"Y'see, they say journalism is the art of controlling your environment, but that's all wrong. I can't control anything with this typewriter. All this is, is a gun."
- Spider Jerusalem
Were truer words ever spoken in comic fiction? I doubt it. You might question the reference, if you aren't one of those fortunate enough to have been initiated into the mind-expanding world of Transmetropolitan.
Let me lay it out for you. On March 3rd, 2010 a story was broken by the wonks at Politico about a particular PowerPoint doco from a fundraiser huddle for the RNC in Boca Grande, Florida. This is the sort of thing that would make Brother Spider more maniacal than usual and most certainly have driven Hunter to fits of hysterical giggles.
Its hardly a surprise that actual political operatives tend to look down on the voters nor is it shocking to think that they do their level best to manipulate us. Having it drug out and exposed so directly to the light of day does jar our complacency. Worse yet, at least for the Republicans, is that this doco does in fact validate everything that their Democratic opponents have been saying. The appearant strategy of the Right is delay, discredit and demoralize.
For me at least, even more exasperating than the "Obama: The Joker" pictures and cries of "socialism" is the fact that these people are regressing to the terminology used by Ronald Reagan in the 1980's, refering to the current colection of Democrats running the House, Senate and the Presidency as the "Evil Empire". Worst of all, not only are we falling back on Cold War fear-mongering by equating Obama, Pelosi and Reid to the Soviet Communists, there is not a single new idea in any of it! They say it themselves; the only thing they can think of to try and sell the voters is "saving the country from socialism".
Unsurprisingly, the DNC is already taking advantage of this turn of events.
On the other hand, what really tickles me comes about as a result of an interview that Pete had with Representative Paul Broun of Georgia's 10th district. All other things being equal, it wa sa pretty typical Republican skreed denouncing healthcare reform and regurgitating the talking points about the length of the bill, tort reform, 16% of the economy et al, ad nauseum...bu the last couple of minutes were amazing. Broun started on a whole skreed, claiming to "know" that Obama is a socialist and questioning his citizenship and religion. Now I'm not quite prepared to say that Broun had to be in the same room as the presentation of the above mentioned power point, but how can I avoid seeing the parallels? What makes it truly political gold, however is the fact that this interview happened after the doco was made public by the boys and girls at Politico. That the Representative could have been unaware of the story seems enormously dubious but taking into consideration what all know about the nature of conversations in Washington, I have little difficulty in suspecting that Broun may have been the victim of the Republican "echo chamber".
For the uninitiated, when you have a group of people who isolated themselves from sources of information that don't reinforce their own opinions, isolating themselves within their own group and/or media circle and therefore only hearing their own opinons and thoughts repeated or echoed back, thus reinforcing and seemingly validating them, we call that an "echo chamber". In this case, I'd be willing to believe that Broun and his fellows were so deep inside their echo chamber that they remained completely ignorant of the revelation, even as the RNC began a desperate damage control operation. The damage, however, is done; maybe future politicians will take this as a cautionary tale and try to remain at least marginally connected to the world outside their own circles.
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