McCain’s Bogeyman Politics: The last refuge of a scoundrel

[malaise]

http://canarypapers.wordpress.com/2008/10/17/mccains-bogeyman-politics-the-last-refuge-of-a-scoundrel/
<snip>
It’s a bird! It’s a plane! A terrorist plane! An Arab! A Muslim! An Islamic extremist! A scary black man! A rock star! The anti-Christ! A commie! A socialist! A traitor! A treasonist! It’s un-American! It’s… it’s….

It’s election year.

And the McCain campaign, ever-desperate for something to run on besides their shoddily repackaged version of the Bush Administration, is grabbing at straws. As such, they’ve amassed the most reprehensible stump tactics in political history and repackaged them into a plank, of sorts: bogeyman politics. A scary mix of race-baiting, red-baiting and kitchen-sink demagoguery, bogeyman politics can turn a garden-variety politician into a scarecrow. By the same token, it can transform a great man into the very embodiment of terror: the bogeyman. History bears this out. The McCain-Palin bogeyman platform pays great tribute to the architects of fearmongering: Karl Rove, Lee Atwater, Westwood Pegler, Paul Joseph Goebbels, Joseph McCarthy and George Wallace.

The history books will one day record the McCain-Palin campaign as being every bit as flagrantly ridiculous and dangerous as it truly is. The shame is that that we don’t recognize these destructive campaigns in their time. It is only in retrospect, years after the damage has been done. The demagogues of Nazi Germany, the McCarthy era and White Supremacy did not seize power overnight. That power had to be cultivated — word by word, fear by fear — conjuring forth the darkest elements of human nature to do war against imaginary evils.

History tells the tale: good men and women can be drawn to do dark deeds, given the incentive of fear. While human beings may never lose their fear of the bogeyman – that amorphous being that hides in the shadows, in closets, under the bed at night and flies planes into buildings — we can choose to become more wise. Great leaders, like Obama, shed light into the dark places. Fools, like McCain/Palin, draw us further into the darkness. Wise men know the difference between the two camps.

[madaboutharry]

1. Very good article.

n/t

[Ichingcarpenter]

2. Mr. Fish- McCain on Obama...... "no that's not true"

[malaise]

3. Perfect

:D

[Laelth]

4. Last refuge? This has been the 1st line of attack from Republicans for decades. n/t

:dem:

-Laelth

[depakid]

5. The bottom line is that Republicans are ruled by their fears

And that's been confirmed by recent scientific research into their nature. Not only that, but at their core, most are unpersuadable and incapable of changing erroneus beliefs in the face of new information. Indeed, as another recent study showed, when presented with credible information and analysis, such people only cling more strongly to false and often irrational beliefs.

What makes the current situation more dangerous than episodes of the past is the dominance of what I call "the culture of lies" in America. The corporate media- particularly hate radio and Fox news, unabashedly repeat outright lies- false statements of fact, relentlessly and with impunity. It makes people feel as though they have no obligation to the truth- or to any sort of reason.
And none of that is going to change until there's effective and consistently enforced re-regulation and de-consolidation of the corporate media that reinforces the ethic that dishonesty is perfectly acceptible behavior.