POLITICS AND TRUTH

Isn’t much of the three-ring circus of main stream national partisan politics today simply explainable as a function of ignorance? Such ignorance is undoubtedly a matter not only of not knowing much that we need to know historically and economically but as much a matter of deceit and/or distortion of facts and events. Of course such ignorance is also lubricated by greed, racism, elitism, arrogance, opportunism, power-grabbing and sophistry. Yet there is nothing to be gained by moralizing and vilifying. We don’t need any more witch hunts for “evildoers” whether domestically or internationally. But what is it that we are really ignorant of or deceived about?

The initial layer of ignorance that helps generate the circus atmosphere of American ‘politics’ at present, using the present situation of the so-called Republican Party as the best case in point, is a function of the parties not knowing what they really stand for nor even really what they are commited to. This is not just a matter of disagreement between party factions. That kind of disagreement presupposes the factions have some real, effective identity. It is a matter of the factions in contention really knowing who they are and what the party “should” be politically. But such self-knowledge must be more than manipulatively proffering an ad hoc platform in order to wrangle a coalition into the Republican corral.

Surely also, the self-definition of a party politic requires more than falling back on inflammatory cultural conflicts whose solution should be left to individual morality, religious decision or a community consensus with respect to cultural values. The one-issue moralistic or religious solution to party identity confuses the question of the cultural constitution of society with the question of the appropriate regulatory actions of governments. Government is not about using political institutional power to re-constitute how people live their lives culturally, religiously and morally. Government regulates the structure of the public sphere and should keep hands off the private cultural sphere.

So who are the “Republicans” and what are they up to?

Keith Olberman recently reported that John McCain floated an idea to have a 10-point party agenda to unite the party. The first point was: Cut taxes. That’s no big surprise. But it was also no real surprise when they were stumped on what the other 9 points would be.

Bobby Jindall made his play for party unity in his famous 3 minute speech counterpointing Obama’s address to the nation a few weeks ago. He contraposed “the American people” to “government,” BIG GOVERNMENT. That distinction was most likely intended to clear things up and let us all know that the Repubs don’t stand for big government even though they are arguably the worst offenders. And presumably the Republicans are those who really represent “the people,” of course conservative Republicans. Nice try Bobby.

Roger Simon of Politico.com said today he wasn’t certain whether the Republican Party should replace present Chairman, Michael Steele, or whether Steele should find a new party. Steele has blundered again and again in trying to define and mobilize the party. Yesterday he quite clearly stated in an interview he believed in “choice” when it came to abortion. Today he backed off that statement like a hyena realizing it couldn’t drag the carcass away from a flock of vultures. Then Steele appeared on TV confessing the faith that he was an unrepentant pro-lifer, always was, always will be (no matter what he says to the contrary). How much more confused can one leader be. Apparently a lot. Just a week ago Steele also compared homosexuality to race saying that one could no more choose their sexual preference than they could their race. Good job Mr. Conservative Chairman!

Let’s not forget, as most Republicans would prefer to do, that the Bush administration, most recent, proved the poverty of Republican ideas. Possibly the neo-Con aspiration and failure at militaristic world hegemony is the Republican Party come to fruition. The fruit ripened but proved too sour to digest. And why bother fertilizing a tree that yields bad fruit. More accurately the Republicans under Bush had no ideas, except of course those which would assure the absolute sovereignty of the Presidency, the military hegemony of “America,” the disempowerment of the average American and the evisceration of the American justice system.

Continuing with the parade of ignorance if not deceit and disinformation: Rush Limbaugh, who some would like to say is now the only coherent voice of Republicanism, is in the final analysis a blathering fanatical apologist of a self-contradictory conservatism who has no clue what America stands for. His is a ‘least-common-denominator’ demagoguery deluding many people that he actually has a solution to the crisis of late Liberal Democracy. Ann Coulter, in like manner, is simply a lunatic, not to mention being quite the explicit hate mongerer. Sarah Palin flunked Basic Knowledge 101. Joe the Plumber….well, you can finish that sentence any way you want.

And, most recently, Meaghan McCain, John’s daughter! She appeared on MSNBC seemingly doing nothing but taking a short ride on her father’s coattails, floating her semi-celebrity out there to see if she can get a nibble of party attention. She writes for The Daily Beast dot com. Her latest essay on Ann Coulter rates about a very generous D or D-. McCain’s criterion for party success seems to be “hipness” or at least ‘hipness’ as instrumentally necessary in attracting young voters. For Meghan’s taste (I hesitate to call it judgement) Coulter is too “radical…extreme…confusing … not ‘for real.’” Yet she thinks Coulter could be the “poster woman for the extreme side of the Republican party.” Oh yeh, by the way, Meaghan says she herself could be the poster for “the opposite.” So if Coulter is extreme conservative, that would make Miss Meghan extreme liberal. Would that make her a democrat?

In short, Meghan McCain represents more non-sensical blather from the Repub’s attempting to reinvent themselves.

Like the “reasoning” of Meghan McCain, the Republican discourse vascillates between the sadly silly and the tragically absurd.

Moreover, wishing for Obama’s failure, as did Rush Limbaugh and former Texas Congressman Tom Delay, also does not make a party, establish a platform, qualify as American or move the conversation forward. In the spirit of such wishing, several Repub governors and Congressional legislators recently attacked the supposedly exorbitant spending by Obama. But in the 8 years of Bush we didn’t hear much about his exorbitant spending even though he wasted @ 3.2 trillion on an ill-advised war, to say the absolute very least. Even the 15 or 20 Conservative Repub representatives who originally held out against the exorbitant spending of the TARP themselves caved in when the ear mark pie was sweetened and fattened a bit.

Principle for the Repub’s is an instrumentality of leverage to milk the budget for local benefit. Prior to the economic bubble bursting, the same Repub governors who we didn’t hear a peep from during the Bush administration regarding ear marks now want to refuse the stimulus plan’s allotted state monies because it has too many Dem ear marks. So even though the unemployment rate soars in places like Louisiana, Texas and S. Carolina, the governors there feel it’s all right to deny the poor and unemployed help because of the “principle” involved. What principle? Is it the one they didn’t mention and wouldn’t promote during the Bush Administration, whatever it might be?

As we see there is little truth in the Repub party, be it as it may, let alone honesty, integrity, compassion, intelligence or even authentic American loyalty. But what is really at stake with respect to any truth to be had here is the truth hidden behind the “debate” within the Repub party and between the Repubs and Dems. The only real reason this debate or discourse can become so ridiculously meaningless and unproductive is that what is at stake ultimately is preserving the illusion of a real difference between the two parties. They must preserve the illusion because there is no real difference between the two parties politically. Apparently the illusion of difference may best be conjured up by stirring up the lunatic fringe, keeping them sufficiently ignorant and irrational and assuring their readiness for mobilization in the next pseudo-election to make it appear as if there are real differences in this virtual mob to be represented by the pseudo-parties of the hegemonous duopoly.

The Republi-crat duopoly of which Obama is now the leader exists to control the mechanisms of power and domination of the New Class, i.e., the new political/financial class, that rules international capital and related policy. The real conflict and tension, as of yet insufficiently thematized theoretically, is between the Republi-crats and the Client Class, i.e., the rest of us who are not in contention to get our hands on the reins of power and domination. The real political conflict is not that within the so-called Republican party nor that between the so-called Democrats and Republicans. It is between the capitalist interests of the New Class and the Client Class consumers who have fallen victim to the philosophical confusion, the confusion as to the role of government in a democracy and the nature of a Federalism which would return us to the kind of regional autonomy that would permit sending representatives to Congress who actually represent the people as opposed to corporations and transnational capital.

Moreover the possible neo-populist identity and cultural autonomy which remains hidden and unarticulated (or at best irrationally and hysterically articulated) within the margins of communities, religion and the “lunatic fringe” is best understandable as a symptomatic cry for proper expression of a real politic representing their interests and needs. Unfortunately what they get is the Neanderthal ranting of Limbaugh, Coulter, the clowns at Fox News and the professional politicians who seem to know little and care less about our history, philosophy and possiblities as America. The professional politicians are confused, ignorant and tending toward authoritarian solutions to an obviously pronounced Liberal Democracy in crisis. Sarah Palin, identical twin sister of Michelle Bachman (Republican representative from Minnesota) case in point. How in God’s name could such persons be taken seriously by anyone with a college education or even an IQ above, let’s say, 30. She is, at best, laughable as Saturday Night Live’s Tina Fey demonstrated quite nicely and easily.

By all accounts it seems we ought to take Voltaire’s warning a little more seriously: “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”

And lastly allow me to add a little from political theorist Hannah Arendt: “Lies have always been regarded as necessary and justifiable tools not only of the politicians but also of the demagogue’s and the statesman’s trade. Why is that so? And what does it mean for the nature and dignity of the political realm, on the one side, and for the nature and the dignity of truth and truthfulness, on the other? Is it of the very essence of truth to be impotent and of the very essence of power to be deceitful? And what kind of reality does truth possess if it is powerless in the public realm, which more than any other sphere of human life guarantees the reality of existence to mortal men?”