Editor’s Pick
JANUARY 31, 2013 7:33PM
History, truth and the insane belief in mainstream politics
"'You are a slow learner, Winston,' said O'Brien gently.
"'How can I help it?' he blubbered. 'How can I help seeing what is in front of my eyes? Two and two are four.'
"'Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. You must try harder. It is not easy to become sane.'"
- from "1984," by George Orwell (Part 3, Chapter 2)
If you have paid any attention to the Chuck Hagel, SecDef nomination hype, you probably heard the former Republican Senator's detractors calling him "out of the mainstream," when it comes to Israel, Iran, and involving the US in talks with terrorist organizations.
Witness Thursday morning's exchange between Hagel and Sen. John McCain, during the former's confirmation hearing. Hagel, as a Senator, made statements against Bush's 2007 troop surge in Iraq, equating it to a potential quagmire, a word used often to describe the war in Vietnam, where Hagel served and was wounded.
McCain, himself a prisoner of the Vietcong during that conflict, insisted that the surge was a success and wanted his former colleague to take it back, to admit his previous position was a mistake.
“I’m not going to give you a yes or no,” Hagel told McCain. “I’ll defer that judgement to history."
"History has already made a judgement on the surge," McCain insisted, "and you’re on the wrong side of it."
This insistence on defining history as mainstream truth is a revisionism worthy of Orwell. Honest and frank answers are eschewed for blind allegiance and party fidelity. Engaging in "You're either with us or against us" tactics, especially when it comes to what's true or not, endangers our republic, because it attempts to supplant evidence with conviction.
You can't just make something up, that some people believe is true, and call it mainstream. Whose mainstream? How is that defined in Washington? The mainstream of the respective parties? The nation's mainstream? Or is it just the mainstream as defined by the deepest pockets and the shrillest voices?
Even the loud and wealthy National Rifle Association, with its indisputable hold on legislators of both parties, at every level of government, is out of the mainstream when it comes to the White House proposals for universal background checks, closing the gun show loophole, and banning high capacity ammunition magazines. A survey by Public Policy Polling, released in early January, found that most American gun owners think the NRA's idea to post armed guards in schools is a terrible idea, by 15 points, although most Republicans agree with the gun industry lobbyist.
Wednesday's contentious exchange between the NRA's Wayne LaPierre and Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin showed the gun group's willingness to go counter to the mainstream, by creating its own narrative that it wants members of Congress to get behind. LaPierre claimed that background checks will keep honest people from getting guns, but not criminals because they won't go through the process. He was saying, essentially, "How can we get more guns into people's hands, so they can protect themselves, if we have universal background checks?"
"That's the point," Durbin replied. "You're missing that point, completely [that we want fewer guns out there]. We are awash in guns."
Deep pocket influencers, like LaPierre's NRA, are leading their staunch supporters in Washington, DC, away from true mainstream American thinking by their wallets, where they willingly go, finding a place where the flowing water of opinion won't fight them too much. There, two plus two can equal five, or three, or four, or "all of them together," and it's okay, because they are floating in a happy eddy of politically safe, partisan denial, and believe they are sane. And we keep voting for them, so what does that make us?
-PBG
TIP:
Enter the amount, and click "Tip" to submit!
Francesca Biller
Lauren J Barnhart
vzn
Roger Fallihee
koshersalaami
Steve Klingaman
Salon.com
Comments
"You can't just make something up, that some people believe is true, and call it mainstream. Whose mainstream? How is that defined in Washington? The mainstream of the respective parties? The nation's mainstream? Or is it just the mainstream as defined by the deepest pockets and the shrillest voices?"
We, the people, are the Mainstream; not the media; not the Corporations; not the 1%.
As long as we press on and keep demanding common sense for the common good, and hold politicians accountable, here and at the polling booths, and stand alongside other pockets of protestors, we, the people, will be heard.
Organize. Talk to each other. Communicate.
Those politicians seem a hell of a lot more stable, honest, and sane than the people here regularly charging them with being unstable, dishonest, and insane.
You may disagree; it is a free country and we all can speak our mind as openly as we choose…despite the laughable assertions that we are becoming, or have become, a banana dictatorship.
To my mind, the article makes the point that the 1% bought the government a long time ago, and decided they were losing ground, so they used their influence to "guide" politicians away from the redistribution that they found threatening. Thus was born a political philosophy that seemed to give priority to the needs of the wealthy over the needs of the rest of us. The differences, Dr. Nasser implies, between the iconic neo-con Reagan and allegedly progressive Obama is negligible, because they were/are beholden to the same interests.
To lay all this at the feet of Obama, then, in my opinion, is unfair, and to cede that the banks have all the power is to ignore the power the people have to affect change. I still believe we can change things, through petition, grievance and civil action, and I know I don't stand alone.
for over a decade now.
"With all due respect Senator, America lost over 5,000 soldiers in Iraq; tens of thousands were wounded and many will carry the wounds all of their lives and will never recover; America spent trillions of dollars on the war in Iraq, money that we borrowed putting us in the financial straits we are today; and finally Senator, Iraq was a war of choice and we went into it based on lies.
Now tell me Senator McCain - was it worth it??"
Sheesh.
r
ᴼᴥƪ
"R"
.
Not sure if LaPierre doesn't think before speaking or simply can't think. If background checks won't work, because criminals would ignore them, then why bother with any laws at all?
Hagel, who was an enlisted man, knew that when you send more people into an out of control situation, more people die. That's a good enough reason to vote no. And, of course, McCain is wrong here. History has not been written, yet. He'd just needs to believe that so he can feel validated.
It's another example of the extreme politicization that has polls hunting for clips on the so-call news channels. Now that Fox is the most watched, it's played to the most.
Hagel voted for all the defense bills he was supposed to when he was in office. Being against the surge was his greatest "fault", and that is what makes the headlines, along with his innocuous comments about Israel. So he becomes McCain's whipping boy. Pathetic.
He still may be as good as can be expected, since at least he has shown a little "maverick" streak by comments about Viet Nam and meaningless death on the battlefield. There is little Obama can do since the fillibuster rules weren't changed, and we won't see them changed as long of the districting rules are such that the GOP controls the house.
The thing that's clear about the NRA is that they've had so much power for so long their own arrogance may be the only thing that brings them down. The opportunity is for LaPierre to crack before it's all over and start making commie, Nazi, or racial slurs. Obama was elected by a solid majority, and one wonders when that is somehow going to come into play.
rated, befriended, commented upon.