WE’RE ALL DOOMED – PART II

Following yesterday’s exchange, Jay Babcock comes back with the following, (although it might be a plan to read ABC’s rant up on the comments board first.)

Look, it's *over for liberals in this country. Has been since Kennedy was killed -- possibly even earlier than that.It's a conservative nation and it's getting more that way with each year. Carter won cuz of a scandal and was promptly booted after one term. Clinton won cuz of a third party candidate -- he was the least-popular two-termer ever, and was almost removed from office. Gore *almost won because of the economy, the power of incumbency and because he ran with an essentially happy-faced Republican agenda. Republicans control the nation. Repeat: Republicans control the nation. It's a Republican nation. Not only do they own the media, they have the state governorships, the state legislatures, the House, the Senate and the White House. They've been building towards this for 50 years. We are in a period of Republican entrenchment, and it's not going to end any time soon. I'm not saying anything novel here. Did you not read the articles that ran on this in December in the New York Times and the New Yorker and the Weekly Standard???? (Lemme know and I'll send em right over.)
Bush is not "fumbling." Bush does not have to make a comeback. The only people following this day-to-day crap is a very small portion of the population: political junkies of all stripes, and died-in-the-wool liberals. The bast majority of the public DOES NOT KNOW, DOES NOT WANT TO KNOW and DOES NOT CARE TO KNOW. They tell this to pollsters -- don't you read the polls?
Bush has got this in the bag.

And even if he didn't: Kerry hasn't given even the slightest indication that he would alter America's imperialist ways. You've put an awful lot of what is charitably called 'misplaced faith' in this man, for some reason. Sure: I don't like Bush. He's irritating. He's an obvious smallbrain
and greedhead. I'd like to see him lose. The thought of a family of one-termers makes me cackle. But so what? I have no illusions about what a Kerry presidency could/would mean. I take him at his word: he won't withdraw US troops from anywhere; he'll continue the corporate agenda for the nation and planet; and he'll be able to construct complex sentences without squirming. Big fucking deal. The sooner this Empire falls, the better for the planet. I think another term of Bush would hasten that fall -- a Kerry administration would just prolong the demise, causing greater harm to the planet, on balance. Kerry is Eugene McCarthy redux. If he tries the RFK route, he'll get shot. That's what we do to insurgent liberals in this country. Can Nader win? Of course not. Should we make fun of him then? Should we denigrate him? No. If a man speaks Truth, you should applaud him.

Confronted with Jay’s total defeatism, I can only wonder, once we’ve finished applauding Ralph Nader, (and reading the Weekly Standard?) what do we do then? Hole up in the basement and shoot dope until they come for us? Join some outlaw militia unit in Montana? Move to Europe? Empires don’t usually collapse under their own inertia. Most times they need a few barbarians to kick in the gates. Those that do, like the USSR, tend to make a terrible mess, and the collapse of a monolithic superpower like USA21C would be catastrophic, to the point of famine, plague, and multiple civil wars. Even accepting the hugely elitist idea that Americans are too stupid for democracy (which I don’t, otherwise why bother?) there is the matter of post-McLuhan, under-the-radar cultural perception. If Bush can be turned from Peerless Leader to the demon Chuckie in the months we have left, we might have a fighting chance. Let the chimp miasma fall. It worked with Vietnam. Perception was turned with massively less communications tools. Strange bedfellowships will occure, though. Like Howard Stern. Most of you probably don’t like or don’t give a rat’s ass about Stern, but if Boy Powell’s FCC drives Stern off the air, you will have 18 million formerly Bush-worshiping Maxim readers extremely pissed off, and if only a percentage of them vote, it makes a difference.

And even if the defeat of Bush is a completely lost cause, I, for one, will continue to fight out of a sheer sense of romance and a need to keep my self respect. I believe I’ve already noted somewhere in past blogs that Spanish Civil War songs make me choke up.

(Comments can be posted on the board or sent to byron4d@aol.com . Much more on media perception in the next LA CityBeat. I’ll post a link Thursday if the website is configured right. And, oh yeah, the Leno/Letterman column from last week can now be read at – http://lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=783&IssueNum=42 )

QUOTE OF THE DAY – Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake. -- Napoleon Bonaparte

CRYPTIQUE – Starvelings smell the coffee.