Return of the messiah

So, today the president of the United States put his foot down, saying that he supports the idea of gay marriage. This is, of course, music to the ears of the half dozen NGOs that have emailed me today and a good chunk of the electorate still desperate to revel in some kind of delusion. For some commentators, this was the moment that Obama chose to "energize the base."

Which, of course, only goes to reinforce the fact that the American electorate is as dumb as a bag of hammers. This is the political equivalent of watching these guys try to organize a three car parade while the populace stands on the side of the road, waving their little flags and waiting for something to happen.

"Abortions for some. Miniature American flags for others!"

So, the Romney campaign, being all things Romney, hung their foreign policy guy out to dry because he was gay and the enthusiastic wing of the GOP was foaming at the mouth at the concept. Not that he was gay and had gotten married in Massachusetts; just that he was gay. They're the "values" party, y'see? As long as those values are circa 1950s, at best. But, as with most Romney moments concerning social or cultural issues, this instantly became an opening for the Democrats. The Obama campaign and DCCC started dropping buzzwords about gay rights, human rights and, of course, gay marriage. The media, by and large, ignored the whole issue and Fox News remained quiescent because they know that most intelligent people consider gay marriage to be a fait accompli. In other words, it's stupid to argue against it in the nation that prides itself on being the "leader of the free world" (and, in the case of Fox, also when the longtime host of your highly rated show, Fox Report, happens to be... shhh... gay.) So, first test passed.


The next step is to float the idea with everyone's favorite verbal live grenade, veep Joe Biden. The veep says he's "comfortable" with the idea. The media, once again, basically moves on to other pressing issues (Secret Service agents being poor tippers or some other moral crisis.) That's perfect for Obama, because if the press had recoiled in outrage, they could always laugh it off. "That's just Joe! When does he get through 30 days without saying something outrageous?!" That's basically what he's there for. He's about one step up the political evolutionary ladder from Dan Quayle. As long as he's telling some guy in a wheelchair to stand up and be recognized, he's diverting attention from anything constructive or destructive and basically being a bullet shield for the president. This is where the concept of going back to the veep being the runner-up in the presidential race becomes enormously appealing. As much as I appreciate the mouth that is Joe Biden for all the times that he unintentionally speaks the truth (much to the owning class' dismay), can you imagine the fun that could have been had with President Obama and Vice-President McCain?

Fast forward to today and Obama makes the daring move to say that he "supports the idea". You know, in principle. A hypothetical, as it were. If asked at gunpoint, he might nod his head. Because, after all, he only supports it now because he "assumed that civil unions would be sufficient."

It's still water, amirite?

This guy is as timid on social issues as an Amish woman climbing out of her wedding gown. Why? Because, of course, he doesn't give a shit about things like that. That stuff is for the poors, or at least the non-rich, to worry about. Anyone moving in his social circles doesn't worry about tax benefits or insurance coverage or hospital visitation rights. They get what they want because money buys what they want. And what Obama really wants is more money, preferably in separate checks from different people at the same corporation (the process is known as "bundling".)

And, yet, because he kinda, sorta, wobbles in the direction of an issue near and dear to the deluded masses that still think he cares about them and their lowborn concerns, "the base" is "energized". Keep in mind, of course, that he has not a shred of power to actually effect a change toward gay marriage anywhere in the nation, since the laws concerning such a thing are the purview of the states; 3/4 of which have explicitly banned the practice, sometimes by constitutional amendment, because the majority of state legislatures are packed to the gills with rednecks frightened of the gays, like we have here in Michigan from Jackson to Houghton.

It would be funny if it weren't such a goddamn tragedy.

It's not capitulation. It's collusion.

So the latest rumor from the Beltway is that the default avoidance deal will be all cuts and no revenue increases (i.e. taxes on the rich.) There was the usual anguished gnashing of teeth and dismay among the Democrats and D-sympathizers on the board which, at a base level of sympathy, I can understand. After all, you'd like to think that a still-relatively popular president with a pathetically-loyal following and control of the top house of Congress would be able to cut a better deal than everything the opposition party wants and none of what his wants.

But do they want it?

We all know the answer to that because we are all thinking people, rather than believing people. The answer is: Don't be ridiculous. Of course they don't want it.

Almost every member of Congress and the vast majority of Obama's administration are either too wealthy or completely servile to those who are too wealthy to ever want a change in economic policy that imposes more of the public burden on them; regardless of what happens to the little people depending on the programs targeted for the deepest cuts (Social Security and Medicare.) That includes Obama. The election is less than a year-and-a-half away. He can't cut into the loose change of the people who fill his election coffers and whom will be happy to pave the driveway of the rest of his life with gold when he leaves office. He's already raised a record amount of cash. No sense turning off that spigot.

"But how can he do this?!", his erstwhile supporters shriek. It will cost him the election! Interestingly, most of them don't voice the more immediate concern: it's a complete violation of the line of horseshit that all of them fell for in 2008 (and every election prior...) and, for some reason, continue to cling to in the face of all activity to the contrary. It's hard to confront the truth sometimes, so we'll give them that. But will it cost him the election?

Traditionally, on the face of it, you don't want to savage major spending programs right before an election when the economy and employment situation is already weak. The current employment situation in the US would more properly be termed "dire", so it would seem even less intelligent to cut spending in the situation where most sitting presidents start showering programs with money in order to have something beneficial to the peasants to point to on the campaign trail. So, why?

Because, despite all the Obama and Dem supporters' insistence that he has the GOP by the short hairs in this standoff (which, in political terms is probably true) what they don't understand (or don't want to admit) is that the people he really has in his grip are them. You can come to that conclusion simply by listening for the howls of outrage to gradually be drowned out by the sonorous drone: "He had no other choice."

Imagine that these monks are your average Democrats or D-sympathizers; condemned to a life of self-abuse and mindless chanting while their leaders discard them like so much Dark Ages rabble. The image is perfect. They're the mirror image of GOP followers of people like Bachmann and Palin, neither of whom should be allowed near public office if common sense were the determinant of political reality in this country. Those Democrats believe that their leaders won't betray them again and again, despite repeated occurrences of exactly that. They're believers, not thinkers, and they're every bit as dangerous to the body public as the Bachmann hordes, if not worse, because they prevent any real change from occurring while encouraging everyone around them to accept palliatives as real medicine. And, when the Dems are betrayed, they immediately fall to the mantra: "He had no other choice." Despite being a sitting president and controlling half of Congress, he had no other choice. Clinton committed all kinds of perfidy against traditional Democratic values and programs, even while the Democrats controlled both houses, and the Democrat base was still informed that "he had no other choice." He had to go along to get along with people who really couldn't have stopped him, despite much sound and fury to the contrary. But Clinton, at least, was slick while selling his aluminum siding. Obama doesn't even try that hard.

"But the election-!", they scream. "Even loyal followers and, most importantly, independents won't put up with this." Oh, but they will. This is where the short hairs come back in, courtesy of two things: 1. The GOP field is pathetically bad in the eyes of the general public. Even if Obama hammers those least able to resist, the idea that anyone on the GOP side wouldn't do the same thing is preposterous. 2. The age-old Democratic boogeyman about how it could only be worse under the GOP, no matter how bad the current guy is. That's the essence of Democratic politics for the past two decades.

So, no, he won't end up losing the election by showing his true colors here (for only the 30th time of his presidency so far...) People will lap up the "nothing else he could do" mantra and hedge it with the idiocy of the current GOP field and that old boogeyman: "Think of how much WORSE it could be... as it continues to do nothing but get worse. But, y'know, slowly. So, that's better."

The simple fact is this: Obama has too many donors, friends, colleagues, and sycophants who are enjoying the Bush II tax rates, so there's no way he'd stoop to change them, even if he personally wanted to, which he doesn't, based on every action he's taken since he's been in office. If we had more thinkers and fewer believers, perhaps the reaction of the populace (and his supporters) would be different.

Democracy (and its republican bastardizations) with a somnolent electorate ensures oligarchy. Welcome to it.

Goebbels was right

The Newspaper of Record (there is some question as to whether that old nickname is even viable any longer) has printed a story about Governor Rick Scott (R-Florida) and his sinking approval numbers now that the public has gotten a good, hard look at his policies and methods. The implication is that those who elected the Tea Party candidate may not have known exactly what it is they were asking for. I think their focus is too narrow. This isn't a problem specific to Florida, nor is it a phenomenon that is recent. The Tea Party is simply an outgrowth of something that's been endemic to the American electorate for some time and has only increased as sources of misinformation have proliferated on the Interwebs: stupidity.

People are stupid. Always have been, always will be. Tell them something in a firm tone of voice and they're likely to initially believe it. Repeat that something over and over and they'll believe it even in the face of completely contrary evidence. Continue to repeat it and they'll often create spurious evidence in their own minds to reassure themselves that it's true. If they've been trained to distrust most institutions (or not had their interests served by said institutions and, thus, become frustrated with and opposed to them), all the better.

Most Tea Partiers that I've met, read, or listened to have not the first clue what they really want. They have a utopian notion of government/democracy/civil society that has been planted in their mind or that they have self-created and they're now attempting to pursue that with all the vigor of the righteous oppressed. The idea that Scott or people like him (such as Governor Scott Walker (R-Wisconsin)) are now plummeting in popularity because those who elected them have fallen for the bait-and-switch is preposterous. Those people handed the bait to Scott and Walker and told them to run with it until they found themselves in front of a touchscreen. Any momentary consideration of the effects of policies that begin with "get government out of our lives" would have led any mildly intelligent person to conclude that that might not be the best thing for a bunch of voters depending on things like Social Security and Medicare.

But most voters don't stop for that momentary consideration because they're not trained to think. They're trained to believe. And the first thing they'd like to believe is whatever someone tells them in a firm tone of voice. It certainly doesn't hurt if you happen to be reasonably attractive and are only spouting the same kind of misinformation that people have been lapping up for the past quarter-century, as well. Cue Sarah Palin...

Most Tea Partiers worship at the altar of the Blessed Reagan. The GOP and other right-wing sources have been spewing the line about Reagan being the greatest president since... well, since the so-called Founding Fathers really, because they can't say "greatest since Calvin Coolidge" because the latter led the country right into the Great Depression (despite occasional attempts by Republicans to lay the blame at the feet of FDR, who didn't take office until 3 years later.) They really can't say "greatest since Abraham Lincoln", either, since he committed the twin awful sins of both enforcing the rule of the federal government and espousing equality for those black people... No, they really have a tough time finding paragons of Republicanism to hearken back to other than Reagan (Nixon? Creator of the EPA and scion of Watergate?) so they just like to go ahead and name Reagan the greatest since, well, forever because they've been taught that he was the shining example of everything true Republicans/right-wingers should stand for: small government and low (or zero) taxes.

Of course, they seem to forget the fact that following the hallowed Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 (Google it), which created a tax cut of $264 billion and dropped the country into one of the most brutal recessions it had ever experienced, Reagan proceeded to raise taxes 11 times, beginning with the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982 (Google it), which not only raised taxes but did so in a manner that didn't touch the top 5% of "earners" that Reagan and current politicians, both Republican and Democrat, so slavishly step-and-fetch for. Instead, it raised FICA taxes; that chunk that comes out of every one of your paychecks. Focus the cuts and spread the costs is, was, and shall always be the mantra of both the ruling class and the elected officials that serve them. Why? Because they can get away with it so long as idiots like those that make up the Tea Party and most of the electorate believe otherwise.

The Tea Party is a manifestation of the Republican Southern Strategy, writ large. The aforementioned Nixon used the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to divide the southern states against the Democratic party whose president (Johnson) had signed the Act. Of course, those same Democrats had been using that strategy to stay in power since Reconstruction, since it was the Republicans who had violated the "sovereign rights" of the southern states in the 19th century. The only way to keep rich white people in control of those states was to make poor white people think their lives were hard because of the poor black people. That's how you distract people long enough to convince them that voting for policies completely inimical to themselves and their wallets is somehow the right thing to do. That same strategy is at the root of the Tea Party phenomenon. The target is no longer solely poor black people since that kind of talk isn't acceptable in public any longer. Now it's just even poorer white people somehow getting rich (but staying poorer) from that evil faceless entity known as the Government, which has gotten out of control and exists only to keep the regular Poor White Man down. Don't worry. It only sounds stupid because it is. People accept this as a form of common wisdom because it's easier to believe that other, regular people are cheating the system, rather than that the system is designed and continually modified to be a way of keeping people in their place.

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it." - Josef Goebbels. Would I dare to invoke Godwin's Law when talking about the Tea Party and the herd instinct amongst the American electorate? I sure would. After all, the historical similarities are self-evident and simply one more example of our electoral system being constructed on that most durable of political substances: bullshit.