The Silent War Cry of the Invisible Democrats
Mistaking surrender and complaints for a declaration of war
Yeh, yeh, yeh.
The Democrats email MeanMesa just about every day. The depressingly predictable subject lines are all about the same.
"Disaster!"
"Failure!"
"Defeated!"
"Send money!"
"We're pleading!"
"Don't say no!"
"They're 100% sure we'll lose!"
The content of the emails themselves are equally depressing invitations to "join an army in retreat." After reading through all this doom and gloom, MeanMesa isn't the least bit inspired to send any money or canvass door to door. It should probably be added that usually, in the past, MeanMesa has been totally ready to send money and canvass door to door.
Why this recently discovered disinterest in being a good little Democratic Party foot soldier?
It certainly isn't because MeanMesa has accidentally drifted into the zombie-like clutches of the oligarch party. It is quite safe to say -- right here and now -- that such a grisly descent into the politics of greed will never happen to MeanMesa. Whatever may be left for a final interment into the Earth's sweet soil will NOT be a Republican carcass.
Having said that, it has been looking very much like MeanMesa wasn't destined to become a Democratic carcass. either. This development might have something to do with the "generalship vacuum" currently plaguing the Democrats.
How the Democrats Lost the Hearts and Minds
There used to be two parties, then there was one,
There used to be two parties, then there was one,
and, now ... there's just reactionaries yelling on cable.
We don't hear much from Democrats these days. The current Owners of the Republican Party also happen to be the current owners of the Fourth Estate. Some time ago -- probably around the time that Ronald Reagan's famous "Moral Majority" scheme received its first few million dollars from the oligarchs of the day -- a quiet, patient Wall Street "shopping spree" was commencing. Within a decade the "purchases" included most of the commercial corporate media networks in the country.
Of course, right along with the newly purchased "titles" to those corporate networks came a nice serving of editorial content control. The broadcast corporations were purchased for a single motive: the slow conversion of what had previously been credibility into raw propaganda.
Naturally, the oligarchs themselves were not at all interested in plastering these erstwhile credible broadcast outlets with their own meat handed elitist clap trap, so they turned the job over to the public opinion "psych techs" inhabiting their already extensive "think tanks."
We are all familiar with the recent "birth" of Rupert Murdoch's FOX network, but we too often over look the literal fact that the major "alphabet networks" are also in the oligarchs' "asset portfolio." Even the most naive media consumer has undoubtedly wondered why almost all the people he knows in his daily life are of one general mindset while all the networks oozing into his cable television are suggesting that their daily biased "fact twisting" indicate a huge majority with essentially the opposite mind set.
The "meme" is quite clear. Regardless of what a citizen might think about the "burning issues of the day," the "wholly owned" media relentlessly serves up a "not particularly odor-free something" that implies the huge majority of voting Americans are only a couple of niches more rational than Rush Limbaugh.
Additionally, all the usual reporting of any information contradicting anything in this "two step chorus" is simply omitted. There were more than a million Americans on the streets demanding that something be done about immigration. There were well attended demonstrations across the country from Bangor to San Diego asking for firearm registration laws. However, the average American peering into the drivel from his cable "news" saw mainly coverage of three dozen drooling tea bags standing on a California highway screaming at a bus full of terrified grade school kids from the next town.
All this would amount to basically pointless rambling if the entire Democratic Party had not also -- in a eerily voluntary way -- stumbled into the same grisly soup. The Democrats disappeared onto the editing floor along with everything else the Owners of the Republican Party -- and the Owners of the corporate Media -- didn't want any citizens thinking about or knowing about.
The consequence of this stifling "psychoanalytical censorship" is that the millions of Americans who sill continue to "submit" themselves to the twisted conceptual mayhem of network "news" reporting have literally no idea what the Democrats are trying to accomplish politically for the country. Not even the President's speeches are broadcast in their entirety. They appear as annotated excerpts, and the "annotations" are far from innocent and even farther from balanced or even handed.
[MeanMesa now receives all broadcast televised news via ROKU. While it is delightful to have "cut the cable" and save $80/month, the very best part is that there is now access to FAR BETTER news reporting on a number of FREE ROKU channels. MeanMeas's "current favorites" are NEWSY, BLINKX HEADLINES and the POST ROKU broadcast. If you happen to be curious, the ROKU in use cost around $60. It draws the broadcast content through the wi-fi in the Galactic HeadQuarters' modem. It also provides LOTS of FREE movies -- mostly "oldies but goldies." If you already have a wi-fi internet modem, you can "turn the news back on" and watch it every day -- at any time you like -- on your own television! Link: ROKU]
The lingering image which is left from the "news interviews" of the passive, awkwardly timid, almost uninterested and certainly uninteresting Democrats is one suggesting to the public an image of strident incompetence. The short snippets of domestic media "interviews" with them present a perfect reinforcement for the unending argument issuing from the almost unilateral right wing media voice that Democrats -- to a man -- are no more than a troublesome minority of all "dangerously deluded" liberals primarily dedicated to wrecking the already tattered US economy with their bumbling and complaining.
What's not happening is that Democrats are prepared to be as mean to the GOP as it has been to them -- and as mean it has been to us citizens.
And, it HAS been mean as hell to citizens.
None of this mischief would have ever been possible if:
1. the Democrats had not slipped into the spell of a GOP-like "politics are everything, policy is nothing" trance [Democrats have good policy but lousy politics];
2. the Democrats had continued to effectively -- and publicly, relentlessly and stubbornly -- move legislation targeting middle class values; and,
3. The Democrats had not quietly resigned themselves to "media invisibility" at the first "nip of the wringer" when the Wall Street corporatists and oligarchs began to order their now "wholly owned" media moguls to shut anyone not eating a "straight FOX diet" out of public view.
Further, we all realize what this media blackout might look like to US Democrats, but we refuse to accept the idea that nothing constructive can be done to "re-introduce" the Democratic Party to American voters. Granted, it looks grim enough, but it does NOT look like political suicide is the "only way out."
A large part of this strange Democratic Party behavior derives from sheer political remorse. The Democrats fiddled around -- diddling with meaningless political trinkets -- while the "free press" was being patiently eviscerated and placed under the control of the oligarchs.
Unhappily, as national Democrats have steadily marched into the political shadows, American voters -- whether for material cause or not -- have responded by expecting less and less of them. The success of the recent right wing "gimmick" of selling the idea that "both sides are the same" is ample evidence of this.
[It should be added here that MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show is a salient exception. MeanMesa watches Dr. Maddow's thoughtful analysis and reporting on contemporary issues every week day on line. The podcasts are on a "one day delay," but they are high quality and free. Here's a link to the site.]
2014: An Unexpected "Herald of the Coming Good"
There are still Democrats -- here and there --
actively fighting for the democracy.
The most refreshing aspect of this news is that these "still fighting" Democrats are neither desperate, dim witted nor defeatist. What a change!
Amid all this desolate landscape of political withdrawal and surrender MeanMesa sees unmistakable evidence of some rather spectacularly "out of character" Democratic Party "moxie." We don't yet know if they will win, but they are fighting.
In this large view what we see is Democrats ready to sacrifice their own political careers to protect specific states and the entire Republic from additional damage at the now clearly criminal hands of what used to be the GOP.
So, where are the battles, and who's in the combat?
The location of the battles is amazing. They are scattered around the country in -- at least what we would have considered a month or two ago -- the least likely of all possible races. The list of the sites is riveting. The national impact of these newly challenged races is too. The sound and smell of Democrats engaging in actual political election strife has also awkwardly reinvigorated other important sections of the "Party of Lost Causes."
The sudden rise of this unexpected threat has not been overlooked by the Owners of the Republican Party, either. The billionaires have dispatched attack teams comprised of their best "crack election crime troops" -- loaded with plenty of oligarch cash, of course -- straight to these "troubled races" from the Wall Street bunkers where they are kept.
Heh, heh. Right about now even a common man's old Plymouth can find a parking spot on K Street.
Catch Up on Some News
Don't cringe -- it's delightful!
The conventional fights -- for example McConnell vs. Grimes in Kentucky and Wendy Davis vs. Abbott in Texas -- have received some publicity already, but these were the ones everyone was expecting. The free for all campaigns in Kansas, Alaska and Maine were surprises.
Wonderful surprises!
The suspiciously obedient media has been relentlessly spewing prophecies of gloom for the Democrats in the mid term for months. The meme that Republicans are about to conduct a clean sweep has been repeated so often that even small children are presuming it to be a settled fact.
Yes, the sold out fascists in control of Red States are disenfranchising voters as quickly as they possibly can disqualify registration cards. Yes, the 2010 anti-democracy gerrymandering is still firmly in place and staunchly defended by "legal states rights rules" written during the time of political hacks and blatant racism in the 30's. And yes, clutches of salivating billionaires are crouched in their gated communities scheming to overwhelm any candidate standing in their path. Yes, all this is true...
But.
Even in the midst of all this, MeanMesa is convinced that Democrats -- perhaps better described for the time being as "not Republican" voters -- are a large majority in the country's electorate.
Settle into your favorite chair, make a nice cup of tea and fire up your computer. What you'll find at the other end of these links will give your troubled soul a well deserved breather.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/09/07/1327101/-Instead-of-legitimate-rape-remarks-this-time-right-wing-economic-policies-are-sinking-GOP-chances?detail=email
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/09/08/1328167/-New-poll-shows-Kansas-Republicans-in-serious-danger-of-going-0-for-3-this-year?detail=email
http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/2014-maine-governor-lepage-vs-michaud-vs-cutler
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/09/02/the-alaska-governors-race-suddenly-got-interesting-heres-everything-you-need-to-know/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/02/alaska-governor-race_n_5755754.html
Naturally, MeanMesa will take this opportunity to add a few suggestions from this blog.
http://www.meanmesa.com/2013/03/a-mathematician-redistricts-congress.html
http://www.meanmesa.com/2013/10/last-chance-join-now-meanmesas-fabulous.html
http://www.meanmesa.com/2014/04/the-us-plutocrats-perilous-perch.html
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