Checking out at Trader Joe's

When Jane and I checked out at the grocery story in Chapel Hill on Saturday morning, the cashier commented that it looked like we were having a party. We were buying snacks and drinks for a meeting of BlueNC frontpagers later in the day.

"We're having two parties," said Jane.

"Basketball parties?" said the cashier.

"Political parties," said Jane. "This is a big year in North Carolina. Bev Perdue's not running, so everything's up for grabs."

"My mom said Perdue didn't do enough to help teachers."

Fortunately, I caught myself before saying, Is your mom a freakin' moron or does she just play one on television?... and instead offered a more gentle response. "Your mom can thank Republicans in the General Assembly for all the damage done to public schools. Perdue has done everything anyone could possibly do to keep things from getting even worse."

"Really?" said the cashier. You could hear the disbelief in her voice. "I guess I need to look into that."

"Are you registered to vote?" said Jane.

"Yeah," said the cashier. "But I never really know who to vote for until the last minute. And even then I'm not sure."

The conversation went on for another few seconds before we packed up our stuff and headed out. On the way home, Jane and I wondered how it is that we've come to live in a world where black is white, up is down, and right wing talking points so often dominate public opinion. The fact that low intelligence is a strong predictor of right wing and racist opinions explains some of the problem, but it runs even deeper.

In North Carolina, the drift toward ignorance has been fueled by the relentless pressure of Art Pope's multimillion-dollar opinion manufacturing machine, which has taken a stranglehold on much of the mainstream media. In many cases, the line between Pope propaganda and editorial opinion has blurred all the way to invisible.

And that, friends, is a sampling of what we're up against. To the extent that voters aren't flat-out ignorant, they're often brainwashed. And it's going to get worse before it gets better. Under Republican leadership, Art Pope's cronies have become part of the machinery of government itself, shaping public policy, influencing boards and commissions, and worse. They are special-interest lobbyists in every sense of the word, with an agenda that is clear as a bell: subvert taxpayer dollars to enrich private enterprise. They're skimming school funding to help for-profit charters make money. They're pushing to sell public assets so private companies can get rich quick. And they're working like hell to give Duke Energy the keys to the governor's mansion.

As Bev Perdue said in Greensboro yesterday, "We have, as Democrats, the most important ten months in our history in front of us."

You can say that again, Bev.