The Campaign of the Century: Upton Sinclair’s Race for Governor of California and the Birth of Media Politics by Greg Mitchell explores Upton Sinclair’s 1934 run of Governor of California.
MGM, led by Republican activist and movie mogul Louis B. Mayer, produced three fake newsreels to attack Sinclair before election day, using shots from old movies and Hollywood actors. The newsreels sparked riots in theaters. Irving Thalberg later admitted producing the newsreels. “Nothing is unfair in politics,” he explained.
Just yesterday on Twitter I said, “politics is war,” which led to an interesting exchange with Chris O’Rourke.
As we know, there are all sorts of wars today. Culture wars, drug wars and very real and bloody wars. In all of them lives are at stake. That’s certainly true when we look at the war on poverty, which has been ongoing in America for generations.
Let’s hear from Upton Sinclair about the lives at stake during the Great Depression.
The “EPIC†(End Poverty in California) movement proposes that our unemployed shall be put at productive labor, producing everything which they themselves consume and exchanging those goods among themselves by a method of barter, using warehouse receipts or labor certificates or whatever name you may choose to give to the paper employed. It asserts that the State must advance sufficient capital to give the unemployed access to good land and machinery, so that they may work and support themselves and thus take themselves off the backs of the taxpayers. The “EPIC†movement asserts that this will not hurt private industry, because the unemployed are no longer of any use to industry.
Ultimately, Sinclair lost the race to Frank F. Merriam. It’s now 76 years later and we’re still burdened by an inordinate number of people on the sidelines in America, and that’s no way to manage a city, state or nation. But who among us has the faintest clue about how to fix the mess that is the American economy? Sure entrepreneurs can and do create businesses and new jobs, but as Sinclair argues above, the unemployed are not aided by this.
At any rate, we’re 48 hours from another mid-term election and polls indicate that the Republicans will do well on Tuesday. Why will they do well? There are many reasons, one of which is the skilled use of advertising and the media by the Grand Old Party.
In the end, we can call today’s attack ads propaganda, but identifying them as such and rendering them meaningless and ineffective are not the same thing. As long as political propaganda works to get people elected, there will always be people of all political persuasions willing to employ it. Sure, it’s a sad commentary on our values as a nation, and all the lying and manipulation that goes on erodes the fabric of what’s good in our society. But the problem with lies is they’re not seen as lies by the people who retell them. For Loius B. Mayer and Karl Rove and the like, sure, they know the lies they tell, but the audience, sadly, isn’t that discerning.
Interesting article though I think you may have missed my overall point. We can keep calling things that aren’t wars, wars but only at the cost of cheapening the true horror and atrocities that war actually brings. Across the board the last 20 years has been about marginalizing the true meanings of words and phrases to achieve a greater sociopolitical goal. Sometimes the media, other times politicians are behind it but in the end it’s all of us that suffer the dilution of meaning into everything being a massive disaster of ennui. Seriously “war on poverty” who is the assailant there? Who is the war on drugs declared on? Using pithy terminology isn’t a problem due to political usage but because it reduces the effectiveness of knowledge to being just another way of selling nonsense to people.
Above all the more we make truth a gray area the worse off the extremes will react. It’s a natural occurrence after all 😀
Interesting article though I think you may have missed my overall point. We can keep calling things that aren’t wars, wars but only at the cost of cheapening the true horror and atrocities that war actually brings. Across the board the last 20 years has been about marginalizing the true meanings of words and phrases to achieve a greater sociopolitical goal. Sometimes the media, other times politicians are behind it but in the end it’s all of us that suffer the dilution of meaning into everything being a massive disaster of ennui. Seriously “war on poverty” who is the assailant there? Who is the war on drugs declared on? Using pithy terminology isn’t a problem due to political usage but because it reduces the effectiveness of knowledge to being just another way of selling nonsense to people.
Above all the more we make truth a gray area the worse off the extremes will react. It’s a natural occurrence after all 😀
Thanks for the comment Chris. I do understand your point and I totally agree that our language is abused and meaning distorted and that it should be otherwise. But it’s not otherwise, which is the point I made yesterday on Twitter and again today.
I’d like the reality on the ground to be much different, but it’s not. So Dems must adjust to the actual “game” that’s being played. If the Republicans will use any means to gain an advantage, what is the opposing side supposed to do? Wish things were different? Yes, wish things were different but also recognize what’s happening and have a plan to counter the constant assault on truth.
When the sky is raining arrows, you need to take cover for your own survival, but then you have to come out with “guns” blazing. Bill Clinton is one of the only Dems in recent times to recognize that to win, you need great defense, but you also need a good offense.
Thanks for the comment Chris. I do understand your point and I totally agree that our language is abused and meaning distorted and that it should be otherwise. But it’s not otherwise, which is the point I made yesterday on Twitter and again today.
I’d like the reality on the ground to be much different, but it’s not. So Dems must adjust to the actual “game” that’s being played. If the Republicans will use any means to gain an advantage, what is the opposing side supposed to do? Wish things were different? Yes, wish things were different but also recognize what’s happening and have a plan to counter the constant assault on truth.
When the sky is raining arrows, you need to take cover for your own survival, but then you have to come out with “guns” blazing. Bill Clinton is one of the only Dems in recent times to recognize that to win, you need great defense, but you also need a good offense.