Tuesday June 03, 2003

A DOG'S BREAKFAST. In this morning's gibberish, endorsed by the Ole Perfesser, one Frederick Turner proposes that liberals (or is it boomers? Hard to tell here) are as "full of fear" as citizens under a Soviet tyranny, except the tyranny is not of the government but of their own wrong and evil ideas. Key words: Berkeley, new class, British Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Stalin's Moscow, Eustace Tilley. Words appearing in quotes: "scary," "going along," "coming out of the closet," "pukka," "The Big Chill." He also calls Michael Kinsley a George Bush supporter.

"It's not what you know, but who you know, so the greatest terror is to be shunned by the in-group," says the author of these knock-kneed nellies. "And this is where the fear comes from." Yes, far more brave to support the tiny, lonely voice of truth coming from the little-known and underfunded Republican Party.

While Turner is incomprehensible from the admittedly narrow perspective of common sense, he is clear as a bell to students of the particular kind of propaganda in which he deals. This specimen follows Storyline 1D: "Liberals are all nervous nellies with bad constitutions, like in "Mallard Fillmore," and conservatives are fearless seekers after truth." In this case, as frequently, Storyline 1B ("Liberals run everything and keep us down") is availed as a sub-theme. 1D and 1B would seem not very compatible with one another -- how did such abject weaklings take over a mighty nation? But these guys habitually ram them together nonetheless.

Personally I liked these guys better when they were bitching about Eisenhower and fluoride in the water.