April Fool

 I've been thinking about this a bit, and the most weird and bizarre part of where we are today is that the airwaves are filled with what no one, but no one, believes.

1. We're winning in Iraq.

Nobody believes this. What most people, even those not committed to the question know is that (as I put it) if we were winning, we'd have won. It's this .com startup that was going to give us $2 a barrel crude, peace in the Middl East, and an American Century. They missed their first product ship date, they tried to rewrite the business plan to their advantage, they've missed  their revised product ship date, the auditors have all sorts of horror stories to tell, they've missed their second revised product ship date and are coming to the VC's with confident smiles plastered on their face, asking for a big new infusion of capital and a vastly extended schedule and saying "we're winning."

What these people actually believe ranges from "We're in the crapper, but if we stick at it long enough, we're bound to win." to "We're losing it, but if we beat people over the head long enough and hard enough, we'll make Americans think we're winning, and that's all that matters" to "We've lost, but if we keep up the barrage until we leave office, we're home free."

And yet the airwaves are filled with the message that nobody believes. Even the most rabid of warhawks does not believe "we're winning in Iraq" but "Liberals are evil." It's a cause they're willing to lie through their teeth for. In their heads they're coming up with excuses like the ones for Vietnam and erupting in the desire for nuclear solutions. 

2. Global warming is a liberal myth.

The arctic icecap is disappearing. The Antarctic ice sheets are collapsing. All the scientific organizations in the world are saying the same thing. 

What these people actually believe is "What's more important is maximizing profits now" to "I hate liberals." The problem with the latter in this case is that it has turned into "I hate scientists" and the equally delightful second term of the enthymeme, "Scientists" are liberals."

Actually, that's not getting deep enough. I think the actual beliefs range from "Being really rich solves everything" to "I'll be in my grave before anything really bad happens" to what I think is the most prevalent, "We'll come up with something."

That, I think, is the basis from where they feel comfortable to lie. From the corporate point of view, I think their strategy is to make the changes they feel they can make without jeopardizing profits while denying there's any reason to make them, because they're not idiots. Likewise the people who  take up the cudgels for them, though they may be closer to being idiots, have as their fallback comfort that "We'll come up with something", even though that 'something' will unquestionably have to come from the people they're slagging off publicly.

And they back and fill, and charge themselves up with their hatred of Al Gore, which they're really eager to get into, and they can assuage themselves in thinking  "They're making it worse to get people's attention."

And so they lie in the thinnest fashion. THey accuse nearly an entire profession of dishonesty and make ignorant arguments against experts, get them refuted, and make them again. On TV. They set themselves up against people they're deeply inclined to respect, since the religious Right does not, as a rule, take part in this. These are the corporate Right and the libertarian right,who on the one hand are made rich by science and on the other laud science as their Objective virtue. 

And so the airwaves are filled with lies that no one believes, and the yahoos insult and deride the people they are relying on to save them.

3. We have the greatest health care system in the world.

I wonder: why do the rich squeal like colon-irrigated pigs when the government steals from them via taxes but not when the health care industry steals from them by exorbitant charges? They can afford both--but do they really feel they are getting value when the health care industry gouges them and not when the government does--or do they object to taxes because they can do something about them?

Not everybody thinks this is a lie--there are still people insulated from the reality. And there are probably people who don't know people who have met the Beast. But that's not many. The chairman of General Motors isn't one of them.

Those who say the lie range from "Sure there are problems, but it would be worse if the liberals got ahold of it" to ""It IS the best--because it's capitalist" to "Poor people are losers and a drag on the upward progress of the Race". 

And yet our airwaves are infested with this  lie. The victims don't believe it. The predators don't believe it. The experts don't believe it. People who are ignorant of both the reality and the theory believe it, of course. On TV.

4. Mexican Immigrants are going to take over America.

Nobody believes this. The rich Republicans don't believe it, because they profit from it. The politicians don't believe it, because they love it as a boogeyman: if Mexicans were actually a threat, they'd act differently--but a bugaboo that can keep people roused up without being a threat--you keep that in your flower beds as a perennial. 

And even the xenophobes don't think that. (actually 'xenophobe' is not the greatest term, since it's hate rather than fear. 'xenopath'?) They don't believe that Mexicans will destroy America, or American culture--just American cultural purity. And that's been wrecked since at least the Polk administration, and definitely since Jelly Roll Morton. 

They hate Mexicans, but they also hate blacks, and Asians, and Arabs, and Jews and Catholics, and above all liberals. And it's sort of like the rich and health care--they complain because they think they can win on this one. There's nothing about Mexicans that are any scarier than black folks--and they're nothing compared to the Jews. The Mexicans are not wolves across the border--they're vermin. La cucaracha. And at the core, "they hate liberals."

So nobody believes the Mexican menace. And yet they scream in the Congress about it. And all over the TV.

So here we are on April Fool's Day, where stories are printed and aired that strain credulity, that are strangely askew--and end with the annoying but revelatory "April Fool!"

Well, I'm waiting. I've been waiting a while