ON THE ARTIFICIAL BIPOLARIZATION OF AMERICA AND THE (MIS)APPROPRIATION OF RELIGION, FISCAL CONSERVATISM, NATIONAL SECURITY, AND HINTERLAND VALUES BY THE REPUBLICAN PARTY
Or "How the Republicans Have Hijacked America's Political Discourse"

Had I sufficient time and cerebral bandwidth to devote to writing and publishing online, this, my first posting, would have consisted of a stunningly evocative and compelling exposition on the themes indicated by the above title and subtitle, to wit:

1) How American pundits, spin-doctors, political "advisors", and other participants in the public discourse take unrelated positions on hot-button issues, and uncritically or disingenuously array them on opposite sides of the partisan spectrum for reasons of convenience, intellectual lassitude, and political expediency, and then bundle these positions under the labels "Liberal Democrat" and "Conservative Republican";

2) How American political journalism in the main was and remains guilty of criminal complicity in dumbing down the political discourse, relying on mental and terminological shorthand to deliver compelling sound bites instead of striving to find ways to encourage the disaggregation and careful consideration of complex issues and platforms as a first step towards redefining the political discourse as a fundamental element of the political process;

3) How the Republicans have shamelessly (and quite successfully) mobilized a massive polity based on a message of danger, fundamentalism, ignorance, and heartland identity; and finally

4) How the Democrats have demonstrated yet again a complete inability to manipulate effectively a political process that now appears (it is sad and horrifying to say) completely dependent on designing, tailoring and selling a particular political "brand" to an increasingly unsophisticated, unreflective, reactive, and disengaged political consumer.

(For those of you frantically checking your calendars to see if it is April 1st, no, it isn't, this isn't a stupid gimmick post by Bernard, it's Max writing here. Thanks, Bernard, for lending me this corner of your soapbox from which to preach. I had always thought that you were beyond saving, but your generosity in this matter gives one reason to hope that someday you will see see the light and repent of your baby-eating, dog-kicking, seal-clubbing, misanthropic Republican ways.)

Unfortunately, just getting the title of the piece down totally wore me out.

So until next time, folks, remember:

I an' I mus' al' move to Jah love.

True advice for all you Republicans out there in Internet land.

PEACE.

PS: I also promise to write soon about Godel's theorem (sorry i don't know how to do umlauts yet), it's epistemological corollaries, and it's necessary implications for the cult of neo-Republicanism. Hooray, kids! Go-go-gadget-isomorphism!