The Drudge Report is hyping Uncle Pat’s latest Spenglerian opus, “End Of An Era: When MTV Began To Play Michael Jackson,” or some such. According to the Drudge summary, it looks like Pat went back to his studio with his producer with one goal: to recapture the punch and power from his halcyon days. Some chapters, like Crisis of the Catholic Church, are particularly riff heavy, recalling the pyrotechnics of his epic Houston 1992 stage show. Perhaps it’s akin to his last will and testament to posterity?
The Tea Party’s Answer For Newt’s Suckage At Sci Fi: Dan Simmons’ “Flashback”
Dan Simmons latest, “Flashback”, reviewed in mid Summer by the WaPo was declared a Tea Party manifesto. The plot occurs in a fallen U.S. some 30 years in the future, with Mexico occupying the Southwest, Japan in Hawaii directly and ruling the West and Midwest indirectly via zaibatsu viceroys. Israel is nuked out existence, and the Global Caliphate expands in Europe, Canada and even the remaining 44 1/2 U.S. states by Sharia Law.
The future U.S. is a broke, neo-totalitarian State, with cities and roads lawless. It rents out its poorly trained and equipped army as fodder to Japan and India to fight their wars. People deal with the catastrophes by abusing a drug called ‘Flashback’ that allows one to memory dive and relieve a past moment as new again.
All of the decline, this ‘appeasement’ occurred because of a man elected president in November 2008. His policies like ObamaCare, his speech in Cairo, it all started with one community organizer.
The lone, shining hold out of integrity and self-esteem? Why, the Republic of Texas, naturally.
Fox Debate With Google Creates A Miasma Of False Realities
The Fox Republican Debate tonight is a preview of how corporatist promotion and demotic manipulation will seek to function as poltico-entertainment. That Google is presented as co-sponsor and determinant of public data “trends” while on the verge of Federal investigation? Unremarkable.
“Running Man” in the 1980s already skirted the line between description and satire. Now we see the functional integration play out.
The pre-baked false structural narrative cascades upon a viewer, an ersatz unreality created by News Corp, which is both mouthpiece and stage director for our current oligarchy. For many viewers that narrative’s very predictability a greater and more important comfort than disorganized surprise.
News Corp stepped up its game tonight by deploying a corporatist ally, Google. A corporate co-sponsor of a presidential debate? A general yawn. Everything is a brand. The surprise is that Air Force One isn’t sponsored. And on one level, the partnership simply provides a patina of techno-hipsterism for ratings.
On a deeper level, Google’s choice is more strategic. Google, facing several potential legal challenges, benefits by the publicity and demonstration of its power to impact electoral politics. Google served up to Fox and the viewer data samples from a (sometimes pre-screened), shapeless, inchoate jello of American random thinking. These factoids, drawn from uncertain samplings with unknown demographics, are imposed on both viewer and mannequin candidates alike. Thus the spectacle’s creators expose both the mannequins and viewers’ marginal role. Both are acted on. The essential achievement and focus are factoids ratifying and verifying the alternate, pre-fabricated narrative.
For the stage mannequins their challenge was and will be how to improvise within the script and constraints of role. How to get the right bon mot adhering to the fluid, concocted structural bounds? The viewer, the mark or “consumer” in this production, on some level senses the mannequins’ discomfort. And the disconnect between their alleged starring role and actual status. This insight provides essential comfort to the “consumer”. They sense they are not entirely alone in the production. And their status closer to the mannequins than outside, objective forms indicate.
Nothing we saw tonight changed either the pre-arranged narrative or the mannequins’ internal rankings. What did you see on screen?
Republicans Debating Stuck In A Moment They Can’t Get Out Of
Tonight’s debate confirms Ed Rollins was right: it’s a Perry Romney race. We’ve only had one direct lengthy conversation with Rollins (and it was earlier this year). We felt him, of course, as he was a big presence down in Texas during the Perot bubble. He should be relieved to be out of that seat.
Perry showed steadinesss and vacuity that will soothe his oligarchical backers. His ‘social security is a ponzi scheme’ a calculated gamble. We disagree with the talking heads that see Romney as the clear winner. Perry’s dog whistles seismic. From South Carolina on we see Romney struggling – except possibly Florida.
Newt increasingly comes across as an aging hair metal band crashing a Gathering of the Juggalos. He seems content to suck up to everyone to maintain his perch as ‘ideas’ man. In his own mind, he probably has cast himself as Colonel House calling the shots in someone else’s White House.
The fossilized nature of ‘conservative thought’ striking but irrelevant. All the issues pushed around are camouflage. Wisconsin, Ohio and New Jersey more realistic models for the cloaked oligarchical agenda. It’s true enterprise zones were novel when Jack Kemp pushed them in the late 1970s/1980s. The Laffer Curve/supply side economics, too. If the Republican Party intended to be overt about its actual governing strategy the lack of intellectual innovation would be problematic. Now, it’s only for rubes.
Dick Cheney’s Final Sadism
Of all of Cheney’s various crimes and corrosive acts, his book may be the cruelest. Not because of its dubious authenticity. Rather, Cheney gives new leases of life to mealy-mouthed Colin Powell and the entire spineless cavalcade of our past.
Across D.C. one can’t escape General Jello’s plaintive, salad fork-like rebuttal. Again we are forced to endure the spectacle of a former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and alleged warrior whining about ‘cheap shots’ — as if he’s in the NBA working refs after getting dunked on. A patent lawyer almost wholly oblivious of anything political couldn’t shut up about seeing Colin Powell on TV. Now that’s evil. Curse you again, Dick Cheney.
It’s Cheney’s misfortune that books themselves mean so little in 2011. As a cultural artifact they no longer command and monopolize the Imperial City hive mind. Not in the way say the former court reporter (in all senses of the words) Woodward’s routinely used to. Certainly not in the way Kissinger’s ghost written memoirs did. In fact, as Palin showed, a few well placed tweets command as much media spotlight. We draw comfort in our assessment because the kids at the WaPo disagree:
The difference between all these books and Cheney’s is the author. While the books listed above were often written by staffers and sometimes by political appointees, Cheney is a former Vice President of the United States. That gives his autobiography a certain amount of heft lacking from the others.
We doubt it. Not just because the WaPo is itself so enfeebled. Cheney, no matter how malefic, can not repeal the Law of Commodification. Already his book has been read, reported on. Thousands have fed its contents into the Twitter, StumbleUpon and other disposals of the modern intellect. Sliced, diced and churned. We doubt there are significant new details remaining that haven’t already been reported whether on Iraq, torture, Wilson/Plame, Rumsfeld, Afghanistan or domestic spying.
Cheney can count on the AEI/Hudson networks for a certain annuity. But his publishers want sales and Cheney clearly relishes attention. So both need Tenet, Rice, Leahy and others rise to the bait (“heads will explode”).
Thus is the full scope of Cheney’s sadism revealed. He is like the manipulator from the Saw movies. He opens a path to escape if the victims immolate themselves. Our only hope is they show the good judgment, courage and fortitude that evaded them when in office and spurn the invitation. General Jello already failed.
And for us, once again, we are forced to recall the bitter taste of pinning expectations on such a sorry bunch of self-serving mediocrities. We can in a way slightly sympathize with Cheney’s contempt for them all.
Curse you indeed, Dick Cheney.
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