A little article that peaked my attention...

[Occhidiangela]

Bush Dominates a Nation of Victims

The author is a Pot Calling The Kettle Black. No $100 bucks per hour from me to that snake oil salesman. His profession are the guys who have embedded the "Cult of the Victim" into the American psyche. I fart in his general direction.

BS pile #1: That the American public really are victims. If true, then they have allowed themselves to become so via apathy, and fifty years of psychiatrists and psychologists, and some sociologists encouraging everyone onto the victim bus. Anyone, GW Bush, Ralph Nader, or Al Gore would have had the same success in any post 9-11 willingness to feel like sheep who need protection: that sentiment has been massively exploited by media and by both political parties. If one goes to that well to often, however, it will run dry and folks will stop listening.

Are not many people still speaking out against what the President is doing, or in some cases, how it is being done? Read the paper, turn on the radio. The creeping erosion on the limitations regarding privacy and some Civil Rights is still a topic of currency. If anything, the Media have chosen to become dominated, as have some talking heads, and they sure should know better, they use words to make a living as well. That concerns me, the willingness of some media organs to be mouthpieces for any incumbent.


BS pile #2: Domination? The short term political high from the latest War is shrinking, IF IF IF you care about polls. (I don't) If you want to see domination, go back to Ronald Reagan. While he had a Democratically led Senate and House as checks to his influence, in terms of message dominance and practical power and influence, not to mention being thought of in high regard, Ronald Reagan was orders of magnitude ahead of GW Bush at present. Evidence? Count the votes, not the opinion polls. What held Reagan back was the "balance" part of checks and balances, just as the Republicans held Clinton back more recently when they won some seats in congress to reverse long standing Democratic domination of those bodies, current President gets some things through that those other two could not, but see more below. I did not note the 2002 off year election being any great victory for his party.


BS pile #3: Didn't I just check again on the popular vote from 2000? No dominance here. Did I not note how his Court appointees are still not getting confirmed and approved? No dominance here. Was his tax cut not massively reduced by Senators, both in his party and in the opposition? Who is he dominating? What segment of the population has followed his lead?


BS pile #4: Is the "what really was the truth behind the rhetoric in the State of the Union speech" investigation being closed down? No! Let's see how that plays out before anyone talks about domination. Some of the rhetoric is defensive in nature. Not sure how effectively it will be used in the next year in the political battles, but that tool is as available to his opponents as the 9-11 national anger is for him. So is economic uncertainty.


The article, IMO, misses a significant point: Bush has harnessed a long lost voice in American politics, and seems to still have them supporting him: Meade's Jacksonians, people who do not see themselves as victims. (As described in Special Providence) A key emotion he seems to have tapped into foreign policy wise is:

"They don't like us anyway, screw 'em all, save six for pallbearing duty."

That undercurrent in American popular opinion concerns me a great deal more than the empty political rhetoric about an "Axis of Evil" ever will.

I would argue that the current administration's public language is so inelegant, so simplistic, that it is in many cases dismissed out of hand as just that: words with little substance, soundbytes from a teleprompter. I'd go so far as to say that the creation of a new Credibility Gap is a significant political hole that is being dug on a daily basis. (The Shills at Fox news, of course, have their own axes to grind, and pretend that utterances from White House come from the burning bush. No pun intended, sorry.)

That has little to do with dominance and a lot to do with timing, and knowing who one's power base is in the first place.

While I am at it, might I point out that psychiatry and psychiatrists have been using language as a weapon, as a tool, to keep their self-licking-ice-cream-cone existences vibrant via ENCOURAGING the ideal of victim status? Blaming society for one's own crimes is Victim Status at its finest, and right up the author's alley.

Consider the source: as tainted as any politican, given the subject, which is using words to influence other people.