The Clash Of Ideas!

How in the world did the United States get like this. How did a nation that healed itself after a Civil War, organized and participated successfully in two World Wars and generally over many hard-fought decades come to include all its citizens in the public square get like this. Well, the beginning of the story began in 1987 when the Federal Trade Commission, then operated under the Republican Reagan administration rescinded a rule that had governed communications in these United States of America since 1949.

The Fairness Doctrine was adopted in 1949, when it was clear that both radio and television communication were to become dominant in the coming society. In a world in which in addition to a chicken in every pot, there would be a new visitor in nearly every household, to hold sway with is older brother.  Radio was the means of communication in the United States for over two decades then came TV. This was potent stuff, and the immense power of propaganda was well understood by a nation fresh from war. So, to keep someone from using the airwaves, owned by the people and only leased to the companies which used them (not unlike modern roads) the Fairness Doctrine was created. 

The Doctrine said that if a broadcaster presented one side of an issue it was obligated to supply time for opposing views. The point was not to allow any single voice to overwhelm the airwaves and send only one unguarded message out to the masses. It worked pretty well, though obviously some bristled at it. Then with the Reagan administration, the progenitor of so many of our woes, came a new idea. The Fairness Doctrine which specifically provided for a range of voices, was somehow restricting free speech. Like Trickle-Down Economics this theory was swallowed and the doctrine rescinded. 

And then came talk radio. Folks had been talking on radio since its invention, nothing new there. But now one voice could get on the air and blather on unrestrained by anything so quaint as facts or the possibility of valid opposing viewpoints. The balladeers of bombast needed an enemy and in the 1990's they found Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary. Bill came from nowhere to win the presidency and with a keen understanding of politics gave the U.S. something of a heyday. He had the morals of an alley cat, but we had a balanced budget for the first and only time in my long lifetime. 

But that didn't matter to a lout named Rush Limbaugh who came onto the airwaves at about the time Justice Clarence Thomas was being grilled by Congress in 1989. (Yes! The same fucking guy!) And using a deft understanding of what made harried middle-class white men angry he built an empire of hate and resentment and division. Supported by ads for gold (which undermined confidence in the money supply), and divorce lawyers targeting men (which fed an outlandish specter of the white male being oppressed by society), Rush chiseled away at the roots of civic order. He and his imitators harped on about how guns didn't kill people, guns killed people. And we all could see for ourselves when guns walked into schools across the land and murdered children. (Oh, wait! Those were people using guns as tools to murder.)

America got this way because we were talked into it. 

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My Pledge To The Democratic Party!

If efforts to push Joe Biden off this year's Democratic ticket for President succeed, I will vote Blue to help save my nation, but the day after I vote I will change my registration to Independent. The leaders of the Democratic Party will have demonstrated that they have as little regard for the vote of the citizens as do the Republicans, so I see no need, even after decades of loyal support to continue to identify myself with them. 

The latest round of back-channel discussions among leaders of the Party to oust Joe come on the heels of the end of the Republican Convention and are clearly keyed to setting up a Democratic Convention in which some way and somehow the candidate with 14, 465, 519 votes to be the nominee, or 87% of the total is replaced. That's an overwhelming number. He should under normal circumstances clinch it on the first round. He and Harris have accumulated 3, 894 delegates with only 42 remaining from the total number of 3, 949. 1968 delegates are required to become the nominee. Joe Biden has more than enough. 

Now I'm well aware that a Party can choose another nominee despite the one chosen by the voters. They have that right. But if they choose to exercise that right this year, it will come with a great price. I can see droves of disaffected voters like me, leaving the Democratic Party in disgust. To turn against the will of the thousands of loyal Democratic voters who have expressed a preference, in order to cater to the will of rich benefactors fearful of actual changes in policy that might cost them a few extra dollars, will wound the Party in way they can't imagine. I'm at a loss to imagine what alternate ticket might be proposed. I cannot imagine any that will have the name recognition of the sitting President. 

The last time the Democratic Party did this the President was Lyndon Johnson who was wounded by the Vietnam War. What enemy has Joe Biden succumbed to? Old age? To remove him from the ticket is a catastrophic move which could well lose the election, one which is easily winnable due to the lunacy on the other side. To do this is to openly admit for all practical purposes that the United States is a plutocracy, and that both our parties have been purchased by the ultra-wealthy who want to see things done to maximize profits. 

I have been a Democrat my entire voting life, but after fifty years of support the Dems will only be able to count on my support in the general elections from now on, if then, should they make this move. 

Update: I pledged to leave the Democratic Party if the Party rejected the nomination of Joe Biden, the sitting President, a leader and man I admire greatly. Let me amend that pledge, because something just occurred to me. Kamala Harris is the new presumptive nominee. I do not want it to look like I'm leaving the party because they nominated a black woman. I celebrate that choice, if the choice must be made. There is more than enough racism and the appearance of appearance racism in this country without me adding to it. 

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