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FOCUS: A Movement |
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Sunday, 18 December 2011 13:44 |
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Moore writes: "People across the world devoured the information Bradley Manning revealed, and it was used by movements in Egypt, Spain, and eventually Occupy Wall Street to bolster what we already thought was true. Except here were the goods - the evidence that was needed to prove it all true. And then a democracy movement spread around the globe so fast and so deep - and in just a year's time! When anyone asks me, 'Who started Occupy Wall Street?' sometimes I say 'Goldman Sachs' or 'Chase' but mostly I just say, 'Bradley Manning.'"
Portrait, Michael Moore, 04/03/09. (photo: Ann-Christine Poujoulat/Getty)
A Movement
By Michael Moore, Open Mike Blog
18 December 11
 t's Saturday night and I didn't want the day to end before I sent out this note to you.
One year ago today (December 17th), Mohamed Bouazizi, a man who had a simple produce stand in Tunisia, set himself on fire to protest his government's repression. His singular sacrifice ignited a revolution that toppled Tunisia's dictator and launched revolts in regimes across the Middle East.
Three months ago today, Occupy Wall Street began with a takeover of New York's Zuccotti Park. This movement against the greed of corporate America and its banks - and the money that now controls most of our democratic institutions - has quickly spread to hundreds of towns and cities across America. The majority of Americans now agree that a nation where 400 billionaires have more wealth than 160 million Americans combined is not the country they want America to be. The 99% are rising up against the 1% - and now there is no turning back.
Twenty-four years ago today, U.S. Army Spc. Bradley Manning was born. He has now spent 570 days in a military prison without a trial - simply because he allegedly blew the whistle on the illegal and immoral war in Iraq. He exposed what the Pentagon and the Bush administration did in creating this evil and he did so by allegedly leaking documents and footage to Wikileaks. Many of these documents dealt not only with Iraq but with how we prop up dictators around the world and how our corporations exploit the poor on this planet. (There were even cables with crazy stuff on them, like one detailing Bush's State Department trying to stop a government minister in another country from holding a screening of 'Fahrenheit 9/11.')
The Wikileaks trove was a fascinating look into how the United States conducts its business - and clearly those who don't want the world to know how we do things in places like, say, Tunisia, were not happy with Bradley Manning.
Mohamed Bouazizi was being treated poorly by government officials because all he wanted to do was set up a cart and sell fruit and vegetables on the street. But local police kept harassing him and trying to stop him. He, like most Tunisians, knew how corrupt their government was. But when Wikileaks published cables from the U.S. ambassador in Tunis confirming the corruption - cables that were published just a week or so before Mohamed set himself on fire - well, that was it for the Tunisian people, and all hell broke loose.
People across the world devoured the information Bradley Manning revealed, and it was used by movements in Egypt, Spain, and eventually Occupy Wall Street to bolster what we already thought was true. Except here were the goods - the evidence that was needed to prove it all true. And then a democracy movement spread around the globe so fast and so deep - and in just a year's time! When anyone asks me, "Who started Occupy Wall Street?" sometimes I say "Goldman Sachs" or "Chase" but mostly I just say, "Bradley Manning." It was his courageous action that was the tipping point - and it was not surprising when the dictator of Tunisia censored all news of the Wikileaks documents Manning had allegedly supplied. But the internet took Manning's gift and spread it throughout Tunisia, a young man set himself on fire and the Arab Spring that led eventually to Zuccotti Park has a young, gay soldier in the United States Army to thank.
And that is why I want to honor Bradley Manning on this, his 24th birthday, and ask the millions of you reading this to join with me in demanding his immediate release. He does not deserve the un-American treatment, including cruel solitary confinement, he's received in over eighteen months of imprisonment. If anything, this young man deserves a friggin' medal. He did what great Americans have always done - he took a bold stand against injustice and he did it without stopping for a minute to consider the consequences for himself.
The Pentagon and the national security apparatus are hell-bent on setting an example with Bradley Manning. But we as Americans have a right to know what is being done in our name and with our tax dollars. If the government tries to cover up its malfeasance, then it is the duty of each and every one of us, should the situation arise, to drag the truth, kicking and screaming if necessary, into the light of day.
The American flag was lowered in Iraq this past Thursday as our war on them officially came to an end. If anyone should be on trial or in the brig right now, it should be those men who lied to the nation in order to start this war - and in doing so sent nearly 4,500 Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis to their deaths.
But it is not Bush or Rumsfeld or Cheney or Wolfowitz who sit in prison tonight. It is the hero who exposed them. It is Bradley Manning who has lost his freedom and that, in turn, becomes just one more crime being committed in our name.
I know, I know, c'mon Mike - it's the holiday season, there's presents to buy and parties to go to! And yes, this really is one of my favorite weeks of the year. But in the spirit of the man whose birth will be celebrated next Sunday, please do something, anything, to help this young man who spends his birthday tonight behind bars. I say, enough. Let him go home and spend Christmas with his family. We've done enough violence to the world this decade while claiming to be a country that admires the Prince of Peace. The war is over. And a whole new movement has a lot to thank Bradley Manning for.
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Weasel Boy Vs Plastic Man |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=9146"><span class="small">Will Durst, San Francisco Chronicle</span></a>
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Sunday, 18 December 2011 11:20 |
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Durst begins: "The mad mud tossing between Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney, the last two Republicans still standing, is quickly ramping up to levels not seen since the Agincourt catapults. The candidates and their surrogates are busy dredging up dirt with fleets of front loaders, personally wetting it down with outraged spittle and other anatomical fluids and its getting ugly out there folks. Not to mention - moist."
Political satirist Will Durst. (photo: WillDurst.com)
Weasel Boy Vs Plastic Man
By Will Durst, San Francisco Chronicle
18 December 11
 he mad mud tossing between Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney, the last two Republicans still standing, is quickly ramping up to levels not seen since the Agincourt catapults. The candidates and their surrogates are busy dredging up dirt with fleets of front loaders, personally wetting it down with outraged spittle and other anatomical fluids and it's getting ugly out there folks. Not to mention- moist.
The gloves are coming off and this battle of ironclads, unlike the Monitor and the Merrimack, is guaranteed to result in more self-inflicted harm than damage to the enemy. Sure, sure, other wannabees continue to circle the spotlight, but haphazardly, like September moths after repeated run-ins with a tricked-out bug zapper. Barring a second bout of primary puppy love, the race for the GOP Presidential nomination is down to Weasel Boy and Plastic Man.
Per as, it all started with money. Mitt Romney stepped in doo- doo deeper than Nietzsche's private letters to Wittgenstein when he bet Rick Perry $10,000 in a recent debate, demonstrating the same kind of connection to the middle class that a ceramic Portuguese tie clip in the shape of a crouching gargoyle has to squid fishing. Ten grand. Apparently, to the GOP, that's pocket change, except of course in DC, where it's universally recognized as 2 hookers.
Newt seized on the former Massachusetts Governor's faux pas tighter than an extra small t-shirt on a Sumo Wrestler, acting uncharacteristically all humble-like, which seemed so scarily disingenuous, he couldn't help himself and actually blushed while laughing.
A bit of unexpected blowback almost knocked the former Speaker down when Mitt Man retaliated by referencing the third Mrs. Gingrich's half a million dollar tab at Tiffany's. Which, even amongst the fabled 1 percenters, is considered to be a heck of a lot of useless sparkly crap. Makes Elizabeth Taylor's jewel box look like a Tupperware dish in a cabinet above the sink.
The GOP is rightfully worried about the spectacle of two very wealthy men accusing each other of being filthy rich. While trading accusations of flip flopping even though both have changed positions more often than hyperkinetic six year olds playing speed Twister halfway through their Halloween stash.
And there have been further charges. And further counter charges. And charges of countering the counting charges by charging counters. And back and forth it goes. "He's zany." "Not a real conservative." "As trustworthy as a leaky dinghy in high seas." "Waffles so much, syrup should be shooting our of his ears." The byproduct being Iowa and New Hampshire television stations are raking it in while independent voters are alienated by the container ship full.
Party regulars are starting to freak out, with the dim throbbing realization sinking in that one of these guys is destined to be their standard bearer. Dark whispers are muttered behind closed doors about Newt's viability and Mitt's likeability, which can both be measured in the low single digits. Baseball scores, not even football, much less basketball numbers.
Not just the Presidency, we're also beginning to hear phrases like "coat tails" and "down ballot" and other strategic buzz-words that are shorthand for "Aieieee!" Newt Romney or Mitt Gingrich. Like choosing between getting your finger caught in a car door or an elephant stepping on your foot. In this case: a couple of wild elephants. The same only different. And not in a good way.
The New York Times says Emmy-nominated comedian and writer Will Durst "is quite possibly the best political satirist working in the country today." Check out the website: willdurst.com to find out more about upcoming stand-up performances or to buy his book, "The All American Sport of Bipartisan Bashing."
Catch Durst and the whole gang in the XIXth annual Big Fat Year End Kiss Off Comedy Show. Dec 26-Jan 1. 7 Cities. 7 nights. 6 comedians. 2,347 laughs. A few less in Walnut Creek. Like us on Facebook. Or willdurst.com.
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Ayn Rand Made US a Selfish, Greedy Nation |
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Saturday, 17 December 2011 17:56 |
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Levine writes: "Ayn Rand helped make the United States into one of the most uncaring nations in the industrialized world, a neo-Dickensian society where healthcare is only for those who can afford it, and where young people are coerced into huge student-loan debt that cannot be discharged in bankruptcy."
Ayn Rand's influence spans 60 years, with Alan Greenspan, Ronald Reagan, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) among her notable acolytes and devotees. (photo: Barnes & Noble Review)
Ayn Rand Made US a Selfish, Greedy Nation
By Bruce E. Levine, AlterNet
17 December 11
Thanks in part to Rand, the United States is one of the most uncaring nations in the industrialized world.
Ayn Rand's "philosophy" is nearly perfect in its immorality, which makes the size of her audience all the more ominous and symptomatic as we enter a curious new phase in our society.... To justify and extol human greed and egotism is to my mind not only immoral, but evil. - Gore Vidal, 1961
 nly rarely in U.S. history do writers transform us to become a more caring or less caring nation. In the 1850s, Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) was a strong force in making the United States a more humane nation, one that would abolish slavery of African Americans. A century later, Ayn Rand (1905-1982) helped make the United States into one of the most uncaring nations in the industrialized world, a neo-Dickensian society where healthcare is only for those who can afford it, and where young people are coerced into huge student-loan debt that cannot be discharged in bankruptcy.
Rand's impact has been widespread and deep. At the iceberg's visible tip is the influence she's had over major political figures who have shaped American society. In the 1950s, Ayn Rand read aloud drafts of what was later to become Atlas Shrugged to her "Collective," Rand's ironic nickname for her inner circle of young individualists, which included Alan Greenspan, who would serve as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board from 1987 to 2006.
In 1966, Ronald Reagan wrote in a personal letter, "Am an admirer of Ayn Rand." Today, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) credits Rand for inspiring him to go into politics, and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) calls Atlas Shrugged his "foundation book." Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) says Ayn Rand had a major influence on him, and his son Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is an even bigger fan. A short list of other Rand fans includes Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas; Christopher Cox, chairman of the Security and Exchange Commission in George W. Bush's second administration; and former South Carolina governor Mark Sanford.
But Rand's impact on U.S. society and culture goes even deeper.
The Seduction of Nathan Blumenthal
Ayn Rand's books such as The Virtue of Selfishness and her philosophy that celebrates self-interest and disdains altruism may well be, as Vidal assessed, "nearly perfect in its immorality." But is Vidal right about evil? Charles Manson, who himself did not kill anyone, is the personification of evil for many of us because of his psychological success at exploiting the vulnerabilities of young people and seducing them to murder. What should we call Ayn Rand's psychological ability to exploit the vulnerabilities of millions of young people so as to influence them not to care about anyone besides themselves?
While Greenspan (tagged "A.G." by Rand) was the most famous name that would emerge from Rand's Collective, the second most well-known name to emerge from the Collective was Nathaniel Branden, psychotherapist, author and "self-esteem" advocate. Before he was Nathaniel Branden, he was Nathan Blumenthal, a 14-year-old who read Rand's The Fountainhead again and again. He later would say, "I felt hypnotized." He describes how Rand gave him a sense that he could be powerful, that he could be a hero. He wrote one letter to his idol Rand, then a second. To his amazement, she telephoned him, and at age 20, Nathan received an invitation to Ayn Rand's home. Shortly after, Nathan Blumenthal announced to the world that he was incorporating Rand in his new name: Nathaniel Branden. And in 1955, with Rand approaching her 50th birthday and Branden his 25th, and both in dissatisfying marriages, Ayn bedded Nathaniel.
What followed sounds straight out of Hollywood, but Rand was straight out of Hollywood, having worked for Cecil B. DeMille. Rand convened a meeting with Nathaniel, his wife Barbara (also a Collective member), and Rand's own husband Frank. To Branden's astonishment, Rand convinced both spouses that a time-structured affair-she and Branden were to have one afternoon and one evening a week together-was "reasonable." Within the Collective, Rand is purported to have never lost an argument. On his trysts at Rand's New York City apartment, Branden would sometimes shake hands with Frank before he exited. Later, all discovered that Rand's sweet but passive husband would leave for a bar, where he began his self-destructive affair with alcohol.
By 1964, the 34-year-old Nathaniel Branden had grown tired of the now 59-year-old Ayn Rand. Still sexually dissatisfied in his marriage to Barbara and afraid to end his affair with Rand, Branden began sleeping with a married 24-year-old model, Patrecia Scott. Rand, now "the woman scorned," called Branden to appear before the Collective, whose nickname had by now lost its irony for both Barbara and Branden. Rand's justice was swift. She humiliated Branden and then put a curse on him: "If you have one ounce of morality left in you, an ounce of psychological health-you'll be impotent for the next twenty years! And if you achieve potency sooner, you'll know it's a sign of still worse moral degradation!"
Rand completed the evening with two welt-producing slaps across Branden's face. Finally, in a move that Stalin and Hitler would have admired, Rand also expelled poor Barbara from the Collective, declaring her treasonous because Barbara, preoccupied by her own extramarital affair, had neglected to fill Rand in soon enough on Branden's extra-extra-marital betrayal. (If anyone doubts Alan Greenspan's political savvy, keep in mind that he somehow stayed in Rand's good graces even though he, fixed up by Branden with Patrecia's twin sister, had double-dated with the outlaws.)
After being banished by Rand, Nathaniel Branden was worried that he might be assassinated by other members of the Collective, so he moved from New York to Los Angeles, where Rand fans were less fanatical. Branden established a lucrative psychotherapy practice and authored approximately 20 books, 10 of them with either "Self" or "Self-Esteem" in the title. Rand and Branden never reconciled, but he remains an admirer of her philosophy of self-interest.
Ayn Rand's personal life was consistent with her philosophy of not giving a shit about anybody but herself. Rand was an ardent two-pack-a-day smoker, and when questioned about the dangers of smoking, she loved to light up with a defiant flourish and then scold her young questioners on the "unscientific and irrational nature of the statistical evidence." After an x-ray showed that she had lung cancer, Rand quit smoking and had surgery for her cancer. Collective members explained to her that many people still smoked because they respected her and her assessment of the evidence; and that since she no longer smoked, she ought to tell them. They told her that she needn't mention her lung cancer, that she could simply say she had reconsidered the evidence. Rand refused.
How Rand's Philosophy Seduced Young Minds
When I was a kid, my reading included comic books and Rand's The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. There wasn't much difference between the comic books and Rand's novels in terms of the simplicity of the heroes. What was different was that unlike Superman or Batman, Rand made selfishness heroic, and she made caring about others weakness.
Rand said, "Capitalism and altruism are incompatible....The choice is clear-cut: either a new morality of rational self-interest, with its consequences of freedom, justice, progress and man's happiness on earth-or the primordial morality of altruism, with its consequences of slavery, brute force, stagnant terror and sacrificial furnaces." For many young people, hearing that it is "moral" to care only about oneself can be intoxicating, and some get addicted to this idea for life.
I have known several people, professionally and socially, whose lives have been changed by those close to them who became infatuated with Ayn Rand. A common theme is something like this: "My ex-husband wasn't a bad guy until he started reading Ayn Rand. Then he became a completely selfish jerk who destroyed our family, and our children no longer even talk to him."
To wow her young admirers, Rand would often tell a story of how a smart-aleck book salesman had once challenged her to explain her philosophy while standing on one leg. She replied: "Metaphysics-objective reality. Epistemology-reason. Ethics-self-interest. Politics-capitalism." How did that philosophy capture young minds?
Metaphysics-objective reality. Rand offered a narcotic for confused young people: complete certainty and a relief from their anxiety. Rand believed that an "objective reality" existed, and she knew exactly what that objective reality was. It included skyscrapers, industries, railroads, and ideas-at least her ideas. Rand's objective reality did not include anxiety or sadness. Nor did it include much humor, at least the kind where one pokes fun at oneself. Rand assured her Collective that objective reality did not include Beethoven's, Rembrandt's, and Shakespeare's realities-they were too gloomy and too tragic, basically buzzkillers. Rand preferred Mickey Spillane and, towards the end of her life, "Charlie's Angels."
Epistemology-reason. Rand's kind of reason was a "cool-tool" to control the universe. Rand demonized Plato, and her youthful Collective members were taught to despise him. If Rand really believed that the Socratic Method described by Plato of discovering accurate definitions and clear thinking did not qualify as "reason," why then did she regularly attempt it with her Collective? Also oddly, while Rand mocked dark moods and despair, her "reasoning" directed that Collective members should admire Dostoyevsky, whose novels are filled with dark moods and despair. A demagogue, in addition to hypnotic glibness, must also be intellectually inconsistent, sometimes boldly so. This eliminates challenges to authority by weeding out clear-thinking young people from the flock.
Ethics-self-interest. For Rand, all altruists were manipulators. What could be more seductive to kids who discerned the motives of martyr parents, Christian missionaries and U.S. foreign aiders? Her champions, Nathaniel Branden still among them, feel that Rand's view of "self-interest" has been horribly misrepresented. For them, self-interest is her hero architect Howard Roark turning down a commission because he couldn't do it exactly his way. Some of Rand's novel heroes did have integrity, however, for Rand there is no struggle to discover the distinction between true integrity and childish vanity. Rand's integrity was her vanity, and it consisted of getting as much money and control as possible, copulating with whomever she wanted regardless of who would get hurt, and her always being right. To equate one's selfishness, vanity, and egotism with one's integrity liberates young people from the struggle to distinguish integrity from selfishness, vanity, and egotism.
Politics-capitalism. While Rand often disparaged Soviet totalitarian collectivism, she had little to say about corporate totalitarian collectivism, as she conveniently neglected the reality that giant U.S. corporations, like the Soviet Union, do not exactly celebrate individualism, freedom, or courage. Rand was clever and hypocritical enough to know that you don't get rich in the United States talking about compliance and conformity within corporate America. Rather, Rand gave lectures titled: "America's Persecuted Minority: Big Business." So, young careerist corporatists could embrace Rand's self-styled "radical capitalism" and feel radical - radical without risk.
Rand's Legacy
In recent years, we have entered a phase where it is apparently okay for major political figures to publicly embrace Rand despite her contempt for Christianity. In contrast, during Ayn Rand's life, her philosophy that celebrated self-interest was a private pleasure for the 1 percent but she was a public embarrassment for them. They used her books to congratulate themselves on the morality of their selfishness, but they publicly steered clear of Rand because of her views on religion and God. Rand, for example, had stated on national television, "I am against God. I don't approve of religion. It is a sign of a psychological weakness. I regard it as an evil."
Actually, again inconsistent, Rand did have a God. It was herself. She said:
"I am done with the monster of 'we,' the word of serfdom, of plunder, of misery, falsehood and shame. And now I see the face of god, and I raise this god over the earth, this god whom men have sought since men came into being, this god who will grant them joy and peace and pride. This god, this one word: 'I.'"
While Harriet Beecher Stowe shamed Americans about the United State's dehumanization of African Americans and slavery, Ayn Rand removed Americans' guilt for being selfish and uncaring about anyone except themselves. Not only did Rand make it "moral" for the wealthy not to pay their fair share of taxes, she "liberated" millions of other Americans from caring about the suffering of others, even the suffering of their own children.
The good news is that I've seen ex-Rand fans grasp the damage that Rand's philosophy has done to their lives and to then exorcize it from their psyche. Can the United States as a nation do the same thing?
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How Fox News Is Helping Barack Obama's Re-election Bid |
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Friday, 16 December 2011 09:33 |
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Excerpts: "...Obama could be heading for a landslide victory in 2012. How to explain such a turnaround? ...there is one compellingly simple, two-word answer: Fox News."
A Republican supporter sports a Newt Gingrich badge. 'In the days before he broke from the pack, Gingrich topped the Fox News airtime chart.' (photo: Michael Nagle/Getty Images)
How Fox News Is Helping Barack Obama's Re-election Bid
By Jonathan Freedland, Guardian UK
16 December 11
 hoever wrote the political rulebook needs to start rewriting it. It used to be an iron maxim that voters' most vital organ was neither their head nor their heart, but their wallet. If they were suffering economically, they'd throw the incumbents out. Yet in Britain a coalition presiding over barely-there growth, rising unemployment and forecasts of gloom stretching to the horizon is holding steady in the opinion polls, while in the US Barack Obama is mired in horrible numbers – except for the ones showing him beating all-comers in the election now less than 11 months away. Even though the US economy is slumped in the doldrums, some of the country's shrewdest commentators make a serious case that Obama could be heading for a landslide victory in 2012.
How to explain such a turnaround? In the United States, at least, there is one compellingly simple, two-word answer: Fox News.
By any normal standards, Obama should be extremely vulnerable. Not only is the economy in bad shape, he has proved to be a much more hesitant, less commanding White House presence than his supporters longed for. And yet, most surveys put him comfortably ahead of his would-be rivals. That's not a positive judgment on the president – whose approval rating stands at a meagre 44% – but an indictment of the dire quality of a Republican field almost comically packed with the scandal-plagued, gaffe-prone and downright flaky. And the finger of blame for this state of affairs points squarely at the studios of Fox News.
It's not just usual-suspect lefties and professional Murdoch-haters who say it, mischievously exaggerating the cable TV network's influence. Dick Morris, veteran political operative and Fox regular, noted the phenomenon himself the other day while sitting on the Fox sofa. "This is a phenomenon of this year's election," he said. "You don't win Iowa in Iowa. You win it on this couch. You win it on Fox News." In other words, it is Fox – with the largest cable news audience, representing a huge chunk of the Republican base – that is, in effect, picking the party's nominee to face Obama next November.
This doesn't work crudely – not that crudely, anyway. Roger Ailes, the Fox boss, does not deliver a newspaper-style endorsement of a single, anointed candidate. Rather, some are put in the sunlight, and others left to moulder in the shade. The Media Matters organisation keeps tabs on what it calls the Fox Primary, measuring by the minute who gets the most airtime. It has charted a striking correlation, with an increase in a candidate's Fox appearances regularly followed by a surge in the opinion polls. Herman Cain and Rick Perry both benefited from that Fox effect, with Newt Gingrich, the former House Speaker, the latest: in the days before he broke from the pack, Gingrich topped the Fox airtime chart. Meanwhile, Mitt Romney cannot seem to break through a 20-to-25% ceiling in the polls – hardly surprising considering, as the league table shows, he has never been a Fox favourite.
But it works in a subtler way than the mere degree of exposure. Fox, serving up constant outrage and fury, favours bluster over policy coherence. Its ideal contributor is a motormouth not a wonk, someone who makes good TV rather than good policy. Little wonder it fell for Cain and is swooning now for Gingrich – one of whom has never held elected office while the other messed up when he did, but who can talk and talk – while it has little interest in Romney and even less in Jon Huntsman, even though both have impressive records as state governors. The self-described conservative journalist Andrew Sullivan says that the dominant public figures on the right are no longer serving politicians, but "provocative, polarising media stars" who serve up enough controversy and conflict to keep the ratings high. "In that atmosphere, you need talk-show hosts as president, not governors or legislators."
Fox News and what Sullivan calls the wider "Media Industrial Complex" have not only determined the style of the viable Republican presidential candidate, but the content too. If one is to flourish rather than wither in the Fox spotlight, there are several articles of faith to which one must subscribe – from refusing to believe in human-made climate change, and insisting that Christians are an embattled minority in the US, persecuted by a liberal, secular, bi-coastal elite, to believing that government regulation is always wrong, and that any attempt to tax the wealthiest people is immoral. Those who deviate are rapidly branded foreign, socialist or otherwise un-American.
Some wonder if it was fear of this ultra-conservative catechism that pushed a series of Republican heavyweights to sit out 2012. "The talent pool got constricted," says David Frum, the former George W Bush speechwriter who has been boldest in speaking out against the Foxification of his party. Fox sets a series of litmus tests that not every Republican can or wants to pass.
This affects those who run as well as those who step aside, setting the parameters within which a Republican candidate must operate. What troubles Frum is that it pushes Republicans to adopt positions that will make them far less appealing to the national electorate in November, with Romney's forced march rightward typical. Even if Romney somehow wins the nomination, he won't be "the pragmatic, problem-solving Mitt Romney" of yore, says Frum, but a new Foxified version. It was this process that led the former speechwriter to declare last year: "Republicans originally thought that Fox worked for us – and now we're discovering we work for Fox."
So far, so bad for the Republicans. Why should anyone else care? Because the Fox insistence on unbending ideological correctness turns every compromise – a necessary staple of governance – into an act of treachery. The Republican refusal, cheered on by a Fox News chorus, to raise the US debt ceiling this summer, thereby prompting the downgrading of America's credit rating, is only the most vivid example. The larger pattern is one of stubborn, forced gridlock, paralysing the republic even now, at a moment of global economic crisis.
The problem is compounded by a wilful blindness towards the facts. Ari Rabin-Havt of Media Matters says Fox has created a "post-truth politics", which is happy to ignore and distort basic empirical evidence. To take one example, Fox pundits constantly repeat that "53% of Americans pay all the tax". In fact, 53% pay all the federal income tax – but many, many more pay so-called payroll taxes. It's hard for a nation to make the right policy decisions if the public is misled on the basic facts. And misled they certainly are. A series of surveys has proven that Fox viewers are woefully ignorant of current affairs, the latest study revealing that it is actually better to consume no news than to watch Fox: you end up better informed.
The extremism, anger, paranoia and sense of victimhood that Fox incubates are all unhealthy for the United States. But it's inflicting particular damage on the Republican party, which could well lose a winnable election because of its supine relationship to a TV network. It turns out it is not liberals who should fear the Fox – it's conservatives.
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ecent public opinion polls - I am sure you've seen them - suggest that 9 percent of the American public actually approves of Congress and the way it is doing its job. Of course, that was before this weekend's bi-partisan wrangling over the payroll tax cut extension.
