Or why we keep banging our heads against the wall.
The GOP has a monopoly on hero worship.
Through the use of imagery, pulpits and media since Reagan, they have succeeded in painting their leaders as demi-gods/ heros/ righteous & compassionate folks. A majestic landscape, sweeping music, red white and blue rippling in the wind, the Republican in a crisp, but casual shirt talking to ‘ordinary folk’, laughing with children, saying all the words that have been focus group tested to instill a sense of protection, comfort & ‘common sense’ with the masses.
And with George W. Bush they created a masterpiece. The boy-King, the president who talks to the Lord.
I’ve been watching the types of reactions by ‘average Americans’ to various scandals on tv, in LTE, comments & posts on blogs, talk radio, etc. and a common theme emerges.
They refuse to believe that it happened. End of story. No more argument. And the rationale, if ever given, is that this person (Usually a member of the Bush admin, one of the lunatic far-right, radical judges, Limbaugh/ O’Reilly or a Ralph Reed type) is a good man and would never have anything but the purest of intentions. Blind faith rears its ugly head.
This is brainwashing at its best. If there is no room for error, ever, than what type of person is capable of carrying that weight? This is where fundamentalist religion enters the picture.
We all went to school. Most of us to public school where we read the same books, worked from the same textbooks and learned about history. Unless something is fundamentally fucked in the Bible belt schools (other than just Evolution), everyone should be at about the same level of basic education. So where does the deification come from?
I know that American mythology has a lot to do with the thinking that sometimes allows intelligent, free thinking liberals to impart more hero worship to figures like Jefferson or Lincoln than perhaps they warrant… true leaders and thinkers for sure, but they were not without fault and as such were only human. This perhaps influences and enhances the religious influence that has most recently come to the forefront of American politics.
How can a person ignore their own education and common sense to allow blindly the creeping influence of the State on privacy rights, the decimation of the economy, and the reality of their own pocketbook? To continue to swallow the lines and the lies whole and spit them back at those who disagree.
It is to blindly & religiously believe that your party/ leader alone is benign and will not use the instruments of control against you and yours.
I trust no one implicitly. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Pretty much across the board. To believe otherwise you must believe the person you are trusting is uncorruptable & of the purest of hearts and the strongest of morals… but then that begs the question: How do you ever truly know the soul of another? The dark secrets they hide. The influences around them and how strong they are to resist? You can’t unless you believe the person is endowed with God-like qualities and therefore will always take the high road.
Or as they would have to believe:
God’s Ambassador on Earth, a Chosen one, a Good, pure Born-Again here to help bring on the Rapture.
The brain of the fundamentalists and all too many supposedly rational people has been propagandized to believe in the Cult of Personality that is the GOP.
Only way to keep the crazies at bay is to hammer the truth back at them each and every day. And to not give an inch. Bush is the President, he isn’t God or his messenger. This is America not Iran.
Sven, Ductape & Anomalous inspired me to think & write about mythology, religion, propaganda and the assault on the average American again today… and unfortunately the view isn’t a whole lot better than the last time I thought about it.
Cross posted at Daily Kos
I’m happy to have played a small part in inspiring this diary.
There are always immediate things we can do to react to events, but it is also important to take stock sometimes and see how events and facts may fit into a wider picture i.e. to gain insight into why we have to be active.
Whilst we are all clear that we are fighting lies, we also have to understand what motivates them to keep shovelling out the lies. I don’t believe it is solely reactive and self-preservatory – it is part of what we both agree is some kind of mythology that they believe in and promote.
And lest we forget:
‘I feel like God wants me to run for President. I can’t explain it, but I sense my country is going to need me. Something is going to happen… I know it won’t be easy on me or my family, but God wants me to do it.’
The Observer
You have it right.
Ever since the PIPA report was released, I wondered about the stranglehold the GOP seemed to have on its followers. How can a significant segment of our population simply be immune to information? Here are some thoughts I wrote in a Kos diary earlier this year about the similarities in the characteristics of a destructive cult and the Bushist GOP:
# Authoritarian structure: Bushists follow blindly as their formerly conservative party veers away from core conservative principles such as fiscal responsibility and protection of civil liberties. Rather than alignment with principle, Bushists are aligned with a leadership which expects and demands obedience to its decisions.
# Messianic leader: Bush has all but proclaimed that his party’s platform is the only platform consistent with Christianity. He also displays other characteristics of a cult leader: glibness; manipulative; grandiose sense of self; pathological lying; lack of remorse, shame or guilt; poor behavioral controls [remember the first presidential debate? enough said]; irresponsibility/unreliability; parasitic lifestyle.
# Deception in recruitment and/or fund raising: the GOP asserts that the war in Iraq has made us safer; Cheney claimed that a vote for an opponent would be tantamount to encouraging a terrorist attack; this holiday season, we were treated with a prolonged and shameful campaign to convince Bushists that liberals are attempting to dismantle the free exercise of religion. These are, of course, merely three instances of gross deception to a national audience.
# Isolation: the GOP has created an “us versus them” scenario in which anyone not directly aligned with their group is not only non-Godly, but has nefarious plans to harm the group.
# Use of mind-control techniques: Bushists are literally mind-numbed and are unable to absorb and analyze information which runs contrary to the teachings of the modern GOP. The GOP has employed “thought-stopping” and phobia indoctrination in particular: “With thought-stopping techniques, members are taught to stop doubts from entering their consciousness about the cult, often with a key phrase they repeat.” [`We have to take the fight to the terrorists;’ ‘we have to stay the course;’ `Bush is attacked by the liberal media;’]. “Phobia indoctrination…cults play on a person’s irrational fears, with threats such as the person will develop cancer [die from a terrorist attack] or go insane [have gay children] if he/she ever leaves or questions the group.”