Media Dumbnambulism -- Part 2 of 2.

What changed?

They changed.

And the Dems chased them.

So now note on your list what the values of the Republican Party of 1976 have mutated into over the course of thirty years.

Note the deliberate coarsening and Orwellization of political language -- the "Scream 'Traitor!!' as loud as you can." -- strategy engineered by Republican Newt Gingrich and Republican Rush Limbaugh.

Note the Republican proud-almost-giddy willingness to use any means, tell any lie, betray any ethic to personally slander and destroy anyone or anything that stands in your way. The Atwater/Rove/DeLay-ification of politics itself.

Note the rise of the Christopaths. The embrace and glorification of superstition idiocy like Biblical Literalism and Creationism. The eagerness with which the inheritors of the Party of Lincoln harness rage, racism and theocracy to bumrush the Constitution.

Note that in 2004, the GOP Platform was almost 1/3 Global War on You-Know-What.

And what else were framed as Mortal Threats to Our Democracy?

“Frivolous” lawsuits".

Everywhere.

From our heavily armed citizenry to health care, the solution to all things is tort reform. The solution is “limit lawsuits and punitive damages”.

Translation: Use the power my lobbyist pals bought for me to stop the Federal Government from protecting citizens from the predations of my lobbyist pals. Then when those citizens get fucked over by my lobbyist pals, us the power of the Federal Government to force those citizens to stop suing my lobbyist pals.

The current GOP platform is a document where “Protecting the Rights of Workers” really means “No one should feel obligated to join a Union who doesn’t want to. Hint! Hint!”

Where “No Child Left Behind” and vouchers are the only sops thrown to the dying remnants of America’s once-proud tradition of public education.

Where all environmental activities are “market-based”, “sensible”, litigation reformish and based on “voluntary agreements”. These voluntary measures plus Very Exciting Non-Existent technology will save us from Global Warming, whereas “mandatory carbon emissions controls” would “harm economic growth” and “destroy American jobs.”

Compared to a bold call for a new GI Bill of Rights by the GOP in 1976, what heroic and visionary ideas do these Republicans have for paying the interest in the debt we will owe today’s veterans?

“…cut the disability claims backlog” and “…improve health care access for veterans who need it most.”

Wow. Can't you just hear that thundering out of Henry V as a coda to his Saint Crispin's Day Speech?

And what is today’s greatest insult to Veterans?

Flag Burners of course! Which is why we must amend the Constitution to stop that terrible, fictional scourge.

And the other Enemies of All Decent Americans?

· “Discrimination against faith-based organizations.”

· Judges: “…with activist backgrounds in the hard-left now have lifetime tenure."

· "Recent events have made it clear that these judges threaten America’s dearest institutions and our very way of life.”

· “Partial-birth abortion” which is a “brutal and violent practice” which will “likely continue by judicial fiat.”

· Conspirators who are apparently plotting to molest the “Pledge of Allegiance”. Or something.

And of course, what locking up judges can’t fix, tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts, Abstinence Education and more tax cuts will take care of.


Unlike the 2004 Platform, nowhere in the 1976 document is the “Flag” cited as being especially threatened. In fact, is the word never used.

They had never heard of that Orwellian GOP “Culture of Life” lie, much less embroidered it onto every throw pillow at the RNC.

Nowhere is "Abstinence" referenced as something the Fucking Government should have a damned thing to do with wither way.

No mention is made of the Pledge of Allegiance.

No mention of "judges" at all, except there were too few of them.

The terms “Lawsuits”, “litigation”, “frivolous” are as MIA as Dubya from National Guard duty.

The word “activist” appears nowhere at all.

“Discrimination” appears a few times, but only regarding housing or employment. The idea that white Christian groups were being discriminated against so hard that the Preznit would have to force the vile government to stop it would have been laughed into oblivion.

Our major military threat then was the Soviet Union.

And the GOP in 1976 recognized these two facts about facing a deadly enemy.

First:

“The United States and the Soviet Union remain ideological competitors. We do not shrink from such a challenge; rather, we welcome the opportunity to demonstrate that our way of life is inherently preferable to regimentation and government-enforced orthodoxy.”

Second:

“Governments which enjoy the confidence of their people need have no fear of cultural, intellectual or press freedom.”

Imagine a stance like that taken today in favor of secularity and tolerance.

A government that believed that not only is freedom our greatest asset, it is also our export and our greatest weapon. And the more the most powerful nation on Earth confidently “walks the talk” of democracy -- the more we fearlessly call into the world's shadows and challenge all medieval, barbaric and fear-mongering perverters of noble faiths to come out and debate us in the clear light of tolerance and liberty for all -- the freer the world will become and the safer we will be.

But of course this government cannot do that because it is itself run by a cabal of medieval, barbaric, fear-mongering perverts.

And since today's GOP will always put Party ahead of Nation, and will never risk it’s long-term project oblivion by eradicating the Wingnuts who win it’s elections, staff its phone banks, stuff its envelopes and define it’s dogmatic parameters, they will keep this country stuck in a religious-hypocrisy-stasis in the exactly the same way we were was stuck in a civil-rights-stasis when we castigated the USSR for human rights abuses abroad while tolerating segregation and lynching here at home.

I mean, who in their right mind is going to believe that we stand for Enlightenment and Democracy as long as preening demagogues and raging fascists like James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity continue to be the faces and voices of one of our two main political Parties?

And who in their right mind is going to believe that the lords of this moral slum don’t make pre-emptive war for oil as long as virtually the entire Executive branch is run by oil men?

So now that you’ve used up half of your paper you’ve made your list of where the Republicans were thirty years ago and where they are today one thing should be crystal clear.

One thing that you all already know.

That for the last thirty years The GOP has been on a dead-run due Right so fast that they have disappeared entirely over the horizon into an ultraviolet haze of theocracy and stoopid.

Which means that for the Center to have remained an intellectual constant for three decades -- as every fucking reporter in the Mainstream Universe just keeps insisting is the case -- then the Left must have become....Communists.

Every last fucking one of us (that isn’t Shining Path or Green, that is.)

A Party of Maoists who spend our days militating for the annihilation of Wall Street, and our nights conspiring to Collectivize and Nationalize every industry.

Except even a half-bright eight-year-old can see that we’re not.

Not even in the same ballpark. Not even on the same planet.

No, if you actually bother to check, big swaths of the 1976 GOP platform look distinctly...Clintonian.

Does this make me happy? No. But there it is. And to continue to hawk the ridiculous Broder/Friedman/Sullivan/Klein/Lieberman line of bullshit about everything on the Left being equiposedly extreme to everything on the Right is so obviously insane that the REAL story must become: "What are the real reasons why the Pundit Class continues to deliberately lie to the Amercan public?"

So despite the fact that we all have access to a rich an beautiful language with hundreds of thousands of word to chose from, and even though I dearly love running barefoot through it sometimes just for the sheer joy of it, there is no inherent virtue in complexifyin’ things so let’s make this simple for the simple folk.

From who gets slashed up in the Fox-tainted media, to who gets taken seriously, or who gets carted off the “No Lefty Left Behind” re-education camps next year, the old maxim that “A Jew is whoever Hitler says is a Jew” applies.

The ubiquitous and otherwise-amusing “dirty hippy” image of the Left in the media is almost entirely a construct of the Right which parallels exactly the “dirty Jew”, “savage Injun” or “lust-crazed Negro” stereotypes of famous fascist/eliminationist movements of the past. Marketing campaigns to hawk a simple message to the Great Wad:

That those people are responsible for your pain.

Of course this completely unravels when you actually talk to people in those groups and find out that they’re about 90% like you, except they get shit on or shot at more than you do. Which is why it is terribly important to keep the Great Wad scared stupid all the time; their lynch-or-flee reflexes kept on a hair trigger by horror stories of what’ll happen when you start “mixin’” groups that Caucasian Jebus wants kept apart.

So here’s the truth.

The Left has moved so far Right in the last few decades that the Left is the New Center.

The Right is now run by and for evil lunatics who conceal their evil lunacy in the shadows thrown by their Dirty Straw Hippies.

And anyone who tries to pretend any different is either an idiot or liar who will fuck over your children’s future, kosh you on the head, razor out your pockets and leave you for dead the minute you turn your back on ‘em.

Now fold your list into a little paper bucket.

Puke in it from nausea induced by the fact that although deconstructing these little spun-shit Fox-spawned “stories” is as easy as Dick Cheney pulling the wings off the Constitution, there is apparently no one – NO one – left in the Mainstream Media outside of MSNBC and Comedy Fucking Central who has the nads to even bother anymore.

And then dispose of your sick bag safely.

Hell, who knows?

If it’s viscous enough and comes with a good head of hair, you can maybe get it its own talk show on Fox.


End Part 2 of 2.