Well, maybe not exactly "popular." But one reader did write me recently and ask "what happened to the Weekly Screed?" And when I started answering her, I realized that a few things have been simmering in here and maybe it's time for another brain dump after all. And, since the last "Screed" was issued on the eve of the Democratic National Convention, then issuing another on the eve of the Republican's impending "look how moderate we can pretend to be" media circus seems consistent, if not exactly prolific.
I have a suggestion: Once this Nuremburg-by-the-Hudson thing is over, let's have the election the following week, and get it over with. I say we wait a week for the talking heads to repeat themselve a million times, and then let's pull the levers, poke the chads, touch the screens, saute' the butterflies, and get on with the recounts and the Supreme Court decision. Hell, let's let the Olympic Gymnastic judges decide who the next president should be. They've got as good a chance of getting it right as the electoral college .
I think we We know what John Kerry stands for -- putting the other half-a-cerebrum back in the oval office. We certainly know what GeorgeBush stands for -- like my bumper sticker says, "more war, more polution, more lies." We even know what Ralph Nader stands for, since everything he's got to say is pretty much a retread of what he said last time around (much of which I agree with, but that's beside the point). So, unless somebody's got something new to add to the cacophony, I say let's end it here.
I don't know about you, but I heard all I want to hear about Kerry dodging bullets while Bush dodged the draft months ago. So let me be plain about this: I really do not care how either of these jokers served or did not serve their country during the Vietnam era. What concerns me is simply what George Bush has done over the past 3-1/2 years, and my despair over whether the Republic can survive another for years of such gross, reckless incompetence (not to mention the rest of the planet).
Back in the first of these Screeds, back when I thought maybe Wes Clark was the most suitable candidate the Democrats were contemplating (in the words of Bill Maher,"in a time of war, you make your best warrior the chief.") I said that any time an incumbent is running for re-election, the first question should be, "Has the current administration proved sufficiently trustworthy to have earned another four years in office?" There's really no need to rehash the litany of Bush's failures here, but for the record, let's review a couple of highlights. We're talking about a Chief Executive who has
1) has bankrupted the nation's treasury and spread the money around in $600 "vote for me" bribes (cleverly disguised as tax cuts),
2) started an unjustifiable, unprovoked -- and now protracted -- war that has produced thousands of casualties and done little if nothing to alleviate the threats to our security the "regime change" was supposed to produce.
Those two points alone are enough damage for any four year term; Bush hardly needs a second term to demonstrate his true potential. So it's not hard conclude that the answer to the fundamental question has to be "no." Once we've arrived at that conclusion, then we're pretty much left to accept whatever viable alternative the process of elimination leaves us with. The unifying sentiment we so often hear is "Anybody But Bush," and it would appear that is precisely what the system has given us.
You would think, given the current administration's pitiful record, that the Democrats could have come up with somebody who would be a slam-dunk to replace Bush. Instead we keep reading that the race remains close and could go either way. Maybe the media just keep telling us that so we'll keep tuning in. In any event, the Repubicans have done a masterful job of "framing the debate" by keeping the media focused on Kerry's time in Vietnam rather than assessing Bush's time in the White House.
I'm not really disappointed in John Kerry; There are moments when I genuinely like what I see of the guy. I'm reasonably certain that he would be such a vast improvement over President Pinnochio that I will certainly be voting more "for" the challenger than I will be voting simply "against" the incumbent. I mean Kerry's a lawyer, so he may be lying just because his lips are moving; Or he may be caught contemplating the finer points of some policy debate and that could be interpreted by some as vacillating, but at least he does it in complete sentences. Maybe I just wish there was something he could say -- or could get through the media fog -- that would demonstrate to voters that a whole brain that functions on its own is better for the country and the world than half a brain that functions like it's on life support.
I guess the problem I'm having with Kerry is that he is rhetorically compromised from the get-go. Unfortunately, John Kerry cannot take a bold, moral high-ground on the question of "whathefuck are we doing in Iraq?" because the incontrovertible fact remains: he voted to hand Bush the authority to start that war. And even worse, he's said recently that if he had it to do all over again - even knowing now what he didn't know then - he'd vote the same way. A strange time and way to suddenly start acting consistent, if you ask me.
One of the reasons I've been reluctant to write another Screed for the past month is because I'm leery of repeating myself, which is exactly what I'm about to do - repeat myself on this question of who decides when the nation goes to war. The constitution says the Congress is supposed to make that decision. But our Congress handed that authority to the President. (Ah hell, who needs a constitution. Damn thing's over 200 years old anyway. The guys who wrote it wore powdered wigs. They were probably all buggers.)
I keep coming back to this constitutional question because I think it's the central issue in whether or not the Republic conceived in 1787 endures to this day. I hear a lot of people say things like "I'm afraid if Bush is re-elected (isn't it "re-undefeated" ?) we're going to lose our Democracy." But I think the way we got into this war in Iraq tells us that at least one of the fundamental pillars of "our democracy" -- that no single individual can start a war -- has already crumbled. And it confounds and frightens me that this issue never comes up except in the very fringes of the political debate, i.e. somewhere between MY ears.
It doesn't get any more "fringe" than that, folks. And in the absence of any public discussion of this issue, we see not only the failure of our politicians, but the failure of those that report on them and relay their images into our living rooms. Nobody dares say, "uh, Mr. Kerry... Mr. Bush, are you familiar with the U.S. Constitution? Article 1, Section 8 ??
For as long as this war has been going on -- which is about as long as this political campaign has been going on -- I have only seen the issue raised on television ONCE. That happened last week, on, of all shows, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. In other words, while the major media have been pre-occuppied with the war that was over 30 years ago, it takes an admittedly "fake" news show to raise the central issue regarding the constitutionality of the war we are engaged in now.
And even then, it took two nights for the discussion to get around to the critical point.
The discussion began last Tuesday. Stewart & Co. scored a substantial media scoop for a "fake news" show when Stewart's guest for the interview portion of the program was none other than the Democratic nominee himself.
In case you missed it, most of the commentary on this encounter focused on the clever repartee between Stewart and Kerry. I read a couple of accounts that recalled the candidate's statement that "you'd be amazed at the number of people who want to introduce themselves to you in the men's room," or Stewart's quip, "Is it true every time I use ketchup your wife gets a nickel?" There was pitifully little commentary on Kerry's various attempts to discuss the "real issues," although Kerry made a valiant attempt to address issues like health care, jobs, and war.
For me, the most important exchange occurred after Stewart made a joke about "sending the troops to Iraq wearing only garbardine," and Kerry finally had a platform to explain his position.
The man who would be president said, "Wearing gabardine beats going to war the way this president sent our troops to war. I think this (war) was an abuse of the authority the president was given, this kind of trust. The president promised he would build (an) international coalition. He hasn't got a real coalition. 90% of the casualties, 90% of the costs are our people, our money, our troops. He didn't exhaust the process of the U.N. inspections, he made an end-run around it. And finally he didn't give meaning to the words that mean a lot to a lot of us, 'going to war as a last resort.' I think the United States of American should never go to war the way this president took us to war. You don't go to war because you want to, you go to war because you have to (big applause), and that's not what this president did."
So Kerry is saying that he voted for the authorization because he trusted the president to use the authority judiciously. Jeezus. He gives Barney Fife a bandolier full of bullets, and then he's surpised when the half-wit actually uses them ? Puh-leeze! (Sorry, "Andy Griffith" fans...)
That exchange with Kerry was the beginning of the process. Stewart didn't complete the tought until the following night.
On Wednesday, Stewarts's guest was Ed Gillespie, the Wal-Mart-smiley-face Chairman of the Republican National Committee. Stewart steered the discussion back to the previous night's discussion of Iraq, saying to Gillespie, "you're going to criticize Kerry, (saying) he voted against this, or he didn't go to a committee meeting... but... your guy.... took us there...!"
Gillespie replied, "He did, and John Kerry voted for us to go there."
Jon Stewart tried to defend Kerry, reiterating what he understood to be Kerry's point from the previous night.
"No," Stewart said, "He voted to give the authority for George Bush to use as leverage against Saddam Hussein. Nobody thought 'Oh, (expletive bleeped) he's really going there'...He voted...because he believes the president should have the authority which I actually disagree with anyway because I think Congress has the authority -- and the president should just, you know... wave to winning NCAA teams."
So, he made a joke out of it, but let's hear it for the "fake newsman," because he's the first one I've heard on television in the nearly two years since that resolution passed to say "Congress has the authority."
But ya know, it's not really George Bush that worries me. It's the hundred million people who are still going to vote for him that I can't figure out. They're the ones - like most of my neighbors - that I'm going to have to live with regardless of who wins the election.
Thomas Jefferson said he would always defer to the ultimate wisdom of the people, but I don't think he figured on an electorate that gets its information from Rupert Murdoch, Larry King, and Mickey Mouse. Surely he never imagined the rabbit-hole world we live in today, where the "news" is fake, and the "fake news" is the only place that even hints at the truth.
What worries me is the vast number of people who are buying Bush and Karl Rove's "Big Lie." What did Josef Goebbels say? "Repeat the lie enough, and the people will begin to believe it." Even Goebbels could learn a thing or two from Rove and Company.
That the "Big Lie" is working was driven home to me recently in one of those isolated moments that remains frozen forever in your mind. I was walking into a Starbucks when I overheard a snippet of conversation between two young women in the parking lot. All I heard was one of the women say, "...but he was only in Vietnam for three months...." When I heard that, I just lost it.
Standing in the doorway, I turned to that young woman and barked at her: "No. He was not in Vietnam for three months. He was in Vietnam for a year. He commanded a swiftboat for four months, not three. And he was in the Navy for a total of four years ." Seeing that she was sufficiently shocked that a total stranger would challenge her in a parking lot, I went ahead into the store.
And then, in the perfect dramatic moment that always seems to happen in my head shortly after the critical instant of opportunity has passed, I started to think of what else I should have said: "If you believe that John Kerry was only in Vietnam for three months, then you need to turn off the Fox News channel, and start re-examing everything you think you know, because you are being lied to and you are buying into the Big Lie."
By their own occasional admission, our media are clearly not doing their job. The job of a free press is supposed to be to keep the people informed. But in a world where the media are owned by, or party to, the same interests that have turned a nation of citizens into a populace of consumers, it should come as no surprise that the only assignment our media excel at is keeping us compliant and buying shit we don't really need.
What else can you say when both the Washington Post and the New York Times offer up "mea culpas" with regard to their coverage of the run up to the invasion of Iraq? Both of these supposedly reliable sources of objective reportage have said over the past few months, "We didn't do our job, oops, sorry." And yet, there we are: A thousand U.S. dead and god-only-knows how many Iraqis (they don't seem to count as much).
With their ad-nauseum discussion of the "Swiftboat Veterans" slanderous commercials, the media have become willing bullhorns for the Big Lie. And so we come to rely on the "fake news" organization to get some glimpse of the Bigger Truth.
So, fuck it, let's get this election over with, so we can go back to the real issues that matter to the American people, like whether or not Kobe Bryant's unidentified accuser engaged in a menage a trois with Scott Peterson and Amber Frey. Certainly, that's more important than who decides if the World's Only Remaining Superpower is going to invade a third-world dictatorship.
Perhaps we are not distracted enough. O.J., where are you now that your country needs you?
Anyway, that's my opinion, and it should be yours, too.
--PS
I'm with you. I'm sick of hearing the diversionary Swift Boat tactic. By even discussing it we are weaving Karl Rove's rug for him. A simple military diversion. That's the way these guys think. And Babycakes you have those Aryan racist rats pretty much friggin' pegged!
Posted by: Dave Jackson | September 01, 2004 at 09:54 PM