What the health of the Republic requires, in other words, may not be a new crop of leakers and whistleblowers, or a fresh young generation of Woodwards and Bernsteins — or even a more independent, aggressive media. What it may need is a new population (or half of a population, anyway), one that hasn’t been stupified or brainwashed into blind submission, that won’t look upon sadistic corruption and call it patriotism, and that will refuse to trade the Bill of Rights for a plastic Jesus and a wholly false sense of security.
Back to Main
June 3, 2005
Sore Throat
Comments
The Republic is rather obviously beyond saving now — even George Lucas understands that.
Is this just a reference to Star Wars III ?
Or has George Lucas actually said something to that effect ?
Posted by: khr | Jun 3 2005 7:03 utc | 1
I can dig Billmon’s thesis, particularly the ‘we need a new population’ part, except for one one thing.
It’s not more Richard Clarke’s and Joseph Darby’s and Sibel Edmonds that we need.
Because they’re out there where they can get smeared.
It’s the anon’s we need.
Real ones…..hard breaking 92 mile an hour sliders, not curveballs, that buckles the knees and scares the crap out of every Rovian who steps into the box.
I mean, do you think that Pat ‘Foamin Mouth’ Buchannan wouldn’t have done his best to Saturday Night Massacre Felt at the time if he’d known who he was?
.
As Billmon rightly points out, the truth is out there. We all know what’s going on. It’s the fucking MSM and that is why we are blogging.
Posted by: Friendly Fire | Jun 3 2005 8:09 utc | 3
RossK – that’s exactly what billmon says – the scandals are there for all to know about already.
But nobody cares. Or at least, not enough people care to make it politically significant. That’s what billmon – rightly – laments.
The population – more than half of it – does not mind Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, Nnron, etc
Posted by: Jérôme | Jun 3 2005 8:10 utc | 4
RossK,
I think Billmon is actually wrong about the whole other half of the population bit. Not to get over-reliant on the The Daily Show, but in a recent show in a skit on Watergate, Carrell said that it would be impossible for Watergate to happen again because today the facts themselves have become unreliable in the he said, she said media culture.
Couple that with some classical Pavlovian conditioning that somehow the word liberal and the word democrat are evil and there you go. It is the second chapter of Intro to Psych. Which is fitting because of Karl Rove is a college dropout, he probably never read to the end. However Dems are dumb for countering this with rubish sociological theories consultants are feeding to them. The real truth is much more simple, we just need to go back to Intro to Psych Chapter 3. Too bad I sold my book back to the bookstore. Anyone still got a copy?
Posted by: Bubb Rubb | Jun 3 2005 8:11 utc | 5
I seem to remember that the dems sat on their hands in 72 n 73 WaPo went in hard no one paid any attention and walking down the street with a sign saying impeach Nixon was more likely to get a mob of hard hats running off a buiding site and playin rat-a-tat-tat on your skull than anything else.
The only difference I can see is that the assholes lost back then and they changed their tactics whereas the resistance didn’t because they won it wasn’t neccessary.
But we be can water dripping on stone and all that. We will get there. Every political career ends in defeat. Blogging may not have the vicarious pleasure of throwing rocks but rock throwing didn’t do much either. It would have been great if BushCo had gone down in a shitstorm of votes but that’s not what got Nixon.
These boys are riding on a wave of hubris and we shouldn’t let their stupidity, cupidity and lack of regard rub off on us. They cannot control the uncontrollable, they aren’t geniuses or gods they are just greedheads and they will come undone. Even without the pressure from outside. They are already slipping off the ship. Wolfowitz doing a MacNamara was the first sign. Their greed will divide them because some will be satied quite easily and some are insatiable.
We’ve seen it before and yes for the sake of a lot of people it would be better sooner rather than later. It will be frustrating if they aren’t all locked up as war criminals but I still think this will be the last war where a so-called civilised country’s leaders order the bombing of civilians with impunity.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Jun 3 2005 8:42 utc | 6
Xymphora (different take, interesting, but I have no opinion, I only saw the movie).
Posted by: DM | Jun 3 2005 12:03 utc | 7
…that won’t look upon sadistic corruption and call it patriotism…
Amen
Posted by: coral | Jun 3 2005 13:00 utc | 8
Too many layers of interpretation between the “fact” and the public awareness: the message is indeed manipulated endlessly; the “public” (not just the 51%) is busy watching American Idol and Desperate Housewives; the “patriotic”/hate/scare machine is hugely successful thusfar, etc., etc. I mean, given the choice, wouldn’t you, Joe Public, just rather continue to follow whatever hypnotic path you’re currently treading and assume the default position — regardsless of whatever you mouthe — to be the xenophobic/shoot first option? I mean, versus thinking.
Posted by: DonS | Jun 3 2005 13:23 utc | 9
2006 will be a real Rorschach Test for the American people.
Do they want to live in the truth or live in a lie.
Posted by: Scott McArthur | Jun 3 2005 14:10 utc | 10
I think Bilmon hit the target dead centre once again. The fault is not in the stars, but in ourselves. We got fat and lazy. Many potential reasons: the success of the ‘me first’philosophy in killing the idea of a public good, the decline of local community that is a by-product of America’s suburbanization, the disappearance of civics education in our schools, the virtual collapse of the union movement, diminished attention span. Who knows? But a lot of people have stopped caring, and worse, have stopped believing that they can make a difference. We are like sheep.
Everybody thinks they can survive the game of musical chairs. But when the music stops, there are never enough.
Posted by: Knut Wicksell | Jun 3 2005 14:53 utc | 11
As ususal Billmon is right on.
However, what is occurring now has never happened before in US history. Right now Amtrak is in the cross hairs of the Bush Administration. On the All Aboard Yahoo Group this message was recently posted. “Passenger rail is a subject most of us on the list know well. We know it well enough to be able to tell when we are being lied to. Imagine how many other lies we are being told but we don’t know it because those lies are about subjects we are not intimate with! Makes one wonder, doesn’t it? After all, are we to believe that Amtrak is the only subject the administration feels it must lie about?”
Before the Bush Administration there was spin, public relations and feel good propaganda like “Victory at Sea”. Now there are lies and more lies, repeated over and over, until they have the veneer of reality when watched through the prism of corporate media. But, they are still damn lies and the Bush Administration is delusional to believe they are reality. When the lies are pointed out the GOP counters with the emotional gambit that their critics are angry. Then they continue to lie.
Posted by: Jim S | Jun 3 2005 15:26 utc | 12
I think what is happening today is the result of 30 plus years of Republican thinking that Nixon’s only crime was not burning the tapes.
The best part of the Felt story as far as I’m concerned, is that he was a convicted felon pardoned by Reagan. No one’s talking about that angle much, as far as I can tell.
Posted by: bcf | Jun 3 2005 16:19 utc | 13
hmmm…
reminds of recent thread here, with several respected posters expressing doubts about reality/semantics of “media manipulation”. Alabama said:
I find the notion (very wide-spread) that the media exercise a powerful control over people’s minds to be suspect, unproven, and, finally, a kind of demonization. At the very least, it forecloses the possibility that people are making decisions, consensually, quite in advance of the media.
I vividly recall several art galleries in SF, hosting exhibits by Russian artists just after Soviet Breakup. It was vivid and troubling… all sorts of visual metaphors with massive, contorted monsters (government) being serviced in one way or another large crowds of slave like workers. My take (along with best available literature at the time) was of an emerging opportunity for freedom/independent thought fighting a perilous battle with a really bad hangover that didn’t want to go away… essentially, mind control.
Posted by: JDMcKay | Jun 3 2005 16:32 utc | 14
Who’s opposed–and to what? Why? And how did they get there? If you’re old enough to have opposed the war in Viet Nam as a young adult, then the war in Iraq is a re-run, an “old acquaintance” that we understand (or think we understand) only too well. Israel? If you come, as I do, from a certain political background, you will always regard the creation of Israel as an imposition –something to live with, maybe, but not to affirm. Thus the war in Iraq, as a neo-con military exercise in support of Israel, becomes doubly deplorable–the “Zionist” re-run of a “cold war” folly.
Posted by: alabama | Jun 3 2005 17:15 utc | 16
Given where I come from, then, it’s not hard to oppose this war, and loudly. But how do I feel about Islamic fundamentalism? Or theocracy as such? Am I, in principle, pro-Baath in that party’s supression of Islam, or am I pro-Islam, supporting Islam’s resistance to Christian and Jewish fundamentalism? Have I learned to object , intelligently and absolutely, to the presence of American troops on foreign soil? I think that dealing with these questions is the necessary preliminary to any objection , pertinent and unpretentious, to the bad policies of our major parties (of our body politic). Yes, I voted for Kerry, but does this count as a gesture of protest against this war? If it does, it was sotto voce , and hardly a cause for soreness in the throat.
Posted by: alabama | Jun 3 2005 17:15 utc | 17
Billmon is the Michael Jordan of internet writers.
But Kerry was the Plan B to Bush last time. When the “liberals” field a fit candidate with a fit agenda and an’t put together a majority, then I will accept the thesis. But I watched a friend, a swing vote, go from ready to vote for Kerry to get rid of Bush, to no way, after he actually listening to Kerry for that critical, tail between the legs, period when Kerry ran from swift Boat veterans for the truth, not to mention global test, etc., etc., etc.
Bush is in office because he is better than his competition, and I don’t think Bush is good at all.
Posted by: razor | Jun 3 2005 17:29 utc | 18
Bush is in office because he is better than his competition, and I don’t think Bush is good at all.
better at what?
Posted by: JDMcKay | Jun 3 2005 17:49 utc | 19
Bush and the Republicans are better at coming across as a human to swing voters than Kerry or Gore, better at coming off as meaning what they say (not that they does)better at not pandering to losing causes better at not payng for their gross mistakes better at not getting caught up in special interest happy talk when there is a war on better at dishing it out than those who boast bring it on are at taking it.
What sane human would have said “global test”? What sane human would have put Bob Schrum in charge? What sane human would have run away from Bill Clinton? The list is endless, the point simple, the competitive electoral competition to Bush has been grossly incompetent so Bush is better. That is the point of holding an election. Elections decide competitions. The Republicans won. They are better. What’s worse, Republicans have been winning with losing hands because the Democrats really really suck. What is inexcusable is coming up with an excuse that the democrats really are better even though they repeatedly lose with a winning hand.
Don’t forget, even in the he said she said era of dead journalism, the democrats get their say – unlike those outside the two gangs. They just can’t say anything worth saying. Perhaps the population should figure it out independently, and decide incompetent democrats who don’t really represent them are better than incompetent Republicans, but what are the odds of that ever happening anywhere in the world?
Posted by: Razor | Jun 3 2005 18:21 utc | 20
yes to everything you said. I’ve thought this since Abu Grab didn’t get the american people into the streets screaming! Daily I tell myself the next thing will do it, but it doesn’t. Maybe half the people is all we’ll ever get. The other half are the left over racist, warmongers, and skin heads who have always been around, just under different names.
Our half may just be enough one of these days lol
Posted by: rmforsyth | Jun 3 2005 18:29 utc | 21
Of course it’s out there.
And it was out there in 1938.
But to attack it you need an anon. to dribble it out, day after day, from behind the curtain (or the flower pot on the balcony as it were) so that the MSM takes it as narrative and the Rovians can’t kill it.
Hell, if I remember correctly there was even a money trail thing that almost ended up as a ‘KerningKill’ but they just kept on going because nobody could be pinned for it.
So, I guess what I’m saying is that this could be better than Billmon’s not long ago call for a better than ReThug Left-sided Prop Machine…..In other words, the real deal, but on the sly.
.
Speaking of intro psychology, the current situation in the US comes down to cognitive dissonance. Sure, people are bothered by the war and gas prices and political nonsense but people are willing to ignore it so long as their day to day lives are not interrupted.
Does the cable still work? Am I still getting paid? Can I still get an 800-calorie burger in less than 3 minutes? What’s gonna happen to that ‘runaway bride’ girl?
It has to get worse, much worse, before it gets better.
Hopefully I’m dead by then.
Posted by: kilgoretrout | Jun 3 2005 18:44 utc | 23
I suppose that because the Republicans have always the closer connection to capital (funding) and its own interests, the left is always in a lopsided struggle for the truth. And it is the the more difficult struggle, in that the message is built upon the actual truth (of human values) as opposed to a truth fabricated through propaganda, advertising, and faith.The republican message(as an idea) would die overnight if capital withdrew its support. When the Democrats abandoned the left, to take the easy money, they lost their only real distinction from the Republicans along with their power.
Posted by: anna missed | Jun 3 2005 18:47 utc | 24
I totally agree with Billmon on this issue.
I will add two other points though:
1. Scandal overload. We can’t sort through the countless, daily proof of corruption from the Bush admin. People tune it out.
2. There has been no “romantic” scandal names…one that can be labelled something memorable like Deep Throat. Americans love simple things like Deep Throat. Can’t forget Deep Throat.
We call EVERYTHING… [recentscandal]-gate. After so many, no one cares anymore.
Posted by: A Lerxst in Wonderland | Jun 3 2005 19:49 utc | 25
“one that hasn’t been stupified or brainwashed into blind submission”
I’m unconvinced Rove didn’t rig the election anyway.
Posted by: slothrop | Jun 3 2005 20:03 utc | 26
Trying to get a little perspective here…
Razor I pretty much agree with your line of thought except that it has been pretty much proven that both of the Dub’s elections were stolen. So no, they didn’t “win” unless credit is to be given for cheating successfully. (also I have a strong conviction that Kerry was in on the deal, and wouldn’t have accepted the presidency in any case)
As many of us discussed here last Fall (remember this because it is important) it was very uncertain what the Dems would do with the presidency if they got it. Toward the end, many here were ready to give it to the repugs in hopes of accelerating the crash.
I light of their performance over the last few years, the Dems would have been stymied, crushed, ground up into hamburger if they had taken the WH in 2004.
So…which party wins isn’t the point at all is it.
Posted by: rapt | Jun 3 2005 20:13 utc | 27
Billmon’s piece reminds me of what George Carlin said just a few short years ago when I saw him live.
Quoting from memory here:
If you elect dishonest, incompetant Americans, you’re going to have dishonest, incompetent leaders. Term limits won’t do anything more than turn that dishonest, incompetent politician right back into a dishonest, incompetent American so maybe — maybe — it isn’t the politicians who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here … like, the public? Hey, there’s a campaign slogan for somebody: THE PUBLIC SUCKS! F–K HOPE! Because, if the politicans are the ones who suck so much, then where are all the bright upstanding people of character who are ready to step in and lead the way? We don’t have people like that in this country. Everybody is at the mall scratching their ass, picking their nose, and taking a damned credit card out of their clipped-to-the-hip fanny packs all for a goddamned pack of gum. Paying 18% interest on Tic-Tacs, for Christ’s sakes. I’m telling you, the next random asshole in front of me at the grocery store that pays for Newsweek with his VISA is getting decapitated by that little plastic seperator thing! Yes. Yes, I’m gonna wait until he’s facing the clerk and *SHOOOK* off it comes where it’ll bounce twice on the scanner and roll down the conveyor where the pimply faced kid is waiting to absent-mindedly stick it a bag thinking it was head of lettuce.”
Granted, it was hilarious at the time.
Today, it’s just the sad truth.
“What? People were tortured by our soliders?!? Big deal! If I don’t buy myself this X-Box, the terrorists win!”
@Razor:
(R’s are better at a,b,c… z)…
ok, thanks for your detailed response: ruined my day (of course, you’re correct). There’s something unsettling about R’s being “better” at Al Capone/Tammany Hall tactics, and referring to this condition as “the truth.”
Posted by: JDMcKay | Jun 4 2005 15:30 utc | 31
Ben Stein is a really smart man, as you might know if you’ve seen his TV show or read through his resumé. How can he really believe that “[Nixon’s enemies] had been laying for him since he proved that Alger Hiss was a traitor, since Alger Hiss was their fair-haired boy” and that Nixon could somehow have stopped South Vietnam from falling and prevented the Khmer Rouge from taking over Cambodia?
The first sounds like paranoid delusion, and the latter seems to assign Nixon superpowers. I mean, did Woodward, Bernstein, and Felt all have such fanatical adoration for Hiss that they schemed against Nixon since 1950? And how well was the Vietnam War going?
Is there an explanation I’m missing?
Posted by: random | Jun 4 2005 16:48 utc | 32
JDMcKay
Come on.
The unsettling thing is to believe that Democrats are incapable of competing on featuers. People with superior product don’t need to play used car dealer. I am unsettled that there is superior product out there and all around, but the Democrats aren’t interested in it. That is why I have hope.
If a new democrat could be put together with pieces from this one and that one, a candidate could be constructed that could easily win – unless some losing cause ME ME ME special interest would not tolerate loss of its special status. Which is just another way of say within the Democratic party is the potential, but, whether the maturity is also there is an iffier matter.
Posted by: razor | Jun 4 2005 19:19 utc | 33
@Razor:
Oh c’mon
huh? I thought I agreed w/you prior to banging my head through wall.
I am unsettled that there is superior product out there and all around, but the Democrats aren’t interested in it.
full ack.
That is why I have hope.
ok. (scatching head… looking up definition: hope… scratching head).
Which is just another way of say within the Democratic party is the potential, but, whether the maturity is also there is an iffier matter.
Perhaps take solace in knowledge there’s only 3 more years… ’till Jeb moves in. 🙁
Posted by: JDMcKay | Jun 5 2005 1:39 utc | 34
JDMcKay
I am guilty of the incoherence. Often. Sorry. I was reacting to the Capone reference but neglected to mention it.
The Democrats could compete. I think there is a 25.5 chance they will. And I think that rather than take the low road and compete like Capone, which may work and they may try, if they compete on issues and results, and take the high road, they absolutely would win.
Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 5 2005 2:18 utc | 35
@Razor:
Sorry
N/P.
And I think that rather than take the low road and compete like Capone
I too worry about that.
I don not, however, share your optimism unless something is done about the voting machines. AFAIC, they are fixed and impenetrable.
And (given talk of media influence around here lately), I shudder thinking of dems ability to effectively deal w/next round of SBVT type shit. To date, they’ve been like deer in the headlights.
Posted by: JDMcKay | Jun 5 2005 4:14 utc | 36
Naughty Billmon!
Ten seconds of Google would have told you – the name of the Abu Ghraib whistleblower is Sgt. Joseph Darby.
“I’m Google – Search Me” indeed! 🙂
Posted by: Tlazolteotl | Jun 6 2005 21:27 utc | 37