The Pathos of Denial

You know as far as being honest about the role of the Koch brothers in Scott Walker’s anti-union efforts, it’s been more than somewhat amusing to see the elaborate kabuki dance of denial, self delusion and double talk that has emerged on the right since the Madison protests began. It seems that some of my good friends on the far right, a few who can clearly be classified as members of the fringe element, have worked overtime at trying to deny the very clear, apparent and undeniable role played by Charles and David Koch in what has become a Midwestern assault on public employee unions. Now at the risk of sounding too high handed, lets all understand one simple thing: If the Koch brothers found and fund an organization like American’s for Prosperity, and that organization’s leadership publically states that it is out to cripple public employee unions, then the link is indisputable and undeniable. That link would be undeniable when viewed by any intelligent and reasonable, right thinking human person, that is. I find the inability, on the part of some of my right leaning friends, to honestly admit the undeniable, a development that for me engenders the utmost pity for them in their self inflicted plight.

For you see every time someone denies established facts his credibility suffers as a result, to the point that it can be diluted to such an extent that it can never be repaired or even restored. All this at the cost of a great effort at vigorously denying that the Koch brothers are involved with these anti-union efforts, in spite of quotes from Dave Koch himself as to their role in founding and funding AFP and of AFP’s president Mr. Phillips and his hit man Mr. Hagerstrom of their desire to “cut the unions off at the knees.” This public denial of the obvious is something that can only be classified as deep denial and severe self delusion. I am sure that there are clinical classifications for this type of behavior, but that’s beyond my pay grade and professional certification. If it’s not the aforementioned then it’s just plain old deflection or outright fraud. Either way it’s a losing proposition for those who have taken up the fight of trying to publicly disentangle the Koch brothers from events in Wisconsin and beyond. This is particularly amusing as the Koch brothers themselves have never denied their involvement, even as their water carriers have been working overtime in an attempt to do so. That said, how much longer are those who are busy talking in circles amongst themselves going to continue to fool themselves as to the degree of impact that they might be having on the current national discussion? In reality, by continuing to deny the undeniable, they have effectively removed themselves from the larger discussion and are only talking to each other and reinforcing their continued self delusional fantasies as the rest of reasonable humanity has long since tuned them out.

Perhaps this affliction on the right that is the result of the heavy involvement of the Koch brothers and other big money players in the Tea Party Movement. Perhaps it has it’s roots in the desire of the Tea Party crowd to go on believing that the “movement” is actually a genuine grass roots operation rather than an organization pumped up with the money of the wealthy and puffed up by all of the free press It has received from Fox News. Perhaps all of this big money involvement, especially the part it played in the last election, has given rise to a certain uneasiness among the rank and file of the far right, suggesting that they have ceased to be in control of their own “movement”, if in fact they ever were. That uneasiness would in fact be very hard to cope with over the long term, especially when the interests of big money leave their little allies behind as they pursue their own specific interests. If that is in fact the cause of this complicated dance of denial, then that would go a long way to explaining things. Short of that explanation, I’m not sure that another exists out there in the realm of the real world.

Steve Gulitti

3/10/11

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