Beat Bush: But don't lose your sanity

yahoo.com ^ | May 9, 2003 | Marc Cooper

[Cincinatus' Wife]

An American friend of mine visiting from South America walked away from one of last month's parties around the L.A. Times Books Festival rather shaken and bewildered. "I felt like I was in a loony bin," he said as we emerged from a chic book-launch party in the Hollywood Hills. "If one more crazy person came up to me with some crackpot theory, I swear I would have thrown him off the balcony," he said.

I know what he meant. With the 2004 presidential campaign now under way, it seems clear that as whacked out as George W. Bush may be, he's driving his opponents even crazier. Nothing short of some sort of mass hysteria has gripped everyone to the left of Condi Rice.

Within one 30-minute period during that book gathering, my friend and I logged the following revelations offered us by some of our fellow partygoers: Bush will steal the 2004 election because "It's all in the voting machines, keep your eye on those machines." There will be no next election because Bush will stage an auto-coup. Bush's 70 percent approval rating for the war isn't real, it's a made-up number. American, not Iraqi, troops set the oil wells on fire in 1991. U.S. Marines directed and orchestrated the looting of Baghdad. Fidel Castro didn't really want to lock up all those writers and execute those three hijackers without a proper trial, but the Bush administration forced him to do it. We've entered a period of cultural repression worse than McCarthyism. And, my current favorite, Michael Moore wasn't really booed at the Oscars, instead, the network ran an amplified and prerecorded loop to discredit him. (I know this one is crazy because I alone booed loudly enough from my Woodland Hills living room to be clearly heard in the Kodak's upper deck.)

Where does all this paranoia come from? Fluoride in the water? And these hyperbolic views are hardly confined to the political amateurs drawn to Sunday-evening gatherings by finger food and Chardonnay. In the current edition of The Nation, Princeton professor emeritus of politics Sheldon Wolin argues that the Bush administration has embarked on building a regime akin to that of Nazi Germany and that ordinary GOP voters might be no less than the "mass base" needed for totalitarian rule (wait till my poor blue-rinsed Aunt Gertie finds out she actually joined up with the Sturmabteilung when she voted last March for that nice-looking Billy Simon).

Even this month's liberal American Prospect proclaims George W. Bush as "The Most Dangerous President Ever." I can buy the notion that Dubya might be the worst president ever. But the most dangerous? More dangerous than nuke-slinging Harry Truman, who also set up the CIA, helped spawn the Cold War and opened the doors to Senator Joe from Wisconsin? More dangerous than LBJ, who murdered a couple of million Vietnamese? What about a drunken and pilled-out Dick Nixon playing atomic roulette during the 1973 Arab-Israeli War?

I'll be the first to admit that it's galling to watch a smirking C-minus daddy's boy like George W. Bush get away with so much. But let's not lose our grip on reality. Things are bad enough that we need not exaggerate or fabricate. What really worries me is that by magnifying the damage Bush wreaks, we pave the way to settling for some really, truly sorry alternative like, say, Dick Gephardt. We also make it much harder to beat him.

Those who deny Bush's popularity and his appeal aren't so much living in Nuremberg as in la-la land. To millions of Americans still traumatized after September 11, watching Bush strut onto the flight deck of that aircraft carrier in his TV-friendly pilot's suit last week was a much more reassuring image than that of Big Bill getting his weenie waxed under the desk while taking congressional phone calls about Bosnia.

So let's do a quick reality check. No, Mr. Wolin, we are not living in Nazi Germany nor anything vaguely resembling it. And arguing that Bush is some sort of Nazi isn't going to win over a single undecided vote. Bush has shown more or less the same zeal to roll back civil liberties as Clinton did after Oklahoma City. And you can be sure John Ashcroft has a soft spot in his heart for Janet Reno, who didn't flinch on extending the death penalty.

Tim Robbins, Janeane Garofalo and the Dixie Chicks are going to continue to make millions of dollars, thank you very much. And some deluded right-wingers pushing commercial boycotts and attack Web sites are a far cry from the blacklists, loyalty oaths and mass firings of teachers of a half century ago.

What we are instead confronted with is a highly ideological conservative administration that wants to go even further than the Democrats in lavishing tax giveaways and regulatory benefits on the corporate elite. We've seen this before in American history, and we have survived, without having to learn German.

With unemployment at an eight-year high, consumer confidence stalled, and even some moderate Republicans bailing on the most insidious tax-cut measures, the administration's domestic program is in tatters. Plans for privatizing Medicare and Social Security have been scuttled by the soured stock market. Dreams of endless war seem to be crashing on the hard beach of Iraqi Shia intransigence and decaying security in Afghanistan. With the unexpected demotion of Occupation Proconsul Jay Garner this week, there are even suggestions that the balance of power in the administration might be tipping away from the neoconservative Jacobins and back toward the corporate types.

Bush can be beaten. But not if we speak in a language that is alien and offensive to those we wish to convince. Their fears are real and legitimate and should not be dismissed as solely effects of watching too much Fox TV.

As a teenager, I was attracted to the left because of its commitment to rational and cool-headed analysis. It was amusing to watch the Birchers and the extreme right twist themselves up into feverish rants against secret U.N. cabals, one-world government and, yes, water fluoridation. Let's not become like them.

[woofer]

They'd sell their souls to have power.

Check your tenses.

I believe they have sold their souls, or at least a mere shadow of what may be considered a 'soul'.

[weegee]

Yes. I saw that article, but thanks anyway. As others pointed out, the BBC could be found guilty of the same thing.

I pointed out that there was a reason that left wing hate radio (Pacifica) felt safe with their decision to broadcast BBC World News on the half hour 24 hours a day now.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

President George W. Bush walks the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln after landing there aboard an S-3B Viking, as the carrier steamed toward San Diego, California, May 1, 2003. From the deck of the carrier, Bush was to address the nation to say that all major combat in Iraq has ended. Bush will spend the night on the carrier, which is stopping off in San Diego before heading for its home port in Everett, Washington. The Lincoln has been at sea for nearly ten months.Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

[weegee]

They are slowly waking up to the face of the DemocRat party that we've been seeing for over a decade.

There was a reason that many of us could spot Bill Clinton for the slick liar that he was before he took office. It took his defenders until 1998 to believe that he was actually lying to them.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Bump!

[Rocky]

This guy says some of his liberal cohorts have gone bonkers. And then he makes the following unsubstantiated statements and assertions, as though any sane person would know these to be true:

"as whacked out as George W. Bush may be"

"I can buy the notion that Dubya might be the worst president ever."

"nuke-slinging Harry Truman, who also set up the CIA, helped spawn the Cold War and opened the doors to Senator Joe from Wisconsin" - nuke-slinging, spawned the cold war?

"LBJ, who murdered a couple of million Vietnamese" - it was all his fault? No communist culpability?

"drunken and pilled-out Dick Nixon playing atomic roulette during the 1973 Arab-Israeli War" - talk about whacko accusations!

"it's galling to watch a smirking C-minus daddy's boy like George W. Bush get away with so much"

"the damage Bush wreaks"

"Dreams of endless war"

"As a teenager, I was attracted to the left because of its commitment to rational and cool-headed analysis" - this one really tickles me.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Yeah, he wants them to know he's hip - just playing it "smarter."

[Reactionary]

I think you're right. Unfortunately, they've been fed such nonsense for so long there's little hope for them. Apllying duct tape to liberal skulls is an impossibility at this late date.

Honestly, I find all of this fascinating. Liberals are finally seeing that propaganda only works if there are no alternative views ever presented. The downside is, of course, that propaganda also makes your followers into delusional idiots. After years of attributing every sin and crazy attribute to conservatives, its nice to see them collapse under the weight of their rhetoric.

[Miss Marple]

I am seeeing that President Bush is a further litmus test in my judgement of people; part one was the reaction to Bill Clinton.

I can deal with people who thought Clinton was ok (there are a lot of stupid folks in the world.) It is when they start waxing rhapsodic about the wonders of WJC that I start looking for an exit.

Now it is true some of these Clinton fans are simply fans of celebrity in general, and although clueless not my enemy.

But when Clinton adorers also express hatred for the President, I realize that they are sworn enemies of anything I hold dear, and I quickly remove them from my circle of acquaintance.

Anyone who holds views like this will never get my business, visit my home, or date my daughter!

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Excerpted from Hillary Clinton and the Racial Left…… Ever since abandoning the utopian illusions of the progressive cause, I have been struck by how little the world outside the left seems to actually understand it. How little those who have not inhabited the progressive mind are able to grasp the ruthless cynicism behind its idealistic mask or the fervent malice that drives its hypocritical passion for "social justice."

No matter how great the crimes progressives commit, no matter how terrible the future they labor to create, no matter how devastating the catastrophes they leave behind, the world outside the faith seems ever ready to forgive them their "mistakes" and to grant them the grace of "good intentions."

If others could understand your truth, you would not think of yourself as a "vanguard." You would no longer inhabit the morally charmed world of an elite, whose members alone can see the light and whose mission is to lead the unenlightened towards it. If everybody could see the promised horizon and knew the path to reach it, the future would already have happened and there would be no need for the vanguard of the saints.

That is both the ethical core and psychological heart of what it means to be a part of the left. That is where the gratification comes from. To see yourself as a social redeemer. To feel anointed. In other words: To be progressive is itself the most satisfying narcissism.

That is why it is of little concern to them that their socialist schemes have run aground, burying millions of human beings in their wake. That is why they don't care that their panaceas have caused more human suffering than all the injustices they have ever challenged. That is why they never learn from their "mistakes." That is why the continuance of Them is more important than any truth.

If you were active in the so-called "peace" movement or in the radical wing of the civil rights causes, why would you tell the truth? Why would you tell people that no, you weren't really a "peace activist," except in the sense that you were against America's war. Why would you draw attention to the fact that while you called yourselves "peace activists," you didn't oppose the Communists' war, and were gratified when America's enemies won?

What you were really against was not war at all, but American "imperialism" and American capitalism. What you truly hated was America's democracy, which you knew to be a "sham" because it was controlled by money in the end. That's why you wanted to "Bring the Troops Home," as your slogan said. Because if America's troops came home, America would lose and the Communists would win. And the progressive future would be one step closer.

you never had the honesty-then or now-to admit that. You told the lie then to maintain your influence and increase your power to do good (as only the Chosen can). And you keep on telling the lie for the same reason.

Why would you admit that, despite your tactical support for civil rights, you weren't really committed to civil rights as Americans understand rights? What you really wanted was to overthrow the very Constitution that guaranteed those rights, based as it is on private property and the individual-both of which you despise. ***

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Bump!

[AmericanVictory]

We like to think of this as the "FR Effect." The Left has always been loony. It's just that now their loony ideas are now exposed to Truth because the central command media no longer have the ability to wrongfully insist that such nutcake ideas are sane.

[William McKinley]

I know what he meant. With the 2004 presidential campaign now under way, it seems clear that as whacked out as George W. Bush may be, he's driving his opponents even crazier. Nothing short of some sort of mass hysteria has gripped everyone to the left of Condi Rice.

'Everyone is sick but me'. The guy doesn't have it hit him that, if he considers Bush to be 'whacked out', then it probably is a good indication that he has gone a bit nuts himself.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

I think a lot of people who'd gotten comfortable holding their hand out (here and abroad), are now being forced to look at the horrible party they've been supporting and are a little bit sick after looking in the mirror and seeing who's been aiding and abetting them.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

But, hey, he doesn't want to miss out on all those great star-studded cocktail parties.

[Jeff Chandler]

>>lavishing tax giveaways and regulatory benefits on the corporate elite. <<

Letting people keep more of their own money is a "giveaway", and easing the heavy burden of government on business is a "benefit", and the evil Repubublicans are lavishing them both on the "corporate elite". Now there's some rational and cool-headed analysis.

[Reaganesque]

It was amusing to watch the Birchers and the extreme right twist themselves up into feverish rants against secret U.N. cabals, one-world government and, yes, water fluoridation. Let's not become like them.

To late, pal. They're already there. Have been for years.

[patriciaruth]

Don't forget the "C- Daddy's boy" lie. George had a better gpa in college than Al Gore, although neither of them was a star.

[patriciaruth]

Let's not become like them.

LOL!!

I agree 100%, they are irrational crazies already and have been for quite some time.