Of Karl Rove, Nixon's gray ghost, pinball proto-fascism, muscle car imperialism,

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Sun, 7 Aug 2005 10:03:22 -0500

Of Karl Rove, Nixon's gray ghost, pinball

proto-fascism,.............

 

 

 

 

Of Karl Rove, Nixon's gray ghost, pinball proto-fascism, muscle car

imperialism, and the Gong Show of the American political system (excerpt)

 

By Phil Rockstroh

 

August 3, 2005—An unpopular war drags on, gas prices rise and rise as

a cloud of scandal gathers over Washington D.C.

 

At times, it seems as though the 1970s never ended: it's just Ronald

Reagan and Bill Clinton's Quaalude-laced, faux populist snake oil

caused us to sleep through the 80s and 90s—and now we're awakening,

hung over, groggy, queasy, still in the midst of that ugly and odious

era. At least, that's the encrypted message I've been able to

decipher, using my Super-Secret, Decoder Mood Ring, special limited,

 

George W. Bush and Karl Rove are as much products of the 1970s as were

Naugahyde pit group sofas and outbreaks of the herpes simplex

retrovirus at Plato's Retreat. Historically, the world will regard the

Bush administration as the Dacron polyester of American presidencies:

its legacy will carry all the beauty, style, and enduring appeal of a

powder blue leisure suit. George Bush, himself, will be remembered as

the Pet Rock of the American plutocratic class.

 

Accordingly, if there is any presiding spirit possessing the current

zeitgeist, it is the gray ghost of Dick Nixon. During the Watergate

era, Karl Rove apprehended a fact the rest of us pushed out of our

minds, due to its troubling implications: Nixon wasn't brought down

because Americans were troubled by having a sick, corrupt bastard as

their president—we simply found it embarrassing to have the White

House curtains pulled open, thus allowing the the world to witness

Nixon pacing the floors, draped in a dingy bathrobe, muttering

expletives at the yellowing, West Wing wallpaper.

 

Moreover, Rove perceived that Nixon's paranoia, rage, envy, and

resentment merely mirrored those of the American middle class. Nixon

knew from the depths of his black spleen to the tips of his twitching

nerve endings the dark side of the American character and how the

pathologies therein could be exploited for political gain. In 1972,

Rove watched and learned as Nixon was reelected in a landslide

victory. Nixon showed Rove that the American middle and laboring

classes feared and hated those spoiled brat, college campus radicals

and uppity blacks that they saw every night on the evening news more

passionately than they loved their own

freedom................................

 

Rove, Rumsfeld, Cheney—these ruthless men are all Nixon's progeny.

They all got away scot-free. In fact, they prospered in the cynical

post-Watergate era and they continue to perpetrate their crimes right

up to the present time. Moreover, it is we, the American public, who

bear responsibly: we conjured these psychopaths with our ceaseless

incantations of denial.

 

Fascism comes to a nation when a group of fanatical outsiders forge

alliances, based on political and economic expediency, with a corrupt

ruling elite, while a fearful, distracted, denial-ridden public

surrenders their liberty (then, inevitably, their souls) for the

illusion of security and a few material

goods..................................

 

Though the ensuing decades, we've continued to deceive ourselves into

believing the corruption and embarrassments of the 1970s—from the

crimes of Watergate to the inanities of the Gong Show (the reality TV

of the times)—had nothing to do with us. As a consequence, it comes

down to this: we didn't learn a damn thing during 70s; therefore,

we've condemned ourselves to relive it.

 

Yes, it is high time to strike the gong for Karl Rove and his

pathetic, dancing, feces-flinging pet monkey act that is presently

stinking up the stage of the Gong Show of the American political

system. But next, we should turn off the TV, walk to the closest

mirror, look ourselves in the eye, and repeat the risible (as well as

demonstrably false) phrase, " I am not a crook, " —and then, at long

last, face the Richard Milhouse Nixon within, and thereby come to

grips with the reason we Americans are, at present, as popular and

respected worldwide as Richard Nixon was in the summer of 1974.

 

full article at:

http://www.onlinejournal.com/Commentary/080305Rockstroh/080305rockstroh.html

 

Phil Rockstroh, a self-described, auto-didactic, gasbag monologist, is

a poet, lyricist and philosopher bard living in New York City. He may

be contacted at: philangie2000.