|
Arnold
Schwarzenegger: Groping for the Governorship
A
behind-the-scenes chronicling of his rise to political power (this
is not a satire)
A
BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
by
Max Blumenthal
1975
Arnold stars in "Pumping Iron," an acclaimed documentary by George
Butler
about the fledgling professional body-building
scene. In outtakes later purchased by Arnold for $1 million to
cover his toochus, he explains the fascist aesthetic that would
later become so appealing to California voters, professing admiration
for Hitler and offering his critique on America: "I think
we can't live without authority," he remarked. "There's a
certain amount of people meant to be leaders, and to control, and
another
large amount, 95 percent, are followers. We have to tell (them)
what to do and how to keep in order, you know?"
1975-2001
The Fascist aesthetic is refined as Arnold pioneers
a genre of bloody action movies in which the token black character
almost invariably dies first and female characters invariably embody
either damsel in distress or vixen archetypes. Arnold also manages
to find time outside his busy groping schedule to deliver a drunken
toast to former SS Nazi war criminal Kurt Waldheim and meet with
Austrian neo-fascist leader Jorg Haider, who gained influence by
blaming immigration for Austria’s budget woes in the mid-1990’s,
a tactic Arnold would later employ to great effect in California.
May 24th, 2001
In a secret meeting at the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly
Hills, junk bond salesman Michael Milken, former LA mayor Richard
Riordan and Arnold meet with Enron CEO Ken Lay to hear his ideas
on how best to deal with the energy crisis. A week later, Gov.
Davis meets with Bush at Century City Plaza Hotel and demands that
the president impose federal price caps on electricity prices,
which Enron was manipulating. Bush refuses. Davis plummets in the
polls. You figure it out.
2002
Arnold no longer looks good with his shirt off and launches
a political career, embarking on a successful campaign for Prop.
49, a feel-good ballot measure mandating after-school programs
for underprivileged kids. To this day, not a single child has funded
for one of Arnold’s after-school programs. As governor, will Arnold
actually fund his own proposition? Call it "Every Child Left Behind."
For the prop 49 campaign, Arnold heaped $600,000 on uber-consultants
George Gorton and Don Sipple, both veterans of Pete Wilson’s campaigns.
In 1997, Don Sipple was forced to resign from his political work
briefly when Mother Jones magazine revealed his history as a serial
wife beater. According to testimony by Sipple’s two ex-wives, he
frequently punched them, humiliated them, and stuffed his second
wife’s face in a rug. In 1994, Sipple was paid $150,000 of money
intended for earthquake victims to make a campaign ad for then-insurance
commission Chuck Quackenbush. Sipple is Arnold’s current media
director. Mother Jones also revealed in 1997 that George Gorton,
Arnold’s current chief strategist, rents property he owns in downtown
San Diego to a porn emporium called Pleasureland. Pleasureland
is part of the empire of Reuben Sturman, the world’s largest distributor
of porn, who was linked to the mafia by Janet Reno’s Department
of Justice. During former San Diego mayor Susan Golding’s downtown
cleanup campaign, Pleasureland was allowed to remain in business,
ostensibly because Gorton was Golding’s chief strategist and ex-boyfriend.
January
2003
During a lunch at the Peninsula hotel in Beverly Hills,
American
Media Inc. aptly-named CEO, David Pecker, who owns
tabloid magazines the Star and Globe and the National
Enquirer,
told Arnold’s workout mentor Joe Weider "Joe, we've done enough
on Arnold. We're going to lay off of him. We're not going to pull
up any dirt on him." Soon after the lunch, Weider sold his
fitness publications Flex, Men's Fitness, Shape, and Muscle & Fitness to Pecker. To this day, Arnold has been unscathed by the tabloids.
April 10, 2003
As the recall effort begins to gather steam, Arnold
meets with Bush advisor Karl Rove. Top White House officials claim
nothing political was discussed during the meeting.
That same month California Republican State Senate leader Jim
Brulte is accused by Democrats of blocking a compromise on Davis’
budget proposal. On his website, Brulte touts himself as Karl Rove’s
"brains and wizard in California" and claims they talk by phone
once a week. As the budget stalls, Davis plummets further in the
polls. As I can attest, Brulte has been a mainstay at Arnold’s
campaign appearances.
July 2003
The recall qualifies. Though Republican operatives solicited
Arnold first to be the recall’s sugardaddy, he refused and passed
the baton to US Rep. Darrell Issa.
August 2003
In a post-modern beer hall putsch, Arnold declares
his candidacy on closet Republican Jay Leno’s Tonight Show, surprising
even his top advisors and stepping on the face of Darrell Issa,
who had bankrolled the recall. Issa tearily withdraws from the
race a few days later.
Later
that month Members of Mexican-American civil rights group Mecha
reveal Arnold’s membership in US English, an anti-immigrant
group headed by neo-confederate publisher James Lublinskus and
founded by John Tanton. Tanton is the godfather of the modern anti-immigrant
movement, founding 13 organizations that range in ideology from
nativist to openly white nationalist. As I discuss in my article
vigilante injustice for salon.com, (LINK)
Tanton has heaped over a hundred thousand dollars on three anti-immigrant
vigilante groups patrolling the Arizona border with firearms to
detain undocumented immigrants by force. After the Arnold/Tanton
tie is revealed, Lublinskus resigns but Arnold defiantly retains
his US English membership and steps up his attacks on SB 60, a
bill allowing tax-paying undocumented immigrants to have driver’s
licenses. Mecha is subsequently smeared by Bill O’Reilly of Fox
and Mickey Kaus of Slate.com. O’Reilly and Kaus label Mecha --
the Mexican-American equivalent of the Negro College Fund --
a racist
separatist outfit and attempt to highlight its links to Democratic
candidate Cruz Bustamante. Bustamante slips in the polls. The US
English issue fades.
This month Arnold kicks his sub-mental campaign into high gear
and goes on the offensive, attacking Native Americans for not "paying
their fair share" (ever heard of Wounded Knee, Arnold? Sand Creek?)
and criticizes Bustamante and McClintock’s support for Native American
sovereignty. Arnold surges ahead in the polls and embarks on a
bus tour through the California hinterlands called "The Running
Man." As Arnold exploits his celebrity, he is greeted at each stop
by throngs of bleary-eyed somnambulacs, drooling like zombies in
a George Romero movie. According to ABC News, one-third of Americans
suffer from Celebrity Worship Syndrome, a fascination with the
rich and powerful that can become a potentially dangerous disease.
October 4th, 2003
Over 1000 LA Times subscribers angrily cancel
their subscriptions after the paper publishes testimony from 15
women alleging they were groped, humiliated and sexually threatened
by Arnold. Meanwhile, Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Weisenthal
Foundation, who addressed the 2000 Republican Convention, remains
an apologist for Arnold’s sympathetic comments about Hitler. Hier
has lavished himself with millions of dollars in donations from
Arnold. That evening, Fox’s Mad TV provides Arnold the octopus
with comedic cover, featuring a Gray Davis impersonator promising
to perform oral sex on all homosexuals who apply for domestic partnership
licenses. The Davis impersonator continues: "And for all you lesbians
-- my wife Sharon has nice, big hands."
October 6th, 2003, Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement
I
fast and wonder if Californians will fall for the Fascist Aesthetic
manifested in Arnold, the Teutonic myth-god projected by the Republican
propaganda machine. Will the sexual molestation charges actually
stick? The Hitler admiration? The anti-immigrant, anti-indigenous
race-baiting? If Arnold manages to grope his way to the governorship,
is it an indictment of the California public at large?
A
BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY *
* * Max
Blumenthal is a writer living in Los Angeles. His work
regularly appears in Salon.com, The American Prospect and The Washington
Monthly. He is a regular guest commentator on Ian Masters’ "Background
Briefing" Sundays at 12pm on 90.7 KPFK Los Angeles
|
