By Steven Webber - You know....The Guy that did that show...uh....
Roger Ailes didn't so much as take a page from Lee Atwater's book as Andy Kaufman's.
It's the most hilarious show in town: the rhetorical gymnastics executed by the Right, taking every hard-fought victory for the United States after decades of reputation-destroying policy failures and outrageously unhinged attitude and twisting, hammering, chopping and screwing them into the feel-bad fabrications about that "evil other" Barack Obama.
Bin Laden's been gone, Qaddafi's ka-dead, and the Arab Spring's been sprung; the unjustly motivated war in Iraq slated to be over; the American people are aroused and assembling. And yet the corporate media is taking the same sought-for outcomes which have wildly eluded the Right and reconstituting them into their kooky contrivances, constructing their alternate realities at odds with what is actually happening in the streets and in the people's houses that line them.
And the comedy continues. Yes, despite real foreign policy victories resulting from direct US intervention or the genius of "leading from behind," achieving goals with uncharacteristically minimal muss and fuss (events that Fox News would have celebrated with a Sousaesque mixture of drenched pants and Old Glory pyrotechnics) the message they transmit is, let's say, somewhat less than positive. They blame Obama for his inability to fix the economy while actively preventing him from doing so. Ba-DUM-bum!
And as the joke is becoming ever more clear and the laughs are starting to come faster and louder, those chosen by the Right to shepherd the next chapter of their Assault On America are reacting to their audience's restlessness and slipping in puddles of their own flowing flop-sweat: Rick Santorum dedicating his life to dragging the country back to a time when people wore big buckles on their hats; Herman Cain giving CEO's even a worse name than they already have; Mitt stuffing his suit with whatever fluff he happens to be standing in at the time; Rick Perry about to go full birther; Michelle Bachmann unable to hide her love of wild-eyed fundamentalism; the now painfully obvious abortion fetish and the glorification of Ayn Rand's malignant, narcissistic sociopathy which permeates all dyed-in-the-wool GOPers; and -- of course -- the relentlessly reflexive kneecapping from the FOX folks and related fiends. It's sedition as vaudeville.
The scale of Right Wing sociopolitical sabotage necessitates a Nuremberg-scale trial for all the corporate agents and treasonous capitalisto-fascist architects of our democracy's current and most pressing misery. From the blatant Republican policy doublespeak emanating from think-tank sponsored word doctors to the outright obstruction and lies expectorated by Republican congressional representatives and senators, the very concept of governance can only be considered once the culprits are removed. Driven to real madness by unadulterated greed they have embraced an ideology, the success of which hinges upon the very ruin of this nation.
But the real joke is that these guys just plain suck at making people laugh except by accident. And the irony is that all these greed-saturated corporate brainiacs should know that you can make as much money -- more, even! WOW! -- by raising people's consciousnesses and expanding their intellects, by inspiring hope and creativity and extolling the virtues of humility and mercy and thrift and cooperation, rather than constantly using obsolete, dumb ass bully tactics to make their money.
But no. It's easier to batter the audience than lift 'em up. It is to laugh.
It's the most hilarious show in town: the rhetorical gymnastics executed by the Right, taking every hard-fought victory for the United States after decades of reputation-destroying policy failures and outrageously unhinged attitude and twisting, hammering, chopping and screwing them into the feel-bad fabrications about that "evil other" Barack Obama.
Bin Laden's been gone, Qaddafi's ka-dead, and the Arab Spring's been sprung; the unjustly motivated war in Iraq slated to be over; the American people are aroused and assembling. And yet the corporate media is taking the same sought-for outcomes which have wildly eluded the Right and reconstituting them into their kooky contrivances, constructing their alternate realities at odds with what is actually happening in the streets and in the people's houses that line them.
And the comedy continues. Yes, despite real foreign policy victories resulting from direct US intervention or the genius of "leading from behind," achieving goals with uncharacteristically minimal muss and fuss (events that Fox News would have celebrated with a Sousaesque mixture of drenched pants and Old Glory pyrotechnics) the message they transmit is, let's say, somewhat less than positive. They blame Obama for his inability to fix the economy while actively preventing him from doing so. Ba-DUM-bum!
And as the joke is becoming ever more clear and the laughs are starting to come faster and louder, those chosen by the Right to shepherd the next chapter of their Assault On America are reacting to their audience's restlessness and slipping in puddles of their own flowing flop-sweat: Rick Santorum dedicating his life to dragging the country back to a time when people wore big buckles on their hats; Herman Cain giving CEO's even a worse name than they already have; Mitt stuffing his suit with whatever fluff he happens to be standing in at the time; Rick Perry about to go full birther; Michelle Bachmann unable to hide her love of wild-eyed fundamentalism; the now painfully obvious abortion fetish and the glorification of Ayn Rand's malignant, narcissistic sociopathy which permeates all dyed-in-the-wool GOPers; and -- of course -- the relentlessly reflexive kneecapping from the FOX folks and related fiends. It's sedition as vaudeville.
The scale of Right Wing sociopolitical sabotage necessitates a Nuremberg-scale trial for all the corporate agents and treasonous capitalisto-fascist architects of our democracy's current and most pressing misery. From the blatant Republican policy doublespeak emanating from think-tank sponsored word doctors to the outright obstruction and lies expectorated by Republican congressional representatives and senators, the very concept of governance can only be considered once the culprits are removed. Driven to real madness by unadulterated greed they have embraced an ideology, the success of which hinges upon the very ruin of this nation.
But the real joke is that these guys just plain suck at making people laugh except by accident. And the irony is that all these greed-saturated corporate brainiacs should know that you can make as much money -- more, even! WOW! -- by raising people's consciousnesses and expanding their intellects, by inspiring hope and creativity and extolling the virtues of humility and mercy and thrift and cooperation, rather than constantly using obsolete, dumb ass bully tactics to make their money.
But no. It's easier to batter the audience than lift 'em up. It is to laugh.
____________________________________________________
No comments:
Post a Comment