Word: pump
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Last week Harkin was desperately trying to pump juice into his campaign. Calling a press conference in 5 degrees weather at a sewer-construction site, he proclaimed himself "the only real Democrat in the race" and said his rivals were "all just shades of Republican policies." He accused "the Governor of Arkansas" of being too sympathetic to Japanese automobile imports. Belatedly he began running TV spots that ply the theme "I want to be known as the President that rebuilt America." Harkin thinks that as the only red-blooded liberal, he can eke out a plurality among traditional Democrats while...
...acquittal left Greeks little closer to the truth. But it did pump up the political jousting. After the verdict, Papandreou called for new elections to unseat the New Democracy government's small parliamentary majority...
BEYOND INDUCING AMNESIA, priming the symbolic pump had marvelous, if temporary, effects on how Americans saw themselves. Our technology suddenly became the best: Our smart bombs, our cruise missiles, our infrared goggles, our Patriot missiles (no Sonys here, pal) not only vanquished the primitive weapons of the Iraqis, they vanquished them humanely. Their Scud missiles hit Tel Aviv houses; our cruise missiles hit chemical weapons storage facilities...
...while our military adventures prime the symbolic pump at home, they prime the economic pump abroad, allowing capitalism to continue to reign and the oil to flow freely. At home, of course, Americans see very little economic benefit from the war, but we were feeling so damn proud of our boys and girls over there that all that money stuff did not even matter...
...PROBLEM NOW is that there are no more adequate targets for Team USA to fire on and forget. Symbolic pump-priming requires ever larger, ever more evil, targets. It was no accident that every war we have fought since Vietnam has been "the largest mobilization of U.S. troops since Vietnam." Americans are finally angry enough about domestic issues that another Panama won't do much more than raise a few pulses...