From Nazi to Normal, Taking the National Narrative Back

The Republican Noise Machine And It's Enemy, Reality
By Oliver Willis on April 26, 2007 12:23 AM

For the last 5 or so years, the conservative movement and their political representatives in the Republican party had free reign over the national narrative. If a Republican said it the media believed it, and as the press crowded out any even remotely dissenting voice our national conversation was under control from essentially one perspective.
But increasingly, this tactic does not work anymore. I'm not sure what to attribute it to, and its probably no single entity that has brought about this dropping of scales from our nation's eyes but I'm sure things like the ongoing bloodshed in Iraq and the drowning of New Orleans has something to do with it.
What is intriguing now is seeing the noise machine trying to crank something up. I'm sure you all remember the Terri Schiavo episode, where the media at first was certain that we would be "divided" over the issue and that through the combined efforts of President Bush and the criminal Republican congress, waves would be made. Except that we weren't divided. With the exception of the thirty-percenter dead enders who would support a conservative or Republican if they ate a live baby on tv ("The baby had it coming!"), most of us in the rational world saw an undue government intrusion on a private family matter. The Republicans were, once again, in our bedrooms.


After the corrupt Republican congress was deposed from power last year as the public rejected its protection of pedophiles, lack of oversight, and cozy relationship with the criminal element, President Bush responded by proposing a "new" strategy for Iraq. Conservative bloggers, talk show hosts, etc. trumpeted this change of direction while attacking the Democrats for not capitulating to the Republican narrative. The public did not budge in favor of the Republican narrative. They mostly saw it for what it is: more of the same. Then the conservative press tried to push the meme that the "surge is working", yet they had the misfortune to tie this latest bit of propaganda to the same moment where U.S. troop deaths are the only thing, sadly, that is "surging" in Iraq.


Now, with Majority Leader Reid's statement that we cannot win this war militarily because of its ill-conceived planning and execution by the Commander in Chief (aka George W. Bush), the push is on to give the appearance of a groundswell of resistance to Sen. Reid and the Democratic leadership. The most recent stamp of "legitimacy" on this groundswell are two statements - one from Sen. James Inhofe and another from Rep. Duncan Hunter. This is how you know that there's no there there. When you need to enlist the most ridiculous global warming denier and a front-man for anti-choice crazies as your voices of sanity, well...


As Rep. Murtha has said for months, the American people are way ahead of the congress on these issues. The people of this country, confronted with the reality of the Bush years, have no use for the dream world fabricated by the conservative noise machine. It's as fake as the news the White House paid for. Beyond the last hangers-on, the dead enders who concoct bizarre conspiracy theories in the fashion of their idealogical forbearer, Joe McCarthy, the Emperor has no clothes.