Good Monday morning, all!
While I’ve said before that I would be reserving Monday mornings for politics, I’ve actually been using Monday and Tuesday mornings as writing days for a book, having determined that that particular pursuit is a much better use of my time. But I’m driven to spend some time today writing about some of the things I’ve learned while researching politics in 2023.
I have a so-called “smart tv”. (A Samsung, in case you are interested) We have, in total, 5 t.v.s in our home, but this one is different from the others. You see, when I turn this one on, it goes to the “home page”(?)first, then you can go to the channels available from there. The thing is, that home page is a channel called “Real American Voices” I had never heard of this channel before, and I could not find it now if it didn’t just show up when I turned on my set, but it has provided me with quite an education. Here’s why:
It was obvious from the start that it is a channel devoted to the waaaaaay Right political realm-ever so much farther Right than Faux News, and maybe even Newsmax, (which I avoid at all times, if possible) The first clue as to the channel’s dedication to all things to the Right fringe was the ads for their headline shows-the ones featuring the repulsive Steve Bannon and even more repulsive (yes, it is possible!) Ted Nugent and his WIFE! Ugh!
I admit, if either one of those two shows are in progress when I turn on the tv, I cannot watch or listen to them for more than a moment for fear of my eyes and ears bleeding from the godawful stuff they brandish. Besides, we are all pretty much aware of what those grandstanding alt-right cheerleaders are going to say. It’s not worth the pain.
BUT! What has shocked and sickened me and created a fear for all of us who believe in progressive democracy are the many other demented “personalities” hosting what look like fake news shows. They are shows that are breathtaking in their articulating the dangerous lies, conspiracy theories, supremacist ideology that far exceeds what even Faux News presents. And while Faux News anchors have been called out for their behind the scenes communications describing their guests/“experts” as CRAZY or delusional, the folks on Real American Voices (RAV) are unguarded in their beliefs that all the conspiracy bullshit is real. Yes, this is a free country and we are all given the right to our own opinions by virtue of the First Amendment. But when do we acknowledge that having an opinion and sharing it is fine, but sharing an opinion as though it were FACT is not just irresponsible, but dangerous?
In 2020, Tuckie was sued by former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who had told her story about an affair with Donald Trump. It seems Tuckie didn’t like her disparaging his guy, and made up a story that she had tried to extort the former President for money, although she never even approached him. The Faux legal team responded that Carlson’s comments could “not reasonably be interpreted as facts”, and the judge agreed, saying “given Mr. Carlson’s reputation” and “his overheated rhetoric is precisely [what one expects]when tuning in…and as such, are not actionable as defamation” In other words, no one with an ounce of brains would actually believe this purveyor of stinking shit.
We’ll see how that holds up in the Dominion defamation suit, especially now that we’ve seen the snarky and dismissive emails and texts between the Faux News’ “personalities” that expose the FACT that they actually knew from the beginning that the reports of a “stolen election” were false, the Dominion machines were fine, their “expert” guests were “loony” and CRAZY (in 9 separate texts) and their viewers were gullible for believing it all. They kept up the ruse, though, that fueled the dangerous rage developing on the Right.
Faux News has a lot to answer for; they have encouraged paranoia among the already under-educated and fearful white citizenry, and hopefully, the lawsuit against them will finally expose the lies they have been telling for YEARS.
No matter what happens to Faux News, however, they have spawned a sense of freedom for next-level, once hidden extreme-Right broadcasts, websites, podcasts, and social media trolls who have come out from under their rocks and gained a veneer of capability and righteousness in the exploitation of such propaganda. We have seen in real time just how little power there is in preventing the lies being dispensed as truth, and any kind of “watch dog” attempt to correct the fabrications are met (successfully, it seems) with declarations of “propaganda” by the “left wing elites” in the media who (they really DO believe this) are not merely baby-killing pedophiles, but who are attempting to strip them of their “freedom” by way of “The New World Order” (a cabal of the worlds 13 richest families (Rockefeller’s, Morgans, Rothschilds, etc. who will make up a 1-world government in which we will be forced to bow down to or…..?
They point to “Event 201,” a forum of top public health experts, Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, The World Economic Forum, and-oh no!-The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation who met in 2019 to discuss the growing threat of possible pandemics and how to best respond to them. In a 2+2=5 logic, the Right-wing “leaders” decided that because they weren’t invited, it must have been a part of the secret, liberal, Nazi(?), socialist NWO plan to KILL OFF Republicans. They really do think that the goal of all Democrats is not only to drink the blood of babies born to the women being trafficked or held in imaginary pizza shop basements, but also to MURDER all Republicans. Yep. And according to the delightful Margerie Taylor-Greene, the murdering has already started!)
In watching the shows on RAV, I’ve gleaned what I think is the groupthink projection that Covid-19 is a virus created by the Chinese for the liberals in the U.S. so we could release it and it would magically know who the Republicans were in order to infect and kill them. It’s really no surprise, I suppose, when you have the woman with the most direct access to the current Leader of House has compared Democrats to “wild hogs…that need to be taken out” and who has repeatedly supported the idea of EXECUTING prominent Democratic politicians. On Twitter, she “likes” comments like “a bullet to the head would be quicker to remove Nancy Pelosi as Speaker” or her joining with Alex Jones after the Parkland shooting, calling the shootings in Newtown, Connecticut and Parkland Florida “false flags”-that they were not real events, but rather staged events with actors, created by Democrats to distract and discredit gun ownership, especially those Republicans who support the 2nd Amendment. Her grip around the neck of Leader McCarthy has landed her appointments to the House Education Committee, as well as the Homeland Security Committee.
I know I feel safer. You?
MTG is just the loudest and most obnoxious “spokesperson” on the Right these days…she joins the likes of Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Ron DeSantis, Matt Gaetz, and our favorite, Gym Jordan in believing they are the smartest people in the room, the ones who want to “avoid” a Civil War by having a “divorce” between Red and Blue states and creating two separate countries, so there won’t be as much fighting.
I know these things seem so strange that most of us feel like they are not even worth addressing or responding to; that no one in their right minds would entertain the validity of such outrageous ideas or behavior. And therein lies the real menace. Because the things the ridiculous Right is saying only serves to prop up the propaganda being served by the no-longer-hidden conspiracy nuts that grew Q-Anon from a prankster’s joke to a full-on “movement” or that, like (ugh)Steve Bannon who, like Charlie Manson before him, revels in the chaos they are creating in the expectation of a great revolution in which the White Male Christian once again seizes power from the hands of those who would try to take his place, and would include the coronation of Bannon himself or some other lucky toad who would have to listen to Bannon and his supremacist posturing and manipulations.
We are in danger, my dear intelligent, progressive friends. We are a group that wants to believe in the best of people, to think that those who want to destroy democracy are a small but noisy bunch who will soon wear itself out by simply not getting anywhere with the ideas they share about who can make decisions about our personal lives, from our bodies to our textbooks to who is able to vote and who is able to be elected. We look at the progress our country has made in industry and economics, the future we look to in leading the way to protecting the environment and amazing technology, and we feel proud. We are determined to make good on the promise to provide everyone-EV-ER-Y-ONE-an equal ability to live a good life or better, and to protect our democracy and any democracy around the world that needs our help. We believe in the strength of our guaranteed freedoms: of speech, the press, life, liberty, and the unhindered pursuit of happiness. We continue to support the rights of those we disagree with, including those who believe it is their right to own firearms, but we caution that with steps to ensure that their right to a gun does not deny our right to live.
I grew up in an era of Viet Nam war, Civil Rights activism, Women’s Liberation, pre-and post-Stonewall, assassinations of precious leaders, massacres of students and suppression of dissent,. Those of us who remember those years know that our government was worthy of scrutiny and demands for change. And none of us is naive enough to believe that our government is only GOOD. But those days, and the changes that were made both in societal structure and in the minds of many, including some of our current governmental leaders, have allowed for some powerful, positive adjustments in the lives of many of us.
Of course, we have a long way to go. Sometimes it is frustrating as hell to feel like we KNOW what would be the best course, or to have to wait for progress to wend its way down to “the people”. But, we cannot allow democratic elections to be replaced by authoritarian rule or corporate control simply because democracy is not going fast enough, or because we don’t like the look of the people running things. Progress inevitably makes changes that may not allow us to maintain a superior position in society or government; that is how we grow and learn how to progress. But supporting authoritarianism or theocracy or corporate dominion is NEVER a good idea. It has never worked, anywhere in the world, and implementation of such regimes nearly always starts and ends with blood and death.
So, for the supposedly “patriotic” and “law and order” folks on the Right, your cries for the deaths of Democratic politicians, your attempts to usurp the Justice Departments and the Law and Order of the FBI, Secret Service, and other agencies that protect even you, your scrutiny is fine. Your destruction of them is not. That becomes the beginning of the end of what is right about the U.S., and history will not be kind to you or your descendants.
The Right attempts to disparage those of us on the Left with the supposed epithet “Woke”. As opposed to what? Sleeping? Being unaware of the plight of others? I think we consider that one “weak”. Being “woke”is a concept we should be embracing, proudly, and defying the attempts by the Right to diminish our “awareness” of the acts of kindness, intelligence, and community we share in the preservation of what is good in society. So, my warm-hearted, patriotic and progressive brothers and sisters on the Left, it’s time to recognize that we cannot sit back and simply believe in the goodness of human beings or that “good will triumph”. Because without our defense, it won’t.
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