I had thought to be done with this blog after the election.  But it appears that American stupidity is once again rising exponentially, and as usual the right wing forces are exploiting the heightened levels of idiocy to do what they do best: promote doing nothing.  Blame it on the recession I suppose.  In the absence of actual information or logical reasoning skills the only thing that sustains the collective American IQ is self-absorbed consumption.

And now we have “right-wing rage.”  The news media , whose collective intelligence also seems to have taken a recession-induced hit (although, truth to tell, you could probably only verify that with a micrometer) considers this to be a new phenomenon and therefore worthy of a disproportionate amount of air time.  But we’ve seen this before, many times.

As was demonstrated repeatedly and with great clarity during the election season, conservatives are not very intelligent people.  That’s why they are attracted to conservatism, because the intellectual overhead is so low (mainly because conservatism receives such a healthy federal subsidy).  All the airy palaver of its philosophical proponents notwithstanding, conservatism is really very simple.  Just say no.  Acceptance of the status quo, naturally–and it need not be enthusiastic, grudging stoicism is fine–but nothing new can be good, so a resounding no to any new idea (unless, of course, it involves new ways to deprive people of their civil liberties in the service of “freedom” and “non-interventionist government”).

That is why the rabidly right-wing solid citizens of this great nation are so attracted to the Republican party.  Especially the Republican party as it exists at present in its heavily pruned post-election state.  Prior to the heaven-sent mana of the attempt to reform healthcare, the Republican party was flapping around on the floor like the pathetic and greasy remnant of  Voldemort’s soul in the final Harry Potter novel  Now, however, that the nation is faced with a thorny dilemma, now that the fiscal stability of the future nation and the welfare of millions of our fellow citizens is at stake, Republicans can do what they do best.

Say No.

Because Republicans are, like libertarians (who are basically Republicans stripped of the last vestiges of common sense and restraint and with the paranoia volume turned to 11), the party of No.  No to taxes.  No to gun control.  No to abortion.  No to Welfare (unless its corporate).  No to Big Government.  No to Little Government.  No to Any Government.  As I’ve pointed out elsewhere, the fact that so much of this is a crock, and that so many Republicans do deep down recognize the hypocrisy of their party’s positions, explains why they are such extremely uptight people, prone to the kind of foamy-mouthed tantrums we’ve seen at town hall meetings recently.

Of course, Republicans do say Yes to cash.  But they also say a resounding Yes (or rather a Hallelujah) to Fear.  That is why they embraced  (which is to say, invented) the whole idea of death panels.  “You’re government is trying to pull the plug on Grandma!”    When even the conservative lackey media were forced to admit that this was a–wait, what’s the technical term. . .oh yes–lie, the party of No switched tactics.  No more death panels.  This week’s Fear Word is “socialism.”  Never mind that most of the people ranting in the streets about the specter of socialism–and hey, if socialism means ensuring that all your population is adequately cared for, then you can call it what you like–are neither sufficiently informed nor sufficiently intelligent to be able to define socialism if they were being waterboarded with their testicles wired to a car battery.  No, “socialism” is one of those vague, all-purpose words that strikes fear into the heart of the muddling masses : words like genocide, cancer, Glen Beck. . .

And we know there’s a racial element to all this as well.  Sometimes it is thinly veiled in the signs you see at a lot of the loony-tunes rallies, sometimes the veil is not so thin.  It’s not fashionable to point this out because we’re all supposed to be “post-racial” now, but there are a lot of people in the US who are not happy about having an African American president  And muttering darkly/ranting uncontrollably about “socialism” is really code for “look what happens when you let those people in the White House.”

But let’s return to the “death panels” for a moment.  They aren’t real.  They were never real.  But maybe they should have been.  Not to pull the plug on grandma.  Our senior citizens shouldn’t be victimized in that way.  (Except for Dick Cheney.  Getting him in front of a death panel is probably as close as we’ll come to forcing him to appear before a war crimes tribunal).  No, what you need is a panel that will intervene before people reach the kind of state of advanced mental and spiritual decripitude that we’ve seen on display in the town hall meetings and the September 12th gatherings of birthers and baggers and other assorted wackos.  All of those people bringing guns to rallies and waving those “the tree of liberty” placards. . .if they are volunteering to be the fertilizer for that tree of liberty, they can go right ahead.

So what we need is some kind of system whereby  these people would be forced to beg  for much needed healthcare in front of a faceless and unaccountable bureaucratic entity only to have their pleas fall on deaf ears, condemning them to shortened lives of pain and suffering.

Ah.  Wait.  I think that is the system we already have.

As a result, there are now grown people, some of whom even have a modicum of education, talking with a straight face about how they “Twitter,” sending “tweets” to their fellow “twits.”

Really?  Has it come to this?  This is, of course, one of the specialized functions that popular discourse contributes to our ongoing human effort to engage at a deep and meaningful level with one another and the nature of the universe: it takes terms that were previously used to describe a behavior that was silly and/or reprehensible, and reinvents them with a positive spin, entirely without irony, in order to sell stuff.

Just a couple of years ago, if someone had accused you of “twittering” you would have understood this as an insult.  Often, of course, the term had a distinct gender bias: women were far more likely to be described as “twittering” than men, just as men are less likely to be accused of gossiping even though they do it as much as, if not more than women.  Regardless, if you were described as “twittering” you were being accused of providing light, inconsequential background noise.

Today, “twittering” still means that you are providing light inconsequential background noise–only now this is seen as good thing.

It obviously wasn’t enough that we developed blogging, where any schmuck of schmuckette with an overdeveloped sense of their own importance can fire off ill-considered, intemperate rants (like this one) about the general failure of the universe to shape itself into a giant teat made available for their personal gratification.  Now we have a technology that allows people to fire off ill-considered intemperate rants in 140 characters. . .

Wait, maybe that is an improvement. . .

Think I’m being too harsh?  Here’s how Twitter itself tries to sell you on the need for it, with a quote from Eric Nuzum:

If you aren’t familiar with Twitter, it is one of those things, like MySpace, that sounds totally ridiculous and stupid when you first hear about it. But once you start using it, you realize how much fun it is.

Or. . .you realize that it really is exactly as ridiculous and stupid as MySpace.

From blogging, to micro-blogging. . .what’s next?  Pico-blogging?  Where you will be attempting to communicate the ratty and fetid state of your soul in only ten characters?

That is so la

Dickhead

Everyone n

I invented

So lonely

It also makes you wonder, doesn’t it, what previously pejorative term will be appropriated next in order to describe the next revolutionary communications tool: Blabber?  Smirk?  Simper?

My top contender for the next killer app that we don’t actually need (and you heard it here first): Drivel.

If I might intrude, just for a moment,
If only to inject a note of reality on this festive occasion

In all my life I don’t believe I’ve ever heard such bullshit
Even from you, a master of bullshit
You know it, and I know it.
It’s bullshit. Buuuuullshit!

Randy Newman, “Glory Train,” from Faust

As I predicted, the election of Barack Obama has led to a lot of self-congratulatory back-slapping on the part of the news media, politicos and the hoi poloi. It was a triumph for democracy! Look how enlightened we are! And now the rest of the world will love us again. . . But before the entire US population disappears up its own capacious (and rapidly expanding) arse someone needs to inject a note of reality. No, don’t thank me, I’m just doing my job. For the words of Newman’s Satan directed at a smug and self-congratulatory God seem singularly appropriate at this historical juncture They read, in fact, almost as if they are directed at the American voter.

The election of the first African American president is a momentous occasion and no mistake. However, in typical US fashion, discussion of the the election has focused entirely on the result and not on the process. On the surface, yes, it seems as if US voters rejected the politics of ignorance and fear of the last eight years and marched boldly into a glowing future of change and opportunity (cue stirring music). But it was an election with two choices. There was a 50% chance that was going to happen anyway. Is there any evidence that US voters actually made their choice rationally? I’ve been writing about the stupidity of the US voter whether they be Republican, Democrat or Independent. Does this election mean that I was wrong? That the American voter suddenly wised up?

Yes, that is exactly what it means. After decades of awe-inspiring and statistically verifiable levels of electoral ignorance, irrationality and stupidity, the US voting population matured overnight and began rationally evaluating candidates’ positions, basing their decision upon a knowledgeable and considered appreciation of the issues, balancing and prioritizing among competing demands.

And if you believe that, my friend, then you are part of the problem.

One of the worst things anyone can do is ask someone else why they support a particular candidate. Frankly, I really wish the news media would stop doing this. It is a recipe for heartache and repeated despairing banging of the head against the nearest wooden object. The answers to such a question are, invariably, examples of insightful analysis, reasoned investigation of the issues. . .sorry, just kidding. They are more likely to be along the lines of “Because candidate X looks like my Uncle Fred, and I hate that old bastard” or “I had a one-night stand with someone who looked like candidate Y and I want to be able to relive that moment for the next four years.” Think I’m exaggerating?

Recently, NPR’s weekend edition caught up with two people they had interviewed before the election. These people had both been part of a pre-election conversation that NPR had conducted that encouraged people to talk frankly about race and the election. Now, they contacted the people again to see if race had been a factor in their decision-making. This part of the conversation was not very interesting; predictably both people either denied race had been a factor or danced around the issue. After all, we’re all race-neutral now, right? What was interesting was when they described their reasons for voting the way they did. Let’s hear from Trish Callahan about factors that shaped her decision as she voted for one of the most important offices in the world:

I have to say right up until the day of the election I had really fundamental reasons why I didn’t feel either major ticket was exactly what I thought we needed for leadership at this time. So, quite honestly, I will say in that regard, I tossed my vote to Sarah Palin because even though I’m not a Christian conservative and I have a lot of different views than she does, I am a mom, I’m in the same generation as she. And I thought that she took a beating by the media and I really thought I’d just toss my vote to her.

Frankly, I’m surprised that Rick Shenkman hasn’t posted this excerpt on his Just How Stupid Are We? blog. This is a perfect example of how the US voter can hold two completely contradictory ideas in their head at the same time. On the one hand you don’t feel that either ticket exemplifies the leadership that we need. That’s fine, and that would be a reasonably considered judgement. So what do you do? You vote for someone who has even less leadership experience than either of the two main candidates! Not to mention the seeming confusion here over the fact that Palin was not running (at least not openly) for president. And what is shaping your vote? The fact that she is a mom and of the same generation! Wow, if that’s all that it takes to be president, we have millions of candidates out there just waiting to step into the Oval Office. So here’s the bottom line: Callahan is prepared to overlook Palin’s lack of leadership experience and a whole range of her views on actual issues simply because she is a mother and of a certain age and “took a beating by the media” (read: the media exposed Palin’s complete lack of knowledge and experience, criteria that Callahan herself seems to feel are necessary).

Then there was Greg Harden, who voted for McCain because:

He’s got the background, he’s got the knowledge. And he’s going to know how to run this country better than a first-term senator. . . .I like McCain. I think he’s a cool guy. The fact that he’s in the military, he was a jet pilot. He just seems like somebody I’d get along with.

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, it’s the Dubya effect all over again. Remember all those people who voted for Bush in 2000 (and presumably, incredible as it seems now, did so again in 2004) because he was the kind of guy they’d like to have a beer with?

Electoral stupidity is bipartisan. Harden and Callahan happened to vote conservative, but if we quizzed people who voted for Obama the answers would be no more inspiring. I feel immensely sorry for Obama, actually. He is now officially responsible for everything from curing cancer to single-handedly turning away any asteroids bent on destruction of our planet. But Callahan and Harden’s responses do illustrate what is really driving US voting behavior. You might be tempted to put it down to the shallowness of a public culture based almost entirely around celebrity. But celebrity is itself part of another phenomenon: religious worship.

When measured in numbers of people who profess to hold some form of religious belief, the US still ranks as the second most religious nation in the world behind India. For a sizable proportion of the US, however, that religious belief is shallow hypocrisy. Thus, as an evangelical Christian you may count yourself an ardent believer, with a faith that advocates mercy, forgiveness, charity towards others. . . unless they happen to be a Jew, an A-rab, a fag, or a woman who won’t submit to the authority of her husband. For others, religious belief is simply shallow. Few people that I’ve met who profess to cleave to a religion have anything that appears to be a deep and considered faith; rather they possess a shallow and convenient belief. The difference is crucial. Belief is easy; faith is really, really hard. What celebrities, and politicians as a special category of celebrity, do for us is to give us a much more primitive form of worship that makes easy belief so much easier. Despite all the monotheistic claptrap that surrounds discussions of religion in the US, people are really much more comfortable worshipping graven images. And the US is great for that because it produces graven images with such wonderful celerity. In some faiths icon worship is still a central devotional component. But icons themselves probably owe their origins in part to one of the oldest forms of belief objects: the religious fetish, the crudely shaped figure designed to represent a deity or demi-god.

Americans aren’t voting as much as worshipping fetishes. When you worship a fetish or an icon you pour your self into that object, investing it with all your hopes and dreams and beliefs until that object becomes like you. But it is also separate from you so you have established a relationship of singular perfection: it is everything you admire and identify with in yourself. And this is what Callahan and Harden’s reasons for voting demonstrate all too clearly: American voters are driven by a form of devotional worship that is little short of narcissism. Callahan overrode her own beliefs about leadership and ideas about issues in order to connect with a much deeper and less rational need: to construct a fantasy version of Palin that was just like Callahan. Harden articulated a similar need, a McCain who despite having some extraordinary qualities was just a regular guy that you could hang out with (and it’s no stretch to guess that that is pretty much how Harden sees himself, since that is how most people see themselves: “just regular folks”).

Of course, this kind of narcissistic fetish-worship is aided and abetted by some of the central myths of US culture: the inevitability of a rags to riches rise, the idea that every person potentially could be president and so on. And you can see why people should be so attracted to this form of religious worship. With conventional religion, there’s all that messy doctrine, and a frequently burdensome historical legacy of intolerance and extremism to deal with. But fetish worship is easy. How hard is it to believe in a fantasy version of yourself? This is how and why we worship our celebrities, be they from the entertainment world or politics (which is to say, the other entertainment world).

There is a downside to all this, of course. There is a reason fetish worship requires elaborate pictures or simple carved objects: these are as immutable as they are inscrutable. But living fetishes have a nasty habit of saying and doing things that eventually remind us that they are not, in fact, us. Usually they are not even remotely like us. And then we turn on them with all the vindictive, messianic zeal of a reformed smoker. “Holy crap!” we exclaim, “I’ve been worshipping a lump of wood! I’ll never make that mistake again.” And then we promptly launch our search for the next fetish.

Now I’m sure that there are people out there who voted for Barack Obama based on a careful evaluation of positions and their inquiry into the intricacies of such issues as diplomatic relations with Iran, the perils of healthcare reform and the like. And when we collect them all together in the same living room they can probably have an interesting conversation among themselves. In fact, if we put the similarly sized group of reflective McCain voters in the dining room next door the two groups could probably entertain themselves quite happily.

But as long as the vast majority of US voters are driven by narcissistic fetishism, we really should not hold out high hopes for a considered and thoughtful participation in politics. As long as people persist in voting for presidential candidates on the basis of the delusion that they are “just like me,” then we shouldn’t be surprised when we get another Dubya.

I don’t want a president that I could have a beer with, who is like me or the people I know. Because that person would be a lousy president. Not that we want someone who occupies the other extreme of delusional religious worship, the superhero dictator. At its core, however, the belief that politicians are, or should be, just like us, is a gesture of magnificent arrogance. It may be couched in the humble language of folksy identification, but at its core it is a refusal to acknowledge our own limitations. Ask yourself: do we really want the occupant of one of the most powerful political offices in the world to approach international or domestic crisis decision-making in the way that Callahan and Harden and the legions of voters like them approached the much simpler task of voting for President?

“Well, you know, I thought I’d just toss Georgia to Putin, because you know, he’s kinda the same age as me and he’s been beaten up by the media just like I have.”

As the US prepares to go to the polls in two days time–that is, those parts of the country that haven’t already been going to the polls for the last two, three, or four weeks–it seems likely that this election will raise the bar in terms of overall voter turnout, participation of younger voters and so on. Afterwards there will undoubtedly be a lot of self-congratulatory backslapping, and regardless of who wins the election, Democracy will be declared the winner. We will be told that this election marks a sea-change in American politics. That it is the most significant election in a generation. But before this mutual masturbation on the part of politicos and citizenry gets too out of hand it might be useful to remind ourselves of a few salient points.

1. The US is not a democracy, it is a Republic. Learn the difference. The Founding Fathers were very clear on this point (the last thing they wanted in fact was democracy), but somehow it seems to have escaped the notice of almost every US citizen born since 1789. And while the inability to distinguish between the two is another fine testament to the quality of US education in “civics,” the confusion is also strategic. US citizens only rarely have direct democratic input into governance in a way that impacts their lives; this mainly happens through referenda, a fact which helps to explain their popularity. Otherwise, the US system allows people only to select their decision-makers and delegate (or, more accurately, abdicate) governing power to them.
2. Voter turnout will still be pathetic compared with that of other developed nations (and not a few developing ones). This election may well break previous records, but the US bar for voter turnout is so low that this isn’t a particularly stunning achievement. In the 2004 election (also hyped, particularly by Democrats as the most important election in a generation) voter turnout rates did rise. . .to 64% of the eligible voting population (58% of the voting age population). While voter registration ticked up (after dropping in the 2000 election) almost 55 million eligible voters were not registered. For reference, that is just shy of the entire population of Great Britain. (Source: US Census Bureau). There are various methods for comparing US voter participation rates with those of other countries, but on even the most optimistic the US doesn’t crack the top 30. And on the comparison provided by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance which ranks voter participation in all elections since 1945, the US clocks in at number 114 (for all countries having held more than 2 elections). Italy and Iceland actually have a much better claim to be able to bring democracy to the benighted than the US.
3. The greater the potential for an election to have an immediate impact on citizens’ everyday lives, the greater the extent to which they don’t give a fuck. Bear in mind that the above figures are for a presidential election, which for US voter participation is a best-case scenario. When we are talking about a mid-term election or a local election voter turnout numbers hardly bear repeating. In fact they hardly register. Citizens’ immediate lives are much more likely to be impacted by decisions made by local government: raising or lowering of property taxes, provision of services (or lack thereof), investment in school and roading infrastructure. . .but they can only really get off the couch for a national spectacle featuring a cast of largely interchangeable characters that often engage in interchangeable policy-making with largely interchangeable results.
4. Despite routinely trumpeting to the rest of the world that it is a democratic nation, the US has few mechanisms to ensure that its national democratic practices are consistent or even fair. Thus actual registration methods and voting practices are left to the whims of individual states with the predictable results that have been evident in recent US elections. Registration practices that range from lackadaiscal to biased and fraudulent. Attempts to dispute registration practices that range from lackadaisical to biased and fraudulent. Entire populations effectively disenfranchised. Voting technologies that are compromised or simply don’t work. . .and vary not just between states but within states as well. Yes, the sound that you hear is the rest of the world laughing at the US. None of these problems is particularly difficult to solve. States are more than entitled to conduct their local elections however they wish. Federal elections, on the other hand, are a national endeavor and,you would think, might benefit from being coordinated on a national basis. Establish a consistent standard voting technology and have everyone use it. That would establish your elections as fair. If you want people to register to vote, do what other nations do and make registration to vote compulsory (without, however, insisting that voting is compulsory); link registration with something that people already are required to do (register for a driver’s license, submit a tax return). That would establish your elections as comprehensive. But no, this is all too simple for the US system to cope with. Or rather, it reveals the extent to which the US was conceived as a system that would be democratic only for state governments not for the citizens themselves.
5. Elections are a vital emotional and ideological centerpiece of the nation, so important in fact that they shouldn’t be allowed to interrupt business as usual and citizens are expected to shoehorn electoral participation into their busy lives. If Federal, presidential elections are really that important, why in the name of the electoral gods is election day not a national holiday? In the early years of the Republic it was such a holiday. And as part of the ongoing national electoral inconsistency, it remains a holiday in a few states. So we have national holidays devoted to workers and warriors, and to presidents who played key roles in establishing and maintaining the Republic. . .but the US can’t summon up the national will to celebrate one of its defining features.
6. Democracy is for everyone. . .unless you live in the US. Several states in the US strip voting rights from convicted felons. Some do it for a limited term, but several (including such beacons of democratic practice as Florida and Alabama) do so in perpetuity. So here we have a situation where someone can pay their debt to society by enduring whatever penalty is prescribed by law. . .but will in fact never, ever, stop being punished. This power is explicitly granted to states by the second clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, but there is nothing in the amendment that says you have to exercise this power. Many states do not. That some do, and that there has been no serious attempt to address this issue is yet more evidence that no one should really take US claims concerning its democracy seriously until the nation does so itself. On the plus side, however, it is apparently entirely kosher for convicted felons to serve in the senate. Hooray for Uncle Ted!
7. Forget about spreading democracy overseas, the US can’t even spread it to US nationals overseas. The fact that the US can’t reliably provide ballots to its men and women serving in the military overseas, or process them if members of the military do cast a vote, is a national disgrace. Apparently a journalist can report via satellite phone directly from the front in a war zone, but we need to use the US postal service to send and receive ballots . It is only a disgrace, however, if you think that the US should practice what it preaches.
8. US Democracy is wonderful, because anyone can be president! This claim is technically known as a load of codswallop. I admit that the prospect of an African American becoming president has given me some small hope that change in the US Republican system (and I use that last word very loosely) is possible. It is something I never thought to see in my lifetime. I will however be a lot more comfortable when we see the second African American become president. otherwise it is merely the exception that proves the rule: the presidency belongs to rich, white, and usually elderly males. However, this doesn’t prove that anyone can be president. There will never, ever in my lifetime be a non-Christian president of the US. Despite the apparent acceptance of Asian Americans in US society you will never see anyone who is, say, a Buddhist. And if you are Muslim, well, I think its safe to say that your Oval Office dreams are certain to be dashed. Ditto if you are Hindu (since many US citizens can’t distinguish you from a Muslim anyway). And you will never, ever, ever, see what many people still falsely believe is a secular democracy, led by an atheist. Senator Elizabeth Dole’s attack on her opponent , Kay Hagan, for her supposed “godlessness” is a case in point. The fact that Dole’s attack ads have no basis in fact is neither here nor there. If Hagan didn’t believe in God, it shouldn’t matter. Only in a country where all candidates are expected to earn their political stripes by wanking loud and long about their deep and profound faith would this be an issue. If you believe that a person, however qualified for office they may be, is automatically knocked out of contention if they don’t believe in God, then you are an anti-democratic bigot. And if it’s not possible for an atheist (or a Muslim, or a Hindu, etc.) to be elected president in the US, then not only is the nation not a democracy, it is effectively a theocracy with a state-sponsored religion.

The truly cynical among you may observe that since Americans are so stunningly uninformed about politics, it may well be a good thing that so many of them don’t care to or aren’t able to vote. That may well be true, but in that case don’t trumpet the virtues of the US system and don’t try to spread it elsewhere. But if you believe in the value of a Republic, then surely all citizens deserve the chance to demonstrate their stupidity and to do so consistently and fairly.

The first moment of reality occurred what feels like an age ago, on April 6, as Barack Obama spoke at a Democrat fundraiser in San Francisco.  His remarks were recorded by a journalist who was also a paid-up Obama supporter, Mayhill Fowler, who wrote a story about the fundraiser on April 11.  The most controversial element was this, which I quote in full because it is so often misleadingly paraphrased:

You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them,” Obama said. “And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

This remark caused a predictable firestorm, and its embers are still being fanned assiduously by Palin who has referenced it constantly, most often in her “We prefer people who don’t talk about us one way in (fill in the campaign-stop appropriate blank) and another way in (fill in the blank with place the campaign-stop loves to hate).”  Many members of the punditterati saw the remark as evidence of Obama speaking in an uncharacteristically undisciplined fashion; Fowler thought it was a bad judgement call “trying to explain working class culture to a much wealthier audience;” Obama himself backpedaled and indicated that he didn’t voice the sentiment as well as he could have.

I would argue that Obama said exactly what he intended to say here, and there is nothing wrong with the way this is phrased.  However Obama was guilty of making two mistakes in his remarks.  First of all, his remarks did end up being unfair to Pennsylvanians simply because Obama should have cast his net much more widely.  A substantial proportion of all Americans cling to guns, in idea if not also in fact; and most Americans certainly cling to the delusions of religion.  Furthermore, Pennsylvanians hardly have a monopoly on xenophobia, immigrant-bashing, and “anti-trade sentiment,” all popular past-times for US citizens–in fact they have defined US history.

But Obama’s biggest mistake was that he broke a cardinal rule of politics: never, ever, ever talk about the American People in anything other than exaggeratedly unrealistic terms.  In other words, never portray the American people as they really are.  This is what Rick Shenkman, in his book Just How Stupid Are We?  Facing the Truth about the American Voter describes as the greatest myth of US politics.  The People can’t possibly be bitter!  They wouldn’t dream of holding any of those nasty negative ideas!  The Great Merkan People are steadfast, and resilient, and hardworking, and true, and tolerant, and caring, and sharing, and neighborly, and forthright, and honest, and selfless. . .I could go on but you can probably stick your own finger down your throat.  Never mind that these things have never been true of any group of people in the aggregate, the world over.  Seriously, you may know a few individuals who embody all these qualities, but everyone?  If the mythic status of the Merkan People had any foothold in reality there would be no domestic violence, no assholes who cut you off at freeway exits, no cross-burnings, no gay bashing, no homeless on the streets (because “neighborly” Americans would take them into their own homes, right?) and so on.

I see little to suggest that substantial numbers of the heartwarmingly saintly Merkan People are anything but self-centered, willfully ignorant, vindictive, intolerant, small-minded sheep looking to blame others for their troubles.  And if you think this describes Sarah Palin, then you begin to understand some of her broad appeal.  Of course many people at a Palin rally are suffering real economic hardships and have been, as Obama pointed out, since well before this latest recession put in an appearance.  But instead of thinking that their recent woes might have a lot to do with Republican policies for the last eight years (and that they themselves might, just might, bear a tiny bit of responsibility for it themselves. . .just gotta have that huge gas-guzzling truck, right?) or that their long-term woes might have everything to do with the systematic inequalities of late-capitalism, they deliriously submit to the demagoguery of manipulators like Palin and begin blaming others: A-rabs, east coast elites, whatever it takes.

As Shenkman also points out, it is not simply the case that a wildly unrealistic view of the capabilities of the Merkan People exists; the real problem, rather, is that no public figure will call it into question.  Why is this a problem?  Because when it comes to politics, US politicians pander to the idea that the American Public is something that it manifestly is not: smart and informed.  For the answer to the question in Shenkman’s title–Just How Stupid Are We?–turns out to be: “monumentally.”  When 80% of Americans do not know that they have 100 senators (and that is the least scary fact in Shenkman’s book) then it’s safe to say we’re dealing with a people that is manifestly ignorant about how even their own government works.  When it comes to actual policy ideas, the ignorance becomes positively interstellar in its vastness.  And it’s not just a small subset of Merkans.  Blue-staters for example love to believe that ignorance is the provenance of those benighted red-staters.  But in fact the research Shenkman cites turns up some surprising facts.  The same dickheads who tune in to the Grand Conservative Poo-Bah Rush Limbaugh to listen (or, worse, to get on the air and spew their hatred and–yes, I’m saying it!–their bitterness) actually tend to be better informed about political events than the average Merkan.

And yet, this seething mass of stupidity is routinely consulted by politicians about anything and everything and–saints preserve us–politicians actually make decisions based on those polls.  The Merkan People are treated as if they are all smart and well-informed about any issue that the pollster chooses to discuss with them, that they are insightful, have made the effort to do some research, and are offering a considered opinion based on mature reflection.  They are, however, much more likely to be like this woman.

Now, thinking logically about this, you would probably assume that were you to poll someone on, say, the wisdom of a staged troop withdrawal from Iraq, you would want to make sure that they actually knew a thing or two first.  Being able to point to Iraq on a map would be a starter (most Merkans would fail this test, according to Shenkman).  Knowing how long we had actually been in Iraq.  How much the war was costing the US each month.  What the various plans for troop withdrawal were.  But no.  Almost no pollster asks screening questions.  Why would they?  The Merkan People are, after all, singularly well-informed and knowledgeable about all things.  That what makes them Merkan.  God Bless Merka!  And of course the People just love it when politicians talk about them this way.  No one likes anyone to see them for who they really are; who wouldn’t like having sunshine blown up their arse 24/7?

But, against all odds, another moment of reality intruded briefly into the electioneering recently when John Murtha described the racism prevalent in Western Pennsylvania.  Now despite the fact that racism has been a major factor in this campaign, with news outlets routinely interviewing people who are either openly racist or use appropriate circumlocutions (I heard an interview on NPR where a woman in Virginia worried that if Obama was elected he would just “look after his own”) it is completely inappropriate to actually point out that this means that some portion of the Merkan people is racist!  (This was very similar to the dilemma Senator Clinton faced.  In a campaign that featured some pretty extraordinary levels of sexism and even outright misogyny, it was the one thing that she couldn’t talk about.  Not because–as many commentators claimed–it would make her look weak, but because it would have broken the golden rule by telling the Merkan people who and what some of them really are).

So how did John McCain respond to Murtha’s remark?  Like the seasoned political operative he is, he sensed an opening.  Unfortunately, he started off fumbling it badly, by actually agreeing with Murtha in a faux pas wonderfully reminiscent of Dubya’s glory days (you know, back when he was still pretending to be President).  I think that may well be the last moment of political honesty we’ll get out of McCain, however, even if it was only a Freudian slip.  Because then he got right down on his knees and sucked the big fat one for all he was worth:

My friends, the people of western Pennsylvania love their second amendment their amendment rights, their constitutional rights and their religion because they love their country and they love their values and they love their families and they believe in the future of this country. That’s what the people of western Pennsylvania are all about.

Oddly enough, I don’t usually find it that offensive when politicians lie to us about their policies, their intentions, who is funding their campaign, weapons of mass destruction, etc.  They are politicians.  That is what they do.  They are just being themselves.  But I feel personally insulted when they expect me to accept some idea that runs counter to the entire basis of human nature and experience.  What I find particularly ironic is that McCain should have spouted such gibberish on the same day he accused Obama of “saying anything to win.”  Wipe your chin, John.

Continuing to trail Democratic nominee Barack Obama in national polls, and with the election only two weeks away, Republican nominee John McCain signaled another shift in campaign strategy today during a rally in Independence, Missouri. 

Missouri is a must-win state for McCain and representatives of the campaign criss-crossed the state today in a coordinated series of high profile events.  The blitz reached its climax with a rally in the Eustace P. Hardwick Memorial Cafeteria at the Independence Water Treatment Plant where McCain and running mate Sarah Palin, backed by key campaign advisors, addressed a capacity crowd of forty-eight cheering city workers.

McCain and his top aides have been searching for a viable strategy to counteract the surging Obama campaign ever since the failure of the Mr. McCain Goes to Washington approach at the onset of the economic crisis. While Palin’s Rally Around the Klan initiative has solidified support among the Republican base it has proved less successful with those voters not already disposed to hysterical racism, xenophobia and scare tactics.  Last week McCain’s much ballyhooed Plumbing the Depths strategy foundered when it was revealed that the campaign’s poster child, Joe the Plumber, wasn’t actually a plumber.  While Joe Wurzelbacher’s mixture of fraud and tax evasion again proved popular with die-hard Republicans, it failed to move independent voters, forcing campaign manager Rick Davis to announce an abrupt mid-week shift in the campaign’s message.  The success of the subsequent Clinging Bitterly to Guns and Religion Isn’t So Bad, Really tactic also proved short-lived, however, as McCain seemed increasingly uncomfortable hefting the campaign’s new icon, an AK47 with a Bible strapped to the magazine.

Today, however, McCain returned to his Maverick roots.  Before the cheering crowd of waste-disposal professionals, many of whom were waving signs saying “Crap Artists for McCain” and “Palin: She Puts the Crap in Scrappy” McCain departed from the day’s script by dramatically seizing the microphone in the middle of being introduced.

“Friends, enough is enough.  A time comes when we all have to face the truth.  And sometimes it’s a hard truth, a bitter realization.  On my way here today I had an epiphany, if you will.  My ambition was a noble one: to become President of the greatest nation in the world, to lead the greatest people in the world.  But in pursuit of that ambition I have forsworn everything I ever believed in.  I have lied.  I have vilified honorable men and so called my own honor into question.  I have simplified, misrepresented, and continued to repeat untruths even when I knew them to be such.  I have pandered to the basest motives in all of you.  So, my friends, what I want to say to you is fuck it.  I’m done with this shit.”

As the crowd roared its approval and began chanting “no shit, no shit” McCain appeared distressed and held out his hand for calm.

“No, my friends, you don’t get it.  It’s bullshit.  What we’ve been doing, all of it.  I’ve spent my life trying to change the political culture of this great nation and now I have come to represent everything that is wrong with it.  I have credulously regarded and cravenly adopted the advice of elitist shitbags like Phill Gramm, and once again I am really so fucking sorry about that “nation of whiners” comment.  The guy was a douche bag, but he was my douche bag and that will follow me to my goddam grave.  I have listened to the siren song of self-interest and convenient truths and, God help me, I succumbed.”

Turning to his advisors assembled behind him McCain continued, “That would be you I’m talking about, Mr. Davis.  Jesus on a stick for the life of me I have no idea why I listened to you.  Mr. “Stay on Message.”  Mr. “Go Negative.”  Mr. “What Kind of Name is Obama Anyway.”  For fuck’s sake, I ask you to find me one decent average Joe to give the people something to believe in and you can’t even find one who has paid his taxes?  Where did you learn your politicking? Myanmar?  So that’s it, we’re done here.  It took the words of my good friend Colin Powell to make me face up to reality, but better late than never.  Hoo-fucking-ray for the Republicans.”

As McCain took a step backward, Palin stepped to the microphone.  “You all know that this Obama feller has been hanging out doing lines of coke with terrorists, right?  Why he was over at Bin Laden’s condo just the other day. . .”

A visible angry McCain grabbed the microphone once again.  “And you can fuck up as well, while we’re at it.  Jesus Mary and Joseph what I ever saw in you I have no idea.  I’ve prided myself on consorting with people of judgement and character and now I find myself shackled to a slightly less emaciated version of Ann Coulter.  God, what have I done?  America, I am so fucking sorry.”

As McCain departed the stage there was a brief moment of silence before the cheering and chanting resumed, swelling to a roar as Palin once again stepped forward.  Only the next two weeks will tell if McCain’s most radical and unpredictable change yet–a campaign for president without an actual presidential nominee–will prove a success with the voters.

The results of the Alaska Legislative Council’s bipartisan investigation into Governor Sarah Palin’s firing of commissioner Walter Monegan were released yesterday.  The commission found that while Governor Palin’s firing of Monegan was well within her executive prerogative, her decision to do so was likely influenced by personal factors related to Monegan’s refusal to fire state trooper Michael Wooten who was going through a messy divorce with Palin’s sister.  The report found that the Governor had abused the power of her office and violated Alaska’s guidelines for the high ethical standards required of a public office holder.

The report’s release was greeted with jubilation by the Palin’s supporters and the party faithful.  The McCain campaign today released a statement declaring its satisfaction with the report.  “The findings of the legislative council simply confirm what we have been maintaining all along.  The report proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that Sarah Palin, the next Vice-President of the United States is nothing more nor less than what she has claimed to be all along: a shining example of core Republican values.  By abusing her position and violating the ethical expectations of her office she establishes her place in the Republican political pantheon with such luminaries as Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George Bush pere and our current president.”

Connie Bathgate, a research fellow with the Heritage Foundation and noted expert on the relationship between politics and ethics, observed that the McCain campaign had been awaiting the release of the report with some trepidation, fearing an “October surprise” that could further derail a campaign that to many already seemed to be careering out of control.  “They were deeply concerned that the report would reveal that Governor Palin had acted completely appropriately and upheld the highest standards of her office,” Bathgate said in an interview yesterday.  “From the campaign’s point of view, the most disastrous outcome would have been if the bipartisan commission had found that Alaska’s governor had acted with no thought of personal gain and had placed the public trust and ethical integrity above all other concerns.  That would have made it an almost impossible task to secure their base and mobilize a strong showing of hard-core Republicans in November.”

Karl Rove, long-time Republican strategist and advisor to President George W. Bush agreed with Bathgate’s analysis when approached for comment.  “The Republican base has always been leery of McCain because in the past he hasn’t shared their core values.  He’s been a strong advocate of ethics reform in Congress, has tried to change the current pigs-at-the-trough campaign finance laws, and sought to cut back on Congressional pork-barrel spending.  That puts him strongly at odds with Joe and Joleen Six-Pack.  Palin seemed like a good choice as running mate because her ignorance, self-interest and vindictiveness really spoke to the base.  All of that, however was in jeopardy when the Alaska legislature insisted on swimming against the tide and acting in a principled manner in an election season.”

“Now, however,” Rove continued, “She couldn’t be more Republican if you pinned a trunk on her and called her Ronnie.”

The McCain campaign had been critical of the investigation into Palin’s dismissal of Monegan, painting the work of the legislative council as partisan politicking designed to damage the Republican campaign.  Today, however, the campaign was singing a different tune.  During a campaign stop in Briggsville, Indiana, John McCain offered an apology to the members of the legislative council as part of his address to a crowd of 250.  “Friends, it takes a Maverick like me to admit that I was wrong.  I said some things regarding those Alaskan representatives that may have come over a bit harsh, and I apologize if anyone was offended by my remarks.  I should have known that a group where the majority were Republicans would come through with straight talk when the chips were down.  And I think the words of wisdom contained in this report give you a good look at the Sarah Palin that I saw when I offered to make her my running mate.  Why, here I am running a campaign about creating an ethical foundation for government and eliminating self-interest and she shows that she’s as ready to abuse the power of her office as any career politician in Washington!  If that doesn’t say Maverick, I don’t know what does.”

Palin herself addressed the report findings in brief remarks during a rally in Earlesboro, Kentucky.  “Folks, I’ve always been just so up front and straight with y’all about all this.  Why, gosh darnit, you just know that I’m all in favor of a little bitty thing called transparency in Government!  And shucks if this report doesn’t just prove that the racoon tail doesn’t fall far from the tree.  If you kind folks end up electing me your next vice-president–and boy howdy but don’t I just know that’s what y’all are going to do, you sons of a gun!–then ya betcha, you’ll get your transparency.  Just like our current president, I’m going to be completely transparent when I abuse the power of my office, and if you think I’ll be violating ethical standards left and right in plain view of y’all, you’d be righter than rain!”

The Palin rally was notable for a brief appearance onstage by Vice-President Cheney.  At the conclusion of the speeches Cheney embraced Palin to the cheers of the crowd and several observers reported hearing Cheney call Palin “my young apprentice.”

Recall that Republican stupidity differs fundamentally from Democrat stupidity.  Democrat stupidity is the stupidity of obliviousness: Republican stupidity is the stupidity of denial.

If you ever took a psychology course you’ll probably be familiar with the concept of “cognitive dissonance.”  This is the mental strain that arises from having to hold two contradictory ideas at the same time.  More generally, the strain of cognitive dissonance can manifest itself when your delusional self-image is abruptly confronted by the reality of how others see you.  We all need a healthy dose of illusion to sustain our fragile egos, and probably one of the cruelest things you can ever do to someone is show them how the rest of the world sees them.

The raging anger and hatred so evident in the Republican nominating convention and in the response of the crowds to Sarah Palin is but a symptom of the cognitive dissonance all Republicans have been laboring under since the start of the Bush years.   From a certain point of view–for a very brief moment–you almost have to feel sorry for them.  For they are a group thoroughly invested in a particular ideology and believe passionately that their chosen party represents that ideology.  Unfortunately, they are also painfully aware that their party has abandoned almost every single tenet that supposedly defines the Republican worldview.

Good Government is Small Government

Like every other president in recent years, Dubya has presided over the ongoing expansion of the Federal Government.  Some of this has come about because of the creation of the Department of Homeland Insecurity.  And we also have a booming war business that is keeping plenty of defense contractors employed.  But the core bureaucracy itself keeps getting bigger.  When Republicans (usually) announce that they have “slashed the size of the Federal government” this is often the product of statistical jiggery pokery whereby they neglect to count the large number of contractors who make up a sizable proportion of the Federal payroll.

The Government that Governs Best Governs Least

A cornerstone of Conservative ideology is that government should just get out of people’s way and let them live their own lives.  A noble sentiment, and many Republicans still believe this is what their party stands for.  Unfortunately, the Dubya years have seen the intrusion of the government into people’s lives in ways undreamed of by any Democrat.  Which party was in power when warrantless wiretaps were introduced?  Which party was in power when the government was given the power to grab, without right of appeal, borrowing records from libraries and purchasing records from bookstores?  And next time you are standing there in a long line of sweating angry humanity at the airport, with your shoes in one hand and a carefully packed plastic baggy full of play-size toiletries, remind yourself which party is responsible for all this.

The Free Market is the Foundation of a Prosperous Society

One of the most trenchant quotes from journalist and writer for The New Yorker A. J. Liebling is “Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.”  Well, the same is true of markets.  A free market is guaranteed only to those who own one.  So when Republicans get all starry-eyed and frothy at the mouth about the free market, what they are really talking about is the market that is free to serve those that political parties also live to serve: big business.  Now you would think that the events in the last few months would have put paid to the idea that the free market will oversee the general welfare of the nation.  We now have incontrovertible proof that the only thing “free” about the market is its freedom from all ethical and moral restraint.  But that hasn’t stopped the Republicans.  In Republicans the free market is an article of faith, quite literally; it is thus on a par with other delusions like belief in God, faith in Marxism, certainty that Elvis is still alive.  When confronted with absolute evidence to the contrary, the truly deluded simply smile benignly (or if they are a Republican, rage inarticulately) and insist that the truth is out there.  Confront a person with the corrupt excesses of a self-proclaimed Marxist regime and he or she will simply smile and say “Oh, but that’s not real Marxism.”  So it is with Republicans.  The market is exposed for the ugly, rapacious, cultivator of universal greed and personal advancement that it is, and free market devotees simply smile and say, “Oh, but that wasn’t really a free market.”  So it’s not surprising that we’ve had some Republicans in recent weeks insisting that despite the appearance of a market indulging in an orgy of gambling with the nation’s money, the real problem was that the market was subject to too much oversight and government interference.

A Prosperous Market is an Unregulated Market

Another cornerstone of Conservative belief and one practiced to almost fanatical excess (if excess can be used to describe basically doing nothing) by the current Dubya Regime.  You can imagine the pain of Republicans, then–and feel the cognitive dissonance meter take another sharp tick upward–when confronted with the spectacle of government bailing out Wall Street, taking over large institutions wholesale, setting guidelines for executive compensation, and beginning to re-establish rudimentary regulatory guidelines (people at Treasury will be excited; at last they will have something to do after sitting on their brains for the last 8 years).

Drill, baby, drill!

Probably nothing quite captures the core stupidity and anger of Republicans like this chant, which they are absurdly proud of (Palin, particularly so).  I have no problem with people who argue that we should be engaging in more oil exploration and drilling.  But Republicans love this chant because it is an almost delirious fuck you to the idea that any kind of environmental awareness should be requisite for meaningful citizenship in this day and age.  Of course, given the high level of religious delusion among Republicans there are undoubtedly many who believe that God would never allow such a thing as global warming to happen and that its all another of those big east coast liberal media elite conspiracies, gosh darn it!  And I’m sure there are many who also believe that as soon as they sink a new well off the coast of California the Gas Fairy is going to show up in their driveway with a jerrycan and a coupon for a free wash and detail.  But the reason for the popularity of this chant is a lot simpler.  It is saying: “we reject the idea of the world’s problems as being complex.  We don’t have to deal with a complicated reality.  Life really is as simple as drilling your way out of the hole that your own greed has dug.  Yeah, baby!”

USA!  USA!

This is probably the most chilling chant you can hear at a Republican rally or convention.  Go back and listen to coverage of the most recent Republican convention.  You’ll notice that the crowd is whipped into this chant whenever an opposing “liberal” idea is offered up for sacrifice.  It has something of the bravura swagger of the same chant when you hear it at a sporting event: “We’re bigger and stronger than you and we’re going to take your lunch money.”  But Republicans use it to mean something much more basic: if you disagree with us, you don’t love your country.  And yet, this chant too gives voice to a delusion.  Republicans are still living in the Reagan 80s when the country was (at least from the inside) powerful and respected (I personally remember it as being routinely held up as either a laughing stock, or pointed to as a menace to the free world).  And Republicans think that is still the world we live in, rather than the one where the rest of the world sees the US as a pale shadow of its former power and influence, led by an idiot, signifying nothing.

So you start to get a sense of why Republicans are so angry.  The party to which they’ve signed over their soul doesn’t actually stand for most of the things it professes to stand for.  Yet, Republicans have to go on pretending that it does, holding these two contradictory ideas in their heads until the tension builds up and explodes in these violent fits of anger and frustration that we see everywhere in Republican rallies these days.  But there is one thing left. . .

Tax Cuts!

That’s right!  This is the last remaining conservative tenet on which the Republican leadership and faithful stand united.  That is why Republicans propose tax cuts as the solution to absolutely everything.  It is all they have left.  They even–the gods be praised that I was wearing my corset that day or I would have burst a rib laughing–proposed that the real problem facing Wall Street was not lack of oversight or legalized securities gambling, but the fact that they were paying too much in capital gains tax!  Yes, it is quite obvious that these firms have been holding themselves back, living hand to mouth while they chafe under an arduous tax burden cutting into their galaxy-sized profits.  But, as I said, it is all they have left.  Combat global warming?  Tax cuts!  Fight terrorism?  Tax cuts!  Attack adult illiteracy?  Tax cuts!  Prevent Miley Cyrus from sucking our national soul dry?  Tax cuts!

So next time you see a Republican working themselves into a lather about Obama being a terrorist or the fact that poor dumb Sarah Palin is a hapless victim of a crafty media or that Obama is a northerner, foreigner, black man, or from Illinois spare a thought for why they are like that.  They really can’t help it.  It’s a medical condition and they deserve our pity not our disgust.

Of course, with our health care system, they are pretty much stuck that way for the rest of their lives.

Democrats are feeling very cocky at the moment, with Obama up in the polls. But there is a very good reason that Republicans have held the Oval Office for 28 of the last 40 years. Yes, it’s because America is a deeply conservative nation (even the majority of those people who have convinced themselves or been told that they are “liberal”). But it is also because Republicans know how to win elections. They win elections by driving people to the polls with two strategies:

• make them afraid
• make them hate others

You get bonus turnout if you can combine the two.

That is why the Republicans are still very much in this election. They have nothing in the way of meaningful policy. They are desperately trying to dodge responsibility for having fucked up the nation’s economy. But they know how to make people afraid. And they know how to make them hate. So it’s not surprising that we see McCain employing the first strategy, and Palin employing the second.

The Republican campaign has been desperately casting around for a way to use Palin. They managed to get her to the point where she did about as well as any trained monkey ever could in the VP debate (quick look of fear in the eye. . .no, not going to answer this question. . .glance down at notes. . .ah, yes, must hit that talking point or they won’t feed me). But she has proved so disastrously inept in any situation that can’t be scrupulously stage managed that they have been struggling to figure out how to employ her in a way that won’t continue to hurt the campaign. But they have finally nailed it. They have “unleashed” Palin to do what she is really very, very good at. No one is able to whip up ignorance in those already kindly disposed to it than someone who is themselves appallingly ignorant. And for those who witnessed the hate-filled spectacle of the Republican convention, what is happening now really shouldn’t come as a surprise.

Now however, predictably, her words of ignorance and hatred are starting to have an effect. A recent column by Washington Post reporter Dana Milbank (“Unleashed, Palin Makes a Pit-Bull Look Tame“) describes the appalling, hate-filled spectacle that is a Palin rally–and describes some of the behavioral effects that it is beginning to produce.

A friend of mine–with a good eye and an even better heart–was sickened by the description and motivated to produce a couple of “get out the vote” flyers for Internet distribution that use some of the hate-speech from Palin’s supporters. If you like them, pass them on.

Click on image for full version

Click on image for full version

]]> http://lafolie.wordpress.com/2008/10/09/unleashed-or-unhinged/feed/ 0 l3m1s sit1 kill2 http://lafolie.wordpress.com/2008/10/01/immortal-twelvies/ http://lafolie.wordpress.com/2008/10/01/immortal-twelvies/#comments Wed, 01 Oct 2008 01:40:17 +0000 l3m1s http://lafolie.wordpress.com/2008/10/01/immortal-twelvies/ ]]> Very occasionally, when enormous individual egos and huge personal fortunes collide with the world of science the result is a nett gain for humanity. A notable example is Richard Branson and Bert Rutan’s Virgin Galactic endeavour to bring paid space travel to the masses. Well, those masses who have a spare $200,000 dollars lying around. Spaceflight being what it is–massively expensive, hugely iffy and, well, a teensy bit dangerous–it’s probably not a bad thing to cross Croesus and creativity with a bit of good old fashioned “man’s reach exceeding his grasp” and all that. More usually, however, the result of such an unholy union of wealth, egomania and the “quest for knowledge,” threatens the sanity and sometimes the safety of all mankind. Now the new spawn of such a union again threatens our planet, and we stand powerless to protect it.

You may have heard of the online game Richard Garriott’s Tabula Rasa. It’s ostensibly a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG, or what game reviewer Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw loves to call a Mumorpugger). If you’re not familiar with the game, take a moment to check out Croshaw’s Zero Punctuation review; you won’t regret it. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

You’re back? You’ve wiped away the tears of laughter and changed your underwear? Good. Croshaw’s review notwithstanding, the game isn’t all that bad, and it’s kept your humble servant LM occupied for many hours. The environments are immersive, the quests are better than average, the plot doesn’t totally suck, and the combat really is all that and a packet of crisps. Unfortunately, the game is populated almost exclusively by 12 year-olds who have just discovered a profanity dictionary; instead of using it for the forces of good like yours truly, said twelvies spend all their time deploying increasingly improbable combinations of excoriatory badinage punctuated by the occasional “like” and “totally” and “dude” in order to denigrate the race, sexuality, ethnicity, religious preference, state of origin and favorite cereal of everyone else.

In other words, Tabula Rasa is a pretty typical example of any online game that features brutal interpersonal combat. Ex-members of the military and career politicians would also feel right at home there. And it isn’t of course completely stocked by real twelve year-olds. At least I hope to God not. It’s mainly inhabited by people who see online games as a chance to nostalgically relive their twelve-year-old salad days, only this time they get to be the sociopathic playground bully overcompensating for undersized and hairless copulatory equipment.

At a certain point, however, even the most twelvish of twelve-year-olds realizes that a game is only a game and is able to step back and gain a bit of perspective (or at least take a break to chug some more Red Bull while tittering over the latest entries for the Darwin awards being documented on YouTube). The fun really starts when said twelvies don’t realize that it’s only a game.

And the fun really, really starts when the game’s designer doesn’t realize that it’s only a game.

As you may have gathered from Croshaw’s review (you did watch his review, didn’t you? Here’s your second chance. . .

. . .) Tabula Rasa‘s designer, Richard Garriott is what we in the trade call a Very Strange Man. He doesn’t seem to have the same ability to differentiate between reality and fantasy that most people have (well, that most people have outside election season, anyway). He also apparently has more money than God. In fact more than all Gods combined. So he decides he is going to become the latest private citizen to pay for the privilege of having themselves shot into space.

Source: Operation Immortality website.

Now, were it me, and with the world economy being the way it is, I’d probably want to use that money to pay off the debt of a small developing nation, or bail out the Royal Bank of Scotland. But, whatever. The ways of the rich and famous shall forever be a mystery to us non-tax-sheltered mortals. (Here’s an interesting question, though: if you are a sci-fi game designer, and you spent a Death Star full of money on a space flight, can you write it off as business travel?).

Not content with gathering up the hard-earned gaming dollars of his player base to fulfill the dream of a lifetime, however, Garriott launches an initiative that reveals a great deal about why he seems to have become a game designer in the first place. He doesn’t want simply to inhabit fantasy worlds. He wants other people to validate his inhabiting of fantasy worlds.

This brings us to Richard Garriott’s Operation Immortality. Now bear with me here, because this is going to get ugly in a hurry. Garriott is going to travel to the International Space Station, and what he’s going to be taking with him (apart from the oh-so-fashion-forward Fecal Containment System) is an archive (called the Immortality Drive) of humanity’s greatest achievements, personalized messages from people all over the world, and digitized human DNA. Among the contributors to the digitized DNA component of the archive are Astrophysicist Rock Star Stephen Hawking (so far so good) . . . plus Stephen Colbert and Jo Garcia, Playboy’s 2008 Cyber-Girl of the Year. I think you get a sense of where this is heading.

But the gene pool just gets richer. The OI website challenges us: “Will you be among those giants helping to forge a new start for humanity?” Every week, we’re told, 8 lucky players will receive an invitation to have their DNA added to the archive of those “destined to rebuild humanity.” Apparently Garriott’s team have also been hard at working gathering DNA swabs from the kind of people who attend the annual Comic-Con.

Source: Operation Immortality website.

Moreover, who gets to craft these personal messages to the stars and determine humanity’s greatest achievements? Uh-huh, you guessed it, the twelvies playing Tabula Rasa. Furthermore, in a an act of stunning pointlessness all players who were active during the month of August 2008 get to upload their Tabula Rasa characters to the Immortality Drive.

Oh the humanity.

Now all of this is actually thematically tied in with the game. Tabula Rasa’s conceit is that the earth has been attacked (and presumably destroyed) by your garden variety Invading Alien Horde and the survivors are scattered around the universe living a grim and perilous existence, fighting for their very survival. Garriott’s Operation Immortality plays off this idea by presenting the archive as the repository of the information needed to rebuild humanity should the interstellar gods decide to give our planet the finger. And I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that Tabula Rasa has a kind of eerie prescient quality to it. It portrays a humanity lulled into a false sense of security by purchases of big screen TVs and over-priced badly constructed homes and totally oblivious to the disaster about to befall them (any of this sounding familiar?). This is nicely captured in the game’s opening cinematic:

Tabula Rasa Opening Cinematic. Copyright Destination Games/NCSoft

Of course, I always thought the planet-raping aliens would look like this:

Rather than this:

But hey. So with the world in peril and all, the Immortality Drive may well be a Fucking Jolly Good Idea for all I know. Although it does strike me that an orbiting space station will be the first thing an Invading Alien Horde will snap up as a tasty hors d’oeuvre before making the rest of us bow down before them and using us as toast racks.

But let’s assume the planet survives the best efforts of this Republican administration and its Wall Street cronies. And assuming that as a species we’re so grateful for this let off that we promptly figure out some other way to annihilate ourselves. When the aliens arrive and crack open the International Space Station, once they have got over their disappointment at not finding any beer and wings, what will they make of Garriott’s archive of humanity? After all, we mustn’t be ageist. Twelvies are people, too, and have as sophisticated and enlightened a view of humanity as everyone else, right? Stop sniggering there in the back row, I can hear you! Let’s take a look at some of humanity’s greatest achievements that will be stored on this immortality drive. How about we start with the greatest movies of all time?

1. Star Wars
2. Lord of the Rings
3. The Matrix
4. The Dark Knight
5. The Godfather
6. Citizen Kane
7. Pulp Fiction
8. 2001: A Space Odyssey
9. 300
10. Fight Club

Hmm, never guess that this was a list put together by twelvie sci-fi junkies would you? How Citizen Kane and The Godfather made it onto that list at all is beyond me. The contest was rigged, rigged I say! How about we check out the greatest books of all time?

1. The Bible (Are you fucking kidding me? Ok, sorry, for the editorializing, back to the list. . .)
2. The Lord of the Rings
3. Harry Potter
4. Ender’s Game
5. 300
6. Dune
7. The Art of War
8. War and Peace
9. The Hobbit
10. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Now apart from the fact that number 10 should indisputably replace number 1 on the list (again, I smell a rigged vote), I had no idea that 300 was such a tower of literary accomplishment. Take that, Dickens, Austen, Hemmingway, Faulkner, DeLillo, a pack of Brontes and all you literary wannabes! This! Is! Fucking! Sparta!

How about, Who is the greatest athlete of all time?

1. Michael Phelps
2. Michael Jordan
3. Muhammed Ali
4. Lance Armstrong
5. Wayne Gretzky
6. Babe Ruth
7. Jesse Owens
8. Tiger Woods
9. Carl Lewis
10. Pele.

Hmmm. You don’t think there is the teeniest tiniest chance that the player base of Tabula Rasa is 99.99999% male, do you? Although maybe a strong showing by the chick vote is what put Phelps in there at number one.

OK, I think we’ve seen enough. Any more and you’ll think I’m making this up. Let’s move on, instead, to my favorite part: the personalized messages. Here’s a few pulled at random:

• we live we die yet we must claw and scrtach to leave our mark on the world and in the invent universe so that our name our legacy will live forever
• “Why reach for the sky, Where could only angels fly,Why look for the stars,Where you can’t see the love,why to believe in dreams, onlydreams you c
• Someone somewhere somewhen will know of a deep love between an Italian man and a Chinese woman. Paolo and Lili
• Kayla, I’ll always be yours. . .beautiful
• hay i have lernd so much in 15 i love anime and moves i love the stars and the moon i nowe ther is mor thing in space but there is some thing about it
• every man soul is a star and hope is our polaris star, no greater radiance will ever shine in the universe. Always cherish hope and in love have trust.
• I hope we get faster-than-light spaceship drives, and soon. That would be cool.
• It is good to know that in addition to the finest minds around, we are also taking along a playboy bunny. sheesh. I didn’t know silicone had DNA.
• It could be worse

Actually, I don’t think it could.

So let’s review. When the aliens come to pick over the remains of our culture, they are going to find the following: some DNA from a couple of really smart people, mixed in with the DNA of several self-aggrandizing corporate types, a Playboy bunny and a whole mess of DNA from people who think The Dark Knight is the fourth greatest movie of all time. They will, furthermore, run the collected messages of all humanity through their best algorithmic analyzers and conclude that while this could possibly have been a language, it bears no recognizable structure or pattern, and thus is probably just interference or corrupt data on the drive. At which point they will erase the Immortality Drive and use it to burn a copy of the newest and hotest Invading Alien Horde Space Porn for immediate distribution around the Armada.

Sic Semper Twelvius.

According to the countdown timer on the Operation Immortality website, this madman is set to blast off in 11 days. By all that’s holy, he must be stopped!