Lies, Lies, Lies

 More than a few years ago, Richard Nixon, smarting from his loss to John F. Kennedy, promised that he would never be out lied and out smarted again. His fantasy world dictated that like Eisenhower, he was somehow a highly moral man, whose integrity was everything; and Kennedy had stole the election. In spite of this, Nixon according to his manufactured legend, said nothing.

 In fact, Eisenhower was a highly moral man, even though he presided over the largest combat arms experience in mankind’s history. Nixon was not. But, to compete and win in 1968, Nixon pioneered the political ideology that expediency rules everytime. An entire generation of conservatives followed suit, led by the likes of Carl Rove, and “dirty tricks” became the mainstay of the Republican Party.

 A major rationale for this expediency behavior was it was the only way counter what was becoming an endless series of liberal and New Deal victories, culminating in the War on Poverty and Medicare. This occurred right after the Democratic Party had finally purged itself of southern Dixiecrates in the mid-sixties. Suddenly the traditional counter to Democrat political hegemony was gone, racist southern democrates were purged from the party, when Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964.

 Incredibly, the “party of Lincoln” that had hisorically been for the North and for Civil Rights (at an arms length) adopted under Nixon’s leadership a “southern strategy” and gleefully welcomed scores of disillusioned southerners, who were left without a party after the Democrats came out for Civil Rights. Nixon cynically coupled this political act that would have sickeded the Radical Republicans of post Civil War politics, with a “silent majority” ploy, that capitalized on the anger Americans had with the anti-war and hippie movement.

 Nixon wanted to win, even if it meant renouncing basic Republican Party positions that went straight to the heart of Lincoln. To be sure of victory, he threw in a good dose of reactionary philosophy drawing on the anger of white Americans with the hippies and the “uppity” blacks. The Watts Riots and later inner city explosions did not hurt his claim that only he could pacify not only Vietnam, but the United States as well. He campaigned in 1968 on an end the war platform using a barely pronouncable “Vietnamization” to explain his exit strategy from Vietnam. Of course, students of history remember that once Nixon was elected he intensified the war, by invading Laos and Cambodia and bombing non-stop until the Paris Peace Accords. But Nixon’s victory of 1968 followed by his landslide in 1972 established forever that “dirty tricks” worked, and Republican leadership followed whatever was popular and expedient and never again took the difficult path of “doing the right thing”, that was seemingly getting “do gooder” liberals in more and more trouble. “Bleeding heart” liberals was established as a dirisive term, and the label stuck, along with “effeet intellectual snobs”. Liberals who had definitely done the right thing in establishing basic human rights with the Civil Rights Act, were depected as soft on a whole host of issues, from war to criminal justice.

 The basic facts that liberal leadership had won two World Wars was conveniently forgotten, and a NEW REALITY was created that only conservatives were tough enough to win the cold war; or any war for that matter. And this last falsehood brings us up to date. Conservatives are busy right now creating new realities all over the place, from tax cuts that don’t really reduce revenues, to wars that don’t really cost anything. George Bush ran the country into the ditch, economically and politically, but didn’t really, it is Obama’s fault. Remember, winning is everything, even if the truth is lost and even buried for effect. If you win the election it doesn’t matter how. The most recent egregious example is the “Jobs, jobs, jobs” mantra of Republicans during the 2010 elections; which has been followed by tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts, no jobs.

 In fact, joblessness is a learned behavior from liberals, it is the unemployed’s fault for being without work, it is a result of liberals being too soft on workers. I know, I know, it doesn't read very well does it?

 But , it seems that it is working. Obama’s approval ratings are falling, the country is mired in a recession that is never ending, and incredibly conservative policies that caused the mess are discounted by a bewildered public. A big problem exists with all this lying however.

 Fascism has many faces, but a very important one is using propaganda to create a false reality that is used to manipulate the masses into doing things individuals would never do. World War II provides countless examples of propaganda organized around a fictitious world view, that motivated mass murder on a horrendous scale. And herein lies American most important danger. Nixon’s expediency finally tripped him up, with the Watergate debacle. If that had not happened, it is possible Nixon would have destroyed the Democratic Party, resulting in one pary rule, which could have veered the United States into fascism. Today, this threat is even more possible.

 Corporations, who are making record profits by not hiring workers, are pouring billions into electing far right conservatives, whose agendas are quite frankly, fascist to the core. When nation states accept fictitious depictions of reality, and follow leaders who demand only that they believe the garbage they are being fed, democracy dies quickly, and fascism is right there.

 If you listen to the lies of current conservatives Presidential candidates, and the fanciful reality they pretend to support, you can see the danger; and it is not around the corner, it is right here, right now.

 Lies, Lies, Lies….