At each twist and turn of this fairly bizarre spectacle, I hear the echo of those right-wing voices ring in my ears as they flip flop, dare I say, about the justifications for the Iraq war…and end up with suggesting that the “occupation” is there to impose “freedom” and “democracy.”
The first thing that jumps out at you about the US presidential election is that the next president is marketed like any other product. With flags and bunting and cheering crowds…. it all seems like the reality TV show, American Idol.
It is clearly all about “image” and “packaging.” Budweiser versus Miller beers, Republican versus Democrat politicians – and the recently concluded four-day “Conventions” are really a prolonged commercial break.
Or, as Micah Sifry and Nancy Watzman, authors of Is that a politician in your pocket? New York on 2 million dollars a day describe it, simply a trade show.
The money-political nexus is so blatant that no one even cares if the press is there to document the luxurious convention cocktail party held by this company or that in honor of (or is it gratitude to) this politician or that. To get elected you need a ton of money, much of which goes to the media. Politicians can get the money from people who have a ton of it, in return for….
Hey, if this is democracy, perhaps with their experience of the ultimate wheeler-dealer, Saddam Hussein, the Iraqis won't find democracy so difficult after all.
It is all a terrible reminder of that perceptive Osho comment that “democracy will be possible only when there are no politicians.”
The next thing that jumps out about this process is that it is dirty. The Lee Atwater/Carl Rove how-to-win-at-all-costs approach has clearly moved on from the Nixon days of clumsy break-ins linked to the White House. Let’s privatize that shit!
The use of whispering campaigns or rumor and innuendo to blacken the opponent has reached a new art form in recent times. Scary stuff when middle-aged establishment figures like Sidney Blumenthal begin see these activities as “the whiff of fascism” and reminiscent of “the McCarthy era.” The author of The Clinton Wars, Blumenthal also outlines the efforts (zillions of dollars of effort) made to discredit the Clintons over Whitewater, where they lost $65,000, and compares it with the kind of stuff getting scant attention by the media now. (Like the Bush-Saudi connection…$1.4 billion earned by friends of the presidents to date!)
Talking of Whitewater, when Bill Clinton spoke to a top Senator and asked what this was all about and said, “You know we didn’t do anything wrong.” He was told, “Of course we know that, this is about health care.” Uh? Translation: we blackened your name so you couldn’t get your health care legislation through.
Oh, and by the way, about the Saudis and those infamous flights out of the US immediately after 9/11. If you have found yourself getting swirled by the “did the Saudi’s get a special deal to leave the US quickly” issue, the facts seems to be the following. Yes, US airspace was open on September 13th, when the Saudi’s left by plane, but not for private flights as theirs was.
The current Republican dirty tricks department – now a private network of course – most famously whacked John McCain, so Bush would win the Republican nomination; then Ambassador Jo Wilson for daring to expose the White House for lying, sorry “mis-speaking” is the new euphemism in Washington, about Saddam’s nuclear ambitions. (At least there is an official investigation into this with both the President and Vice-President hiring lawyers to defend themselves against the federal crime involved in the retaliation. By the way, John Dean’s new book, Worse than Watergate is apparently quite a shocker.) And now they are whacking John Kerry with the “Swift Boat” ads.
Dirty tricks might be another bit of democracy that the Baghdadis may not need much help in understanding!
At a deeper level there is the testosterone factor. Angry, white males, and others, thumping their chests, usually with a Bible close at hand, denouncing anyone who disagrees with them, irrespective of the facts. As Bill Maher put it: “There are two kinds of people in America. Those superstitious, religious people who think we should decide things like we used to five hundred years ago, by looking at chicken entrails, and those who prefer to use a compass. I am with the compass folks.” These testosterone-poisoned guys are definitely not into compasses.
Take a look at a stomach-churning article by Joe Bageant to get a sense of how the compass-free, testosterone factor plays out in the heartland!
No wonder that Arnold is given such a free ride for his potentially humorous but actually quite insidious “girlie man” stuff. Or Bush landing on the aircraft carrier deck in a jet with his “mission accomplished” claims. Or the rapes, beatings, and killings that took place in Abu Ghraib prison and elsewhere in the “war on terror.” Or actually, the same thing that goes on throughout the huge prison industry on the US mainland. At least according to The New York Times, Abu Ghraib was really business as usual. Cheney’s latest salvo warning people that a vote for anyone but his team means Osama will get you again is just the latest in this machismo appeal to the fearful voter. Didn’t 9/11 happen during Bush’s presidency?
Whenever people seem to be relaxing enough to make a rational choice for a more thoughtful and a less “bar-room brawl” approach to international politics, the Justice Department can be relied upon to discover “reliable and credible intelligence” about some new terrorist attack or other. Think of the scorn Kerry received for using the word “sensitive” about his approach to the world. But that is the key to testosterone. It was never about being “effective,” it was always about being “right” or “dominant”… at least being seen to kick ass.
So, what was meant to be a somewhat shocking comment about the relationship between US citizens and their foreign policy representatives – that it was like being “married to Don Corleone” – which we quoted before, see below, has now become a virtue. And to help all this along the media have now invented “Security Mums” to replace the “Soccer Mums” of old.
But all is not lost. What goes around comes around. Take a read of this interview with Chris Hedges, author of War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, where he "unravels the myths and dysfunctional nationalism that grip nations heading to war; the intoxicating effect of these causes and rhetoric; and the terrible costs that soldiers, victims and societies pay – when the realities of war – not the rhetoric – are experienced."
Or hear even arch conservative, Pat Buchanan, author of Where the Right Went Wrong: How Neoconservatives Subverted the Reagan Revolution and Hijacked the Bush Presidency declare very loudly that, "terrorism is caused by empire." So eventually, "Bring 'em on" won't survive as a foreign policy for the "war on terror." A little more nuance required perhaps?
The wonderful thing about America is how transparent things are. Politicians everywhere have only one real interest: to get reelected. Kissing babies and pretending to care about people is just the means. In America, hardly anyone even suggests otherwise. No wonder more people don't vote than support either candidate.
The two big party machines just roll into action, choose the best “face” to put up front, and then sell him or her with whatever it takes. Money, lies, innuendo, smear tactics…. And it is all done so openly and shamelessly. It is simply about posture and persuasion, speechwriters, delivery, and tactics. But if the Republicans can boil the whole campaign down to the testosterone versus fear factor, then they will contrive a win. It just isn’t the Democrats’ stock in trade. As Bush put it, "Some people may call it an arrogant swagger, but in Texas we call it walking." Which is bullshit by the way. The people coming out of Fahrenheit 9/11 in downtown Dallas, Texas were as moved as people anywhere, and none were swaggering.
Then finally, there are the issues. Forgedaboudit. For that you need the media. These mainstream media "experts" are often more concerned with being “important personalities" with “opinions,” scoring points in shouting matches with clever sound bites rather than establishing the facts. So it’s pretty hard to find out what the real issues are or who is saying what. Global Warming? Everyone shouts at once for a minute or two followed by "We need to take a break. We will be back after these messages...." Next. At least there is Comedy Central and C-SPAN, but I don't think it touches the NASCAR nation.
And in any case, no one with two grey cells to rub together could possible know what the smart thing to do will be in six months time on practically any issue. So “nuance” is just about all there is to go on, despite the attempts to ridicule Kerry for actually seeing the subtlety of things. But that doesn’t fit the required “Me Tarzan, you Jane” style of today’s campaigning.
Nuance? Come on you Iraqi Mullahs. If this is democracy? No worries. Nuance is one thing there is no shortage of in Baghdad, Inshallah – as they say on the dollar bills, in English of course.
So, the whole thing is really a mad vicious circle. The media are in the entertainment business. The politicians are reduced to selling their “product” just like any regular washing powder. The world is an ever more complicated place with each issue being subtly intertwined with every other. And most people are busy. Not to mention the fact that given the average IQ is by definition, 100, not many people are going to be able to understand the issues, even if they cared. And this is how we decide who is to be the most powerful man in the world? Anyone for a meritocracy yet?
The strange thing about this universal “belief” in democracy is that nothing within America, except these votes to elect politicians every few years, even pretends to be democratic. The Bush Campaign? The Kerry campaign? The White House? Microsoft? GE? The US Army? The local fire department? The local hostpital? I mean if you were sick, you find the best expert opinions, or three. And then decide what to do. You wouldn’t put the options up for a popular vote of hospital staff! So why would we treat a sick planet any differently?
In case the reader feels this article is just part of the “Why Do They Hate Us” category of writing, that is not the idea, which is to support America in ways that will be beneficial to all, both inside and outside these borders.
And just to reiterate that point, where else in the world could Bill Maher end his weekly TV show with this wonderfully funny Bushwhack: Bush is pictured in heroic mode standing over the remains of the World Trade Center in a fireman’s hat hugging a real fireman, and Maher says, “When will George Bush realize that 9/11 was not his finest hour, it was a fuck up by a guy on vacation.”
As Osho says, in spite of everything, "Bravo America."
Comments