I work in Northern Virginia, in the D.C. suburbs. This means that not only do I get Virginia news, I get a double helping of Political news. So I am hearing a whole lot about the electoral woes of Virginia's Republican senator George Allen. In particular, his racism is coming back to bite him.
Now, I think Republican politicians are morally bankrupt, and those who vote for them are intellectually bankrupt. For instance, in a recent poll 31% of respondants said that they believed Saddam Hussein had a personal connection to 9-11. That's right, one third of people eligible to vote believe something so patently false that not even the lie-masters of the White House try to claim it. These people are simply fucking stupid, and I guarantee that 100% of them are Republicans.
So obviously I have no love for George Allen, and if he died in a fire the world would be a better place.
That said, I find it interesting and a bit distasteful how the media is suddenly dogpiling on him. Like they did to Al Gore, who - get this - actually did take the lead in inventing the Internet. Like they never did to George W. Bush, the coke-sniffing draft dodger. Funny how that never came up.
Not that Allen doesn't deserve it - oh no. Aside from being a member of Satan's Own Party, he actually is a racist. Dig an inch into his background and you find someone enthralled with the Old South, who proudly salutes the confederate flag and hangs out with buddies from the KKK. No, he certainly is a racist.
But the current flap is yet more evidence that the American media is basically a pack of aimless and rather stupid dogs. (Aside from the blatantly Republican propaganda media such as FOX News, which are stupid dogs but on tight leashes.) They run around in a pack, howling after whatever the group mind (which is about the size of a Hershey's kiss, only dumber) has fixated on. Easily and obsessively distracted by the latest missing Attractive White Girl, or new twists in a ten year old murder of an Attractive White Girl. Or, for some reason unbeknownst to anyone, even the members of the pack, some particular political gaffe out of the thousands committed every day.
So in this case, the whole fracas starts with Allen calling a dark-skinned Indian guy videotaping his campaign rally a "macaca". Which, if you weren't George Allen and didn't have a history of glorifying racism, you would just blow off with "look, I'm sorry, I just made up a word to annoy the guy. I didn't mean anything racial by it." But of course Allen did mean something racial by it, and has now cycled through at least three different excuses for his behavior, none of which have the sincerity of a hooker's crossed legs.
Then later, when asked an odd but innocuous question about his Jewish ancestry, Allen retorted with anger and denial. About the rather undeniable fact that yes, his mother was born Jewish. Sure, subsequently he reversed course and now claims pride in it, but the initial reaction was pretty obviously the true one.
It's amusing and sad, by the way, to witness all the right-wing dittoheads who now claim that Allen's detractors are "anti-Semitic". As if the emptiness and mendacity of Republican apologists needed further reinforcement.
And now, by which I mean in the last few days, various old acquaintances of Allen's have admitted to the press that Allen was a racist back in college and loved nothing more than to bandy about the word "nigger".
Well, duh.
How this is news, I'm not sure. For one thing, back in the early seventies lots of people used the word "nigger", and a racist such as Allen was sure to be one of them. Oh, but of course, Allen is denying it. Yeah, that's plausible. Sure, guy, you hung a confederate flag on your wall and constantly hailed the Old South etc etc and never, not once, said "nigger". Right. Chevy Chase called Richard Pryor a "nigger" on Saturday Night Live and yet a wannabe good-ol-boy at the University of Virginia avoided the word entirely. Uh-huh.
As though Allen's core constituency were anything but racists anyway. Hell, racists are a major component of the Republican party. But I guess Allen figures he needs some more tolerant votes to win, so he's bowing to the media's demands to embrace tolerance and diversity.
Anyhow, in a rational world Allen would not be electable dog catcher, much less a senator. But in a rational world everyone would already know he was a racist and the press would not be stumbling over themselves to breathlessly announce that, thirty years ago, Allen said "nigger". It ought to be obvious and it really shouldn't be news.
Now, some would say that the American public - of which a third to half are pretty obviously dumb as rocks - get the media they deserve. But I disagree. It doesn't have to be the case that the media dumbs itself down to the level which they have in this day and age achieved. They simply have done so, at the behest of their corporate masters. And in a circular sort of trap, the people are thereby kept too ignorant to even wonder why all they seem to know about is Jon Benet Ramsey and whatever sudden political revelation the stupid pack of hounds have dug up this week.
- Sun Ra