I will not be "Anita Hill"-ed regarding Hillary and Barack [View All]

[arendt]

I will not be "Anita Hill"-ed regarding Hillary and Barack

First, if you look at the last two entries in my journal at DU, you will see that wading into this mudfest is the last thing I want to be doing. However...

since enough DUers have decided that we should blindly accept the media framing ( i.e., that the 2008 Democratic primary is all but over, with only two candidates left), it is time to remind people of a highly relevant twenty-year-old humbug, whose consequences are still with us today. I'm referring to the Clarence Thomas nomination circus.

I'm sure I will be called "boring" for giving the following history lesson. But, my experience around here is that, other than smears, accusations, and conspiracy theories, no one remembers any context beyond the last two weeks.

----

The Thomas nomination was one of the most cynical pieces of wedge-issue politics I have ever seen. It was clear to anyone with a basic grasp of politics that Thomas was a hard-core (both politically and pornographically) rightwing wrecker. He was appointed by the Reagan Administration to the Equal Opportunity office and proceeded to denounce that program from the inside. He was a perfect Uncle Tom, a perfect Oreo. When a Supreme Court vacancy occurred, this inexperienced ideologue played the race card for all it was worth, denouncing any criticism as "a media lynching". Black people came to testify in his behalf, because they judged the man by nothing more than the color of his skin. Democrats were paralyzed by this transparent case of a wolf in sheep's clothing.

When a reluctant Anita Hill was subpoenaed, it was her morality, not the divorced Thomas's, that was smeared as she testified against Thomas. ("A little bit nutty, and a little bit slutty.") Two years later, a Wall Street Journal investigative team reported that her testimony was true and that Thomas was, indeed, the pathetic, sexually-harassing creep she portrayed him to be.

As a result of the media circus, the ever-craven Joe Biden, and the hit job on Ms. Hill by the Warren Committee weasel-for-life Arlen Specter, the Democratic majority caved on this pivotal nomination. Twenty years later, it is perfectly clear that Clarence Thomas cares about nothing but himself. He has been a puppet of the uber-ideologue Antonin Scalia. He has one of the most reactionary voting records on the court and has rarely authored an opinon. He has done squat for his fellow people of color, unless you count his rigid opposition to any government help for minorities as a good thing.

Bottom line: America was fed a load of BS about Thomas by the media. They swallowed it; the Democratic leadership walked away from its duty; and America has been stuck with this craven hypocrite, this intellectual lightweight, this inarticulate ideologue in a position of power for decades. He dishonors the seat, previously held by Thurgood Marshall.

----

What, you may ask, does this have to do with Hillary and Barack? Well, children, the media often runs a sequel to a big hit. You know, like "Jaws 2". The media frenzy over Barack and Hillary is a remake of the Thomas nomination, right down to the "any criticism of a woman/black, no matter how legitimate and fact-based, is sexism/racism".

So, when Hillary defends her vote on the Iraq War in the face of 70% disapproval, when Hillary cozies up to Rupert Murdoch, when Hillary spends all her energy looking "tough" and invoking the Neanderthal libertarian Maggie Thatcher, when Hillary sends out her pet attack dog, James Carville, to repeatedly bash Howard Dean for doing his job well, some Democrats might be wondering what kind of a Democrat she is. But they can't wonder. That would be sexist.

And, when Barack takes the turncoat bum Joe Lieberman as his "advisor", when Barack is handed celebrity on a silver platter by a totally GOP-subservient corporate media (which normally would piss on a Democrat and, on a good day, report on one neutrally), when no-record, blank-slate Barack is jumped over a field of candidates who have views (and records!) much more representative of the majority of Democrats, some Democrats might be wondering just which corporate heavy hitters put the fix in for this guy. But they can't wonder. That would be racist.

The corporate media has some clever writers for "Clarence 2". They understand how infinitely distractible the Britney Generation is. They understand most people don't have enough historical awareness to debunk even blatant propaganda, much less the sophisticated shadow boxing of Hillary/Barack. Having taken the measure of the viewing public, the kingmakers have decided to stage-manage not merely one corporate-Democrat, wolf-in-sheep's clothing candidate, but two. Because, with two candidates and total control of the corporate media, they can stage a fight between them to the exclusion of any real political analysis. They can carpet-bomb the entire primary process.

This fight, of course, serves everyone except genuine, pro-labor, pro-government, pro-Bill of Rights Democrats.

It serves the DLC, and all its corporate apparatchiks by giving their people (Hillary and Barack) free publicity, raising bucketfuls of corporate cash for them, and cutting off the oxygen to all other candidates over a year before the first primary election.

It serves the Republican Party in several ways. First, it moves the media spotlight away from the ongoing trainwreck of democracy and foreign policy that is the Bush Administration and its multiple wars of choice. Second, it allows the media to run with "Democratic disarray" while avoiding the meltdown within the GOP. Third, it gives boxcars full of opposition research to the GOP, should either of these two folks becomes the nominee; and it provides ample evidence of the triviality of debate within our party. Again, should either of them win the nomination, the public will be as sick of them by November, 2008 as they were of the OJ Trial.

The fight serves our corporate masters by creating a quantum leap in disenfranchisement - the fight bypasses or eliminates grassroots, darkhorses, campaign workers, the primary process, and the real issues. The participants in this fight need only money to buy media and media to raise money. Genuine politics is replaced by a seamless web of corporate corruption and thought-smothering image-making. This scripted fight is a shot of firestarter to make the coals of the "permanent campaign" catch fire. Without something happening a year before the first primary, no one would pay any attention; and the corporate media would have no excuse to push real issues off the front page for celebrity politics immediately after the last election.

----

Which, at long last, brings me to the useful idiots on the GD-P board who willingly or ignorantly allow the media to frame our political priorites.

Every thread, every post on this board about this fight is a vote to allow the media to set our priorities for us. A vote that a petty, premature, celebrity beauty contest between two politicians, both of whom avoid real decisions like a vampire avoids sunlight, is more important than the long-overdue investigations into the multiple waves of war mongering, war profiteering, and war crimes in Iraq. A vote to ignore the oncoming suicide plunge into a war with Iran. A vote to avoid unifying the party around taking down the Bush gang right now, in the name of Constitutional Government. A vote for triangulation and disingenuousness when America needs people who tell the truth in spite of the consequences, people who will fight for the truth without needing a go-ahead from their pollsters.

I have voted liberal all my life. I know a liberal when I hear one. I've been "in the room" and seen the behavior. Like Anita Hill, I don't want to be here; but I am not going to shirk my duty to testify about what I have seen.

Hillary is not a liberal on the life and death issues at stake in this election. She has been drifting to the right ever since she was first elected. She is quite hawkish. Her political arc is Lieberman-esque. Been there, done that.

Barack is a limousine liberal, who happens to be black. He makes mostly the right noises, but he hasn't done anything. I can't name a cause or a movement in which he has played a major or extended role. All we know about him is his privileged resume and his exotic birth parents.

It will be that privilege plus his inexperience, and not his race, that will be the focus of any attacks on him. (The GOP get the racist vote for free.) If any serious charge against him gets traction, he has no record to anchor him. The slightest gaffe or bit of mud will blow him away. He will vanish as fast as Howard Dean after the phony scream. Been there, done that.

If we are even allowed to have an honest primary, I will work for the candidate who has done the most over the last eight years to oppose and rollback the creeping fascism of the Bush years. I will vote for someone who calls the GOP what they are: crooks, closet perverts, theocrats,authoritarians, racists, war criminals, torturers. I don't hear those words from Hillary the Hawk or Obama from central casting. In fact, I hear more of those words from a Democrat who is distinctly not a liberal - Senator James Webb.

I fully expect to be called every name in the book by Hillary and Barack supporters. This can only be because they are either in total denial about how their behavior enables the corporate agenda or because they are actively opposed on principle to having substantive debates about real issues. I fully expect the attacks to be trivial, personal, of the "you are racist/sexist/anti-democratic" variety. I will not respond to that kind of crap. This post has already explained at great length why these types of attacks are toxic to honest political debate.

This is supposed to be a political discussion board. You people have made it into a high school popularity contest. Too bad this isn't high school. Too bad your behavior has real consequences. Too bad American democracy is on life support, and you are stepping on the oxygen line. Too bad you are fiddling while a century of hard-won civil and labor rights and government services, not to mention the life savings of two generations, are being burned to the ground.

We are so sorry to get in the way of your right to amuse yourselves with this Corporate Dog Show while Thelma Bush and Louise Cheney drive us over a cliff.

arendt