Rhyming

Say it with me now, "History does not repeat, history does not repeat."

Plain Talk: Is Ted Cruz Joe McCarthy reincarnated?

Ted Cruz-The Reincarnation Of Joe McCarthy?

Is Senator Ted Cruz Our New McCarthy?

Is Joe McCarthy a hero to Ted Cruz? The Texas senator won’t say

Is this the new McCarthyism? Ted Cruz’s innuendo war against Hagel

Or is Cruz the "great leader" all fascist and authoritarian followers look for? Either way, he is a dangerous, rotten scoundrel who needs a good whipping.

Hopefully, more to follow on the analysis and less on the rise of a new child of darkness.

A moderate proposal

It really has been too much to ask that our members of congress present an actual set of ideas and/or plans for fixing the country. Democrats think too small and present policy ideas as little laundry lists without an overall narrative. They are often quite divided amongst themselves and usually compromise on tinkering fixes more than halfway to the formerly republican position as opening bids. Democrats rely too much on pollsters to try and meet the electorate despite the incoherence of mass public opinion, even among the various inclusive constituencies in the Democratic Party. Though these moderate and mild prescriptions usually do more good than harm, there is no structure to differentiate the Democratic platform from the radical and very harmful republican platform. Speaking of which, the GOP has repeatedly demonstrated such incompetence, sadism, corruption, and every other disqualifying political feature that it would be considered a revolutionary terrorist organization in any other country rather than a legitimate party.

So if one party is too timid to fight the partisan battles that are necessary by definition in a representative system like the United States and the other party is inconceivably vile and anti-democratic that it cannot be trusted with power, what can be done? There is a growing movement of libertarians out there, swallowing young and dumb Americans from both the extreme left and extreme right, that would simply scrap the whole system in favor of... nothing. This movement is even less able to agree and compromise on a program, just limited government, end to spying or military incursions and the drug war but without a hint of long-term consequences. Even in the short term lobotomizing government would have grave consequences to stability and the economy, etc. The so-called tea party of old white people simply embraces the part left unsaid by libertarians, namely that private power steps into any vacuum left by the (re)public. Double-standards, racism, self-righteous aggression, strict hierarchy bordering on castes; basically this is fascism wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross. Fascism has many faces and is notoriously shifty, it can spring from almost any right wing authoritarian popular movement.

Things are pretty bad and the trend line does not look good either. Almost as though our whole society was rotting from top to bottom. These are symptoms though, is the tea party the cause of disintegration or a response to it? It is very difficult sometimes to distinguish correlation from causation. The thesis of this essay is how to address symptoms to a sufficient degree that peoples' better angels can be reawakened. Starting from the conservative intellectual James Burnham's thesis that liberalism extends freedom to democracy's assassins, whether on the extreme right or extreme left, any treatment must reinvigorate the responsible center. Not the center of contemporary America, which Thomas Frank has repeatedly stated comes part and parcel from corporate management theory, but pragmatic reformers and reasonable statesmen. Competent professionals that can debate ideas fairly from the same shared reality, making changes or preserving tradition by putting the breaks on reforms that go too far too fast, are desperately needed in the US Congress.

The proposal is fairly simple. In a system where too many citizens cannot be counted on to learn even basic civic responsibility and neither party can be counted on to know what the heck they are doing, perhaps what is needed is not restricting voters or suppressing groups of voters but raising the bar of who can be admitted to the House of Representatives. Theoretically the House sets its own rules, in the past it has taken drastic steps to exclude communists or fellow travelers, why not make rules to exclude the kinds of idiots regularly lampooned on The Daily Show? Force elected members to pass basic tests on economics, political science, history, law and other applicable fields before they can take their seats. I personally know scores of graduate students who would love the chance to grade essays written by presumptive legislators. The rubric must include detecting when partisan ideology is trumping common sense and for the flying spaghetti monster's sake, ethics tests that stand a reasonable chance of excluding the blatant confidence men who routinely sneak into the halls of power.

Changing public opinion is difficult, the electorate is fickle and in the aggregate has no idea what it wants anyway. Even if the Astroturf tea party moneymen are having trouble keeping their mass movement in perpetual high energy activism, they got a significant number of drooling sociopaths elected. And these suicidal whackaloons will get reelected over and over to pillage and destroy, impeach, default, shutdown the government, and generally display that awful combination of arrogance and ignorance that typifies the tea party as a whole because of the advantages of incumbency and gerrymandering. So, the masses of old and lame extremists run out of steam but their chosen representatives are like the energizer bunny.

Yeah, about that

Next time I post a video I will watch it all the way through first.

The Great Trucker Blockade Hoax?

 This was going to be the biggest thing since idiots in tri-corner hats held temper tantrums all over the country at town hall meetings with Democratic members of Congress. "Thousands, millions of truckers from all over North America" were going to descend on Washington, D.C. and block the beltway. Four actually did show up yesterday and tried driving around abreast at fifteen miles per hour, but they did not last long.

Foolish trogs. now the supposed "organizer" of the so-called "event" says it was all a sham.

From the Washington Post:

 [T]ruckers from across the country (and possibly Canada) planned to come to the nation’s capital Friday and bring traffic to a standstill on the inner loop of the Capital Beltway zinged across the Web and were picked up by outlets ranging from Fox News to the Huffington Post. The rally was dubbed “Truckers for the Constitution.”

But it is a hoax. 

“The comments to U.S. News were designed to do one thing and one thing only: stir the feather of the mainstream media,” said [Earl] Conlon [to U.S. News and World Report]

Riiiiiiiight.

Within the epistemic fishbowl of authoritarianism, the huge following tea party types have in their own little world led this little band of dittoheads to think they could pull something massive off.

It is nice to see continued evidence that the energy right wing authoritarian followers put into all their anti-democratic demonstrations is really drying up. I first noticed things were changing at the Fourth of July celebrations in my little red corner of Wisconsin. In a town that shall remain unnamed but previously crawling with signs and bumper stickers displaying the unbridled ignorance and bullying only the lame, over-the-hill baby boomer assclowns would proudly decorate their gas guzzlers with, this past Independence Day festivities saw nary a divisive image or gesture. It was a good day, almost felt like an American again.

Seems the only teabaggers with any fight left are unfortunately the ones elected to Congress. Maybe we will get lucky and some of them will be put to pasture soon as well.

UPDATE:

WaPo reported that the desperate 'wingers are now circulating a picture supposedly showing all the trucks bottling up DC traffic, but as usual the evidence is fake.

The photo was actually taken in May at a Make-a-Wish Foundation fundraiser in Lancaster, Penn.

SAVE THE LIE!!!!! Who cares that it was raining during the supposed blockade? The same loudmouths that make family gatherings such a pain will undoubtedly haul this PROOF of how mad real 'murika is with the "democrat shutdown" and the existence of a black president.

What is real and what is pretend? It all depends on how loud you can shout.

Chez's reply

I recently wrote an Open Letter to Chez Pazienza at the Daily Banter. While I regret calling it an open letter considering all the public feuds arising from those documents lately, I felt it was the most appropriate way to do something. To summarize, I was worried about him falling into despair about the contemporary crisis and recalled how awful it was to be a reformer in the 1920s when business conservatives were once again riding roughshod over progress. I know, I know now is not the same as the past but as Mark Twain once put it, history does not repeat but it rhymes. And as everyone knows, the pragmatic, realist reforms of the New Deal built a relatively just society that held for half a century and still reverberates in America. I made the comparison between Chez and Reinhold Niebuhr, not for intellectual caliber but for attitude and outlook. It does not reflect poorly, Niebuhr was a powerhouse who really has no equal today as a thinker. But as a critic of liberalism and exponent of a tough pragmatism I feel Chez and Bob Cesca compare rather well as modern Niebuhrians.

Amazingly, Chez replied in really short order.

I can’t say that I’ve ever been the subject of an open letter, but a reader was kind enough to not only school me on history in the hope of making the point that maybe all is not lost for America, but to then send me a link to his work. I’m the first to admit that it’s really unfortunate that I’ve been feeling this way lately about our politics and our culture, but maybe it’s true that I’m only able to see it all through the prism of my own experience or through the events of my lifetime.
Either way, the lesson is appreciated.

Gosh, I hope my words did not come off too preachy to the point of "schooling" anyone, that was not my intention. What was my intent was to convey a small sense of another's life experiences driving short term despair and ultimate triumph. We are all influenced by the events we experience. I will have to read Chez's memoir Dead Star Twilight if I am to gain understanding of his life. Chez also paid me a great compliment in an email.

You are indeed a historian. Very nice.

And thank you.

To say that made my day is understating it... intensely. As the son of an assembly-line worker who spent most of his life in the blue-collar milieu and only went to college after repeated layoffs, that recognition of really being a historian is about the nicest thing anyone can say to me. A reader left this comment as well "Wow. That was really enlightening. And pretty on point." I am very grateful. And I must admit that I needed some bucking up as well, the essay on reform in the 1920s was as much for me as anyone else. That it gave even small comfort to others is greatly reassuring. My sincerest thanks.

 

 

Open letter to Mr. Pazienza

Dear Chez,

I have been noticing your descent from simple grumpiness to downright tongue-tied furiosity on the Bubble Genius show lately and wanted to express a parallel to maybe help or at least provide some small measure of comfort during this time of crisis. Yes, the republic is in peril. Yes, the spectacle of brain-damaged conservatives pulling off stunt after stunt is disheartening. And yes, there is plenty of reason to believe this is the final plunge. Perhaps someone calling himself "The Gloomy Historian" is not the wellspring of hope to reassure you or your readers that all is not lost, but hear me out because this is certainly not the first time our country and democracy has so brazenly embraced self-destruction. "Darkest before dawn" may be a tired cliché, but in the story to follow it turned out to be the truth and dawn held for a half century, until we forgot the lessons of that dark time.

A while back I sent you a message comparing Bob Cesca and yourself to the subjects of my MA thesis, Arthur Schlesinger jr. and Reinhold Niebuhr respectively. While I certainly do not consider myself an expert in the conventional sense on any of you, I believe there are enough similarities to make a convincing comparison. I know Bob loves history in the same way Schlesinger did and both combine that love with their advocacy of the pragmatic liberal position and pursuit of truth. You, Chez, on the other hand run from the religious faith that gave Niebuhr strength despite your regularly voicing the realist view Niebuhr developed and even quoting his Serenity Prayer. I am not suggesting you slide on down to the Triple Rock and catch Rev. Cleophus James for some churching up (YES! YES! JESUS H. TAP-DANCING CHRIST... I HAVE SEEN THE LIGHT!). In fact, your secularism provides evidence that religion is not required to find an ethical and moral code to live by.

It was the 1920s and conservative regression and reaction were ascendant and practically unchallenged. After beating back the war preparedness measures of the Wilson Administration and defeating America's entry into the League of Nations, Republicans unleashed and enabled corporate power beyond their wildest dreams. Reinhold Niebuhr was on the outside looking in. After a stint as a four minute man, selling a war he did not fully believe in and turning his back on his German ancestry, Niebuhr was deeply disillusioned by a trip to war-ravaged Europe that humanity really was doomed. The theologian abandoned many of his Christian convictions of pacifism in the belief that democracy and liberty were ideas worth fighting and sacrificing for, and suffered the disappointment of being alone on a weak branch. Niebuhr felt the Great War was the chance for America to live up to its ideals at home and finally exercise a responsible involvement among the community of nations. Instead, we abandoned the world and turned inward for profit and "normalcy." It was a horrible time to be a reformer and Niebuhr's writings of the time reflect his deep cynicism of opportunity lost and the incredible selfishness of American elites. I hope Chez, that you can see parallels. America has a tendency to let us down.

America of the 1920s was the jazz and automobile wonderland talked about in too many textbooks, but it was also a land of vast inequality in wealth and power. Labor was practically a spent force, workers scrambled on their own for scraps. Radio allowed news and entertainment to enter American homes, but it also gave a platform to venomous preachers of hate such as Charles Coughlin and Aimee Semple McPherson if that sounds familiar. Debt lost its traditional stigma as materialism and marketing, those twin banes of the American reform spirit, became a metaphorical plague of locusts. And the dark shades of speculation were rearing their voracious mouths to consume and destabilize the economy years before the crash in another familiar refrain. Henry Ford famously remarked that "history is bunk" but his outlook was not shared by the neo-confederate revisionists in the academy and the KKK. Lynching, intimidation, hate over the airwaves, and all against the backdrop of "entrepreneurial" con jobs and snake oil salesmen running roughshod over the quaint ideas of freedom and democracy chasing that almighty dollar.

The big difference today seems to be that the crash did not slap people out of this crassness, nor did Americans become "good neighbors" or find solidarity in shared privation against uncaring power. As a prominent writer, speaker, and thinker Niebuhr played a role in turning the tide after unbridled capitalism vomited all over the city on a hill. It is not easy to pinpoint when the change from "untamed cynic" to Christian Realist occurred in Niebuhr during America's great crisis. But after preaching the folly of 1920s vices that culminated in Moral Man and Immoral Society he was able to channel the revelations about human nature into an ideology of leftist reform that eschewed idealism for pragmatism. Niebuhr even had a nemesis on the left that you, Chez and Bob, could easily understand. The feud between Christian Realists and the followers of John Dewey's philosophy may be largely forgotten today, but it had much of the intensity (though not the venom) of rivalry between Greenwaldian emoprogs and the Daily Banter today.

It may be a long shot from our contemporary point of view, but Niebuhr's frustration and triumph (his ideas influenced everything from the New Deal to the Civil Rights movement) give evidence for hope that the confused and divided Children of Light will eventually get their act together and prevail over the moneyed interests and Children of Darkness that know no law beyond their own self-interest. Or we can give up and follow your prescriptions for dealing with the NRA, but you'd be on your own for that one. I have no stomach for force anymore.

Sincerely,
The Kraken

Fox news can't get its shutdown frame and messaging straight

From Media Matters:

Expressing outrage that the war memorial was closed to and sympathy for the aging World War II veterans who protested the inconvenience, The Five's co-host Dana Perino insisted Democrats used the memorial as a crass bargaining chip to "insert some sort of pain," as "they screw down the nut" on Republicans.But the next evening, The Five co-host Greg Gutfeld lashed out at people who were protesting inconveniences:  "So stop whining about a partial shutdown." Then the next day, Fox's Steve Doocy complained Democrats were simply using the shutdown to "exact some pain" on Americans.
So which is it? Is the White House singling out people for shutdown payback and trying to inflict pain (Perino and Doocy), or should everyone "stop whining" about the shutdown (Gutfeld)? Fox News storytelling is rarely this jumbled, especially for such a high-profile Republican production. 

Negative. It didn't go in, just impacted on the surface.

Only a precise hit will set off the chain reaction necessary to slap the stupid out of simple-minded right-wing authoritarian followers. The shaft is logic-shielded so you will have to use emotional appeals.

Now that all of us have had a day to digest the utter failure of the American political system in the face of fascism and the finger-pointing has really started, it might be fun to analyze what AlterNet's Marty Kaplan titled "The most depressing discovery about the brain, ever."

In short, facts do not matter. Partisanship and political passion wrenches information to conform with pre-existing beliefs. Basically, democracy is hopeless. Sigh.

The results of numerous experiments on how the brain works shows how people begin at an emotional belief and rationalize data to conform.

But what these studies of how our minds work suggest is that the political judgments we’ve already made are impervious to facts that contradict us. 

This is not cutting edge, simply more evidence in an existing hypothesis about brain functions and why assuming rationality or reason as default human thought is wrong. A few years ago George Lakoff made big waves by arguing that Democrats and liberals needed to frame their issues and policies better, creating positive moral points of view that overcome the right wing framework built up over so many decades. The smart people scoffed, "doing this will make us no better than republicans!" A philosophy professor told me after reading Lakoff's short book on the subject that I had loaned him. So on we go, leading with our faces into the authoritarian brickbats.

Then Drew Westen jumped in to both support Lakoff and modify the idea of framing messages. Westen and colleagues did similar experiments on partisan thinking and came to similar conclusions. Framing is not enough, it is a big part of the problem in that the "conservative movement" has used them to create a storyline about American life. Storytelling and appealing to emotional intelligence is Westen's hypothesis, people need a familiar way of processing the world around them. Heroes, villains, morals, obstacles, and destinations all the elements of a story. It was a complete coincidence that I quoted Star Wars at the top of this post, I swear.

Are we doomed? Not necessarily. But don't look to me for any reassurance that our leaders or voters can be changed.

Worthless

Hmm, a few people aren't buying the house republican "doth protesteth too much" schtick.