Because You Never Asked

 

(10/09)

     The recent brouhaha swirling around Rush Limbaugh’s attempt to buy into the NFL has made further relevant a man whose relevance seems to be growing. If the reader thinks my reference to fascism is exaggerated --- not so much for Limbaugh being such, but more because it cannot happen in America --- I’ll remind us of the following: in the early 1930’s, one of the most educated, culturally profound, technologically advanced nations on earth, was wooed into a death trap by the elegant charisma of Adolf Hitler. This nation was convinced into annihilating an important western ethnic group that had played a major role in the technical-cultural development of the “Occidental Idea” since its very beginning. I’m sure there were many Germans of that era --- and not just German Jews --- who thought sanity would eventually claim its turf, that this would all blow over ---

     Try telling that to the soldiers in the hell hole called Stalingrad.

     With due accommodation to the differing geo-political realities of each respective time and place, Rush Limbaugh is fast becoming the American version of Adolf Hitler. His magnetic style of articulate demagoguery has Fuehrer-like similarities and he represents a closely related political point of view.

     Woe to all of us if that last paragraph is not taken seriously.

     The recent triumph of Barak Obama would seem to contradict such thoughts, but Rush the wounded animal has proven even fiercer and more dangerous than ever. There are any number of exhilarating progressive triumphs in history that have spawned extremely regressive reactions that changed that one historic step forward into three medieval steps back. The events culminating in the Spanish Civil War and the barbaric ouster of the Allende government in Chile are just 2 examples. The current socio-political reality in America has similar overtones.

     It might be easy to poo-poo away such paranoiac fretting, especially in the afterglow of Obama’s victory. It is not unreasonable to suggest that Limbaugh and other surrogates like Sarah Palin represent an extreme element of Republicanism that cannot garner enough votes to win on a nation wide battlefield. This could very well be true. When it became obvious Palin’s defeat in 2008 was not the end but just the beginning of her political career, this writer took solace in the thought. “Sure, let’s keep her around, she’s such a juicy target, so easy to ridicule, and although her following is both rabid and substantial, it is not nearly enough”.

     I’m not so sure of this anymore, and, once again, woe to all of us if this segment of American politics is not taken seriously.

     It is no accident that Limbaugh and Palin have appeared in the same breath. Unlike Hitler, who seized the moment in a militarily defeated nation propitious for his direct assumption of power, Limbaugh will never run for office. His role will always be that of the Wizard behind the curtain, spewing forth the propaganda as the “de facto” but real leader of the movement. He will be its brain, its soul, its heart, but he’ll need a candidate. Sarah Palin makes the most sense. Both Limbaugh and Palin are ideologically compatible and she, along with the mercurial radio star, most galvanizes the not ignorable amount of people living in this dangerous reality. She was hit pretty hard in her rookie year, but she’s been working on her game, learning how to pitch. She’ll be more prepared the next time. She would be the face of the Limbaugh administration, just as W. was the face for his father’s cabal of Republicans. She doesn’t have to know much (how convenient). All she has to do is present the ideology as she is trained to do.

     At the moment, it would seem difficult for them to find the numerical support necessary to take over nationally, but as soon as one says “at the moment”, that moment is already gone and the future is waiting infinitely for whatever is ready to become history. The Limbaughnian moment is still in its developmental stage. It’s something like this:

     Let’s say your baseball team is in a pennant race. You trail by 6 games with a month to go, a substantial amount, but you’re still in it. The problem is --- there are 3 teams ahead of you. You not only have to keep winning, but the 3 teams above you all have to start losing. This makes your probabilities more difficult.

     But Limbaugh has time. He is now in the process of culling the Republican herd in order to eliminate those standing between his more fascistic brand of neo-con artistry and the first place team, the Democrats. He is going after the more traditional form of “moderate” Republican embodied in the Bushes, the Rockefellers, the Fords, Doles, Cabot-Lodges, Lindsay-like Bloombergs and whatever remnants of rural solid citizenry and financial mogulry that still exist in the party. This, not the religious right, has been the traditional base of the Republican Party, the same power brokers who stumbled upon a windfall of political capital in these religious fanatics and their anti-abortion, “family values” concept. These traditional Republican power brokers couldn’t give a rancid ponzy scheme for such ideas, but they not only paid lip service to it, they pampered it.

     But guess what?

     These social conservatives have become “too big to fail”. Like the Nazis of old, they are fanatic in their beliefs and in no mood for compromise. They’ve been the Republican Party’s most loyal stockholders, and now they want to own it.

     This stage of the operation should not be too difficult; in fact, it has just about been finished. Within the ranks of Republican office holders, almost all the moderates have been driven from the herd. This has alienated a significant amount of moderate voters who generally or sometimes vote Republican, but that can be addressed later. The goal for the moment is to put the team in second place, regardless of the distance separating it from the leading Democrats. The goal is to turn it into a 2 team race, head on, no complications, let’s get it on. If it shrinks the party for now --- no problem.

     There is something in the nature of what we call the “center-right” and “center-left” in Occidental politics that needs clarification here. Obviously, these are generic terms meant to fan the flames of some kind of centrist moderation in the propaganda of western “democracy”. But only the center-left --- Democrats, Labor, Social Democrats, etc. --- lives up to its name. Contemporary “liberals” or “progressives” are far from radical in nature. They are not against markets or capitalism, they simply feel it must be policed or refereed in a way that makes it fairer, more equitable, and less prone to the massive thievery that seems to have become part of its genetic makeup. These feelings naturally dovetail with the idea of a social contract of modest proportions for those in need of help or rehabilitation. This is about as far as it goes. The road from Ted Kennedy to Che Guevara has been blown to bits and is not transitable anymore.

     The center-right, quite to the contrary, is a perhaps deliberate misnomer propagated by right wing interests always in favor of moving further to the right. Unlike today’s liberals, whose leftward range of motion has a limit, the conservatives --- Republicans, Tories, Christian Democrats, etc. --- will go as far to the right as the socio-political reality allows them. The right defends hard core, touchable, material interests more than it does ideas. There are no abstract notions in play. There is no romance. Anything favoring these material interests is favored by the right. In the context of western politics, it is difficult to find any move further to the right that does not favor these interests. The road from Ronald Reagan to Adolf Hitler, in spite of a few potholes in need of minor repair, is still open and transitable. (For more, see essay “LePen”).

     Woe to all of us if such rhetoric is not taken seriously.

     Further facilitating a conservative movement that could spiral out of control is a huge, international media conglomerate working in partnership with Limbaugh and his minions. Rupert Murdoch’s Newscorp, operating as the Fox Network in America, with its 24 hour news channel, along with its other extensive sports and entertainment programming all over the TV dial, as well as its print and radio operations, provide an octopus of socio-cultural influence whose tentacles reach every convolution of the American brain. Perhaps its non-news programming, masquerading as entertainment, is an even more insidious kind of propaganda. Its foundation is anchored in noxious “dumming down” viewing, along with an overdose of heroic cops, soldiers, intelligence operators and such, defending us from the myriad of bad guys out to destroy that last bastion of honor, freedom and apple pie decency, the God Blessed States of America. Its extensive sports programming provide perfect venues for massive patriotic exhortations reminiscent of the Third Reich at its best.

     (Coincidentally, it is the day after Veteran’s Day as I write. For the 4 or 5 days leading up to it, not just Fox, but all the Big Media mafia, laid it on with more pukeable thickness than ever, using support for the troops in their usual cowardly way to justify the nation’s misguided military aggression. Most conspicuous here was the use of professional football players --- the nation’s most splendid examples of youthful physical force and ability to fight --- thanking the troops for all they do to keep us free and to make it possible for them to be here playing football today. That last thought was used repetitively. Maybe their motto should be, “we play, you die, thanks”. There might be others, but as far as I know, the only such person who ever put his ass out there where his mouth was, was the true hero, Pat Tillman. He gave up a lucrative career playing football to go fight those he perceived as having attacked us on 9/11. By now we know he was killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan , how they tried to make it seem as if he died heroically defending the country, how his family has objected, how the sad truth has come out. Less known is Tillman’s disenchantment with the foreign policy of these wars in general. And yet, without mentioning any of that, Big Media still used his image frequently in support of --- what? the troops? or the wars themselves?)

     This combination of ideological fanaticism and huge media muscle makes the phrase I coined in the big essay, “September 11^th” --- the “Military-Industrial-Media Complex” --- more relevant than ever.

     The obvious retort to all this is that Newscorp is not the only media monster out there; they all have at least some point of view, similar programming, etc. This cannot be denied, but that is something like saying all pitchers throw similar pitches. They do, but the way in which they do it makes for widely varying results. With the exception of Fox, none of America ’s other media voices have become active associates in a political movement, a political movement whose rightward drift has no limits. Our other media voices are centrist operations still trying to maintain a façade of journalistic impartiality whose leftward drift is quite limited. This writer has often criticized this narrow “centrism” centered directly over the glorification of neo-liberal capitalism, a constricted choice of options considered way too exclusive in these pages in solving the woes of the world. But compared to where Limbaugh and Murdoch would take this country if its socio-political institutions are not strong enough to stop them, it is quite innocuous indeed. Even our most outspoken pundits on the “left” --- Olbermann, Maddow, MSNBC in general --- are typical liberals with an impenetrable wall closely delimiting their left flank.

     This partnership between an elegant demagogue like Limbaugh and the steroidal media muscle of an operation like Murdoch’s, coupled with the difficult financial situation and the bloodsucking wars the nation seems hopelessly mired in, creates a fertility for extremism that normal birth control practices might not be good enough to prevent. The fact that it is the Limbaugh-Murdoch element of American politics that led us into this mess is of little consequence. Desperate times create irrational responses.

     Is the Republican Party fracturing into bits that cannot be pasted together as an effective force? Can the more educated, accommodated wing of the Party --- the George Wills, the David Fromms, the Colin Powells, the emotional heirs of William Buckley, the Ivy League “apparatchiks” who most carry the traditional DNA of the Party --- can these people sign on with such disruptive anti-intellect led by this more rural, possum hunting, tailgating brand of Bible thumping knee jerk patriotism? Can they go along with their Party being in the hands of such provincial elements?

     This is the $64 question. It would seem difficult for them to fall in behind this “NASCAR” kind of ignorance, but all I can do is keep my fingers crossed. What continues to gnaw menacingly away at my brain is the following: fascism has never been anything but an ally of financial elites. I repeat, that road from Ronald Reagan to Adolf Hitler is still open.

     Woe to all of us --- do you get it?

     Relevant Material: “What most fascinates a confused humanity is firm decision. A firmly put lie will move people more than a pensive truth”. From the quasi-novel “Mortal y Rosa” (this is difficult to translate, my version would be “Young and Mortal”), by the stunning genius of the Spaniard, Francisco Umbral.