Election drizzle
By
Saul Landau Read Spanish Version
Unrelenting
gossip drenches the presidential election, nonstop media nattering
about Sarah’s qualities or lack of thereof,
McCain’s
“heroic” character, Obama’s link with real people or lack of.
In between such “analytical talk” media chatterers examine
candidates’ sex lives and eating habits; their dress codes become
subjected to tight scrutiny. Did he wear his flag pin? Does he look
better without a tie?
As
the U.S. economy continues to slide down the metaphorical toilet at
home and its image plunges around the world, neither its politicians
nor media seize the opportunity to tell the truth. Who on the
presidential stump or in Congress would dare to say the $700-plus
billion defense budget doesn’t defend the country, contributes to
conflict around the world and sucks up urgently needed funds for
social programs? In addition, the government has bailed out failing
financial giants, the $85 billion for AIG being the latest.
McCain
attributes the crisis to greed, but apparently forgot that his
legislation gave greed the high road by institutionalizing financial
insatiability. McCain backed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act written by
his pal and economic guru former Texas Senator Phil Gramm. This law
allowed banks, insurance companies and brokerages to merge. McCain
blames the current mortgage crisis and financial meltdown on the very
vice his act encouraged. Yet, he learned nothing from his mistake. He
helped dismantle regulation that prevented such avaricious behavior,
yet McCain, still pushes to deregulate more — like social security.
Would you feel secure if your pension fell into the hands of the
scoundrels who destroyed Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearns
and others?
Amazingly,
Wall Street crashes, McCain smiles and assures the electorate the
U.S. economy stands on firm foundations. Education, transportation
and health systems teeter in various stages of crisis; roads,
bridges, dykes and levees need rapid attention. Water and sewage
systems require repair lest we drink what we flush — or have we
already begun to do it?
Compare
these needs to the exigencies of “defense.” McCain insists we
need a new round of nuclear weapons and must, for “security,”
maintain 761 bases around the world and continue to fight two dubious
wars. The less bellicose Obama will intensify efforts only in
Afghanistan, he says, while diminishing the one in Iraq. McCain and
Palin almost assure the public they will maintain ongoing conflicts
and start new ones — if the peace-loving voters will only elect
them.
Palin
revealed in her September 11 ABC interview with Charles Gibson her
unique combination of neo-con foreign policy and extreme right wing
populism. “The Bush Doctrine?” She paused, thinking: “shaved or
unshaved?
As
Sarah met the press, McCain refused to allow members of the media to
make a copy of his medical records. He simply assured everyone that
his dangerous melanoma was cured and you better take the word of a
hero and a patriot on that medical issue.
Meanwhile,
the glitter from the Palin spectacle spread panic among some
liberals. “My God, I’m leaving this country if McCain and Palin
win.” Lawyers and doctors volunteered to walk Pennsylvania and Ohio
precincts to register voters in key states. They registered voters
and assured them of Obama’s superiority on issues of the economy,
war and peace and, not least, his promise to appoint judges to the
court who would not automatically reject any claim from a poor person
or one of color.
Republican
spinners gloat about Sarah and John as “regular people” and Obama
as an elitist. No matter McCain owns nine homes (Paul Begala on “Real
Time,” Sept.14) and has never represented a poor person. McCain,
the serious Christian, cheated on his first wife — who was
physically suffering — and then left her for a very wealthy one. Is
this the meaning of maverick?
He
loves his country, supports the men and women in the armed forces but
votes against veterans’ benefits and programs that help the poor.
He has embellished the story of his own heroism — getting shot down
over Hanoi, a civilian area, and enduring five years as a POW (a
model one at that) —
illustrating
the Talmudic saying: “When you add to the truth, you subtract from
it.”
Obama
called for teaching responsible, age appropriate sex education,
including the use of birth control. Republican spinners insisted he
wanted to teach kindergarten children all about doing the old nasty.
Ironically, Republicans seem to think people won’t notice Sarah
Palin’s “preggers” daughter. An example of abstinence advocacy?
Palin refused to allow sex education in Alaska’s school system.
Well, her daughter says she only slipped up once!
In
a northern California coffee shop, two women discussed the election.
“She may be a bitch,” said a middle aged housewife, “but she
tells it like it is.”
I
wondered what the “it” meant.
“That’s
true,” said her younger companion, wiping egg yolk from her
seven-year-old’s chin. “But she doesn’t seem to know much. I
saw the whaddayacallit interview the other night and I’m not sure
she’s ready for such a job. McCain’s maybe got you know cancer or
something and might just die after he wins.”
“Maybe.
I don’t know,” said the other. “I didn’t like Hillary all
that much. She was like a snobby bitch. But I like Sarah. She kicks
ass. I like what she did to protect her family members.” (This, I
assumed, referred to the investigation of Sarah trying to fire an
Alaskan state official who refused to fire her former brother in law
who had wronged her sister; or to the Enquirer
stories about Sarah forcing the young man who impregnated her
17-year-old daughter to marry her — against his will.)
Another
market conversation: “I was going to vote for McCain, but then I
realized, well, the thing about Sarah’s seventeen year old
daughter. If she can’t control her own family, how is she gonna
control the country?”
As
H.L.Mencken observed, “No one ever went broke underestimating the
intelligence of the American public.” But after getting a Bush
administered beating for eight years, after suffering ineptness and
corruption on a scale that surpassed all previous administrations,
the middle class public should say en masse: “enough of these
people.” (Think ENRON, Cheney scandals about circumventing the
Constitution to invade citizens’ liberties, bloody wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq, routinizing torture,
the
“response” to Katrina, the politicization of the Justice
Department). But “think” is an inappropriate word in the mass
anxiety age, where distraction and super stress rule the day.
Who’d
you rather drink a beer with? Isn’t it neat Sarah calls her husband
“First Dude”? What a colorful family! The big dude has an old DWI
conviction and didn’t go to college! He even wanted Alaska to
secede! That family has character.
Such
statements occurred as Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers and AIG went
under; others threaten to follow. Hewlett Packard laid off 25,000
workers. The world’s seventh largest economy, California, can’t
come up with a budget that allots minimal funds to maintain its
education and health systems.
Voters
drive on crowded freeways, worry about losing jobs, arriving late to
pick up a kid, paying $60 to buy gas. They listen to radio news or
talk shows where issues congeal in the equivalent of a large audio
spitball. At night, TV wraps this cacophony of woes with images, adds
urgent screams, desperate pants and flirting winks about how you
should forget the depressing messages (news) you’re just seen and
heard and buy something. During elections, candidates must use this
same media to convey their own urgent messages: vote for me and end
global warming, solve high gas prices and, of course, get the
proverbial chicken in every pot.
Office
seekers assure citizens they represent their interests. But they
don’t tell the truth! Truth-telling would compromise their
electability, say political handlers. Campaign spinners employ the
wisdom of Maimonides. “People like the opinion to which they have
become accustomed… They cling to the opinions of habit.”
So,
don’t think, or engage in dialogue. Just chant: “Yes We Can. USA
USA USA!”
Saul
Landau is an Institute for Policy Studies fellow, author of A
BUSH AND BOTOX WORLD
and producer of WE
DON’T PLAY GOLF HERE
and 40 other films available on DVD from
roundworldproductions@gmail.com.
