Friday, August 7, 2009

What's History Got to Do With It?


Nixon!


If you read this blog over time you will see what I think of Nixon and what he did for America. You will also see how I see what is happening now as an extension of Nixon's failures.


Let's pull another thread.


Fox news is currently not reporting that the mob scenes at Democrats' town hall meetings are instigated and supported by Corporate entities. AstroTurf not grass roots. Why?


Ever hear of Roger Eugene Ailes?



(born May 15, 1940) is the American president of Fox News Channel and chairman of the Fox Television Stations Group. He was a media consultant for Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush, as well as Rudy Giuliani’s first mayoral campaign in 1989.



Ailes served as a political consultant for many Republican candidates during the 1960s, 70s and 80s. His first such job was as media advisor for the Nixon campaign in 1968. He returned to presidential campaigning as a consultant to Ronald Reagan in 1984. He is widely credited with having coached Reagan to victory in the second presidential debate with Walter Mondale.


"In 1988 Ailes was credited (along with Lee Atwater) with guiding George H. W. Bush to a come-from-behind victory over Michael Dukakis. Ailes and Lee Atwater scripted and produced the "Revolving Door" ad. He did not produce the Willie Horton ad, which was directed and produced by the National Security Political Action Committee (NSPAC), but Democrats later charged the Bush campaign with illegally coordinating the ads with the NSPAC. The Federal Election Commission (FEC) investigated the charge and deadlocked on a 3-3 vote, clearing Ailes and the campaign of legal problems. Ailes also came up with the "orchestra pit theory" regarding sensationalist political coverage in the news media, with the question:




If you have two guys on a stage and one guy says, 'I have a solution to the Middle East problem,' and the other guy falls in the orchestra pit, who do you think is going to be on the evening news?"



Nixon, Alies, Atwater.....


See a thread?


Do you think that the Nixon fiasco is still not playing out?


Will there be blood this time? How much hate is pent up behind the damns?



14 comments:

drlobojo said...

65% of the Southern Republicans believe the the President of the United States was not born in America and is not legally elected.
Race or politics?

The Southern Strategy:
"You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968 you can't say "nigger"—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites.
And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me—because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger".
---Lee Atwater

Cut this...?
Just say No!

We now, 2009, have new code words: Birthers against Free Health Care for Blacks and the Restoration of America to it true patriots.

Feodor said...

Race or politics?

False dichotomy.

Race + class.

Granted, the birth issue would not apply to a white President... who would care? White is unconscious citizenship.

But Hillary would be facing the same angry opposition on health care.

What Nixon, Reagan and facilitators like Atwater (along with white ethnic interests in labor in middle decades) have done is to push the class interests into the subconscious of the working folks. And they make it conscious only under careful political packaging that targets "Liberal" agendas.

drlobojo said...

Feodor: "Granted, the birth issue would not apply to a white President... who would care? White is unconscious citizenship."

Actually birth issues and their Black ancestory are what has been used politically against five, maybe six, of our "White" Presidents.

Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Warren Harding, and Calvin Coolidge one and all supposedly had ancestors including those who left offspring after "jumping the fence" They were so attacked before, during, and after their Presidencies for being "Black".

Bubba should be on the list as well, I think. If he hadn't been Black maybe the Republicans would not have hated him so much for sleeping with White women like he did. Being a "Black" man sleeping with white women is what really got him impeached.

Indeed,as you say, "White is unconscious citizenship." But, historically,(even today in most quarters) if you can proven to have 1/32nd Black ancestory then you ain't white no more. So the "Birther" attacks have a precident in history. If you ain't White you ain't right.

The Republicans are using Racism, Atwater's brand of Racism, to tear down a government that excludes them. The only questions are, how far will they go, and how will we react when they really do go to far.

Feodor said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Feodor said...

(Sorry, cleaning up some pronoun/ preposition/conjunction problems.)

I think Republicans are feeding an anger that they are not fully aware of, since the anger itself is a generally unconscious fear of the loss of power and status based on skin color.

Most white people had made their peace with the bargain that black folks could have the cities, successful black folks could rise up and make it and quietly filter in among the suburbs, and all black folks could continue to entertain us, any field will do (sports, comedy, drama, talk shows).

But the "bargain" is being broken by the presumption of leadership on the part of affirmative action babies.

The groundswell of anger is inchoate, long submerged, racist driven, class lacquered resentments, and they are indwelling the "legitimate" anxieties around the dramatic issues facing us as a nation.

Atwater, Rove, indeed.

Feodor said...

Have you read a lot of Cormac McCarthty?

I read the Border Trilogy, Blood Meridian, and No Country. I have The Road and Suttree, half read many years ago, and something early that I haven't read.

drlobojo said...

Atwater, Rove, et.al. are only tapping the lower levels of our selves. Lee knew what he was doing.
Carl Rove ain't that smart.

This "Neo-Know Nothing" movement has a lot to chew on now. There the Crusades against the Muslims, the influx of all those brown people, those really black HIV infected people from Haiti, all those ACORN people of color, Uppity Blacks all over the TV screen, and worse of all a Black President, no worse than that a President who is the product of miscegenation and whose daddy wasn't even an American. Dang! No wonder their heads are about to explode.

So what can we do to defuse this shit? Seriously, I don't think, "Can't We all just get along" is going to get us very far.

The best I can think of is to try to get the capitalist corporate sponsors of those inciting this to see that it is not a smart thing to do. I mean WalMart for example sponsors Glen Beck. If Glen Beck doesn't shut up, his audience will be out there looting and burning down businesses like WalMarts where those "coloreds" and "Mexicans" work. How bright is that?

Somebody has to turn off the hate spigot.

drlobojo said...

On a more serious note, have you ever notice that Nixons head is 50% too large for his body? I mean, check out the picture, he looks like a,,well..a bobble head?

Feodor said...

Yeah, he and Ed Sullivan both. Same posture. Neck problem I think.

Erudite Redneck said...

Postin' this for Dr. Bill Loney, 'cause he says his blogger is blogged up. -- ER

xxxxx

Doc--we(not me, but the peoples) had a town hall meeting yesterday at a local college. Had a panel of doctors, small business owners and politicos both D and R , and a crowd full of all colors. Weren't no protesters though, and even the occasional impromptu question was civil and got a civil response, and they even put it on the tv. They actually had some good questions and some good answers. I guess about 60% were against the plan...but about 75% want there to be A Plan, and almost that much said they'd accept a small tax ^ or tax on their own insurance to pay for it. This was a conservative crowd too! I wuz proud. The docs and small business owners had the best input and even our adulterizin lawmakers actually had answers that didn't seem like a party line. A couple of questions I wondered about wuz answered and they brought out a few things I didn't know. So I am not in favor of this plan, but I hope theys will not try to force it through without making a BETTER plan. This is my reasons:

- if the CBO is sending out warnings, instead of accusing them of being partisan, look into it...I thought that's sorta what we has it for

- the primary care doctors want it done incrementally because of the low # of primary care doctors in the state compared to the potential increase of patients...they had a conservative estimate of the increase along with an estimate of the backlog...some already have a 3-4 week one...they hope they'll come up with an incentive to get more into primary care and not just specializing

- the small business owners had two problems of note...some offered insurance and had employees decline it, so it made their cost less...they don't want people to be forced to take an insurance....others employers couldn't afford it and didn't offer it...they figured it'd be cheaper to pay the $750 penalty per employee than buy the insurance. Either way, they said they gonna either cut wages or jobs. They had a couple of other points but I fade in and out sometimes.

- both the D and the R politico said they wuz concerned what it would do to other entitlement programs if the CBO #'s wuz right, but from what they could tell, the writing safeguarded against that. And they didn't dispute any of the particulars, except both of'em made a little talk to start and mentioned that people weren't gonna lose their own insurance and old were gonna be put in the pasture to die. They each had some insurance reform ideas what sounded good, but they been talkin bout reforming for forever and it aint no reformation happened.

Not everbody against this is trying to keep brown people from having insurance, cuz its for everbody. I cant speak fer them fellers on TV making scenes cuz we didn't have any. If protesters is comparing this plan to Nazi stuff then they just stupid...just as stupid as the ones sayin the protesters is in the klan and are terrorists...and not everbody what disagrees is doing so because Rushy, motor mouth Hannity and itchy nipples Beck told them they had to. D politicos got the votes...take some time and make it better and public support will skyrocket no matter what the R politicos or talkin heads spin about it. I dont give a damn about who's makin points for 2010 or if D's or R's win...Tarp and Stimuatin stuff got shoved through and ends up money is trickulatin thru like pee thru a grapefruit sized prostate and the details werent fined tune enough to keep the fatcats from dishin out million dollar pop tarts...dont just do something, do something good. Thats more talkin than all what I've done in two months, so I's thru.

Dr. Bill Loney said...

I aint meant to be a wet blanket, and I werent tryin to be contendin or jerky. I just saw them playin our lil meetin on the tv and remembered you writin on it.

Dr. Bill Loney said...

correction

"And they didn't dispute any of the particulars, except both of'em made a little talk to start and mentioned that people weren't gonna lose their own insurance and old were gonna be put in the pasture to die."

'posed to be old people WERENT gonna be put out in the pasture to die...though, if I's could pick my place, that'd be high on the list...cuz they could dig shaller hole, roll me in, ne'er to be heard again, but if you do, put me face down in the grass, so thems that didn't like me, can kiss...well you get the idea.

drlobojo said...

The main deal being, of course that there isn't an agreed upon "plan" yet.

The one thing that the politicians have treated like an electric fence is that the savings to pay for it will come from the reduction in profits made by the overcharging players. Most especially the insurance companies who have post a 400% increase in profits over the last decade. So when they say the public option will cost the insurance companies, they a quite correct.

Yes, there will be a shortage of primary care, GPs and Internist. There's one in Canada right now. But we have more than enough class openings in the med schools that can handle the production and the U.S. allows for MD degree holders to practice, while Canada does not. A four year phase in would be wise, but we could also follow the model and open more local Clinics and make use of Physician Assistants rather than have the cuts and bruises being treat by an MD.

One side effect of the Canadian and French system that cut cost way back was simply that people went to the doctor. Now people won't go to the doctor unless it is serious cause it will cost them an arm and a leg. But with a universal system they will go early and often thus they get their problems solved with primary and secondary care NOT the costly care after it is too late. Again build Clinics and cut down visits to the ERs that cost ten times as much.

Down deep, it isn't the Obama Health Care Plan people are scared off. It is change and racism driving most of this, which are being fed by the lies and instigation's of the Greedy stakeholders.

Yes, I think 2 out of every 3 Americans are well infected with a serious case of bigotry that is not so far under our skin that we can afford to forget about it.

One very important reason Obama Must Fail is so that those who want him to do so can say, "See, we elected One and he couldn't handle it."

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