It has been an interesting summer for Keith Ellison.
The Congressman for Minnesota's 5th district has been a favored and continual target of the right-wing drool and crayon crowd, and in the last week or so, the spittle has been flying hard and the scribbling has been furious. Their fevered frenzy achieved a measure of vindication; the latest fabricated outrage got a nod, wink, and tickle from the lame stream media as it got picked up and run through a cycle.
And if one wasn't careful in perusing the news, that might be all that gets noticed: the drummed-up noise, the smear job, and the underlying chance to recycle the hysterical "he's black, he's Muslim, he's a BLACK MUSLIM" meme. Your Curmudgeon cannot help but think the noise is intentional, and even necessary. Without all the noise, a progressive, populist signal would be there, in the news. It wouldn't be nearly as loud- but it would be there.
That progressive, populist signal -what Ellison is actually doing, and trying to do- tells a vastly different story than the drool and crayon noise contingent's distortion. Ellison signed onto a growing list of legislators who want to pursue impeachment of Snarling Dick Cheney this summer. That is a symbolic move, at least for now. Still, as the criminal Republican regime's utter contempt for rule of law becomes more transparently obvious, that symbolic move might get real traction.
Ellison is also championing legislative reforms which would prove to be a boon to the finances of the middle- and working- class people. He's pushing legislation which would reform bankruptcy law to help people avoid losing their homes, and legislation which would reform the mortgage lending industry to end predatory lending practices. That's American Dream stuff, there, and Ellison is at the vanguard.
Hmmm, you don't suppose that the actual agenda Ellison is following -one of accountability to rule of law, of reforming industry practices that prey on the vulnerable- you don't suppose that agenda is what is driving the need for the noise, do you? Those reform-minded initiatives would get the notice of the corporate interests who exploit those practices. It's a sure bet that those interests don't want their scam to get busted, and if they can smear one of the reformers to discredit the initiatives, they'd leap at the chance.
Creating that distracting noise is no problem. There will always be the haters agitating, sometimes even being financed to agitate. That stream can get tapped at any time, perhaps by a local think-tank plant columnist, perhaps by Drudge, and find luft in the corporate controlled lame stream media. Voila! The noise is created, and the signal is drowned out.
Who cares about those legislative initiatives? Hell, who has heard about them- when the far more salacious noise is so prevalent?
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