Gubernator Elect - A California Moment
Oct. 8th, 2003 08:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
akirluIt's hard not to be a little disappointed in the voters of California. The state has real problems created by complex, nearly intractable circumstances. The claim that this is somehow the fault of Gray Davis was always partisan propaganda of the worst sort, and particularly hypocritical partisan propaganda, given the Republican fingerprints all over the California energy crisis and the FERCs decision not to interfere with it, the defunding of federal monies for state governments, the hobbling of the collection of California property tax, and the miscellaneous hokum about California being bad for business. And the chances that a posing playboy Austrian weightlifter can do diddly to make it better are pretty well nil.
But in the long run, the fact that the Gropenator has no chance at all of being an effective governor of California may be a good thing. Look at the redistricting of Texas. The Republicans got their shot, and they're making a hopeless hash of it. Look at the Presidency and the war in Iraq: the Republicans got their shot, and they're making a hopeless hash of it. PR sells, and it sells big. Fame and propaganda work, up to a point. But sooner or later the plan makes contact with the enemy, and at that point, the laws of physics take over. PR doesn't create jobs and it doesn't balance budgets and it doesn't stop bullets and it doesn't produce WMDs. So long as Republicans are dumb enough to believe their own lies, they will always run into trouble when they hit the part of the narrative where only facts will serve. Believing its own lies may have ultimately been the biggest factor in the collapse of the Soviet Union, and it has at least as much potential to precipitate the demolition of Schwarzenegger's governorship.
All it really takes is holding the press accountable for holding the governor accountable. Let us watch the watchers, and keep those cards and letter coming.
But in the long run, the fact that the Gropenator has no chance at all of being an effective governor of California may be a good thing. Look at the redistricting of Texas. The Republicans got their shot, and they're making a hopeless hash of it. Look at the Presidency and the war in Iraq: the Republicans got their shot, and they're making a hopeless hash of it. PR sells, and it sells big. Fame and propaganda work, up to a point. But sooner or later the plan makes contact with the enemy, and at that point, the laws of physics take over. PR doesn't create jobs and it doesn't balance budgets and it doesn't stop bullets and it doesn't produce WMDs. So long as Republicans are dumb enough to believe their own lies, they will always run into trouble when they hit the part of the narrative where only facts will serve. Believing its own lies may have ultimately been the biggest factor in the collapse of the Soviet Union, and it has at least as much potential to precipitate the demolition of Schwarzenegger's governorship.
All it really takes is holding the press accountable for holding the governor accountable. Let us watch the watchers, and keep those cards and letter coming.
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Date: 2003-10-16 12:28 am (UTC)I was just reading about some of the things which seem to be being done in the interest of tweaking the economy enough to make it seem to be improving, and that just in time to be soothing for the '04 election.
The drive to devalue the dollar is one of those, amusingly we have caused a number of countries, outside the U.S. to want the dollar to remain high as they have (with a bit of urging from us) pegged the local currency to it.
So driving the dollar down is proving more difficult than it might have seemed.
Here's hoping.
Terry