July 6, 2007

Each year, it seems, the Grand American Puppet Show is getting longer, and the assortment of characters more diverse and talented. This time the curtain was lifted in the middle of 2006, more than two years before the Grand American Puppet Choice Day--er, excuse me, Election Day. The first two characters to appear on stage were New York Senator Hillary Clinton, representing the Democratic Party, and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, representing the Republican Party.  

I've avoided the debates until now because I saw them as little more than exercises in media manipulation.  This time, I wanted to watch the Republican debate just to hear the other candidates respond to Ron Paul.  Unfortunately, I had a scheduling conflict so I asked a kid to take notes for me.  As the debate began, I drew a quick seating chart of the candidates to help the kid keep track of who said what and then ran off.  BTW - this is not snark.  This is a straight rendition from a 9 year old.  The only changes I made were for spelling errors (except the names).

It must have been more difficult thant I thought to keep track of all the new names.  That's the only reason I can think of to explain why this  reporter devised their own naming strategy to keep track of the candidates.  Aside from that, it seems they got all the high points.

Follow me below the fold for the 9-years old rendition of a fight between Sarge, Wrinkles, Bunny Ears, Oily, Beagle Eyes and Carrot Face...  

I along with many others recently received an e-mail from Robert Greenwald stressing an important point - the manner in which Fox News has become a blatant neoconservative spear launcher in the war realm.

Greenwald knows Fox well, having produced an excellent documentary Outfoxed that doubtlessly still provokes curses in the station's boardroom.  Greenwald issued a call to concerned Americans to energize and vigorously fight Fox in its attempt to circulate war propaganda to launch another war in the Middle East, this time in Iran.

An important link needs to be recognized stressing that Fox News engaged in vigorous saber rattling propaganda against Iraq.  In addition to numerous efforts to enrage Americans that Saddam Hussein needed to be overthrown, Fox commentators warned unrelentingly that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction that Saddam Hussein intended to unleash against America.

The Fox war drumbeaters were at optimum level in lavishly praising Colin Powell's speech to the United Nations, in which badly flawed information was deceitfully presented as fact.  Fox was so impressed by Powell's presentation, one that many informed Middle East analysts immediately began questioning and refuting, was classified as "a virtuoso performance."

A recent column suggesting that the neocon image machine was busy grooming former Tennessee U.S. Senator Fred Thompson as a citizen politician, who stands above the battle, reminiscent of Ronald Reagan, is moving forward briskly.

Despite all the huffing and puffing by Republican right propagandists about Hollywood and its left wing domination, neocons of the Karl Rove stripe have an affection for actors since it is easy to blur reality with image since imagery is so strongly defined within the acting profession while images that were displayed on movie and television screens can be more easily inculcated into the public mind.  

This is particularly true in the image driven fantasy world of Fox News, Clear Channel and a society of submissive Fox zombies and Rush Limbaugh dittoheads.  

Reagan was a cowboy television narrator on "Death Valley Days" and later the GOP image machine worked overtime to depict him as just the man to topple the Soviet Union and battle terrorists all over the globe.  While the Soviet Union ultimately collapsed, historical analysis has determined with each year of analysis that this demise was ultimately destined to occur.  

Nothing prompts Karl Rove to salivate faster than the prospect of a new protégé.  It was reported that Rove waxed enthusiasm from the first time he met George W. Bush, loving his "swagger" and recognizing what he perceived as a natural and engaging charisma that he believed he could take all the way to the presidency.

Despite Rove's enthusiasm he recognized that he could not accomplish this feat independently.  The important thing about promoting an incurious and inarticulate buffoon-like figure such as Bush to the presidency was a willingness to please the neocon power structure and that he did.

To invest Bush with the kind of manufactured machismo that typified Ronald Reagan, who had earlier been fine-tuned by the corporate establishment all the way to the presidency, some early steps were taken.  

Like Reagan, Bush developed a "man's man" image by becoming an instant cowboy as arrangements were made for him to purchase his Crawford, Texas ranch, the first step toward becoming the Lone Star State's governor, an important pivotal position en route to Washington.