The thought police are an insidious lot.
Their headquarters aren't in some bright shiny building. Or perhaps it's more accurate to say that their headquarters are in many shiny buildings.
And they don't announce themselves as the thought police. Who needs to get into the messy work of actually policing people, when it's so easy just to fool them? They're more like a Bureau of Thought Manipulation. This being an election season, they're particularly active now -- throughout the media, the government, the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee. They - not the President, as much as he might like to think he is - are the "deciders."
We Liberals like to think our thoughts aren't controlled. We pride ourselves on our independent thinking. We know we shouldn't believe everything we read. We realize the media is skewed, we know it's owned by a small group of people, we realize it's biased, etc. So given all that, one has to ask oneself -- why are Democrats buying so much prevailing b.s. hook, line, and sinker, allowing ourselves to be led down the same path that led us to defeat in the last two presidential elections?
Remember Howard Dean, the anti-war candidate? As much as a lot of us liked him, we were led to believe we'd have to be more mature about this. We couldn't just indulge our passion. We had to be smart here; no just going with our gut, or - God forbid - our principles. We were pressured by the official thought manipulators to go with someone "electable," like John Kerry. It's as though some Democratic "wisdom council" -- the same guys who told Gore he'd never be elected if he just spoke from his heart, and clearly must have told John Kerry the same thing -- decide not just the political strategy that will supposedly win the White House, but even the thoughts that the rest of us have to buy into in order to give them permission to determine the strategy.
No one ever stops to ask "Who are these guys?" (Interestingly, George Washington warned us in his farewell address about "the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally." ) We always just assume they know what they're talking about. We figure they're the ones who understand politics.
Right.
So after Kerry lost, for at least a day or two we saw through the fog. Those guys needed to be run out of town, we all shouted! Their strategy had led to defeat! Next time, we were going to go with our gut, stand on our principles! In retrospect, we could see that Gore and Kerry would have been better off if they had come across like genuine alternatives to the Republicans - not just Republican lites! We got it! 2008 would be different!
Oh yeah? Look again.
That same crowd is still clearly in charge, because you can tell their thought patterns a mile away. Today, their chosen candidate has a hyphenated name: Clinton-Obama-Edwards. This tri-candidate has all the markings of DNC thought manipulator approval: Just enough illusion of real difference from the Republicans to keep the not-yet-resisting-thought-manipulation Democrat happy; and just enough similarity to the prevailing establishment that the American people should buy it. This has been our strategy for the last three presidential elections, has it not? And just like Bush regarding his policy in Iraq, we seem to be in complete denial that our policy is a failed one. It didn't work last time, or even the time before that.
And I don't think we should assume it will work in 2008.
For those of us who actually think we should bring the troops home now, tell me again why we're not supporting Kucinich?
Silly me! Because he could never win, of course! He's not electable! Didn't I get the memo?
I've known Dennis Kucinich for a long time, and I don't think I have illusions about him. Sometimes I find him pompous, male chauvinistic, intellectually unbending. But he is a good man, and a serious one. Some sort of clown? No. New Age woo woo? No way (of course, the thought manipulators have labeled me that as well, so some people would say something here about the pot and the kettle). His banishment to the margins of our political dialogue, his mockery by the media-DNC elite special forces, has less to do with who he is, and what he stands for, than it has to do with the anti-Democratic forces that have hijacked our politics on both sides of the aisle.
Why won't we take Dennis Kucinich more seriously as our candidate in 2008? Because Tim Russert took twenty minutes to even get around to asking him a question in the last debate. Because Russert's idea of a real question -- after a couple of times when Kucinich inconveniently hit the ball out of the park with his answers --was to query him about seeing a UFO, then throwing in Shirley McLaine's name just to confirm the kill. It didn't matter that Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan had both spoken publicly about seeing UFO's. What mattered was how the image could be used to make Kucinich appear ridiculous -- serving the strategy of the elite machine still running things and for whom Kucinich is not an acceptable candidate.
In 2004, Kucinich was the only Presidential candidate who warned that a war in Iraq would be completely disastrous. I remember how mocked he was when he predicted hand-to-hand combat in Baghdad. I remember Candy Crowley, and other reporters as well, treating his views on the impending war as ridiculous, out there, almost insane. I remember Democratic strategists rolling their eyes then, as they do about him now. But in fact, Dennis Kucinich was the one who turned out to be right. I have to ask you: Who's zoomin' who?
Something very dark, almost Orwellian, is afoot here, and the issue is much bigger than whether or not Dennis Kucinich gets a shot at the Presidency. It's about whether or not we do. Or whether the thought manipulators have it all sewn up.
Sitting at a party recently, among some powerful liberals ringing their hands about Hillary appearing heartless, Obama appearing weak, and Edwards appearing - well, no one can quite put their finger on it - I said, "The only question any real progressive should be asking right now is, 'Tell me again why we're not supporting Kucinich?' " The room grew silent. There was no, "Awe, come on, be serious!" No one good-naturedly shouted me down, as they would have two or three months ago. Rather I was met by silence. I saw people around me slowly nodding their heads.
I feel a shift. Subtle. But there. People are starting to wake up to the fact that a media/political party-complex basically decide our candidate, then create the illusion for the rest of us that in fact we're the ones who did the deciding. But the only thing we're truly free to decide now - and which we should decide now -- is whether we'll put up with all this thought manipulation for one minute more.
Tell me again, why we're not supporting Kucinich?