lies, damned lies and republicans

I know that the political ads that are bombarding us now, just like the political ads that bombarded us in the past, play pretty fast and loose with the truth.  Whatever in the hell the truth is. See Henry Fonda's Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath.

I remember the Wellstone ad spot from a campaign long ago which went something like, "The sky isn't really blue; it's green.  The sky isn't really bue; it's green.  The sky isn't really blue; it's green." and attributed it to the Boschwitz campaign.  You know where this is headed.  Repeat the same lie enough times and it becomes the truth.  Have we ever been reminded of that more strongly than during the last few weeks of the countdown to Election Tuesday?

Romney erases 16 point gender gap.  We're America's women and that's why we're voting for Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan.  Barack Obama is a (choose one or all) Muslim/atheist/anti-American/Kenyan/tool of the union thugs/job destroyer/new world orderer. (should that last one have ben capitalized?) Jeep is shipping American jobs to China.  Barack Obama forced the closing of the Janesville Chrysler plant.  Maybe the economy's improved a little but we could have done better. "Big spending" Jim Graves who's been outspent 12-1 by the Bachmann campaign.  Gay marriage threatens the sanctity of marriage.  Voter ID protects our voting rights.  Nate Silver is a limp-wristed little (choose your own slur).  Creeping socialsim is robbing America's will to excel.  All of which plays well to the racists and misogynists and bigots and morons.  The sky isn't really blue; it's green.

I think I also know that this is a game that totalitarians and demagogues play.  I'm reluctant to draw too many historical parallels but there's history out there that provides food for thought.  I don't recall any election where the truth has been so willfully abandoned for lies, damned lies and partisan lies.  I don't want to believe that the Republican power brokers and their big money financiers will stop at nothing (up to and including rigging voting machines) to take this country into some grey politico-theocracy where big government exists only when it comes to telling people who they can hang out with, what they can read, where they can worship, whether or not they can vote.  Ya gotta wonder though.

Anyone who's reading this is already a member of the choir that I'm likely preaching to.  But get out there and vote.  Drag your friends and family along and convince those who say it doesn't matter that it goddamn well does too matter.  The two sides' visions as to where this country should go can't be any more different.  Get out there and vote.  And don't believe that the sky isn't really blue.  It's damn well not green.