Great American Hypocrites
Glenn Greenwald has a new book coming out this month, and it sounds both extremely timely and compelling. Since he is a non-mainstream-insider, publicity and attention to this book, as with his others (if you somehow missed it, How Would a Patriot Act and Tragic Legacy are both required homework for this class), is far more dependent on word-of-mouth on the street and out here in the Wild Tubes, where we're all in it together.
And, thanks to a lot of blog-inspired attention, I believe "Great American Hypocrites" is near the top of the Amazon Non-fict list as of today, hallelujah, hurrah, and huzzah! Good on ya, Glenn!
And deservedly so. The sub-title is "Toppling the Big Myths of Republican Politics." If that doesn't grab your political vitals and warm your kittles (cockles?), what would? Greenwald has been working this territory for some time, and can be counted on to make a solid case for subject hypocrisy, sufficient to persuade any remaining actual sentient two-legged critters still needing convincing, whether through limited attention-span or just sheer stump-resemblance. Well, assuming they can either read or know some generous soul who can and will share.
I will sign up for reading chore if necessary.
This is extremely important stuff if you are a patriot and love your country. I want my Constitution and balance-of-powers back, and McCain is totally subscribed to the bushivite program that has already done severe damage to both of those vital American concepts.
Let us hope this book will get enough circulation and publicity to at least throw serious wrenches into the hard-core republican organization smear-wurlitzer and the nauseating McCain-can-do-no-wrong inclination of the MSM noted in a prior gumbo-post here.
Some insights from GG's Salon post on the book (whole post is well worth reading):
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From the time I began blogging in October, 2005, I've written about many different topics, but almost all have a similar undercurrent: the Limbaugh/Kristol/Fox-News right-wing faction that controls the Republican Party and has dominated our political life for the last 15 years, and the multiple ways that our political institutions -- and particularly the Drudgified establishment press -- enable them. Marketing packages aside, this book is about them; how they function; the weakness-driven bloodthirstiness, dishonesty and sleaze which defines them; the indispensable eagerness of the establishment media to be used by them; and what can be done by those opposed to them to change all of that.
All of the radical and reprehensible events of the last eight years -- the commencement and endless prosecution of an indescribably disastrous war, the accelerated dismantling of our Constitutional framework, the creation of a lawless Surveillance State and a virtually omnipotent President, the legitimization of truly grotesque torture and detention regimes, the complete corruption of our political discourse -- have individuals and a political movement behind them, causing all of that to happen. They have cultivated the ability to manipulate media behavior, largely as a result of a media eager to help. But what they do not have is popular support for virtually anything they are doing. And yet they continue to win elections.
How and why that happens -- the deceitful electoral tactics and manipulative personality-based myths the Right has perfected and continuously deploys to win elections, and the ways in which our slothful, vapid and complicit establishment press propagates those myths -- is the principal subject of this book. And understanding and exposing that right-wing/media partnership is a necessary precondition for weakening it.
The central paradox of our political life is that the right-wing faction that continues to dominate our political institutions and win elections embraces fringe beliefs which have little popular support. That's why their overarching objective is to remove substantive considerations from our political debates -- the more consequential the issue, the less establishment media attention it receives, the less real public debate there is over it. Instead, our elections are determined by the barren, petty personality-based distractions and mindless chatter that define the lowly Drudgian Freak Show, where our political life now almost exclusively resides.
The Right has perfected the art of creating mythical cults of personality around their leaders. They are strong, courageous, honor-bound, protective, morally upstanding salt-of-the earth Everyman-warriors -- contemptuous of elitist prerogatives, and oozing traditional masculine virtues and cultural normalcy. As important, if not more so, is the corresponding character demonization of liberals, Democrats and a growing group of miscellaneous right-wing opponents -- those weak, subversive, conniving, appeasing, gender-confused, elitist freaks, whose men are as effeminate and cowardly as their women are angry, threatening and emasculating.
These election-determinant themes are not merely petty and completely removed from what actually matters. That would be bad enough. Far worse is that they are complete fabrications. Virtually the entire leadership of the right-wing GOP is the complete opposite of these cartoon icons they are held out to be. Their lives are almost completely devoid of the virtues in which they are packaged. After all, their leaders are Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, Dick Cheney, George Bush, Ann Coulter, Bill Kristol and the whole slew of tough guy pundits from Fox News and National Review, cheering on wars while imputing to themselves the courage and virtue of those they endlessly send off to fight and prancing around as moral guardians and defenders of individual freedom while, in reality, living lives that rapidly destroy those very values.
These are the same tactics that have been used again and again -- from the era when Ronald Reagan was transformed into the wholesome, horse-riding, freedom-defending cowboy to the current incarnation, George W. Bush, dressed up in ranch hats and fighter pilot costumes and transformed into the swaggering, brush-clearing warrior. And one Democrat after the next -- Walter Mondale, Mike Dukakis, Al Gore, John Kerry -- was swiftly turned into the same, now-familiar loser archetype: the overly earnest, sniveling, dishonest, elitist, subversive weakling, who bore political journalists and provided an easy target for their adolescent derision.
Circumstances have coalesced perfectly to ensure -- in the absence of any change in the public discussion -- that the 2008 election is going to be dominated by these dynamics more than ever before. The media's unbridled, uncritical worship for John McCain The Man exceeds anything one can recall, far beyond even that of the canonized Ronald Reagan and the Conquering 2003 War Hero George W. Bush. And transforming the election into a petty, media-led Freak Show referendum on "character" -- and keeping actual issues as far away as possible from the election -- is more vital than ever for Republican success.
Their party brand has been destroyed by one of the most unpopular administrations in American history and one of the most despised wars ever. The American economy is as weak and precarious as it has been in decades. And their nominee is inextricably tied to all of the policies that have eroded our national strength on every level and made Americans dislike and distrust their government more than ever before. Even McCain supporter David Brooks recently acknowledged:
In a minimally rational world, a Republican presidential candidate like John McCain who has enabled all of that would have no chance. But -- in the absence of anything changing the way this works -- the establishment press will remove those considerations from its election coverage and the GOP's exploitation of bottom-feeding personality-based psychological, cultural and gender themes will predominate. In 2008, the GOP will dedicate itself single-mindedly to these same personality-based, manipulative electoral tactics because that is their only hope for winning.
There simply cannot be any greater priority than preventing a John McCain Presidency, one which would empower the same faction and continue the same policies that have been slowly though inexorably destroying this country, its institutions and political values. Understanding and neutralizing these tactics and the enabling media behavior is a prerequisite for preventing that.
-clip-
And, thanks to a lot of blog-inspired attention, I believe "Great American Hypocrites" is near the top of the Amazon Non-fict list as of today, hallelujah, hurrah, and huzzah! Good on ya, Glenn!
And deservedly so. The sub-title is "Toppling the Big Myths of Republican Politics." If that doesn't grab your political vitals and warm your kittles (cockles?), what would? Greenwald has been working this territory for some time, and can be counted on to make a solid case for subject hypocrisy, sufficient to persuade any remaining actual sentient two-legged critters still needing convincing, whether through limited attention-span or just sheer stump-resemblance. Well, assuming they can either read or know some generous soul who can and will share.
I will sign up for reading chore if necessary.
This is extremely important stuff if you are a patriot and love your country. I want my Constitution and balance-of-powers back, and McCain is totally subscribed to the bushivite program that has already done severe damage to both of those vital American concepts.
Let us hope this book will get enough circulation and publicity to at least throw serious wrenches into the hard-core republican organization smear-wurlitzer and the nauseating McCain-can-do-no-wrong inclination of the MSM noted in a prior gumbo-post here.
Some insights from GG's Salon post on the book (whole post is well worth reading):
-clip-
From the time I began blogging in October, 2005, I've written about many different topics, but almost all have a similar undercurrent: the Limbaugh/Kristol/Fox-News right-wing faction that controls the Republican Party and has dominated our political life for the last 15 years, and the multiple ways that our political institutions -- and particularly the Drudgified establishment press -- enable them. Marketing packages aside, this book is about them; how they function; the weakness-driven bloodthirstiness, dishonesty and sleaze which defines them; the indispensable eagerness of the establishment media to be used by them; and what can be done by those opposed to them to change all of that.
All of the radical and reprehensible events of the last eight years -- the commencement and endless prosecution of an indescribably disastrous war, the accelerated dismantling of our Constitutional framework, the creation of a lawless Surveillance State and a virtually omnipotent President, the legitimization of truly grotesque torture and detention regimes, the complete corruption of our political discourse -- have individuals and a political movement behind them, causing all of that to happen. They have cultivated the ability to manipulate media behavior, largely as a result of a media eager to help. But what they do not have is popular support for virtually anything they are doing. And yet they continue to win elections.
How and why that happens -- the deceitful electoral tactics and manipulative personality-based myths the Right has perfected and continuously deploys to win elections, and the ways in which our slothful, vapid and complicit establishment press propagates those myths -- is the principal subject of this book. And understanding and exposing that right-wing/media partnership is a necessary precondition for weakening it.
The central paradox of our political life is that the right-wing faction that continues to dominate our political institutions and win elections embraces fringe beliefs which have little popular support. That's why their overarching objective is to remove substantive considerations from our political debates -- the more consequential the issue, the less establishment media attention it receives, the less real public debate there is over it. Instead, our elections are determined by the barren, petty personality-based distractions and mindless chatter that define the lowly Drudgian Freak Show, where our political life now almost exclusively resides.
The Right has perfected the art of creating mythical cults of personality around their leaders. They are strong, courageous, honor-bound, protective, morally upstanding salt-of-the earth Everyman-warriors -- contemptuous of elitist prerogatives, and oozing traditional masculine virtues and cultural normalcy. As important, if not more so, is the corresponding character demonization of liberals, Democrats and a growing group of miscellaneous right-wing opponents -- those weak, subversive, conniving, appeasing, gender-confused, elitist freaks, whose men are as effeminate and cowardly as their women are angry, threatening and emasculating.
These election-determinant themes are not merely petty and completely removed from what actually matters. That would be bad enough. Far worse is that they are complete fabrications. Virtually the entire leadership of the right-wing GOP is the complete opposite of these cartoon icons they are held out to be. Their lives are almost completely devoid of the virtues in which they are packaged. After all, their leaders are Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, Dick Cheney, George Bush, Ann Coulter, Bill Kristol and the whole slew of tough guy pundits from Fox News and National Review, cheering on wars while imputing to themselves the courage and virtue of those they endlessly send off to fight and prancing around as moral guardians and defenders of individual freedom while, in reality, living lives that rapidly destroy those very values.
These are the same tactics that have been used again and again -- from the era when Ronald Reagan was transformed into the wholesome, horse-riding, freedom-defending cowboy to the current incarnation, George W. Bush, dressed up in ranch hats and fighter pilot costumes and transformed into the swaggering, brush-clearing warrior. And one Democrat after the next -- Walter Mondale, Mike Dukakis, Al Gore, John Kerry -- was swiftly turned into the same, now-familiar loser archetype: the overly earnest, sniveling, dishonest, elitist, subversive weakling, who bore political journalists and provided an easy target for their adolescent derision.
Circumstances have coalesced perfectly to ensure -- in the absence of any change in the public discussion -- that the 2008 election is going to be dominated by these dynamics more than ever before. The media's unbridled, uncritical worship for John McCain The Man exceeds anything one can recall, far beyond even that of the canonized Ronald Reagan and the Conquering 2003 War Hero George W. Bush. And transforming the election into a petty, media-led Freak Show referendum on "character" -- and keeping actual issues as far away as possible from the election -- is more vital than ever for Republican success.
Their party brand has been destroyed by one of the most unpopular administrations in American history and one of the most despised wars ever. The American economy is as weak and precarious as it has been in decades. And their nominee is inextricably tied to all of the policies that have eroded our national strength on every level and made Americans dislike and distrust their government more than ever before. Even McCain supporter David Brooks recently acknowledged:
The Republican Party is more unpopular than at any point in the past 40 years. Democrats have a 50 to 36 party identification advantage, the widest in a generation. The general public prefers Democratic approaches on health care, corruption, the economy, and Iraq by double-digit margins.
In a minimally rational world, a Republican presidential candidate like John McCain who has enabled all of that would have no chance. But -- in the absence of anything changing the way this works -- the establishment press will remove those considerations from its election coverage and the GOP's exploitation of bottom-feeding personality-based psychological, cultural and gender themes will predominate. In 2008, the GOP will dedicate itself single-mindedly to these same personality-based, manipulative electoral tactics because that is their only hope for winning.
There simply cannot be any greater priority than preventing a John McCain Presidency, one which would empower the same faction and continue the same policies that have been slowly though inexorably destroying this country, its institutions and political values. Understanding and neutralizing these tactics and the enabling media behavior is a prerequisite for preventing that.
-clip-
posted by Sir Gumbo at 8:34 PM
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