John Armstrong's Harvey and Lee

[Tracy Riddle]

Many American liberals are in love with the idea of "good government," not just as an ideal to work toward and maybe eventually achieve, but as something they think actually exists right now. These are the people who cheered "the system worked!" when Nixon resigned. They will never accept that innocent people are framed by the authorities - though it happened all the time when Henry Wade was D.A. of Dallas County, and Anthony Summers' book on J. Edgar Hoover gives many examples of the FBI doing it during his reign as Director.

The Chris Matthews types are living in such a fantasy world about the nature of power in human societies. He goes on and on about his days in the Peace Corps. Will he ever talk about the Phoenix Program or MK/ULTRA? They don't exist in his world. Technocratic policy wonks like Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes are in love with all the things that are aiding and abetting the growth of the National Security State, and they don't seem to realize it.

Then you have the people on the Right who believe in "American exceptionalism" and other infantile ideas like extreme religious nationalism, militarism, hating foreigners and glorifying rich people and big business. Between the "Right" and the "Left" it's no wonder the country is so confused on so many levels.