My friend Gordon Campbell, who is a wonderful political cartoonist despite being somewhat to the right of Attila the Hun, did an interesting cartoon a few years back.
He showed an elephant and a donkey at a bar together, with the donkey totally livid over something then-President Bush -- Dubya, not Poppy -- had done. The elephant, smiling and lifting his drink, points to his friend and comments.
"Was I ever that bad about Clinton?"
My guess is Gordon wouldn't want to revisit the topic, but if he did, the elephant would be going nuts about President Obama while the donkey smiled.
"Was I ever that bad about Bush?"
Actually, yeah. Wing nuts on both sides have been going crazy for nearly 17 years now, and the current group can be pretty well summed up in the cartoon by Don Wright. Just as the right went after Bill Clinton with such ridiculous things as "The Clinton Chronicles," which claimed the president had dozens of people murdered, the left was after Bush for his Saudi connections, among other things.
Those two are in the past, though.
The Obama stuff is all too present, whether it's the "birthers," the folks who claim the president is a Muslim, or the ones who say Obama is actually a puppet taking orders from ... wait for it ... the Taliban.
We also hear he's implementing the agenda of radicals such as Saul Alinsky or Bill Ayers. I got a lot of people angry at me last year when I suggested Ayers should be considered more a hero than a villain for his efforts to stop the war in Vietnam.
Rush Limbaugh calls Obama not just a terrorist, but a totalitarian.
Of course, folks on the left said Bush had advance knowledge of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and that he allowed them to happen to further a neocon agenda.
I know most this stuff is coming only from the fringes -- maybe 10 percent on the far left and 10 percent on the far right, but what's ridiculous is that between talk radio, the Internet and 24-hous cable news stations, everybody hears it.
And the problem with that is that with so few people taking the trouble to read or to investigate some of these claims, too many people believe these ridiculous allegations.
Did then-Gov. Bill Clinton has dozens of people killed to further his own criminal agenda, as the film claims?
Hardly.
Did George Dubya know in advance that 911 was coming?
Hard to believe.
Is Obama controlled by the Taliban?
Don't make me laugh.
Are we ever going to have another president that the "loyal" opposition gives half a chance to?
Let me check my Magic 8-ball.
Try again later.
Posts
7 comments:
What if the rumors of Clinton's "murderous" past, Bush's complicity in 9/11 (or at least the complicity of the people around him -- there are legitimate doubts as to Dubya's ability to be that Machiavellian), and Obama's secret agenda to introduce socialism to our country -- if not communism or maybe a one-world government -- were actually true?
What if Lee Harvey Oswald did not kill Kennedy?
What if the toxic acrimony between partisan interests is part of a larger plan to enslave the American public?
I am no conspiratorial advocate, but I have to wonder sometimes.
The death of newspapers, as you noted months ago, the distillation of control of mass media, the emphasis on leisure activities as escape from real life (and the massive abandonment of personal and social responsibility in all areas of our society make we wonder if we're not part of some larger magic show.
I can almost feel something going on, but it's beyond my kin.
It's almost intuitive, but that said, it's obviously "crazy" to consider aloud -- are we being played? are we being manipulated by forces we don't perceive to move in a global direction inconsistent with our country's charter as a republic.
I've read with interest your commentaries on the need for more socialized activities (medical coverage, social protections, control over corporate greed, etc.) and your fervent belief in democracy.
i have also read of our founding fathers' general disdain for democracy per se (they adopted a "representative democracy" as the means to ensure the preservation of the republic) because they feared -- with good reason -- that an uninformed and uninvolved electorate would soon become a tyranny.
Funny, but I look around now and wonder how our current condition is anything but the breeding ground for a totalitarian government that eventually destroys the last vestige of our republic.
Yes, there are all sorts of "crazy" ideas floating around the Internet, and there's lots of wingnuts on both fringes to keep those hot-headed attacks foremost in the media, but what if some of those wingnuts are exactly correct about their paranoiac fantasies.
What IF someone (or some shadow group of people with a dark ulterior motive) is after us?
Shudder.
There's this guy in New York who used to be a public school teacher. Not just a teacher, but one of the most highly esteemed teachers in the country. He believed in all the right things, was honored time and again for his noteworthy contributions to the advancement of society through education. Then he saw behind the curtain -- he saw that the Wizard of Oz was not who he appeared to be, but rather a manipulative power broker.
the guy's name is Gatto -- and he's been "preaching" against public education for more than decade now stating quite clearly that it's a sham.
If he's right -- and he has a lot of evidence to suggest that he's not just another wingnut and is onto something truly dark, even demonic about our society, then is it possible that some of the crazy ideas advanced among those paranoid fools on the Internet might be true?
I would hope not, but I have to admit I am increasingly open to the possibility.
Why?
Because we have wandered so far so quickly from reason in every way in our society.
Try your Magic 8-ball again, Mike.
It might just reveal "It is decidedly so" this time.
So, in answer to your lamenting question, "Are we ever going to have another president that the "loyal" opposition gives half a chance to ... succeed?", my answer would be a loud and resounding "NO."
Just as in magic acts, the idea is to always keep people's attention riveted on a diverting gesture or movement while the trick is performed.
The best way to do that is to stoke the fires of controversy and acrimony and keep folks riled up.
No age or decade in our country's history has been perfect. Every era has problems, but it appears that we (as a nation) are so confused and (for lack of a better word, "lost") that we glide along from day-to-day believing and doing exactly as we are "programmed" to believe and do.
If merely contemplating such things makes me a "wingnut" or a drooling paranoiac idiot, then so be it.
I'm just not comfortable with all the "pat" and "easy" answers.
I, for one, would like the President to address the birth certificate issue in a straightforward fashion -- with candor and honesty.
I would like Rush Limbaugh's program (and all social "entertainers" or "commentators") to be preceded and followed with a Surgeon General's warning -- that listening to this person could be counterproductive for your well-being.
I would like Congress to get off their collective asses and force insurance companies and banks to play by the same rules that apply to the rest of us. There is no reason why anyone in this country ought to go without food, shelter, or medical care.
Hell, if that makes me a Commie, then I'll grow a big, thick mustache and change my name to Joseph Stalin.
But I don't think it does.
I think we've wandered too far or we've been secretly manipulated and nudged too far from our charter as a nation.
If Gatto is right (and I'm beginning to think he is) then education is NOT the answer because it is not "real" education, but rather a carefully orchestrated curricula of propaganda that we're "forced" to believe as the prevailing "norm."
Not surprisingly then, any rejection of that norm naturally leads to "crazy" theories and a brutal interpersonal acrimony that colors not only how a President is treated by his political opponents, but also how every effort to discover the truth is treated -- with utter and dismissive contempt.
So? Am I just another wingnut?
If you think so, then it's time for me to go back in my cave now.
I'll leave the blogging response to someone more "attuned" to accept prevailing mythologies.
Ernie
I think you meant, "Ken" instead of "kin".
Otherwise, Ernie, your response to Mike is both entertaining and disturbing.
Are you on medication?
BETH, in the South Bay
Beth,
Not to be disrespectful of your response, but aren't you doing to Ernie precisely what he's described?
You're suggesting that because he openly questions the "reality" of the current zeitgeist that he needs or must be on "medication?"
I presume the medication is an anti-delusional medicine to help him resume or return to a "normal" perception of reality.
Maybe Ernie is the "sane" one and anyone who doesn't question "reality" is in need of medication?
Not suggesting you do.
Simply reflecting back how I understood the message of your response.
Evelyn
Who is this "wingnut" Gatto?
Where does he get off suggesting that public education is crazy?
Listen, Ernie, here's a little help: you can tell the "crazies" because their eyes bulge out and their pupils spin when they talk.
Jeff, in Pomona
Interesting blog string.
I don't think this is what Mike had in mind, though.
Oh, let me check the Magic 8-ball to see ...
Hmmm.
The answer is "You can rely on it."
Told you so.
Steve R.
What is a "zeitgeist"?
And who is Gatto?
The cat?
This is crazy.
This whole thing is crazy.
People are smarter and more aware of what's going on than at any other time in human history.
The average 19-year old today knows ten times as much as a 19-year old did forty years ago.
Look at the technology and information that is routinely mastered.
The "birthers" are all crazy.
Who cares in President Obama was born in this country? It's not important.
Do you really think Bush was smart enough to plan 9/11?
Aaron
Interesting post, Ernie. If there's anyone out there who has been reading me on some of the previous blogs, they know that I've written about Gatto before.
He's no nut.
In fact, I'll write about him next.
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