GOP Movie Fantasy World

Sure, some of us noticed that Michelle Bachman got John Wayne's birthplace wrong, not Waterloo, IA, and that caused some giggles. That isn't what matters, not even a little bit.

What matters is the theme she was hitting, she wants to live in John Wayne's America. That America is a Hollywood Production, it does not and never did exist. John Wayne was only a brave dedicated soldier on the movie set, he only played a part in movie sctipts that had little to do with history. The pictures and dialogue from the screen are just that, they are not reality, they are not a true picture of America at any time other than very exceptionally and John Wayne's flicks are not among the exceptions.

This is not a Michelle thing, it is practically the foundation of the Modern GOP. As you pick through their policy stands you find almost nothing that reflects reality or even a return to some previous reality. Their ideas and policy ideas are the stuff of fantasy. They sell their voters on the concept of a return to some previous foundation of morality. Gays are scarcely something new, not being closeted and scared to death is fairly recent. Movie stars that were idolized in those halcyon days turn out to have been ... well, really queer. That fierce warrior John Wayne never served a day in his life, while somebody like that goofy likeable Jimmy Stewart certainly did. St Ronnie, of revered GOP mythology, never saved a wagon train or served or own a chimp - he was a figment of Hollywood imagination now set into cement as a Great President.

There were no Happy Days, the Fifties sucked really bad for an awful lot of Americans, WWII was an ugly nasty brutish affair, you could go on and on about the taming of the West, the Revolution, the Gilded Age and most of American History. That's not about hate America - that's about love the real thing and understand how and why we are here today. There were real and astounding accomplishments during the Gilded Age and there were horrid conditions and actions accompanying them. You cannot understand the Gilded Age unless you know what it was and how it worked out - and that isn't available from a Hollywood Movie Script. You just cannot address today on the basis of imaginary images. You cannot, for example, set a tax policy that works based on the idea that cutting taxes increases revenue if it just never happened except in your fevered imagination. You cannot do anything about the outcomes of slavery by pointing to scripts rather than the reality of racism and institutionalize poverty to just deny it exists or is justified.

I like movies, I'm willing (if it is any good) to suspend disbelief for awhile and let the fantasy be momentary reality. I sure the hell don't expect to see hobbits and wizards out there saving civilization from the orcs.