M. Ventura: rightwing politics = "mediocrity's avengers"

[villager]

(From his latest column):

The effect of mediocrity's avengers is even more pernicious in politics, as in California's elevation of Arnold Schwarzenegger to the governorship. I think of William Carlos Williams, from In the American Grain: "Promise the weak strength and have the strength of a thousand weak at your bidding."

<snip>

In a state with shamefully inadequate education, it is not the fault of the electorate that most can't analyze complex issues. They were educated to be stupid; they didn't start out that way. The greatest gift of education is that students learn to think for themselves, comparing data to reach their own conclusions. High school graduates who read at a seventh-grade level can't do that. They believe slick political spots and TV-pap news because they must believe something; it's only human to believe smooth, visually appealing sound bites that flatter one's inadequacies and play on one's frustrations. The frustrations are real. The inadequacies are conditioned. The result is disastrous: a disconnect between choice and sense.

People who want an experienced mechanic to fix their car, an experienced plumber to mend their pipes, an experienced doctor to tend their ills -- these same people elect an amateur to run their infrastructure and provide their services and security, and do so out of sheer pique. All their lives their only choices have been between mediocrity and mediocrity; they are fodder for mediocre jobs; they live in mediocre structures built to mediocre standards and less-than-mediocre aesthetics. They are sullenly, inarticulately aware of their dead-end deprivation. They want revenge. That lust for revenge is turned upon them by a multimillion-dollar media blitz that convinces the prisoners to bestow a shrine (the Governor's Mansion) upon their wardens. By the time they wake up it will be too late. The rich already own them; come wake-up time, they will only own them more. And there will be no recourse.

<snip>

Two years ago I was an observer at a City Council meeting in Mason, Texas. The speaker gave these statistics: In most rural towns, the top third of the high school graduating class leaves the state; the middle third leaves the town for the state's major urban centers; the bottom third stays put, because they can't make it elsewhere. Don't confuse that bottom third with the dumbest. Some could be the most rebellious, expressing that rebellion through drugs or fast cars or rodeos, in order to ignore the stupefying dullness of their schools; some, by virtue of class or ethnicity, are slighted by the very educators on which their future depends -- and haven't the home life and/or the natural gifts to overcome that obstacle; and, for some, their best aptitude may be for skilled manual work that we now ship overseas, so there is no place for them here anymore. What is bred in this bottom third but resentment, frustration, and a sense of their own worthlessness? These are easy people to manipulate. Far-right propagandists have become masters at manipulating them. "Promise the weak strength and have the strength of a thousand weak at your bidding." Just such communities made up most of the blue electoral map that was and is the strength of George W. Bush. They're not mediocre, but they feel mediocre; so they sought a clever man who consciously reflected their perceived mediocrity -- sought him, beseeched him, to avenge their deprivation. Yet he increases it under the guise of avenging. What a way to get screwed.

We were once pleased to elect people who were a great deal smarter than average; we took pride that such people represented us. Teddy Roosevelt, Taft, Woodrow Wilson, Herbert Hoover, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, Richard Nixon -- agree with them or not, they were damned smart and didn't mind showing it. (Ronald Reagan was a very smart man who knew that he had to appear not-so-smart to be popular.) A citizenry that no longer wants to be led by the most intelligent among them is a citizenry that feels a deep innate inferiority; it is also a citizenry consistently betrayed and condescended to by an elitist liberal intelligentsia, and so is willing to put its faith in anyone who pretends to be against their betrayers. Thus they are betrayed all the more, their economy and infrastructure doomed for the benefit of the rich.

http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/dispatch/2003-10-31/cols_ventura.html

[Brucey]

1. Some good stuff here.

I think it's correct that in the past people wanted leaders who were better than the rest; but now, most everyone says they voted for X because he's like them! The idea of representation has changed.

[villager]

3. now people want somebody "less" than...

...they feel themselves to be. Hence the GOP's successful use of the "elitist" card, as Ventura pointed out...

[belle]

2. Excellent article, kick

I espescially liked this:

They're not mediocre, but they feel mediocre; so they sought a clever man who consciously reflected their perceived mediocrity -- sought him, beseeched him, to avenge their deprivation. Yet he increases it under the guise of avenging. What a way to get screwed.


"They're not mediocre, but they feel mediocre"--god, that's so important to remember! *So* important. All the stuff we tell ourselves and each other about "stupid sheeple" may make us feel better for a while, but it's not going to solve anything. Ultimately, democracy is not contemptuous. Realistic, yes. Yeah, a lot of Americans are poorly educated and passive, meanspirited and ignorant, and say and do things that make a lot of the rest of us want to bang our (or their) heads on the keyboard. But if that's all we see, we'll never win.

The next great leader will be the one who neither panders nor threatens, but speaks to the best part of each of us, while still clearly seeing the whole picture.