Paranoia Strikes Deep

[dtotire]

William Greider

)


Okay, I admit it. As the election approaches, I am feeling a creepy sense of paranoia. My right brain reads the newspapers, studies the polls and thinks we are looking at a blow-out next month--Dems conquer at last. My left brain hoots in derision. Get real, sucker.

The run-up has been pure fun for me: Generals leak the National Intelligence Estimate. Rep. Foley falls from grace. Senator Macaca blows his lead. The reports from the field are more than promising. The hard news has trumped every move by Bush-Rove to win once again on their usual fear and smear campaign.

Yet the least little thing jerks away my optimism, like ripping off a scab that's not quite healed. When I heard the news flash that a plane had crashed into a Manhattan apartment tower, I didn't think, how horrible. I said to myself: those rotten bastards in the White House.

I wasn't thinking terrorists. I was thinking the Bush regime had gone to new extremes in its search for a believable "red alert." That tactic is worn out, it's been used so many times in election seasons. Instead, why not blow up a chunk of New York City to remind folks how scary life can be in these United States? Okay, that thought is irrational (also slanderous). But office conversations the next day told me I was not alone.

Like Alex Cockburn, I don't play conspiracy-theory games. The plots are always too complicated and assign too much skill and foresight to the alleged conspirators. If wicked politicians or the "ruling class" were that smart, America would never lose a war.

But, boy, am I feeling vulnerable these days to ugly surprises. The last few weeks, helicopters and small planes have been buzzing heavily over my neighborhood in northwest Washington. What's that about? I asked a neighbor and he laughed weakly. Maybe Cheney had a heart attack and they're flying him to Bethesda Naval Hospital. Maybe it's just a trial run for the big one.

In the office elevator, I bumped into an old friend, a reporter from Dow Jones. (Yes, the Wall Street Journal and The Nation can co-exist in the same building (this is incestuous Washington and we all think of ourselves as kindred insiders). My friend is a smart and observant conservative who doesn't peddle cheap partisan opinions.

Democrats, he told me, won't get more than eight to ten seats in the House, forget the Senate. What? Why? Money and method, he said. Between blanketing TV with killer ads and turning out the righteous right-wing base, the Republicans are in the process of buying it one more time.

I got off the elevator and found myself trembling. Didn't want to argue with him, didn't want to hear more about what he knew. He might convince me.

Forget facts. I just want it be over. Soon. Actually, right now.

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion?pid=129656

[lvx35]

1. Its good to talk about the paranoid stuff.

People SHOULD notice that we are in a system where the government gains power when faceless terrorists attack, and that this has a potential and abuse. People SHOULD realize that in the 20th century, like 40 million were killed by their own governments while a piddly 15,000 or something were killed by "terrorists". Its right to fear what those in power are doing because so often in history it was bad.