JOE BAGEANT: Springtime in the Republic of Larry

[Tace]

Joe Bageant -- World News Trust

snip

At the same time at least some Americans are finally shedding their illusions. We don't see that very often, but we have seen it occasionally: During the Sixties and Seventies we learned that a president who proclaims "I am not a crook," is probably just that. The Vietnam War taught most thinking people that American wars are noble wars merely because they are American. Also that the popularity of American wars, like that of sports teams, wears thin when we are not winning, causing people to start grumbling about the coach. The Iraq War is now unpopular with a majority and the president's numbers are so low pollsters are using a dip net to fish them out of the toilet. That it took over three years of getting our asses kicked by swarthy shoeless peasant stock armed with cheap cell phones and junk ordinance IEDs for the point to soak in that something just might be going wrong with the "mission accomplished" over there -- well, it says something about our lapdog media, or our Prozac addled brains, the contagion of national hubris or all three.

All of the above does not even begin to address the shadowy forces rustling in the background of our government, emerging occasionally to announce yet another chilling diminishment of our civil liberties, with almost no real objection. Most of America remains as clueless as Big Larry, believing that "It cannot happen here," even though they haven't the education or insight or attention span to grasp exactly what it is that can happen. Big Larry again: "What can’t happen here?" I’m telling ya the guy has about two fingers of forehead.

People with more than two fingers of forehead, those who understand what can happen and obviously is happening, hope and pray the next election will begin to turn things around (which implies there are available candidates with the guts, wisdom and charisma to do so, but that's a whole nuther matter). At the same time they remain in deep denial of, or are simply too horrified by, what the rigging of two national elections by Republican operatives spells about our condition. It means that the way out of this escalating nightmare, the way back to something resembling freedom just might not be through the ballot box. And as long as the Democratic leadership is afraid to stand up and name the crimes and the criminals involved, the noodle-spined middle class will feel justified in its denial. And ole Larry will just stay out there on the back porch scratching his ass and thinking things are mostly OK. Just like tens of millions of his fellow Americans.

Anyway, the Democratic leadership believes it's too late to call bullshit on the crooked elections. I know because I get their newsletters. They keep me in the loop on these things. They also say Howard Dean is the new Newt Gingrich, only liberal. And yesterday I got one asking me what the Democratic Party should stand for. I've got plenty of ideas for sure, but I did not reply because, well, if Howard Dean and the most powerful Democrats in the nation have to ask me what the party of Franklin Roosevelt stands for, then we are in a heap of shit, dear hearts. A heap of shit.

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http://worldnewstrust.org/modules/AMS/article.php?storyid=3107

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

1. "At the same time...

...they remain in deep denial of, or are simply too horrified by, what the rigging of two national elections by Republican operatives spells about our condition. It means that the way out of this escalating nightmare, the way back to something resembling freedom just might not be through the ballot box. And as long as the Democratic leadership is afraid to stand up and name the crimes and the criminals involved, the noodle-spined middle class will feel justified in its denial."

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I believe classic denial also explains why so many people accept the 9-11 Commission's ridiculous and completely implausible conclusion that WTC 1 and 2 collapsed due to the heat caused by burning jet fuel.

The little man inside our head who runs the Common Sense Department screams BULLSHIT to Bush's supposed win over Kerry and to the 9-11 Commission's bizarre claims, only to be quickly surrounded, overrun, and then sedated by the little men in black from the Classic Denial Department. The little men in black are supposed to become weaker with time---something we unfortunately haven't got.

If classic denial is indeed only a phase, we, as a nation, had better get through it, and soon.