't professional historians concur that the defeat of Nazi Germany was at the hands of the Red Army, with the US, Britain and the western allies contributing a relatively small amount to the defeat of Germany? I mean the battles on the Eastern front were death struggles with titanic losses... how can the efforts of the western allies be considered in the same breath?

RUSSIANS AND WORLD WAR II (PART TWO)

Are there any reasonable suspicions that the landing in Europe by the western allies was postponed until 1944 so that the Soviet Union might suffer the maximum amount of losses?