Thread: Election 2012 Just One More Crafted Illusion?

Election 2012 Just One More Crafted Illusion?

by Rick Ackerman on February 22, 2012 12:01 am GMT · 69 comments

[For well more than a year, the Mainstream Media have given us a steady flow of campaign bilge that, finally, has made the entire Republican field seem unappealing. Perhaps this was the Fourth Estate's goal all along. After all, it was a left-tilting press that conspired to help Obama win in 2008 by ignoring his complete lack of experience and extreme political views. This time, with the same goal in mind but using the opposite approach, the news media have picked off the GOP candidates one by one, turning them into shooting-gallery ducks as their ex-wives and mistresses, former employees and business associates and a sordid parade of other detractors testified against them. And all for what? Apparently, to ensure the still-likely nomination of Mitt Romney, a man whose candidacy excites no one.


In the guest editorial below, Wayne Razzi, a Rick’s Picks forum regular who goes by the handle “Red Will Danaher,” explains how it came to pass that, in a time of national crisis, we are about to do no better in November than perpetuate the political status quo. Could things have turned out differently? Unfortunately not, concludes Wayne. It may take catastrophe, rather than mere crisis, to bring about real change. RA]

Assume for a moment that you’ve been installed in the role of the maintenance manager of the Great American False-Choice Spectacle. Your prime directive would almost certainly be to keep hidden the fact that outcomes matter little. Thus, as we are repeatedly informed via popular media, you may strongly consider hiding the truth in plain sight, as there are few better places. And so, that seems to be the case now more than ever as the strategy is executed through the chain of command and control that expertly utilizes mass media.

The elitist, crusading cowards in the media execute their marching orders with gusto. They seem to manage the coverage of the race and the races within the race more skillfully with each successive production. This time around, it appeared that any one of more than a half-dozen Republican candidates wore the Leader’s Jersey with an inside track to the nomination during the early trials. Skeptics might note that the shelf life for each front-runner was limited and that most were eventually undone by gaffes and/or surprise revelations much in the same way that suspects become tripped up in those curiously popular procedural crime dramas. The thing is though, we need not worry about the skeptics, as they are but few, so let’s get back to the race because it’s the race that matters.

A Dead Heat

Odds greatly favor establishment candidate Mitt Romney to be installed as False Choice #2, much to the surprise of many, apparently. Almost as if by design, ole Mitt contrasts strongly when compared to the know-nothing, never-done-anything Community Organizer who was anointed as “This Is the Guy!” in 2008. Despite the alarming track-record of our lamentable incumbent, his appalling ignorance, arrogance and incompetence aside, the race to become the next Grand Puppet appears to be a dead-heat on paper, and that should almost guarantee a barn-burner come this November. Yes, it would appear that the big race will be decided by a nearly perfectly divided electorate yet again. Soon, perhaps, it may become fascinating to the passionate across the land that half of their fellow citizens very strongly agree with their viewpoints while the other half remains in strong opposition. Or maybe not.
Intentionally lost in all this is what some of us like to call reality. We won’t hear much about reality or even the mention of anything of true significance, but we will hear phrases like “on his watch” and “what he inherited” and “broken promises.” Good luck to you, my friends, finding an in-depth, non-politicized discussion of substance.

The arguments that things “really aren’t that bad” or have “never been better” with respect to the rather large group of college-educated Americans is one that I’ve encountered frequently at Rick’s Picks and several other places. As much as I try to respect opinions, I can’t fathom as to how genuine observers can possibly miss the epic and accelerating descent of the fortunes of the average American over the past fifty years. We now live in a society and world that are more dependent than ever before on the maintenance of crafted illusions, on mass self-deception, and on the adding of electronic zeros to the ends of already unimaginably large sums. Yes, if you’re willing to evaluate things on the superficial plane with the aid of officially falsified statistics, it may be possible to arrive at other conclusions. However, simply compare and contrast the messages of not so long ago to those of today and it becomes impossible to not see how beaten-down the American psyche has become.

Why Reagan Won

A Wikipedia entry summarizes the principles Ronald Reagan championed to win the presidency in 1980: lower taxes to stimulate the economy; less government interference in people’s lives; states’ rights; a strong national defense; and, restoring the U.S. dollar to a gold standard. And what are the messages now? It seems to me that message is actually more appropriate, and it is this: “Jobs, jobs, jobs!” The Mainstream Media (MSM) have pounded that message into the heads of voters over the past few years, and any “man on the street” piece confirms it as long as the chosen participant isn’t a Tea Party member, a Ron Paul supporter or an anarchist.

A little over thirty years ago, Americans longed to hear of increased freedom and greater opportunities as the preferred message. Now? They’re only too happy to be installed as cogs in a machine. Where will we be in thirty years? It’s difficult to forecast, but I don’t see how anyone can favor the current trend or extrapolate anything promising from today’s state of affairs in a conventional sense. I am encouraged only by the fact that there’s a small chance that this all might eventually end in a forced Reset.

That concludes this installment, but in the great tradition of alternate titles pioneered by the Rocky & Bullwinkle show, join us next time for “Craving for Cogdom” or “Shooting for Sisyphus.”


Election 2012 Just One More Crafted Illusion?


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