While writing the piece below on vote suppression and prosecutor-gate, one unpleasant thought kept assaulting my consciousness: This whole scheme relied on the audacious Republican presumption of media control.
The Rovian hordes convinced a sizable sector of the general public that a non-existent army of voter registration fraudsters had undermined our electoral system. No matter how many journalists reported the truth of the situation, quite a few people believed the lie. And they will always continue to believe the lie.
Not only that. The public hungers for new bowls filled with new codswallop. The reactionary propagandists can make up any lie with impunity.
They could, for example, come out with a fake story saying "Democrats have a secret plan to blow up the Moon!" To spread the meme, Thor Hearne could start a new front group, the American Lunar Preservation Organization, which would immediately be invited to testify before Congressional investigators. And make no mistake: A sizable section of the public would accept this ludicrous tale at face value. I can visualize the Freeper response: "Don't those damned liberals know that we need the Moon for, like, tides and stuff?"
And even after the New York Times and CNN offered sober pieces headlined "Experts dispute Moon demolition reports" (FOX would do a "balanced" segment using the some-people-say gambit), the people who engineered the hoax would not lose credibility. The very next day, they could announce "Democrats have a secret plan to blow up the Sun!" -- and the game would start anew.
How can we fix this situation?
7 comments:
Okay, well, you asked.
Americans have lost any intimate connection to reality. How can we regain it? By restoring our core sense of value. I'm not talking about Christian morality, but instead about real, tangible value: money.
Once we abandoned the precious metal standard for our currency, we surrendered the quintessential link to reality. And, baby, we aren't getting back that grip on reality until citizens again feel safe in knowing that they can take a dollar bill to the bank and get a silver dollar or gram of gold in exchange for it.
Because, let's face it, almost all of our so-called system of values is abstract--relative. (As in, abortion is flat-out wrong--unless it is my little fifteen year old who got knocked up. And, drugs are immoral, but my addiction to oxycontin will be forgiven by Jesus. And, homosexuality is an abomination, but this is different...)
So when it comes down to it, we have to have our system of values anchored somehow, and within the American tradition that way is through the solidity and sanctity of the Almighty Dollar. Upon that wellspring of certainty, of faith and trust and predictability, all our other values depend.
Look, Joseph, if the value of our currency, which is our economic lifeblood, is arbitrary--and it is clear that today it is--then why should we not believe the Dems plan to blow up the moon? Why should we not believe the neocons blew up the twin towers? Why shouldn't the rule of law be subordinated to partisan politics? There is nothing certain. There is nothing to trust, nothing to believe in.
Just as babies begin exploration of the world with the wonderful flow of milk from their mother's breast, we adults ground our knowledge of reality on the tangibility of the money that represents our labor, our blood and sweat and tears, our savings. And until I can hold a dollar in my hand and say, "this is real, and will still be just as real tomorrow and ten years from now," anything less immediate hangs in empty space by skyhooks.
Americans had a choice forty-odd years ago: let go of their new empire, or debauch the currency. Those were the days of Richard Nixon, and we know which was chosen. America still has its empire, albeit tattered and drifting apart. But we have lost our system of values, and we aren't getting it back.
All hail Paris Hilton, Queen of Meaninglessness.
I agree with unirealist, but let's take it down a notch.
Way back in the mind of even the most liberal Americans, lurks the notion that if US's imperial quests would bring about prosperity to the average American, bring it on!
The reality is(maybe not today but 2morow)that every action naturally is followed by a re-action.
The re-action may be(sooner than later) that average Americans may be sidelined in favor of corporate profit, globolization,imperialism...etc.
In other words, when most Americans see their sons and daughters killed, their houses taken away, their jobs taken abroad, their republic in ruins, voting a challenge and their mere survival sway in balance, they will see reality. As unrealist said, the all mighty dollar has much more power than all rethoric. Democracy does not survive in poverty, but revolution does.
I think all intellectuals and political pundits and even regular people sometimes forget the power that people have. The key to people power is poverty, suppression and injustise.
I am much more optimistic that either Joseph or unirealist. Way before we have Darfur here, Americans will wake up.
And I am willing to put all I am worth on it.
Well, uni, I am always intrigued by a new idea, and you have offered a new idea. But I think you are over-reliant here on the double meaning inherent in the word "value."
By this reasoning, any society which eschews the gold standard must consist of citizens who happily clap their hands when Peter Pan asks if they believe in fairies. But that ain't so.
To me, Creationism, not monetary policy, is the marker. We now live in a culture in which a Republican candidate cannot become elected unless he disavows Darwin.
I'd also argue that a section of the left is at fault here -- the section which sympathized with the New Age movements of the 1970s, 80s and 90s. One of the most frequently-heard axioms ever babbled by the pseudo-spiritual babblers was "You make your own reality."
No you don't. Reality makes YOU.
People who grow up with the notion that reality is an elastic property are easily gulls for any conster who sidles up and tries to sell codswallop by the bowl-ful.
"Democrats are going to blow up the moon. Don't bother asking me for evidence: Search your FEELINGS. Your feelings never lie to you. So donate a hundred bucks to my campaign to stop the evil Dems in their evil schemes."
Joseph, we're on the same page. I would argue that Creationism and all the phoneybaloney "reasoning" that goes with it is an effect of the disconnect with reality that results when fiat money takes over from hard currency.
Furthermore, America isn't like say, France or Japan or Russia, which have been functional societies since prehistory. Our country is virtually infantile; it has no deep strata of tradition and identity like other modern states do, and so the ceritude of cold hard cash is of paramount importance.
By the way, I read a book review today of "The Secret", which has sold five million copies in the US by explaining that we DO make our own reality.
I applaud Beeta's observation that "Democracy does not survive in poverty, but revolution does." So true. I just don't think we can reconnect with reality until after the revolution.
Hm. Still not convinced, uni. At any rate, as I've made clear many times, I am an evolutionist, not a revolutionists, if only because revolution has such an iffy record. In terms of French history, I'll take Republics 3&4, thank you very much (in spite of recent events). Republic #1 was, in my view, a bit awkward.
I have not read "The Secret" but I've read OF it. I've read that Oprah has been pushing this "we make our own reality" crap while filming her show a few blocks away from Cabrini Green. My estimation of that lady has gone down considerable.
I'm not sure why there's this urge to blame deep, abstract patterns of thought when a more obvious culprit is at hand: the breakdown of ordinary social structures for evaluating information and testing conclusions.
This isn't a matter of individual failures of critical thinking; it's a social problem. Well-functioning societies provide engines for passing issues through the hands of people of varying backgrounds and ages, getting lots of feedback in the process, before arriving at communal decisions.
But in our society, that sort of communal process barely exists. Large-scale social structures have essentially broken down, and we are left on our own, as naked individuals, to cope with unprocessed information. No wonder that we so readily fall into either uncritical acceptance or knee-jerk skepticism.
Blaming isolated individuals for being out of touch with reality is as limiting as blaming isolated individuals for being poor. Both problems are systemic problems and can only be be addressed in systemic terms.
so you blame liberals for something the church created!
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