Dressing up a pig

We can put a pretty skirt and lipstick on a pig, but it is still a pig. The analogy to American culture and society and politics seems similar. And why are we focused on a pig when more noble creatures come to mind that we should be working on … say a Kentucky Derby horse.

Our fixation on the lightweights and lowlifes of Hollywood and same is astounding. When Anna Nicole Smith continued to get coverage long after her death, this was a case of dressing up a pig if I have ever seen one as her coverage beat out Iraq too often. Forget all the other foreign trouble spots that do affect our future.

When affirmative action became quotas here we went again. It was more important to provide an illusion of equal opportunity than the real thing, equal opportunity. And from the customer point of view, say a medical patient, all most wanted was professional care and advice. If ever there were a case for a Kentucky Derby horse objective, it is in the training of our medical doctors and nurses. Skirts on a pig just will not do when it comes to our health care.

Now it is reported that Toyota builds more cars and trucks than GM for the first time in history. But then Toyota is run by engineers while GM is run by marketers. Don’t blame the workers, blame the leadership over decades. One focused on building a superior pig or better, while one focused on dressing up the pig. Guess which one is which.

The American political world seems similar, and it is not party oriented, as in Republican or Democrat. One part of America wants to try build a more perfect union. Another part wants to provide the illusion of a more perfect union if the first is just too hard to achieve. This idea applies to most all of our National problems, domestic and foreign. The political equivalent to dressing up the pig is called band aids and incremental fixes or even another study. The more cynical call it putting heads in the sand, like an ostrich, until the house of cards finally collapses on our descendents. The political equivalent to trying to build a more perfect union is try legislate on social security, immigration, and national and homeland defense. And we know how politically risky it is for those who want to avoid political risk … at all costs, to include our descendents’ costs. For those who are business plan oriented, this is an opportunity just waiting to be exploited. For others, dressing up the pig still seems to be the national choice, so far.

Like the rest of governments and institutions, mass media has allowed itself to be caught up in the priority of dressing up the pig, as opposed to real change. That the thousands, maybe millions, of young people in this industry have been hoodwinked will only come out over time. What a shame, because by then they will be older and perhaps bitter by their experience when they had a chance, and they were led to dressing up their ancestors pig as their application of their energies.

Consumers and voters still do have choices on whether or not to dress up the pig. WalMart under Sam Walton always suggested by shopping with them and their policy of selling American goods if they could, and they did, we were helping fellow Americans. I bought this line, right or wrong. Now WalMart seems like a front store for Chinese manufactured goods at a reasonable quality and price, but it is not the same. And some of the consumer choices are more horizontal. For example most of the poor quality (lowlife) movies coming out of Hollywood will not get my money from any source. One can call it voting often with ones pocket book.

Some of us want the real thing. Where’s the beef? Here’s where the voters assert themselves.