Lord of the Lies

Four days to the election and the one thing that McCain seems to be getting some traction on is this idea that Obama is a socialist who wants to redistribute the wealth and rob Joe the Plumber of his just rewards. The knee-jerk negative response that the word "socialist" elicits in most Americans has to do with the idea that a society where the government tries to provide a leg up to the less fortunate is somehow antithetical to the very qualities that make this a great and dynamic country. That it--and I really hate words like this--deincentivizes people from striving and creating because it punishes success and rewards failure. There may be some truth to that, but the heart of most people's resistance has more to do with their ambivalence about government in general. I think that the relationship of the government to the people is like the relationship of parents to children. Children want to be free to do whatever they want without anyone setting boundaries, and at the same time they need someone to set and enforce boundaries. We all know what happens when children are left alone without adults to set boundaries for them: They go Lord of the Flies. The idea that the financial markets would self-regulate is as absurd as the idea that a group of children would share a plate of cookies fairly among themselves because it's the right thing to do. They won't. They're fucking children. They'll eat as much as they want to eat even if it makes them sick, even if another kid doesn't get any. Societies have laws and government because they need them; the trick is finding the right balance between individual freedom and the health and well-being of the group. We all naturally do things out of personal interest, but sometimes personal interest can blind us with short term needs that actually harm us in the long run (like those kids with the cookies). We've just spent the past eight years under the rule of a really bad parent, an unfair parent, who favored some of his children over the others, who let some run wild, while others suffered abuse and neglect. Now the time has come to find a good parent again, someone who will undo the harm that the bad parent caused. We need good government again, and no amount of name-calling, fear-mongering or character assassination can change that. I just hope the adult children of this great country recognize that if they wind up electing John McCain, they will have replaced one bad parent with another.

Where Are We Going, Where Have We Been?

So I just started wondering how it works. Does the McCain campaign actually disseminate their talking points to the right wing press? Are the Charles Krauthammers and the Peggy Noonans on the repug payroll and they get their assignments and then start typing? "Okay, for the last two weeks of the campaign, we're going to work the McCarthyesque guilt by association theme (since we've got nothing else left), so let's make sure every column we write is some variation on that theme?" I only ask this because the coordination is breathtaking. In the days leading up to the debate and since, the drumbeat from the right wing columnists is Acorn and Ayers, Ayers and Acorn, with a little paradiddle thrown in of "anti-American," "unpatriotic," and "socialist" (you people are trying to rob Joe the Plumber and spread the wealth!).

Is it working? Not so far. But if they continue to say these things over and over and over, will it have an effect come election day? I have no idea, except that I know it's working my nerves and pissing me off. In case you haven't heard, Sarah Palin's going around saying there are parts of this country that love America and there are parts that hate America (big wink), and we know where they are. Some scary senator from Minnesota, meanwhile, Caroline Bachmann, went on Chris Matthews and basically said in response to dogged and smart questioning from Matthews that not just Obama, but all the other liberals and leftists in congress should probably be investigated to see if they, too, are Anti-American.

Hmm...When have we heard this all before. "Are you now, or have you ever been..."

Yeah, well. It's easy to dismiss what's happening, to conclude that the Grinch and his lipstick sled dog are desperate and pathetic, but it's also clear that this is no longer a presidential campaign, it's a witch hunt. And if it ends up working two weeks from now, like travelers who've been out on the road too long, we're all gonna wake up the next day and wonder what country we're in.

Well, I did say I was sick of us always being the angry ones

I was in the Biography bookstore over the weekend, looking at a copy of On the Road, the Original Scroll, which was on sale for $8.98 in hardcover, when suddenly I heard somebody outside ranting in a loud, angry voice. I looked through the open door, and saw a tattooed skinhead/heavy metal type walking past, his sleeveless shirt-front bedecked with what were obviously political buttons, although I couldn’t make out who they were for or what they said. He was yelling in an ugly, scary tone, turning this way and that, his face a contorted mask of hate. “Acorn is instigating voter fraud and he’s in it up to his neck! He’s a fucking terrorist! He’s a fucking terrorist! Bill Ayers and him, they’re thick as thieves! Can't you understand that we’re gonna having fucking socialism if we let these fucking terrorists win!”And then he was out of sight, though I could hear him still, as he continued ranting his way through the West Village. In his wake, people looked down the block after him. I continued to the cash register and purchased my book, then walked out of the store. I could still see him, across Hudson Street, lunging as he spat out his angry bile. And I found myself thinking, irrationally, that I might actually try to engage him and ask him a few things. In the next instant, however, I realized the stupidity of that. He was a raving lunatic. Best to stay as far the hell away as possible. It was disturbing, seeing that kind of anger. It made me afraid, afraid for Obama, afraid for the country.

Now, it's a few days later, the morning of the third and final debate, and the desperate, flailing “Country First” hypocrites seem to have nothing left in their arsenal. Maybe they'll continue the negative assault that has inflamed the crazies at their rallies and elsewhere, though perhaps not in such naked and ugly a form. Certainly the McCain campaign's demonization of Obama has fomented hatred and given license to those so inclined to express feelings that might otherwise be submerged or heavily edited.

I do know that when I saw the video of one of these recent Palin-McCain rallies and heard the crowd thunderously chant U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! I shuddered and thought of Weimar in the ‘30s. It seems clear that when racism and nationalism are given a platform, fascism and violence aren't far behind. My uncle Norm always said that probably the only thing keeping this country from falling into fascism was another Depression. Well, here we are, on the brink. And I'm afraid that even if we win this election, we won't be out of the woods. Four years from now, if things don't improve, or if they get worse, we may find ourselves in a fight for the soul of this country that will make this "most important election of our lifetime" look like the undercard.