Drill, Baby, Drill

I caught the GOP convention last night via NPR midway through Guliani's speech (which I can't help but describe as, well, impeded). Knowing what I was getting myself into, I repeatedly reminded myself to not get worked up (kind of like how I remind myself during the movie Mask that "they're only actors. Cher wouldn't really be so cruel to poor Rocky Dennis.) But Christ it was hard to listen to. I found myself talking back to the radio more than is healthy for my relationship - I annoy myself when I do that, so I'm sure it's no treat to be in the same room as me.

Palin's mean-spirited, tough-guy speech was clearly meant to prove her worth as an attack dog, but I found it low-brow, immature, desperate and scare-tastic. Her speechwriter (former George W. speechwriter Matthew Scully) clearly dug deep in his old bag of tricks to pull out, heavy with coagulated blood, many familiar themes, among them: flip-flopping (which is fair to fling at Obama, so long as one admits that McCain has changed his stance on offshore drilling, abortion and tax cuts for the rich while pandering ever-rightward to satisfy the needs of the GOP power brokers), the liberal media (nevermind that McCain has been considered one of the media's greatest political beneficiaries in the last 20 years), that Obama would weaken our military and defense (though he actually plans to increase troops by 92,000 and has gone more hardline that even McCain on issues like Pakistan, where US forces have now begun fighting), belittling/turning Obama's former role as a community organizer into a punchline (co..mmun...ity org...an...izer ... HA! What'll those flaky idealists think of next?) and, this is one original to this campaign, propagating irrational fears through code that your oponent may be, I don't know, the Anti-Christ?! (Palin: "What does he actually seek to accomplish, after he's done turning back the waters and healing the planet?")

And that zinger brings up another theme from the evening: Those who are in favor of "healing the planet" or are against selling away more offshore sites (and ANWAR) to oil companies (whether it be because of the environmental cost, that oil companies already have 72,000 leases that they've yet to tap or because any effects would take some 10 years to generate) are tree-hugging (a bad thing) anti-Americans who want to stand by passively, taking a Middle East fuel pump up the wazoo. So what's to be done?

Drill, baby, drill!

I realize that the audience represented the base of the neocon-controlled GOP, but how can a chant like do anything besides make the oil industry wet? Was it simply a "fuck you" to liberals or do they actually believe we can drill ourselves out of our environmental and economic crisis? I hope for our children's sake it was just an uncalloused thumb in our eye.

Republicans convince voters to support policies that benefit the rich by relying on their belief that they can become the rich. Lotteries are complicit in this undertaking. Not only are you and I never going to win the lottery, but you and I are never going to live to benefit from these policies.

Or, think of it this way:
Democracy requires that the majority rules on the condition that the minority is able to speak, organize and protest so it can become the majority.*

Republicans rely on the majority shutting up, isolating themselves and blindly supporting the minority which it is desperate to become.

* thanks to professor Fred Fico for this little nugget. Proof I'm paying attention.