Ralph Nader’s recent announcement that he would once again run for President got me thinking back to the America of 2000 when Nader last ran - then as now, as an advocate for “truth.”
Well, what was true then is even truer now.. America is no country for the truth.
Something dark and unfunny has happened to America in the last 8 years, since Ralph last cast his Lincolnesque shadow across the American landscape.
Somewhere in those first days of the Bush administration, the powers that run the corporations that control the legally elected officials who seem to run the show, decided that for better or worse, this obvious dope, George W. Bush was to be our duly elected (well, kind of elected) leader, and that they and all their associated institutions and conglomerates would show this smirking frat-boy the respect and deference that is usually reserved for those who have actually done something to earn such respect.
According to their expedient philosophy, just having someone witless enough to be willing to “play” the president on TV was good enough, and if it was good enough for TV, then it would be good enough for radio, and thus good enough for newspapers and supermarket tabloids, and so on down the line. And as long as the sponsors were happy, then for a while at least, the profits could flow unimpeded, because truth could simply be replaced by the much easier to manage “appearance” of truth.
And so that’s what happened, and a great sleep feel over the land. What once had been the subtle and discrete manipulation of truth, grew increasingly obvious and blatant, spreading across the land like a giant texas cow fart. But nobody said that or even dared to ask “What’s that stink?”- because to do so would be unpatriotic and highly suspect.
And so day in and day out, the army of media “journalists” go out there and report on what the president and his administration “said” that day – just like it was real. And if there are any gaping disparities between what is said and what is done – well, what’s said gets preferential treatment. Why? Because it’s easier and doesn’t require investigation, and it’s wartime, and freedom is under attack, and that’s what we need to do to keep selling cupcakes – a happy story is what America needs to hear.
That was 8 years ago, and maybe it’s all over for America, so far as the truth goes. Maybe the days are gone when journalists will be allowed to seriously consider the disparities between words and actions.
John Stewart , Stephen Colbert and Bill Maher seem to get away with it. Why do you think they are listened to and admired so much more than so-called journalists? Because they approach the news not as journalists, but as comedians, and just like so many of us – with a sense of “disbelief” – as if to say, “Can you believe what that hammer-headed idiot said today?”
And we listen to them and we nod our heads and we can’t help but laugh because we know that least these guys are getting close to the truth. We know that real news got eaten up by money a while ago, just like politics did. Fake news – now there’s a new market opportunity for you. Who can be disillusioned by that?
Now, you and I both know at a deeper and personal level, that the truth is indestructible. It is after all who we are, and so it is intrinsic to each of us – “individually.” I know for myself, that if I want to, I can burrow into my RSS feeds where I will find pockets of crystalline logic and expert analysis, and there find others too, equally as pissed off as I am. I know you know this… I know that each of us knows this. But who we are as individuals is very different from who we are as a country.
That is why the main task of Corporate America is to constantly make you forget what you KNOW and instead listen to them tell you what you NEED.
That’s why the “truth” when it does appear, always shows up way below the radar, because that’s just where our corporate gatekeepers have relegated it. The truth maybe you can spy for 20 minutes between 4 am and sunrise on C-Span. The truth wouldn’t be the truth unless our corporate gatekeepers, and their happy advertiser henchman thought enough of it to bury it.
In “news” companies and in the board rooms of the sponsors that sustain those companies – truth is dolled out in very limited amounts – in such limited amounts in fact, that it mostly passes by unnoticed.
When will we see the day when some lone and heroic newsman stands up in a presidential news conference and and asks the President the one question that we all in truth secretly want to ask this leader of our country and of the free world, “Do you even have a clue what a demented fuck you are?”
An America where that kind of counter-terrorism could happen, is an America where school shooters might use angry words instead of guns to express their frustration.
An America where that could happen, is an America where the poor might feel that somebody somewhere out there understood the intensity of their pain.
An America where that could happen, is an America that might even be ready for someone as uncorrupt as Ralph Nader.
I think Ralph Nader is right about almost everything. Too bad he doesn’t look like George Clooney. Nope, he looks like Bullwinkle. Too bad he doesn’t give smooth evangelically-tinged speeches like Barack Obama. Nope, he talks like a depressed English professor with egg salad on his tie. Too bad he doesn’t have the cash of the energy, defense, pharmaceutical or insurance industries in his pocket like Hillary Clinton. Nope, he powers his lamps with wind energy and good intentions.
You know what I think? I think Ralph Nader is a gift to the human race.
In fact, I think that Ralph Nader is too great an American for a country like this.
That’s why I say America doesn’t deserve Ralph Nader.
And I don’t think that “we, as a people,” will deserve such a man as Ralph Nader until we are ready to get up off the mat and demand that truth be reinstated back into our lives.
America won’t deserve Ralph Nader until enough people demand that news not be what sells cupcakes, but what speaks truth to power.
In a world where that was true, I’d be all for Ralph Nader.
However, in a corrupt ass world where truth is a line of coke snorted off the ass of a hot NAFTA punta, who cares if you’re the most honorable kid in class, huh? You’re not going to get listened to, and you’re not going to get laid, because that’s the way it was in high school, and that’s the way it is today. High school was when the really good bullshitters took charge of the pack. It’s those same bullshitters who run this county today – because as a country, high school is pretty much where most of us still live.
You see America is a land of great opportunity for good bullshitters – and as such when America looks in the mirror, it sees the bullshit it wants to see. It sees Baracks, and Hillary’s and Britneys and Lindsay’s. It sees people duke it out like on American Gladiators. It sees scandals and embarrassments. It sees petty corruption, personal tragedy and upskirt photos, but just like the munchkins of Oz, the one thing it doesn’t want to see is what’s behind that curtain. Because what’s back there is not pretty, and it won’t make you feel good about being an American.
America doesn’t want to hear the truth — so save your breath Ralph. Spend your time writing a book, so that the 3 million people who love you for the Don Fucking Quixote you are, can have something to comfort them at night.
Don’t waste your time on this bullshit election.
The hopes of millions are being unnaturally shaken and stirred by their new flavor flav candidate, Barack Obama. Let them have their fantasies, Ralph. Let the new young millennial voters hit the pavement for this cool hipster guy. Let the guilty boomers feel the warmth of some good old fashioned and non-fattening hope.
Look Ralph, it’s absolutely true that no one is going to attack the “big” issues that you think we should talk about. That’s because they don’t want to. That’s the fucking truth. The country is a whole lot dumber than it was in 2000. Not individuals mind you. People individually are smarter than ever. They are so smart in fact, that they can calculate their own self-interest down to the penny and tell you which brand of compromise is right for them faster than you can say “locally-grown.” Face it, this whole game is way more locked-down today than it was back then. That’s why I read the other day in Time magazine that some company is selling a gold and jewel encrusted cellphone for $171,000 plus change. I mean, you’ve got to be pretty darn smart to be able to afford such an expensive gizmo, wouldn’t you say?
So, this is the way it is, Ralph. This is America today.
We are not going to see world class political and social thinking practiced by any of the major candidates in this election year. We are going to hear more of the same old pandering platitudes and baseless promises, all dolled up and “celebratized.”
Barack Obama is no more going to take a truncheon to the fat-headed and greedy corporations of American than John McCain is. And why? Because he needs their money to stay on TV – and to keep selling himself to America – just like “every” major candidate does. He’s a good guy I’m sure. He’s a smart guy. Smart enough to know that you don’t get elected – not in the Alabama high school of America, by telling people the “truth.”
Not you of course, Ralph. You speak the truth. You did back then, you still do now. You are the curmudgeon candidate, the one who speaks the truth because he still believes we are a people who actually “deserve” the truth.
Not so, Sir Ralph of Corvair.. we are the people who truly deserved 8 years of proto-fascism as practiced by someone who might have been a Hitler – except he had none of Hitler’s talents. In fact, he had no talents at all – except of course, to follow orders.
And that’s why we deserved him. We get what we deserve in this country Ralph, and we don’t deserve you. The best we can hope for now is the lesser of multiple evils. Right now in America, that lesser of multiple evils is Barack Obama – and if the largely kind but confused people of this country elect him and if the corporate powers that run our daily lives ‘allow’ him to be elected, and if some right-wing hit squad doesn’t put a bullet in his hipster head, then I think we will have fewer dead soldiers, more minorities in schools and fewer drug-offenders in prison, “some” better version of healthcare for the uninsured, and maybe even a tax increase for the super-rich. That’s my hope anyway – call me delusional – I’m not the only one.
So, leave it alone Ralph – go write a book, start a blog, have a tasty cupcake – and leave America to play the lottery and wallow in its ever expanding pool of hopeful delusions.
