Mr. O’Rourke has a new book, “Peace Kills”, and is making the rounds spreading the word. Here’s a link for the curious:
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Now Mr. O’Rourke is a conservative and was a supporter, in his own peculiar way, of War Plan Iraq. Indeed, he even spent some time in-country reporting and gathering knee-slapping material for his book – a funny look at our hilarious empire.
Pretty early on in the interview Ms. Gross asked her guest why it was that so many people who received little or no benefit from Republican policies in general and Bush’s policies in particular continued to support that party and this president.
O’Rourke’s answer, though somewhat flippant and contradictory, had the scent of real meat hovering about it so I offer a paraphrased version – my words of course, but I think I’m remembering the sentiment accurately.
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According to O’Rourke, Americans know the Republicans, like the Democrats, suck and they know that business interests wield incredible power. They also know, from direct experience, that these influencers – the corporations – also suck. But, he said, they fear and distrust the government more than they do Walmart because the government has the power of coercion backed by force.
So although it’s true Walmart can make your life miserable, they can’t proclaim you to be an ‘enemy combatant’ and remove you in shackles, facing the business end of an M441, to Gitmo or charge you with tax evasion and dispatch legal and police enforcers after you… and so on.
This means, O’Rourke explains, that the party which seems the most likely to reduce the power of this beast – the government – is the one which is the most appealing even with all the known problems of corporate influence and corruption and disdain for workers. Of course, the party that has positioned itself as the standard bearer of ‘less government’ (and therefore, less risk of coercion) is our lovable, huggable, GOP.
But O’Rourke didn’t stop there, no sir. It’s not just the fear of government that motivates; it’s also love of country. Republicans do well because Americans like to feel good about their country. They don’t want to pause while waving the flag on the Fourth of July to commemorate the crimes of slavery or the near genocide of Native Americans, or 19th and early twentieth century aggression against the Philippines or even the very recent victims of Abu Ghraib and other facilities of the American gulag complex.
They just want to wave the flag and feel good and this is what the Republicans allow them to do without fear of wind or vertigo, even as they slowly choke them to death. Liberals, he said, have a hard time with this and so people tune out when they, from the point of view of our fun loving masses, ‘bring the noise’ by listing America’s extravagant crimes.
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As I said, he was a little flippant (but just a little, this seemed to be his genuine take on things).
And although I’m tempted to dismiss this, my own observations compel me to think a little harder about O’Rourke’s ideas.
Thoughts?
.d.