Meet Your Congress

As I've said repeatedly, it'd be one thing to see Dems go down based on some sort of actual, factual, reactual. But when it's based on overt insanity, what's a person to think? Where are we headed? What will become of us? I refer to these guys:

Allen West (R) in Florida's 22nd

West first gained notoriety during his military service in Iraq, when he was forced to retire from the Army for engaging in abusive interrogation techniques. More recently, he'sincorporated violent rhetoric into his campaign speeches, and made demonstrably ridiculous claims about his own background. Last month, we learned about West's ties to a violent gang of criminals, which the Justice Department believes is involved in drug running, arson, prostitution, robbery, and murder. Yesterday, he won by eight points.

Renee Ellmers in North Carolina's 2nd

Ellmers is perhaps best known for running on a virulently anti-Muslim platform, and based much of her advertising on her opposition to the Park51 project (which is nowhere near her district). In September, she appeared utterly humiliated during an interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper, but nevertheless narrowly won yesterday.

Austin Scott in Georgia's 8th

Scott ran on a platform that would, among other things, push mandatory drug testing for those Americans who receive unemployment benefits. He won by five points.

Scott DesJarlais in Tennessee's 4th

Roll Call reported a couple of months ago that DesJarlais, during a messy break-up with his ex-wife, allegedly held a gun in his mouth for three hours and was accused of spousal abuse. He nevertheless defeated incumbent Rep. Lincoln Davis (D) yesterday in a landslide.

Ben Quayle in Arizona's 3rd

Quayle, the son of the ridiculed former V.P., is perhaps best known for having contributed to a raunchy, sex-themed website -- and then lying about it. Yesterday, he won by double-digits.

And how to explain this, in Florida, a state where Medicare is like ATP reductase?

Rick Scott is, of course, best known as the disgraced former head of the Columbia/HCA health-care company that got caught up in a massive fraud scandal in the 1990s -- and nothing says victory in Florida like "Medicare fraud." Scott's firm later pleaded guilty to charges that it overbilled state and federal health plans, and agreed to pay $1.7 billion in fines, a record penalty for a health care company. The fines covered fraud perpetrated under Scott's watch, and he was forced out of his job as a result of the scandal.

More recently, Scott used his personal fortune to hire the Swiftboat liars' p.r. firm, and proceeded to launch a breathtakingly deceptive right-wing ad campaign in opposition to health care reform. He is, by the way, also at the center of an ongoing scandal stemming from his alleged fraud at a different health care company he created.

When the initial HCA scandal broke, and Scott was forced to give a deposition about his role, he pleaded the Fifth Amendment -- 75 times. After the second fraud scandal broke, Scott gave another deposition just days before he announced his gubernatorial campaign, but refused to let the public know what he said.

And despite his scandals and alleged crimes, and the fact that he's never held any public office and at any level, Rick Scot will now be the chief executive of one of the nation's largest states.

Usually, far-right Republicans get elected and then become criminals. It's not every day an apparent crook gets caught and then gets elected.

So what shall we make of all this? One thing, for sure: the power of Fox "news" to control the message and influence elections is complete. Absent ideas -- and Republican candidates' ideas were nothing if not absent -- elections can be won simply by ginning up rage over falsities, counting on the bottomless gullibility of teabaggers, and spending huge sums of money on deceptive ads.

Sour grapes? Maybe. But until someone can show me anything -- anything -- a R winner proposed during the campaign that was specific, sensible, and based on reality, my conclusion stands.

And riddle me this: a plurality of voters blame the economic crash on Wall Street (George Bush is next). And among that group of voters, the majority of them voted Republican. The party, in case no one noticed, that wants to remove the few traffic lights Democrats placed there...

Logic? Coherent philosophy? Anything? Bueller? Bueller?...

No, whatever explains the results, it isn't sound reasoning. And to get whole swaths of people to vote unreasonably, it takes a relentless and cynical propaganda machine, albeit brilliant enough to sense people's vulnerabilities and to feed them like goldfish.

Sadly we know, sooner or later, where we goldfish always end up.

Propaganda + Sheep =

Is, in fact.

The most patriotic among us like to believe in American exceptionalism, whatever that is. We're number one. We lead the world in... well, for sure basketball, I guess. How different are we, how unlike those other countries. How impossible it would be for us to become... a mob.

Except that the people who think they are seeing fascism where it most certainly is not, are finally being shorn of their grass-fed sheep's clothing to reveal (were they able to see it) the real rabble underneath. This "mosque" thing: this horrible, debasing, shallow, hateful, despicable mosque thing. It's peeling away the remaining layer of the thinnest veneer, the fantasy that Americans are too civilized, too evolved (if they believed in evolution, that is) to be propagandized, to march in lockstep, succumbing to manipulation. To raise their arms and shout and scream and threaten people of a certain religion (and let's not forget gays), citizens or not; to be led by power-mongering demagogues into the streets. But now, finally, we can no longer lay claim: we're as bad as any gang witnessed by history; we're them; we're willingly led across the divide. Easily, formulaically; frailties exploited in the most demeaning of clichés. Victimhood and scapegoats. Banal, unoriginal stuff. Embarrassing.

How many times, how many ways can it be said: the "mosque" is a community center (containing a prayer room; and there's already an actual mosque one block away); it's not at the "hallowed ground" (strip clubs and pizza joints are closer to the hallowed grounds [good name for a coffee shop, by the way: "Hallowed Grounds"]); it's run by a Sufi Muslim who espouses the opposite of radicalism. Its presence -- anywhere, but especially there -- is a statement of who they aren't, and who we are. It flies in the face of Wahabbism, it represents hope for reconciliation. And it's a building in NYC!! Across the country people have been convinced they should be intensely interested in -- offended! outraged! attending rallies! waving signs! -- a decision by a local planning board. In another city. Y'know: the one that Sarah Palin thinks isn't even America.

Boy, how I'd have loved to have had that kind of support when my neighbor decided to cut down my tree.

It's as obvious as a burning bush that Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, and the rest of the RWS™ don't really care what it is. What they care about is finding a cause -- any cause -- with which they can stir the masses into a rage. It's all they have, it's what they do. And they did, so easily as to eliminate any shred of doubt over what we've become. Mindless, people are spitting venom over a completely innocuous situation -- or what would have been, had the demagogues not seen an opportunity. If a concerted effort by cynical politicians (or, in the case of Sarah, professional tweeters) and a nationwide propaganda machine can so easily convince people they should be really really angry over such a meaningless issue (to the extent that it's not meaningless, they've got it exactly wrong), what does it say about how we'll behave when the real crises come to a head? Who will be next, how will the rage be felt?

It's only a matter of time. And look how shamefully easy it has been, how similar to Germany in the thirties: appealing to a sense of victimization, picking scapegoats, abetted by deliberate propagandists, leaders whip up anger ever more shrilly to ever more receptive and grateful audiences: yes, yes, we're being heard; our victimhood, our entitlement, our suffering at the hands of others. It's unfair. We're better than they are. They're taking away our freedoms. They hate our country, they hate us. They are undeserving, they don't belong here. They threaten our very way of life. They do.

They.

Down Is Up

If it didn't begin with Newt Gingrich, he certainly got the stone rolling down hill with his memo. Truth is irrelevant; in fact, it's best avoided. Make stuff up. Such is the central theme, the governing (as it weren't) principle of Republican leaders, and of those tasked with spreading their messages. And, oh, how well it works.

More than anything else, this is what bothers me so deeply about our political present, and future: that the opposition has resorted to overt lying in order to regain power. Redoubled, reiterated, reinforced by a dominant media network, their message takes hold disturbingly easily and thoroughly. And so it is that speeches like this get cheers -- not to mention other pretty ugly responses.

See, it's not as if there's nothing to criticize about President Obama, or about legislation that's come down the pike. But, long ago, Republicans realized that defending their central tenets of deregulation, tax cuts, and theocracy has gotten harder and harder as reality has shown the dangers and/or unworkability of each. Arguing their case on the merits has become all but impossible; it's a lot easier to distort ideas put forth by Democrats than it is to come up with their own new and useful ones. But if it became obvious that their core beliefs were anything but brilliant, their response to that realization most certainly was.

Brilliant.

Concluding they could no longer argue the rightness of their Ronaldian failures, they made that swift-slick and sly-sick calculation: we can still win elections without the work of producing ideas if we're willing to rewrite the past and lie about the present; the American voter is nothing if not malleable, gullible, and willingly ill-informed, they figured, and, boy, have they been right. Of what have they convinced their followers, whom they hold in such low esteem? Socialism! Soft on terror! Apology tours! Government takeover! Coming after your guns! Coming after your children! Giveaway to the banks! How else to explain the Republican filibuster of Wall Street reform, than that they figure they can lie about it with impunity; that they can keep bedding with bankers, and no one will care; that they can call their shit shinola and their RWS™ will fan it from the flatscreens, and the teabaggers will nod their heads, raise their fists, mad as hell without two facts to rub together in their low-taxed, gun-totin', misunderstood-Constitution-carrying hands.

As pathetic as Congressional Republican leaders are, as devoid of ethics as the RWS™ and their "news" channel may be, I'm not certain they're stupid enough to believe that stuff themselves. Which makes it worse. Following that Newtonian lead, they've overboarded all pretense and moved on without shame, leaving conscience behind, counting on the baseness of their base and the credulity of the rest. They have yet to be disappointed.

I know I repeat myself. I wish I could let it go. And, most assuredly, I continue to believe George Bush is the worst president of my lifetime and well beyond, with Ronald Reagan close at his neck. But at least I have facts on which to base my arguments. I don't make stuff up, I don't use words chosen for me by others. I point to actual events, positions, results. How few there are on the right that do the same, as relates to their commentary about Barack Hussein Obama.

Which is worse? The cynicism of the right wing leaders and their mouthpieceri, or the fact that they've found such fertile soil in which to dig? Either way, it bespeaks the coming of the end.

If I believed we could survive it, I'd say what the hell. Take that former half-term governor of a socialist state and stick her in the White House. Give John Boner the Speakership, McConnell the leadership, and let's do it all again: let's further widen the gap between rich and poor, let's Christianize our war plans once again, further theocratize our schools, let's cut taxes even more, privatize social security, unfetter all businesses from any regulation, let's drill everywhere, abandon CAFE standards, let's find another country to invade. Let's lift our middle fingers once again to the rest of the world, round up a few more American citizens and deny them counsel, let's repeal health care legislation, take away all equality for gays, and, while we're at it let's forget about stem cell research, let's outlaw Islam, jail brown people now and ask questions later.

But the thing is, as the passage of less than a sequiyear's time has shown, people have no political memory. Such destruction as would be wreaked, such proof, once again, of the fraud that is the tax-cut-deregulation-heterowhitesonly sum of all parts of the current Republican party, would no more bring the country to its senses than has, mere months later, the meltdown brought on by Bush, riding the coattails of Reagan, and the rhetoric born of Gingrich/Rove/Delay/Armey.

Newt may not have been the first to stumble upon the power of dishonesty. Sarah may not be the first to parlay it so recklessly. But their timing has been perfect. And not even Newt could have known that a mere few years after he opened his mouth, there'd be tea people only too happy to dip their bags right in.

Mind Control

I guess you could call it mind control, were minds involved on the receiving end.

Nevertheless, it goes well beyond amazing that the Republican party and its RWS™ and, downhill from the privy, its teabaggers, have, without the slightest hesitation or shame, turned to one guy, one cynical and very rich, very successful, brilliant even, propagandist extraordinaire, to put words into their mouths which they then, without a second thought, parrot and repeat, in unison, regardless of truth -- because it's untruthful -- robotically, unceasingly, willingly, unblinkingly, knowing as surely as the big lie always has, that it'll eventually become, in the minds (were thinking involved) of enough people, some perverse and zombified if unrecognizable version of truth, if by "truth," we accept the RWS™ meaning: namely, lie. Whew. Excellent sentence, if I may say so.

Frank Lunz gave us "government takeover" for the health care debate, when government takeover was (is) the last thing the bill was (is.) But to the teabaggers, it became and remains truth of Kenyan proportions. And now, to prevent the inarguably needed regulation of the Wall Street version of banking, he's given us "bailout" as a way of defeating legislation aimed, among other things, at ending the need for bailouts. Even as the ink dried, Mitch McConnell picked it up like a kid finding a shiny quarter on a dirty street and ran off with it, jowls jiggling, eyes blinking. In unison, his fellow lobotomates slavered their simultaneous sycophancy. None, not a one, cared to point out that the "bailout" fund was paid for by banks, to prevent tax money from being so used again. And when the offer came to remove the provision, it had no effect on their opposition, despite their claim that it had been their main objection. Their words are popcorn: empty puffery, dissolving in their mouths even before they are spoken.

Never mind that McConnell's mouthing of Luntz immediately followed a meeting with Wall Street bankers. Such overt pandering and craven disregard for the needs of the country no longer bothers him or any of his breed. Never mind that the lie is too much even for Mark Halperin (that link is worth a click). Certain of his echo chamber and the credulity given it, Mitch finds no need to hide his deception; not even the pretense, in his view, matters any more. You're dumb enough to buy it, he says to the baggers.

I must say, though, that even to a cynic like me it's pretty astounding that the beholden nature of Congressional Republicans to Wall Street and its money, and their patent unconcern for anyone not supremely wealthy is so undeniable, yet so unimportant to the teabaggers. I guess when you live downhill from that privy for long enough, shit starts to smell like team spirit, and crap tastes like chicken.

So here's the deal, teabaggers. Mitch McConnell, Frank Lunz, Fox "news" and the rest of the RWS™ don't actually care about you, except as votes. Tax cuts? The only ones important to them are the ones for the richest of the rich. Balanced budgets? Which Republican administration has ever had them? A talking point for the benefit of the credulous. Remember "deficits don't matter?" Trickle down economics? Did it work? (At least Obama isn't claiming his deficits -- and those inherited from Bush -- aren't serious; and he's doing something about them.) Wall Street reform? Last thing on their minds, other than as a hook in your mouths. Those bankers are their real constituents; those guys are them. Is there any doubt?

The fact is, teabaggers, the aforementioned Rs, their propaganda organ known as Fox "news", their word smiths and their screamers, all think you're stupid and gullible, susceptible to the most elementary of manipulations: words. They're treating you like it without so much as a twinge of doubt or compunction. So far, you haven't proved them wrong.

There's still time to wake up.

But not much.

Rooskies

Having studied it for several years, there was a time when I was a pretty good speaker of the Russian language. Better, in fact, than a number of high school teachers of it who were fellow participants in a language study tour of the Soviet Union during the summer of 1963. (If I may be self-indulgent for a moment -- what, a blogger? -- I'd add that I was complemented frequently, while there, on the authenticity of my accent, about which I took a modicum of pride, большое спасибо.) But that's not my point.

Even as a naive college sophomore, international politics-wise, it was apparent to me that the Soviet system was built on sand. Housed in huge and ugly buildings, squeezed into small apartments furnished sparsely and with modest and poorly-functioning appliances, citizens wore drab clothes, stood in pulsing crowds forming chaotic lines to purchase goods (worse: you first worked your way to a display to decide what you wanted and learn its price, then fought another crushing crowd to pay and get a receipt, then back to fighting your way to get the product with your ticket...), and worked in deteriorating and inefficient factories. What kept them going, what facilitated their acceptance of their lot, was everywhere: the government-promoted fear and hatred of America. Posters, slogans, billboards, singing it loud. There's nothing like an omnipresent enemy to let a government do what it wants, and have the people toe the line.

I mention this because of an column in today's New York Times, by which it seems we're back to square one:

[At] "a Halloween-themed rally in front of the American Embassy in Moscow...nearly 20,000 young people held pumpkins marked with the names of “America’s victims,” among them the casualties in South Ossetia. In an amateur film shown at the rally, an actor portraying a drunken George W. Bush bragged that the United States had engineered both world wars and the rise of Hitler to expand its power....

...In the post-Soviet era, many Russians are angry because their country has neither the stature nor the living standards that they believe it deserves.... As frustrations mount, it is often easier to blame an external force than the country’s own failings. It doesn’t help that the 1990s, when pro-Western attitudes were at their peak, are remembered as a time of poverty and insecurity. The result is an inferiority complex toward the West and, in particular, the United States, as the pre-eminent Western power and cold war rival. This widespread sentiment combines admiration, envy, grievance, resentment, and craving for respect and acceptance as an equal. Most Russians viewed the recent conflict in Georgia as a victory over the Americans — a matter less of strategic self-interest than of psychological self-assertion..."


I think it bodes ill.

And it can't help but make me wonder about our own sandy structures: two hot wars plus another (the one "on terror") wrapped tightly in the language of fear; the pillaging of the people in the name of promoting plutocrats; the abrogation of the Constitution; etc, ad nauseum...

When George Bush, after the failures of the aftermath of the Iraq invasion, trotted out George Tenant, Tommy Franks, and Paul Bremer, and hung Presidential Medals of Freedom around their necks, it reminded me of nothing so much as the ceremonies on the Kremlin wall, where Khrushchev or Brezhnev did the same to aging generals after the failure of another five-year plan.