Lessons Learned

I learned a lot in 2009, none of it good. Not being a naive innocent, maybe I should say I had some beliefs confirmed, but to an unexpected level. I've known for a few years that, as a country, we're screwed. Still, I didn't think the end would be coming this fast.

What's funny, in the sense of non-funny, is the extent to which so many people are so easily manipulated, and the extent to which they are simply unable to see it. How ironic it is that those people who claim the current administration is like Soviet Russia, or Nazis, have been convinced of that by the fusing of a political agenda and a network propaganda machine exactly like those created and maintained by those authoritarian and failed entities.

The truth is that on average we are a stupid people, weak-willed and uncomfortable with complexity. The reason Fox has the influence it does is that it appeals to the sense of victimhood and lost entitlement that's increasingly the political mainstream. Roger Ailes' brilliance in unabashedly pushing a hyper-partisan agenda is his realization of how simple it would be. Constantly barraging listeners with repetitive falsehoods, conspiracy theories, reinforced endlessly in every time-slot by ethically empty so-called journalists, his network is the embodiment of theory of the "big lie." And the process is made even easier by targeting the very religious, with their need for certainty and their long-standing cultivation into the art of denying reality, the willful rejection of the obvious. Religiosity and political manipulation: they go together like hand and glove, peanut butter and blackberry jam, unprotected sex and STDs.

Who'd, for example, have thought that the destruction of Haiti could be so politicized? It's amazing enough that science has become partisan, with denialism as the central core of an entire political party. But charity, for Christ's sake? To what level of cynicism have our politics sunk that President Obama's actions to help a ravaged nation are mocked, decried, and demagogued shamelessly? That people are being asked NOT to help, and it's being hyped by the right wing, the party of Jesus? (I'll admit that in this, even Rush's rants seem not to have deterred giving to a noticeable extent. Possibly because, as usual, atheists are pitching in.)

How can it be that Massachusetts may well elect to the Senate a guy who, exactly like George Bush, advocates massive tax cuts, after denouncing the budget deficits, and without saying a single word about where he'd cut the spending needed to make up the difference? (And who, most Foxoteabaggingly, suggests our president's mother wasn't married.) Implicitly making the disproved argument that cutting taxes increases revenue, he also claims that the health care bills represent "government takeover," and promises to stop it. Government takeover? Relying entirely on the private insurers to an extent their stock has shot upward? Government takeover? Really? Yet there he is, the darling of an entire movement: completely divested of fact. Not to mention decency.

All of this is against the backdrop of the most misguided populism imaginable, cynically manipulated by corporate interests. Dick Armey, of "Freedomworks" must be in a state of constant tumescence over the ease with which he's pulled it off (as it were). As I've said many times, there's much to criticize about the Obama administration so far: most especially that stimulus monies seem to have been misdirected to a large extent. Not unneeded: inadequately dispersed. Nor do I agree with the buildup in Afghanistan; I'm concerned about Tim Geithner, about the lameness of some White House responses to the constant and dishonest attacks from Fox and the rest of the RWS™. But these worries have a basis in fact. Rather than lies and obstructionism, I wish the opposition would pitch in and provide sensible suggestions, work together even a little. Democracy depends on it. It might even do their party good!

Unlike the things I criticize, wild statements on the placards so proudly waved by the teabaggers are based on unquestioned belief in the steady stream of propaganda to which they're constantly and uncritically subjected. The supreme irony is that they are the very people who ought to be -- claim to be -- scared sh*tless by political agitprop and media control. And yet they eat it like cookie dough.

To them, disagreement is pure evil. I wonder what they think about the founding process of the country they claim to love, and understand not a bit. Compromise. Respect for opposing opinions. Doing the hard work of finding common ground. Contra the Nazi-baiter, it's they that have been dumbed down, not liberals.

Today, for the second time in a few months, someone forwarded me a breathless email. Strewn with full caps and varying colors like holiday fireworks, it claims Obama has demanded a stamp be produced to honor a Muslim holiday. "If you only forward one email.... patriotic Americans.... reject... stand up.... " The usual crap. (The wild-eyed commentary is based on the fact that every year for around ten years such a stamp has been issued, much like those commemorating Christmas, Hanukkah, and Walt Disney characters. Of absolutely NO significance, but seen by the crazed hordes as proof of Obama's treason.) Into the streets they march; into the Congress they send like-minded (in the loosest use of the word "mind") representatives, intent on destruction. It's working.

In a perverse way, I hope I live long enough to see it, because I'm absolutely certain I'm right. And I'd like to know if at any point along the decline those blind and dumb right wingers and teapartiers will realize what they've done, even though I already know the answer.

[PS: speaking of lessons, here's a good one.]

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