Stupidity and what happens when it runs the show.
We know that this is an interesting election, but I can't even believe that this ridiculousness is what we call democracy. Some McCain volunteer in Pittsburgh (but from Texas) made up a racist story about being attacked by a Black man just to excite racial prejudices in a classic replay of the 1890s. Just like the 1890s our country is down a deep shithole with the poor being ground into dust to feed the greedy wealth of the few Americans. Joe the Plumber was a fraud as well and no doubt a plant as I suspected the very first day I heard the story. No one has suggested this even though they proved that everything he said was a lie, a convenient lie which someone conveniently reported and someone conveniently recorded. Why do they not see the fraud in front of their faces? The media trumpets the skill of Republican operatives but when faced with evidence of it they ignore it. Joe the Plumber is NOT a plumber and was put there by his local Republican Party, who came with videocameras in an attempt to manufacture a political ad. It worked, the media tore the story apart and no one wondered why so many lies and so much convenience. Fucking idiots.
The Republicans, or more specifically I guess, the McCain campaign are engaged in a political game that would be amusing if in some political thriller movie, but is a horrifying spectacle when it has to deal with our country on the verge of total economic collapse which might bring down the rest of the world with us, in a massive economic crash.
For years we were told that a rising tide lifted all boats that rich people getting richer meant all of us getting richer but it is a lie. It always was a lie and the economic evidence always contradicted it. Nonetheless I saw a Wall Street Journal schmuck on Bill Maher's show a couple of months ago recite the same tired line back when I knew, along with other people not heard on TV, that the economic crash was coming. Greenspan testified before Congress that he had made many mistakes. Amazingly many had said he was making mistakes while he was making them but he ignored them and carried on. Many voices in the Wilderness spoke out warning that things would get worse, that things were not functioning, that the US economy was headed for a crash because we no longer grew and fed ourselves a variety of food (instead depending upon imports), because we no longer manufactured the things we buy and for dozens of other sound economic reasons which I who am not an economist understood but politicians did not. These voices were mocked, greeted with hostility, shouted down, called "un-American", told to move to Canada, etc. I know because at times I was one of those people absorbing the invective.
What happened to the "it's alright" "everything is super" "Iraq is a threat" "the war will be a cakewalk" etc people? They are rich, powerful and sitting in influential jobs. This is the problem with the Market, not the ideal Market of economic theory, but the real one which we now have. This American market distorts the way the ideal market is supposed to work. People who are wrong and stupid get promoted to editorships, get honoraria to spout more of their stupid opinions, and continue to book TV gigs, and book contracts. We reward stupidity and failure and then wonder why our economy is in the shitter. We invest in making the Chinese do our building and manufacturing so that our money just flows to China- a nation which then lends that money back to us so we can keep buying, a perverse sort of Marshall Plan so the Chinese "Communists" can make themselves billions and keep their people busy working in horrid conditions rather than revolting against massive government corruption and human rights violations. All governments need some sort of legitimacy and the Chinese maintain it by force, and busy work for the masses.
Our government has lost all legitimacy, and particularly the Republican party which ran our government for 6 of the last 8 years and realistically whose ideology has run this country since the 1970s, which brings us back to lies and desperation. What is ironic is that the shrewder Republicans have to realize that they have more of a future if they lose now because they can still hold on to some legitimacy as an opposition party as the mess they made continues to unfold, but putting in John McCain, a guy they don't like and who doesn't really like them, but who now pretends to like all the things they do to win, will not save them. Firstly, he is not quite competent and his running mate makes us pine for the wisdom of Dan Quayle, so nothing he will do will help, but secondly as the global economy continues to collapses and Americans keep dying he will continue to get the blame as will his party which will doom them. Of course, I mentioned that the Republicans reward stupidity, so those Republicans who recognized this reality probably are not being heard anywhere, only those who think that they desperately need to hold on to power are apparently being heard and authoring the tactics. If the Republicans win and continue with the same bullshit they've been selling for about 30 years they will cease to be an effective national party because their ideas will just continue this slide and will destroy this country utterly. They might still be around like the Communists are still around in Russia and Fascists in Italy but they won't be worth much.
The question would then be whether we would continue to have a two party system and who would be the new major party to balance the Democrats? Greens have a chance, but it would more likely be a Libertarian Party which can fill the conservative hole in our political system. Of course in a magical world, the Democrats would become so cocky that we might have a situation akin to the 1830s where the Democrats one-party reign was challenged by the American Party and Whigs- representing two disparate attempts to challenge Andrew Jackson. There is an anti-immigrant fervor much like which motivated the American Party members, there is a dissipating confidence in the electorate much like motivated the Whigs so who knows what might arise....? Anyway I have said enough for now.
posted by travellinguist @ 2:08 PM
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