John,

Whatever Sam Cooke's intention, "Wonderful World" comes to mind when I consider the self-perpetuating and damaging strain of anti-intellectualism that runs through our popular culture. That particular song is like fingernails on a blackboard for me. My own favorite artists have written execrable material, so this is no indictment of Cooke.

"However, the deeper problem is that people do not take advantage of the history that is readily available."

But what would motivate people to do so? That is precisely the problem with living in a sea of historical bias and distortion. I count Jeff Greenfield to be among the more perceptive and interesting commentators on television. But I recently heard Greenfield smugly dismiss the ideas of Noam Chomsky out of hand as being radical nut fringe.

Chomsky is provocative, to be sure, but he is no more left wing nut fringe than the late William F. Buckley, Jr. was right wing nut fringe. Which raises a point I was reluctant to broach in my last post. From the creation of the Department of [so-called] Defense on 1947 September 18 to the Vietnam War, the left and right were equally complicit in the creation of the propaganda machine I have dubbed the GAPM.

By 1968 fierce opposition to the Vietnam War (mostly) from the left had broken this symmetry. It can't be said that the left, Chomsky and others excepted, renounced the GAPM. But the grip of the GAPM on the left was loosened. The Rupublicans, not having a large natural base of support, sensed a wedge issue to complement their Southern Strategy and pounced. Since the Vietnam War, the GOP has firmly held the reins of the GAPM which explains why the party with no large natural base of support has held the White House for 28 of the last 40 years.

[When you think about it, it's bizarre that a conservative party would continue to embrace the GAPM after Vietnam. Conservatives should abhor propaganda. I suppose that it is another indication, like the GOP's Southern Strategy, that the Republicans have cynically and opportunistically untethered themselves from any principles that they see as an obstacle to their pursuit of power.]

The Bush administration and its companion Iraq War have severely damaged the credibility of the GAPM, but people like Greenfield are still so lost in the fog of propaganda that they don't see that the Iraq War was 55 years in the making. John McCain, born in 1936, is fully a creature of the GAPM. (To a lesser extent, so is Hillary Clinton.) Barack Obama, for a variety of intriging reasons, is not. A certain Rev. Jeremiah Wright is one of those reasons, which is why the right has gone batshit crazy over Wright's influence on Obama.

Obama has assiduously maintained a delphic coyness about how closely his views are aligned with those of Wright. This, as you well know, has been an immense frustration to me. I honestly don't think that America has a future as a democratic republic if the GAPM isn't soon dismantled. I have good reasons for believing that Obama shares this view. But, as you point out, Obama has to get elected while sailing into the full gale fury of the GOP wielding the GAPM.

Well, I might as well relax and enjoy the show. Barack Obama is the last, best hope for America. I just hope that he is fully aware of that. (Disclaimer: In a healthy democracy this burden would never be on a president's shoulders. That's how close America is to the brink.)