Funkspiel Denial (posted June 25, 2003)

[arendt]

Funkspiel Denial
by arendt (June 25, 2003)

Are you baffled by the increasingly counter-factual behavior of
the Democratic Party? Here is an explanation that fits the facts.
Unfortunately, it reflects poorly on the current leadership of the
party.

Consider the political process as a bunch of encoded radio
messages between spy headquarters and their agents in
enemy territory during a war. This is not too far from the reality
of today's US political scene, where media exposure is everything,
the spin-meister is king, and at least one side knows they are
playing for keeps and knows how to play dirty.

Let's review the most familiar historical example of such a contest,
the British/German spy/code battle during WW2. The Germans
used the Enigma coding machine, which they considered to
be un-crackable. The British attacked the German spy/code
system by unconventional means, including Polish spies stealing
an Enigma machine, and eccentric mathematicians like Alan Turing
inventing computer science. The result was the Ultra intercept system,
which used the earliest computers to exhaustively search for code keys,
something the Germans had dismissed as unthinkable. Ultra gave
the outgunned British just enough of an edge to hold off the Germans.
But that edge could have evaporated an instant if word of Ultra
technology leaked to the Germans.

Using Ultra, the British learned of every spy parachuted into
England. They captured them upon landing, and made them
an offer they couldn't refuse: execution for spying, or feeding
false information back to Germany. In an era where long-
distance communication across enemy lines was only
possible by radio, the art of spoofing the enemy with false
broadcasts was state-of-the-art. The Germans called it
"funkspiel", literally a radio game.

By 1941, the British were "running" the entire German spy
network in England, plus reading the effects of their false
information with the Ultra code-breaking machines. During the
V-weapons blitz of 1944, they "played back" phony damage reports
that caused the Germans to change their target coordinates to
farm fields outside of London, sparing the city massive damage.

----

With that history in mind, let's return to the enigma of the Democrats.
By applying large amounts of money and new (public relations)
technology, the radical right, in alliance with the corporations, has
"cracked the code" of American democracy by brute force. They just
threw enough resources at the system of checks and balances of
the American Constitution to overwhelm its designed-in security.

With the hijacking of the Constitution, the Democratic Party has been
rolled up, just like the German network in Britain. First, the money boys
simply bought the media and any for-sale Democrats outright. That's the
equivalent of stealing not only the coding machine, but also the code key
lists for all time.

Then, with the media to legitimize their fabrications and plenty of
corporate money to bankroll it, they began to "run" their own funkspiel
on the Democratic Party. They called it the Democratic Leadership
Council (DLC). It contained the rightmost elements of the party, like the pharisaical Holy Joe Lieberman and the pro-business southerners Gore
and Clinton. The pronouncements of these faux Democrats were played
up by the media to make them sound credible on topics that were
anathema to traditional Democrats: NAFTA, GATT, no peace
dividend after the Cold War, Shock Therapy for Eastern Europe's
economy, ending Welfare, privatizing government, and on and on.

For ten years, the Democratic Party has claimed to be waiting for the
democratic system's self-correcting mechanism to kick in; but, at some
point in the farcical Starr-chamber investigation and impeachment circus,
it should have become apparent to any thinking Democrat that
1) the press was no longer a disinterested and objective reporter,
but rather a partisan attack machine; and 2) the Democratic Party
was cowed, rather than indignant about this.

The theft of the 2000 election by right-wing Congressional aides
flown in to "riot" and the Supreme Court committing treason
should have set off every alarm bell in the country. Instead,
the media and the DLC Democrats were busy telling everyone
that conciliation was needed.

Ever since then, the media has covered George Bush's sorry
ass and informed the rank-and-file Democrats that they were,
in Stalin's phrase, "a dying class". As Hannah Arendt has explained
this phrase meant that this class was marked down for extinction
by Stalin.

The DLC Democrats continue to counsel the Repulblican-lite strategy
that cost them both the 2000 and 2002 elections. Why does any
patriotic American listen to the DLC? Its like the German army trusting
Hitler after Stalingrad and D-Day.

Here's the answer/explanation to that question: funkspiel denial.

I can't even claim its my own idea. In Neal Stephenson's typically
over-the-top satire, he describes why someone who has been
funkspiel-ed will be in a constant state of denial. In his example,
a fictional aide to General MacArthur explains, in salty terms,
why the Japanese can't admit their codes have been broken:

...."The General feels that the Nips will never learn about Ultra.
....Never. Why? Because they are incapable of comprehending
....what has happened to them. The General has speculated
....that he could go down to a radio station tomorrow and
....broadcast a speech announcing that we had broken all of
....the Nip codes and were reading all of their messages, and
....nothing would happen. The General's words were something
....to the effect that the Nips will never believe how totally we
....have f___ed them, because when you get f---ed that badly,
....its your own goddamn f---ing fault and it makes you look
....like a f---ing shithead."

...."Imagine this...All the top generals and admirals of Nippon
....parade into the room in full dress uniforms and bow down
....solemnly before the emperor. They have come to report on
....the progress of the war. Each of these generals and admirals
....is wearing a brand new "hachimaki"** around his forehead.
....These hachimakis are printed with phrases saying things like,
....'I am a dipshit' and 'Through my personal incompetence I
....killed two hundred thousand of our own men' and 'I handed
....over our Midway plans to Nimitz on a silver platter.' "...That's
....what it would look like for the Nips to admit at this point in the
....war that we have Ultra."

....---
....** "...those white headbands that the Nips tie around their
.... foreheads...with the meatball and the Nip characters
.... printed on them..."
........ - Neal Stephenson
........ "Cryptonomicon"


Isn't this a perfect portrait of the Democratic National Committee?

It cannot publicly admit that corporate money and super-rich
reactionary money (e.g., Richard Mellon Scaiffe, Coors
Brothers, etc.) has subverted the entire democratic process
in America.

It cannot admit that the American electorate has been fed
false reports via a corporate-controlled news media that
crucified Clinton and Gore and gave a free pass to George
Bush.

It cannot admit that the Democratic Party has been completely
co-opted by vast amounts of corporate money fed through the
DLC, and that most of the Democratic Party has its strings
pulled by the same bagmen who pay George Bush for obscene
tax breaks and criminal rollbacks of environmental rules.

It cannot admit that it has been out-spent, out-fought, and
out-thought by the reactionaries that liberals love to caricature
as stupid and lazy.

In short, the Democratic Party, and American democracy are
currently losing this political war on a strategic level. If nothing
changes, the Repulbican Party will reduce the remaining
strongpoints of democracy at their leisure, one at a time, with
overwhelming superiority. Witness the brawl about fillibusters
and Orrin Hatch's transparently hypocritical rush to change
the rule about Senatorial "holds" on judicial nominees.

----

But, an objective analysis of the situation does not necessarily
lead to total despair.

Today's Democratic Party has one defense against funkspiel
that was unavailable to the Germans, but it is missing one
asset that the British possessed.

The asset the Democrats are missing is real leadership, true to
the ideals of this party of the vanishing middle class. The available
defense is the Internet.

England was saved because Winston Churchill, a true patriot
who was quite clear about the nature of the Nazi menace,
replaced the decent, but clueless, Neville Chamberlain as
prime minister.

Churchill was able to appeal to conservatives and liberals
to pull together. He was also able to break down the suffocating
conventionality and class distinctions of the leadership of
the British government and military establishment, bringing
energetic leaders to the forefront and cashiering or side-tracking
hidebound do-nothings.

People call the Democrats "spineless", just as they called
Chamberlain an "appeaser". In today's nine-way presidential
candidate cat-fight, no-one matches Churchill's combination
of mission-awareness, experience in high government office,
outspoken iconoclasm, and credibility with the military.

Among the nine Democrats, Kucinich and Dean have the mission
awareness and iconoclasm, but lack the experience and military
credentials. Kerry has the experience, credentials, and credibility;
but so far, in spite of his reputation as a risk-taker, he has avoided
iconoclasm. Edwards has little experience and is way too comfortable
with the adventurism side of the military. Liebermann and Gephardt are
simply plants from the other camp. Sharpton and Moseley-Braun are on
ego trips.

The Democrats badly need a genuine and credible leader instead
of a poll-reading gutless wonder. They need someone who has the
guts to offer a new version of "only blood, sweat, toil, and tears".

The defensive asset the Democrats do have is the means for obtaining
true information and for disseminating that information - the Internet.
In fact, the internet has already blown the funkspiel for anyone with
the willingness to read the media coverage from other English-
speaking countries. (When the Financial Times says, "the lunatics
are running the asylum", the game is up.)

Howard Dean is the most skilled candidate at using this medium.
Organizations like moveon.com are credible balances to the funkspiel
emanating from the DLC. The internet does for the Democrats the
equivalent of filling in the English Channel. A constant stream of true
information is available from people directly targeted by the corporate
money machine; and, when mass demonstrations can make a difference,
the Internet can mobilize these troops for defense.

But, this is guerilla warfare - unconventional, asymmetrical. Churchill
was very big on spying, guerilla operations, and secret warfare.
This is a quality that seems almost totally lacking among the stultifyingly
conventional field of democratic candidates. Now, perhaps, Senator
Kerry has his own William Stephenson ("The Man Called Intrepid" -
a rich Canadian businessman who ran the British spy network in
America from the pre-war days through 1945.) lurking in the shadows;
but recent history shows that the GOP is stocked full of CIA-alumni
associated with the rogue side of the agency (Iran-Contra).

----

To extricate ourselves from the dangerous mess we are in, we have
to turn around the leadership of the Democratic Party. Just as the
British government couldn't sail off to Canada and waltz back when
they got their act together, genuine Democrats can't run off to Ralph
Nader and hope that the Democratic Party somehow muddles through.
The Democratic Party is our established base. Yes, it is corrupted.
But the corruption is obvious for all to see. We need to root out the
corruption, change the strategy, and go over to the attack.

So, I invite you to send your Democratic elected official a hachimaki.
Here are some appropriate slogans:

I screwed the American workers by voting for NAFTA/GATT.
I handed Clinton over to impeachment to save my ass.
I voted to shred the Constitution because I was afraid.

As far as I can tell, Senator Robert Byrd is the only Democrat who
has a hachimaki on right now. It says: Live Free or Die.