Soothing Fantasies

The tales do seem to soothe the tellers.

Though it just may be the size of their paychecks that has a sedating effect; that would explain how they never hear the drivel emerging from their own mouths.

It must have been frustrating for the media—

One minute: loving up the manly new House of Representatives of Real America.

Suddenly: Congress interruptus.

On the other hand, they were presented with a gory atrocity that's served as their broadcast lead, for the last five days.

And—best of all media worlds—they've had the chance to exploit a gruesome story, while beating up on Democrats. Because, "both sides are as bad."

As if more than one side was guilty of anything remotely comparable to Fox's encouraging their brownshirts to intimidate Democrats. Or making outright calls to to armed violence.

Pre-health care vote threats against Dems were "isolated local incidents"; it's hard to even find a comprehensive list. And searching brings up mainly right-wing sites, offering the predictable combination of Democrats made The People furious with their socialist death panels, and, the violence was by Democrats.

From last March, there's TPM's map of incidents prior to the vote, and this rundown of some stories.

The count here, 42 reported incidents, comes inside the AP's current spin—

... Many lawmakers, especially Democrats, felt the 2009-2010 debate over health care sometimes got out of hand. It began with emotional town hall meetings in the summer of 2009, when some critics warned of government "death panels."

Giffords, 40, was among lawmakers who reported 42 threats or acts or vandalism in the first three months of 2010, a big increase over the previous year, law enforcement officers said. Nearly all the threats dealt with the massive health care bill that Giffords and other Democrats enacted over fierce Republican opposition.

And of right-wing terrorist attacks on targets other than Democratic politicians, over the last two years: a list of eighteen. Some thwarted; too many, with body counts.

With our non-stop hate media fueling this: we are superior to 1990s Rwanda in what way?

Gun control is Not On The Table.

In the aftermath of Saturday's massacre, Glock sales are booming—

... a deadly demonstration of the weapon's effectiveness has also fired up sales of handguns in Arizona and other states, according to federal law enforcement data.

"When something like this happens people get worried that the government is going to ban stuff," [gun dealer] Wolff said.

Some measures of just how debased a "national dialogue" is created by the media?

Conventional wisdom of the last thirty years: "... government is the problem."

An idealistic nine-year old girl interested in government, recently elected to her student council and eager to meet her elected congresswoman, is murdered.

A straight-talking public servant and law enforcement veteran—someone who once would have been the archetype of everything admirable—can be smeared by the noise machine, only to have the lies dutifully repeated by the mainstream.

The Right got away with their Wellstone funeral behavior; they know the media will always fall for their "Democrats are politicizing a tragedy" shrieks.

The expected bloggers and independent journalists are talking sense, as usual. But they have liberally-biased facts on their side.

Driftglass says it, in three pictures and a few precise words:

Responsible people leave neither loaded guns nor paranoid, eliminationist ideologies laying around for the mentally ill to play with.

The librul media has a story line, and mere facts will not interfere with sticking to it.

I can think of someone in the target audience: Clever Sister's co-worker, Ms. "I'm a liberal! I listen to NPR!"

Who, tomorrow morning, will no doubt be burbling about how terrible the Democrats are, to politicize this tragedy.

The Same Old Story

He was only a lone nut.

There is no obstacle to lone nuts arming themselves with weaponry for mass murder, including a 9-year old victim.

They've got the firepower.

And the will; the 24/7 hate broadcasting is beamed directly at them.

Palin, has quite literally been pinning targets on Democrats. Including Congresswoman Giffords, whose office was vandalized after her health care vote, and who tried calling out Palin for her inflammatory actions.

The "respectable" media pretends there are no connections among these things.

And gives the airwaves over to a combination of false equivalency and the Right's usual screeching that they are the victims.

The same old, sickening story, over and over.

Driftglass, as always, has this right.

As well as this, on the media narrative established via the Sunday pundit shows:

... no mention of the fact that Right's interlocking political/media/religious keiretsu has been a massive paint-shaker for Crazy for as long as anyone can remember: when they need a few more votes or a few more dollars, they notch it up; when someone takes them up on their elimination rhetoric and blows up a federal building or flies a plane into an IRS office or murders a doctor, they dial it back a little and pretend they have no idea where anyone could have gotten such ideas.

If there were any interest in making connections, we might ask:
Who was it that, with his "most frightening words in the English language are 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help'" schtick, kicked off three decades of continually escalating anti-government rhetoric?

Who was responsible for decimating mental health funding?

As well as doing his bit to prevent our having universal health care?

If those two basic services weren't kept in short supply, they just might be means of preventing persons showing disturbed behavior from turning into lone nuts.

A Day In History

Yesterday: January 6, 2011.

Was listening to Thom Hartmann commemorate the seventieth anniversary of FDR's "Four Freedoms" State of the Union address.

(YouTube here; transcript and audio here.)

Not that the anniversary was much noted—or would even be found via a casual search.

Going by the top "day in history" results, one of the most important events of a January 6th in the twentieth century was the 1994 attack on Nancy Kerrigan.

But, why would our corporate media want to promote this sort of thing—

...there is nothing mysterious about the foundations of a healthy and strong democracy. The basic things expected by our people of their political and economic systems are simple. They are:

Equality of opportunity for youth and for others.

Jobs for those who can work.

Security for those who need it.

The ending of special privilege for the few.

The preservation of civil liberties for all.

The enjoyment of the fruits of scientific progress in a wider and constantly rising standard of living.

These are the simple, basic things that must never be lost sight of in the turmoil and unbelievable complexity of our modern world. The inner and abiding strength of our economic and political systems is dependent upon the degree to which they fulfill these expectations.

Obama is the biggest socialist ever, yet FDR could go before Congress and say that

Many subjects connected with our social economy call for immediate improvement. As examples:

We should bring more citizens under the coverage of old-age pensions and unemployment insurance.

We should widen the opportunities for adequate medical care.

We should plan a better system by which persons deserving or needing gainful employment may obtain it.

I have called for personal sacrifice. I am assured of the willingness of almost all Americans to respond to that call.

A part of the sacrifice means the payment of more money in taxes. In my budget message I shall recommend that a greater portion of this great defense program be paid for from taxation than we are paying today. No person should try, or be allowed, to get rich out of this program; and the principle of tax payments in accordance with ability to pay should be constantly before our eyes to guide our legislation.

And among the freedoms FDR would outline as human rights:

The third is freedom from want—which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants—everywhere in the world.

We have indeed moved on.

As highlighted by a reminder from Hartmann's engineer: that January 6 marks another anniversary—the 2001 congressional certification of Bush's "election."

In the hours I was listening to reminders of our history, the new, improved House was reading its edited version of the Constitution.

Well, at least it's not yet the David Barton re-write...

Though David Cole does suggest this version, as an honest reflection of contemporary conservatism.

Also off to a fine GOP start: illegal voting by representative skipping his swearing-in to attend a fundraiser.

Meanwhile, Clever Sister sent her latest find.

Could BROTHER HARRIS LOUISIANA ROOTMAN bring hope to our battered system of governance?

He does have quite the "Custom Case Work" menu.

Though, with choices like GET RID OF ENEMIES, or, DESTROY YOUR ENEMIES—Republicans hardly need guidance there, and go-along-to-get-along Dems would never dream of such appalling partisanship.

Personally, after a couple days of media swooning over Boehner, Issa, et. al: I'm ready to spring for the SHUT YOUR MOUTH OIL.

We're in a world of trouble, yet Brother Harris is so confident—could he have the answer we need?

HELP IS RIGHT HERE STOP SUFFERING AND START LIVING REAL GOOD .
ORDER YOUR LOUISIANA MOJO BAG TODAY I DON'T
CARE WHAT YOUR NEEDS ARE I'LL FIX IT. TODAY
I WILL MAKE A SPECIAL MOJO BAG JUST FOR THAT SPECIAL NEED.

Local News

Newspaper office. Tombstone, Arizona.
Russell Lee, 1940
Library of Congress FSA/OWI Archive
With local papers being killed off
(as happened in our town), Clever Sister often brings it up: thanks to the

homogenized national media fare—glorification of celebrities and all manifestations of corporate will—we're in danger of being in the dark, even about events very close to home. And the existence of local outlets for anything like whistleblowing is a questionable proposition in many places.

With the media's starstruck coverage of the manly Republican takeover of the House—and the gushing over bold moves to repeal "Obamacare"—I guess if you live in California and are in a Blue Shield plan, you might notice the latest attempt to jack up rates "as much as 59% for individuals."

And with one of Southern California's finest crooks finally getting his big national platform, this group of Californians is trying to get the word out.

For that matter: "Obamacare"..."government takeover"... "death panels"... A local story from Arizona, about more paragons—the Jan Brewer/Republican state legislature: a very real death panel.

There is no global climate change.

Only more local stories: birds dropping from the sky and fish washing up dead, at locations world-wide.

Reagan: A Primer

Ronnie lived in a world of make-believe.

He played dress-up every day.

One day, dress-up time came to an end.

But Ronnie did not feel sad.

Instead of playing dress-up, now he told stories.

[Source]

Ronnie liked telling stories.

He traveled to many places, telling stories to anyone who would listen.

Some important people, in important places, heard his stories and liked them.



The important people decided to help Ronnie.

They helped him and helped him, until he became Governor of the State of California.

Now, he could tell stories to everyone in California.

And his friends helped him go to other states, to tell more stories.

Ronnie went many states, and told many stories to many people, until he became President of all the states.

Now he was very happy, because he could tell stories to more people than ever.

Still, there were some things that made Ronnie unhappy.

Something that made him unhappy was called a Labor Union.

And the worst union of all was for people called Air Traffic Controllers.

Ronnie wanted to do something about the Air Traffic Controllers.

So, he took away their jobs — when their jobs were gone, there was no more union!

Ronnie had to fix many things that made him unhappy.

Spending money on some things, like mental hospitals, made him unhappy.

So Ronnie said, "I will take away the money, and then the mental hospitals will have to close!

And so they did.

When the mental hospitals closed, the people who lived in them had to go away.

Now they became Homeless People.

Ronnie was President for eight whole years. He had lots of time to fix many, many things that made him unhappy.

When he stopped being President, new Presidents wanted to fix things, too.

Republican Presidents wanted to fix things.

Democratic Presidents wanted to fix things.

Things called Social Safety Net, and, The American Middle Class.

By the time all the Presidents were through fixing things, even the kind old glassmaker's job had gone far, far away.

Yes, the glassmaker's job went all the way to China.

That Old, Familiar Feeling

This year, I'll be citing Paul Slansky's invaluable guide to eight years of Reagan & Co.: The Clothes Have No Emperor: A Chronicle of the American '80s (1989).

Read almost thirty years later, Slansky's introduction is indeed heavy on the déjà vu.

There's the familiar reaction to White House tenure of someone whose residing there was once unimaginable —

This book is a work of self-defense.

It is the response of one observer who realized that his perception of the truth - an actor is playing the President - was a distinctly unpopular one. An observer who saw his nation's history being fictionalized as it occurred - an actor is playing the President! - while the ratings race turned media "watchdogs" into accomplices, bit players in the hit TV show the Presidency had become. An observer whose very sanity was threatened by the ease with which illusion - an actor is playing the President! - was embraced as reality.

I did not find the President's ignorance charming. I was unwarmed by his genial headwaggling, unreassured by his stern frowns of manly purpose, uncheered by his hearty waves as he strolled to and from his limos and choppers and jets.

His smooth purr did not soothe me. His nostalgic fables about an America that never was did not inspire me. And his canned one-liners, perversely celebrated as "wit" ("If I'd gotten a hand like that in Hollywood, I never would have left") definitely did not amuse me.

... To me, the President was a pitchman who seemed not to exist when the camera light was off, a front man so personally invisible that he'd actually called his autobiography Where's the Rest of Me?, an aging star who'd spent way too much of his time watching his own movies, like Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard.

There's the familiar compulsion to record what's really happening—

Astonished that so few seemed to share my vision, I was compelled to document it. Armed with scissors, file folders, yellow highlight pens and a bank of VCRs, I embarked on an eight-year quest, gathering evidence to prove my case: AN ACTOR IS PLAYING THE PRESIDENT!

I began reading four, then six, then eight papers a day (and five, then 10, then 20 magazines a week), seeking out the absurd and the outrageous, clipping and filing everything that confirmed my sense that standards were falling across the political, social and cultural landscapes. I became a media prospector, mining vast acres of ink in search of the perfect details and telling quotes that held the golden nuggets of truth. I began a video file, recording the evening newscasts - first one network, then two, then three - and dubbing the key soundbites onto meticulously logged master tapes. The events of the decade were like a surreal novel unfolding in the media, and I found myself scrambling to get it all down, compiling a memory for a nation that clearly didn't want one.

Ah yes: it brings me back to 2000, and the eight long years that followed...

But I had the Web for finding information. With so many online sources trying to get out the truth, plus my own compulsive urge to record the history, I printed and accumulated file drawers full of paper.

Then, as blogging came along in the years after 2000, I found more online writers who gave voice to my anger and frustration. The Bush administration launched—if not a thousand blogs—plenty; and plenty of talented writers who felt compelled to track what was happening each day.

Blogs provided even more stuff for me to print and save, what with their astute commentaries and links to even more sources of information.

I still spend far too much time trying to clear my living space of the volume of paper left over from those years. But, I finally put a lot of the 2004-2008 material to use when, just before Obama's inauguration, I started writing about life in an office full of right-wingers during Bush's second term.

Slansky ends his 1989 introduction with a prediction—

Yes, The President Reagan Show is off the air now, but a similar entertainment - Dan Quayle's Playhouse - is waiting in the wings. As we head into the '90s, the powers that be are working overtime - with the complicity, once again, of segments of the media that surely know better - to lull us into thinking that our Vice President is "growing" into his office and will soon be ready for bigger things.

Do not assume that this lightweight can never be elected to the White House. Back in the '60s, we knew the very notion of "President Reagan" was preposterous.

If he was wrong about Quayle in particular, he was of course correct about the general principle at work.

And certainly correct about who could be "electable"; or, eligible for insertion into office—especially with a little nudge from the extra-electoral help always available to Republicans.

2012 looms, and considering the dizzying speed at which the "how low can we go?" standard keeps dropping... The easy marketing target that is a segment of our low voting population... How good the Republicans are at foisting their creations on the country...

Coming Attractions

Another tawdry sort of amusement is on its way, as the teabaggers entering Congress put the true face of the Republican Party on view.

And, non-believing as I am, this year is on the long list of reasons for believing that God does exist—
and is Republican:

February 6, 2011 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of St. Ronald Reagan.

It will divert attention from the antics of those teabagging heirs to Reaganism; after all, the propaganda machine has been working on this year's rollout for a long, long time.

The show starts today; from the Reagan Foundation/Library—

Make sure to watch this year's 2011 Tournament of Roses Parade, which will include a float honoring the life of and legacy of one of America's heroes, President Ronald Reagan. This is the first ever presidential-themed float to participate in the annual parade. Entered on behalf of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation, the float theme showcases the official parade theme, "Building Dreams, Friendships and Memories." President Reagan’s life and legacy inspired freedom, and contributed to lasting change across our country and around the world.

With the sleek visuals that will be fed to broadcast media, I'm bracing myself for Morning in America, He Won the Cold War, etc., etc., ad nauseum.

Throughout this year, I plan to revisit as much as I can of the reality of the Reagan years.

In trying to research aspects of that period, I'm finding that it has to be done pretty much the old-fashioned way: by going to books.

If I know of a specific newspaper or magazine piece from the time, I can look for that, but the material is not always available to a general reader (I do have access to Lexis).

Also, there are recent pieces online from expected sources; a search of "Reagan worst president" yields Robert Parry. Parry's piece at least comes up before the inevitable RW link to the glorious Reagan record, versus that of the horrid Dem presidents.

But general surfing for anything critical—or for just about any topic added to Reagan's name—is another story.

The usual result: page after page of book titles in the ever-growing Reagan hagiography; material by Reagan-dedicated foundations; and all manner of propaganda by the wing-nut welfare network. Just as intended: this is what the general public—or someone too young to remember the guy—will most easily find online.

So, there are those musty old books to consult.

A situation which, Clever Sister points out, could change fast.

In libraries all over, Decision Makers are getting rid of print, claiming that "everything is online." This, as CS says, may mean a window of opportunity being quickly lost.

Material online now that's from the pre-Internet '80s is haphazard and often inaccessible to the general public. With the Reagan brand so valuable to the Right, rewriting history online is a well-funded breeze; there are open questions of how well the print record of the time will survive, and if anyone will make an effort to effectively digitize it.

Also from CS, on hearing "February birthday":

"So: they're adding him to Presidents' Day?"

I hadn't even thought of that.

She's right, of course; another sign that God is Republican.

It won't take long, and—need I mention—it will be bipartisan.

And so begins my Year of Ranting Reaganly.

I do expect a lot to be written this year about the real Reagan, as independent journalists and liberal bloggers have an outlet that didn't exist in the '80s.

And there's this from over a year ago; Dr. Krugman should have a very busy year of trying to set the economic record straight.

Was cockroach racing really that big in the '30s? I suspect advertiser exaggeration, in the service of drumming up customers.

We know that by the '80s, Ronald Reagan could be sold to the portion of America that bothers to vote.

And once Reagan was sold, it was clear that anything could be.