Finished Rick Perlstein's Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America (2008), as epic and wild a tale as J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and James Clavell's Shōgun. The main difference is that the events in Nixonland really happened, and I personally remember some of them being revealed in the news at the time.
To anyone who thinks Nixonian smear tactics were an anomaly, of no import now: wrong!
Earlier today, I tuned into a bit of Glenn Beck, and there it was in all its glory --Nixonian creepiness and crassness, distortions and dirty tricks.
At break time -- this is completely true -- G. Gordon Liddy, Nixon's psychopathic Watergate henchman, creator of GEMSTONE (a real life Keystone Cops version of Ian Fleming's Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion aka SPECTRE), on Fox TV, selling GOLD. I kid you not: GOLD. In the ad, he crumples up a US greenback and tosses it away with contempt.
I saw this ad personally; after that, Beck ran a bizarre montage of "American patriotism," jumping from the Founding Fathers to D-Day to Apollo 11 to September 11 to Iraq, played out with an overpowering but cheesy soundtrack and something about how "They underestimated us" -- George III, Hitler, Terrorists. In the images, probably 98% of the people are white men; there are also two women -- one (a poster of) Rosy the Riveter, the other an actual white woman in uniform in Iraq. There are no blacks, no Asians, no Latinos. (Admittedly, I'd have to see it again to double-check). This is apparently Beck's ideal America: Nixonland.
Earlier today, I tuned into a bit of Glenn Beck, and there it was in all its glory --Nixonian creepiness and crassness, distortions and dirty tricks.
At break time -- this is completely true -- G. Gordon Liddy, Nixon's psychopathic Watergate henchman, creator of GEMSTONE (a real life Keystone Cops version of Ian Fleming's Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion aka SPECTRE), on Fox TV, selling GOLD. I kid you not: GOLD. In the ad, he crumples up a US greenback and tosses it away with contempt.
I saw this ad personally; after that, Beck ran a bizarre montage of "American patriotism," jumping from the Founding Fathers to D-Day to Apollo 11 to September 11 to Iraq, played out with an overpowering but cheesy soundtrack and something about how "They underestimated us" -- George III, Hitler, Terrorists. In the images, probably 98% of the people are white men; there are also two women -- one (a poster of) Rosy the Riveter, the other an actual white woman in uniform in Iraq. There are no blacks, no Asians, no Latinos. (Admittedly, I'd have to see it again to double-check). This is apparently Beck's ideal America: Nixonland.
Today's Rune: Signals.
2 comments:
I'll have to look for that. I've read All the President's Men, but it's been a while and I"m sure some of the passage of time adds perspective on all of it.
http://gawker.com/5355901/glenn-beck-pr-genius-spreads-the-false-rumor-he-raped-and-murdered-a-young-girl-in-1990
Tit for tat.
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