{"id":53774,"date":"2012-02-25T00:50:18","date_gmt":"2012-02-25T05:50:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=53774"},"modified":"2012-02-25T00:51:06","modified_gmt":"2012-02-25T05:51:06","slug":"thats-the-ticket","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/by-judith-gayle-2\/thats-the-ticket\/","title":{"rendered":"That’s The Ticket"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

I have a confession to make: I’m easily embarrassed. It’s almost impossible for me to watch reality television, to observe people making fools of themselves while others snicker. I first noticed this problem waaaaay back in ’70s television when the Gong Show was all the rage. People of modest talent were booked, their shtick running the gamut from unusual to absurd and broadcast to all America while a panel of celebrity judges, reportedly enjoying a coke high, responded to them with snickers and jeers until finally cutting them off with — yes, you guessed it — a gong. <\/p>\n

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Hilarity ensued as the judges tried to outdo one another, and a grand time was had by all, except for me. I was cringing. After you watched the show once, you knew the drill. Within a few seconds of a guest launching an “act,” the camera would pan to the judges, whose response was evident on their faces. Their next moves were predictable, you could see it coming like a train. The occasional “winner” softened the often cruel rejection of those who came before. The Gong Show was the beginning of “mean” television, which has now evolved into an art form.<\/p>\n

A sensitive sort, I began performance at an early age — music, writing, yadda — and because of it, I’m a “good audience,” sometimes to a fault. All you’ve got to do to impress me is to show up and try hard, and I’ll give you my attention and a heartfelt hand. But not when the show is all about demeaning someone, and to the point, the debates have devolved into a race to ruthlessly demonize the POTUS and each other. So my real confession is that as a political writer, I’ve not sat through a single Republican debate, and since they seem to pop up like dandelions on the lawn, that’s a lot of word-salad to leave off the table. In defense of my emotional well-being, I prefer the crib notes.<\/p>\n

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I catch up with the candidates’ gaffes, their pronouncements and posturing, their attacks and outrageous commentary, after the fact, reviewing cable news, video clips and articles. Seriously, my avoiding what Andy Horowitz<\/a> has called the “historic whoppers” of the latest debate is for the best. Listening to the ratcheting hysteria of their rhetoric and the spontaneous cheers or catcalls of an audience of right-wing sensibility would only make me think less of my fellow humans, and that’s dangerous; even more dangerous, in my opinion, than the nonsense proposed by the radical candidates.<\/p>\n

I don’t have to tell you the absurd degree to which the right-wing has demonized Obama. We can always trust Jon Stewart to do that for us<\/a>, and brilliantly. If their accusations ring hollow to those of us on the left, be cheered that they also ring hollow to many in the middle. Those playing to the radical base have become Jon Lovitz-clones. Lovitz played “Tommy Flanagan, the Pathological Liar” on Saturday Night Live<\/em>. As he wove a tale brimming with self-aggrandizing exaggeration, he’d stumble over an even more outrageous claim and announce, “Yeah! That’s the ticket!” Anyone watching knew what was going on in Tommy Flanagan’s imagination, his vulnerabilities and ego-need on parade.<\/p>\n

Think George W. Bush when his pitch changed from “find the wmd’s before they land on our heads,” to “God wants to make the world free.” Think Rumsfeld’s “known known” speech when he dazzled with confusion. Think a floundering John McCain when [he announced] Sarah Palin as, “… exactly what I need.” Yeah — that’s the ticket!<\/em> Many of those with the stomach to watch the Republican debates know what Newt is doing when he tells us that Obama is the most dangerous president in history, or when Rick tells Glenn Beck that Obama’s plan to increase affordable college education<\/a> is all about robbing our children of their faith, or when Mitt declares he was always a severe conservative governor — yeah, that’s the ticket!<\/em> It’s red meat to a base craving blood, as the candidates attempt to claw their way into favor.<\/p>\n

I’m sure these candidates would tell us in an unlikely fit of candor that it’s not really lying, it’s just politics. But once begun, it’s hard to stop. Remember Tommy Flanagan, Pathological Liar. Key word? Pathological. When these people start to talk, they’re like the Gong Show judges, each trying to outdo the others in a drunken frenzy, and you can see the train coming on. The First Amendment protects speech, of course, and these folks have a right to be embarrassing, cloddish clowns if it suits them and their followers.<\/p>\n

It’s even all right for Lou Dobbs, long of CNN and newly resurrected by Fox Business Network, to pronounce the new Dr. Seuss movie, The Lorax<\/a><\/em>, to be Hollywood’s attempt to indoctrinate our children in an anti-capitalism propaganda campaign. Earlier in the year, the network went after the newest Muppet movie, declaring the casting of an evil oil baron foiling our Muppet friends to be a leftie vendetta against oil providers. One of Dobbs’s guests, from rightie radio, declared that the left is trying to create “occu-toddlers.” This came after Dobbs compared The Lorax<\/em> to #occupy, which “forever tried to pit the makers against the takers.” Let me first note that Dobbs’s mention of #occupy in the past tense is remarkably na\u00efve and then comment that yes, all this foolishness is protected speech, but we can see the train coming on, can’t we? Playing to their elderly demographic, FOX has more agenda than Newt Gingrich on a Sunday talk-show.<\/p>\n

There is, of course, nothing fair and balanced about this “news” conglomerate, and their insistence that they are is the hypocrisy that keeps on giving us fits; it’s also the epitome of right-wing projection. Here’s the rule when discussing projection: when accused of something you wouldn’t dream of, look into your accuser’s past to find the presumption, the fear, or the actual incident. When allegations have no reality whatsoever, then you can find them in the mind or experience of those pointing fingers. And it’s difficult not to go to war with our accusers, but time is a great equalizer, if we can afford to wait it out.<\/p>\n

Take the supposed war on religion Obama is accused of, in mandating contraception for women. I’d be truly surprised if real religious war didn’t erupt if Romney takes the nomination. You may remember his John F. Kennedy speech during the last election primary, proposing that he would never put the wishes of Salt Lake before the good of the United States. This election period, any mention of Mitt’s Mormonism is considered an assault on his religious freedom, but there’s chatter in the back rooms and prayer meetings. The evangelicals already have long knives awaiting Mr. Romney, believing that his version of Jesus Christ’s post-resurrection appearance to America’s indigenous people makes him and his church both cultish and blasphemous.<\/p>\n

Should Mitt win the nod despite all this, I trust the fundies will actualize his handlers’ fears and undercut hopes for a large Republican turnout in November. It’s difficult to warm to Mitt, as proven by his consistently lukewarm numbers, and I personally find him to be what Obama is presumed by the right, an “empty suit.” His money isolates him from reality, much as his temperament makes him a shape-shifter. A series of articles<\/a> about the Romneys suggests that Mitt’s erratic and secretive persona is written into his DNA, and that’s bad enough, but, believe it or not, I have concerns about Mitt’s religious intention. JFK’s promise to put America first wasn’t compromised by his being a prince of the Catholic church or by Rome promoting the prophecy of one of its own taking the American presidency to save the world from Satan and establish a working theocracy.<\/p>\n

Long shot, you think? Remember how the divide between church and state has closed in the last dozen years and think again. According to Robert Altemeyer, a Canadian psychologist and author of the book, The Authoritarians<\/em>, religious fundamentalists of any stripe are a serious problem to reality-based politics:<\/p>\n

Probably about 20 to 25 percent of the adult American population is so right-wing authoritarian, so scared, so self-righteous, so ill-informed and so dogmatic that nothing you can say or do will change their minds. They would march America into a dictatorship and probably feel that things had improved as a result…. And they are so submissive to their leaders that they will believe and do virtually anything they are told. They are not going to let up and they are not going away.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Altemeyer adds that while 25% isn’t enough to swing an election, it is certainly enough to skew the results. For example, think about California’s assault on Proposition 8, thanks largely to Mormon money and activism. All this is speculative, of course, should Mitt be the lucky winner of a seriously split electorate that is leaning now toward Santorum. Mainstream Republicans are doing all they can to slow Santorum’s rise and eliminate Gingrich before he sours the milk. Neither are considered electable, but realists doubt Romney’s chances as well, so behind the scenes, it’s super PAC money, gerrymandering and vote suppression that count. So it isn’t the dimwits telling whoppers that are really the scary ones; it’s Norquist and his like, working behind the scenes to repeat their questionable success of 2000 and 2004, that should concern us.<\/p>\n

This is Republican territory and they’re skilled at it. They’re counting on holding the House and making inroads into the Senate and hoping against hope that that they can, as Grover Norquist suggests, just get somebody elected to sign the bills and allow Congress to lead the country. I believe such a notion could be considered an assault on the power of the presidency as encoded in the Constitution, but then, Norquist has never had problems mincing words. He’s no Tommy Flanagan, seeking that next big ego-boost. Norquist proudly owns his egomania, decades ago pledging to “make government small enough to drown in a bathtub” and never giving up his lethal activism. With Tea Party cred, he’s succeeded in twisting all this season’s rightie candidates’ arms to sign an oath against raising new taxes. A crashed economy might drown pretty quickly, yes? Seems likely so far, with many of us breathing underwater. Yet we rarely hear about how the Republican candidates’ economic plans would swell the national debt and create even more plutocracy than we now endure.<\/p>\n

Knowing all this should make us hypervigilent against this kind of manipulation, not frightened witless, but I’m seeing signs of people reverting back into fear. I pray that’s just a last retreat before the light bulb goes on over their heads. Still, it amazes me that when religion becomes part of the conversation, people lose their minds, and again, I blame our religious institutions for mining human ego without a thought to soul damage. Ego cannot be the loudest voice we listen to without creating chaos within and without.<\/p>\n

The Kaballah<\/em> reminds us that what we do for ourselves is in service to ego, what we do for others fills our soul. A Course in Miracles<\/em> tells us our ego is that bit of us that thrives on fear, that protects itself at all costs and will do anything — tell any lie, manipulate any fact — to take the lead position in our consciousness. The Tao<\/em> calls our ego a false face, out of balance with our authenticity. The ego sees in black and white, its livelihood dependent on its keeping us in separation from each other and all that is. Ultimately it’s ego that promotes war, that feeds on fear, that insists on stringent authority to keep us all safe, that really does wear the mask of Mitt Romney’s “severe conservative.” Yeah, that’s the ticket!<\/em><\/p>\n

If we need to identify ego voice, all we need do is go to our hearts and find that sense of discomfort and unease, see how we’re directed to step on someone else’s neck to get a bit higher, and recognize defensive energy coming on like a train, ready to roll over us. Once we recognize the source of that discomfort, we do not need to fear, especially when our soul stands as witness to another way.<\/p>\n

Our connectedness, our commonality, our service to the whole, all of these are soul signatures. We cannot fail to find blessing and growth, balance and redemption, when we make it our business to care for each other, even, and perhaps especially, “the least of these.” This is the season to put that intention forward even as some of our brothers and sisters drag their feet, call us names, and do all they can to keep us ego-centered. They may project all they like, the left must not respond in kind. We are not black\/white people, we must not offer tit for tat and deepen the darkness. We must be agents of light, ambassadors of sanity and converts to reality, and if — given what we know of polarity — that’s just the other side of the coin needing to come to balance, then let me play my little part in tipping the scales and say: light, sanity, reality? Yeah, that’s the ticket!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves I have a confession to make: I’m easily embarrassed. It’s almost impossible for me to watch reality television, to observe people making fools of themselves while others snicker. I first noticed this problem waaaaay back in ’70s television when the Gong Show was all the rage. People of modest … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1744],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53774"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53774\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}