George Wallace's Heirs: McCain-Palin

Diane McWhorter, author of Carry Me Home, wrote an excellent piece in Slate entitled, "A Legacy of Resentment:Are McCain and Palin Wallace's heirs?"

I finally understand the switch of doom that tripped somewhere deep in my soul during Sarah Palin's speech at the Republican National Convention. Her rhetorical star turn—the exuberant snideness, the gut-level rapport with the audience, the frank pleasure at being a yokel on the big stage—reprised the great gifts of the politician who dominated my youth: George Corley Wallace, perpetual governor of Alabama and frequent candidate for president of the less-than-United States.

U.S. Rep John Lewis of Georgia also noticed the similarity. He issued a statement last week accusing Palin and John McCain of "sowing the seeds of hatred and division." He invoked "another period, in the not too distant past," when George Wallace "created the climate and the conditions that encouraged vicious attacks against innocent Americans who only desired to exercise their constitutional rights."

So how is Sarah Palin like—and not like—George Wallace? And how much is John McCain relying on tactics Wallace used? The answers: more than she can probably know and more than he appears to have admitted to himself.

Wallace is a pivotal figure in American politics, the man who yoked white racism with middle-class cultural grievance when the civil rights revolution and the Vietnam War protest movement provoked a (so far) permanent counterinsurgency of "real Americans." At the time of his ascendance in the 1960s as Alabama's "Segregation Forever!" executive, Wallace seemed to be on the wrong side of history, a "stumpy, dingy, surly orphan of American politics" (in the words of Marshall Frady, whose work I rely on here) standin' in the schoolhouse door of enlightenment. He turned out to be the godfather, avatar of a national uprising against the three G's of government, Godlessness, and gun control. There is ample analysis—see especially Wallace biographer Dan T. Carter, whose book I also rely on—tracing the line from Wallace to Ronald Reagan and on to Newt Gingrich with his 1994 junta. Now comes Sarah Palin.

Read the entire McWhorter article "A Legacy of ResentmentAre McCain and Palin Wallace's heirs?" here.

Lewis: "I do not regret what I said"

U.S. Rep. John Lewis on Tuesday said he had no regrets for claiming that Republican rhetoric in the presidential contest reminded him of words spoken by segregationist Alabama Gov. George Wallace —- but he admitted that he could have made his point “in a different way.”

“I do not regret what I said,” Lewis said. “Maybe it could have been said in a different way, because it was not suggesting that [Republican running mates] John McCain or Sarah Palin was closely related [in] any way to the actions of Governor Wallace.”

Said the Atlanta congressman and civil rights icon: “It was all about what I call toxic speech —- statements [and] an audience that can unleash bitterness and hatred. And I don’t need anyone to lecture me about my feelings, or what I have observed for more than 50 years.”

Last week, in the face of declining polls, Republicans concentrated on Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and what they called issues of character —- and what Democrats called “code words” for race.

Before large crowds, GOP vice presidential nominee Palin repeatedly criticized Obama for “palling around with terrorists.”

“This is not a man who sees America like you and I see America,” she said.

On Saturday, Lewis rocked the presidential campaign with his statement that McCain and Palin “are sowing the seeds of hatred and division, and there is no need for this hostility in our political discourse.

“During another period, in the not too distant past, there was a governor of the state of Alabama named George Wallace who also became a presidential candidate.”

McCain immediately called Lewis’ remarks “beyond the pale” and called on Obama to repudiate them. On Monday McCain fumed to CNN that Lewis’ controversial remarks were “so disturbing” that they “stopped me in my tracks.”

The Obama campaign said any comparisons to Wallace were out of line, but also said that “Lewis was right to condemn some of the hateful rhetoric that John McCain himself personally rebuked.”

Lewis made his Tuesday remarks at Spelman College in Atlanta, after the unveiling of a video documenting the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery march and the confrontation at the Edmund Pettus Bridge between Alabama state troopers and 600 African-American demonstrators.

Speaking with reporters, Lewis said that a comparison that wouldn’t have injected racial images would have been the McCarthy era of the 1950s and the accusations of “guilt by association” that marked that period.

Regardless of any criticism, which he characterized as overblown, Lewis said his Saturday protest had its effect. “I think it checked some of the things that had been going on. I don’t think you’re going to see people making reference to a young man who is the nominee of his party as running around with terrorists. I don’t think you’re going to have that anymore,” Lewis said.

Palin the Propaganda Pitbull Unmuzzled

From Sam Stein of the Huffington Post: "Say It Ain't So, Sarah: Palin Smears Obama With Year-Old Discredited Attack"

When the comment was first made, Republicans were eager to mold it into an electoral liability. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and the RNC called it disrespectful and unbecoming of a presidential aspirant.

But within a day, objective observers were knifing through the faux-outrage. The AP fact-checked the claim by pointing out that none other than President Bush himself had bemoaned the excessive loss of innocent Afghani lives and the setback such casualties caused for U.S. military efforts there.

And yet, the GOP couldn't and wouldn't let the canard die. One year after Obama's initial remark, the McCain campaign marked the anniversary by randomly raising it in the form of a biting press release. That charge didn't create many waves. (The Huffington Post wrote an article examining that attack as well.) But the McCain campaign kept at it.

On Thursday night, Palin brought it up directly in the vice presidential debate, and actually intensified the smear. Rather than painting the remark as a gaffe borne of inexperience, as Republicans claimed last year, Palin implied that Obama was slandering U.S. forces as little more than murderers.

Read the entire Sam Stein Huffingon Post story here.

The youtube clip was posted by Veracifier on August 16, 2007. The info tag that accompanies the clip states: "Mitt Romney recently attacked Barack Obama over his comments regarding the war in Afghanistan and the need for more troops on the ground, so as to reduce the reliance on air raids that have often resulted in Afghan civilian casualties. Romney called Obama's comments "outrageous" and "a suggestion that somehow our troops are not noble and dignified." But even a quick glance at the realities of the situation in Afghanistan shows that Romney has remarkably little understanding of the facts."

Josh Marshall from TPMv:

GOP Southern Strategy: Negrophobic Propaganda

The screen image taken from the Drudge Report delineates precisely the McCain campaign strategy for the next 30 days: Negrophobic propaganda.

First read the headlines, then read the pictures. Matt Drudge's headline in extra-large, full caps, red font states, “PALIN: OBAMA COMMENTS DISQUALIFY HIM FOR COMMANDER IN CHIEF.” Then you'll notice that Drudge has replaced Senator Obama with OJ. Coincidence? I think not.

The next line of images are of the stock market meltdown in the left sidebar; in the center column there is a side shot of Speaker Pelosi grinning; and in the right sidebar is Governor Palin winking.

Although Palin's statements are bogus and misleading at best, it fits neatly in the framework of Hitler's Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels: “Big Lie” theory. For those unfamiliar with Hitler's anti-Jewish propaganda campaigns, read the following quote from Hitler's henchman Joseph Goebbels:

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it."

"It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

Now Matt Drudge is calling the brownshirts in the Republican base. By using the propaganda technique of transference. As Drudge replaced the picture of the Democratic nominee with OJ Simpson. In doing so, Drudge layers the “big lie,” with the inborn negrophobia of the Republican base.

Rightwing Hate Machine

RAGE ON THE RADIO : What happens when America's airwaves fill with hate? BILL MOYERS JOURNAL takes a tough look at the hostile industry of "Shock Jock" media with a hard-hitting examination of its effects on our nation's political discourse.

The Reach of Talk Radio: Talk radio is loud — very loud. According to TALKERS magazine, the leading publication of the talk radio industry, Rush Limbaugh attracts more than 14 million listeners across the nation each week, one of the largest audiences in any broadcast medium; Sean Hannity, over 13 million; Michael Savage, more than 8 million.

With such a large and devoted audience, the topics the hosts focus on may significantly impact the national discussion. Media expert Kathleen Hall Jamieson noted during the last election cycle that talk radio may well wield the power to set the agenda: When something gets into mainstream media, it has a half-life of about 30 seconds. Where something that moves into talk radio can have a half-life of two or three years.

Rightwing Jihad Against Debate Moderator, Gwen Ifill

The right-wingnut jobs have their long knives out to decapitate the Vice Presidential Debate moderator Gwen Ifill. Forget the fact that Ms. Ifill is a woman, because the rightwing cry of sexism only applies to white women. They've waged similar battles against Oprah and Michelle Obama. But, the day before the scheduled one and only VP Debate, the crazies have broken-out of their asylum and ditched their straight jackets for jackboots. Read this link from today's Matt Drudge's front page is a nasty article on World Net Daily against Gwen Ifill.

Under his white robe, by the glow of a fiery cross, Bob Unruh the author of the World Net Daily hitpiece against Ms. Ifill, makes the racist undertones of his article quite clear. Don't believe me? Scroll to the bottom of the page at WND and you'll see the "related links" are almost slanderous and certainly anti-Obama. And this fool has the nerve to question the credentials of Gwen Ifill. The related offers read like links from David Duke's stormfront:

Get "The Audacity of Deceit," and learn about the looming hostile attack on Judeo-Christian values and freedoms Americans hold dear; Get Jerome Corsi's "The Obama Nation," autographed by the author, exclusively from WND's online store; "NObama" magnetic bumper sticker; Whistleblower magazine's "THE SECRET LIFE OF BARACK OBAMA".

So, consider the source of the negative Gwen Ifill press. If the aforementioned anti-Obama offers weren't enough, the WND also provides links to previous anti-Obama stories:

Another Weatherman terrorist a player in Obama campaign; Guess who recommended Obama to enter Harvard; Obama worked closely with terrorist Bill Ayers; Obama cited Ayers job as qualification to run;
Meet Obama's new Bill Ayers associate; Obama minimizes relationship with Ayers; Obama accuses McCain of linking him to 'radical'

The intimidation efforts of the propaganda arm of the rightwing noise machine is spewing their brand of racial hatred against PBS anchor Gwen Ifill. What do the wingnuts perceive as Ms. Ifill's crime? Well, first she was born black and female in the United States, so her criminal act of asking a question about black women and AIDS during the 2004 Vice Presidential Debates between Dick and John was just too much.

But the real kicker was that Ms. Ifill didn't know her place as she covered Gov. Sarah Palin's speech at the RNC Convention. The WND author states “But she also was cited in complaints PBS Ombudsman Michael Getler said he received after Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin delivered her nomination acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn., earlier this month.”

In other words, Ms. Ifill did not show proper deference to Gov. Palin. As she winced during Gov. Palin's snarky rant at the RNC Convention. Again the hitmen at WND said, “Some viewers complained of a "dismissive" look by Ifill during her report on Palin's speech. According to Getler, some also said she wore a look of "disgust" while reporting on the Republican candidate.”

Once again Matt Drudge leads the charge against black women. First Michelle Obama, next Oprah, now Gwen Ifill. The Drudge Report and the Rightwing propaganda noise machine has declared war against black women. After all it's not sexist, if it denigrates black women, since sexism only applies to white women.

Presidential Politics? US Senate to Vote on Bailout Plan

To make Republican Senator John McCain look good, the House Republicans threw their vote to humiliate Nancy Pelosi and push for a Senate vote. That way, Republican John McCain can look like he actually DID something. So, in a highly unusual manoeuvre, Senate leaders agreed last night to vote this evening on the package before the lower house has passed it. Harry Reid, the Democratic Senate leader received unanimous consent for a vote on the bail-out.

It's the same Republican dirty tricks, and the Democrats as well as the American people keep voting these greedy money changers into office.

The McCain campaign needed to do something before the Vice Presidential Gaff-off on Thrusday.

If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself.

Kathleen Parker from the National Review Online (NRO) wrote an interesting analysis of the Sarah Palin interview by CBS's Katie Couric. As you know, NRO is the late Bill Buckley's uber-conservative symposium. In her NRO article, "Palin Problem," Kathleen Parker dismantled the legitimacy of Governor Palin (or Chief Executive Palin of the Alaskan Empire). Midway through the article Ms. Parker states:

As we’ve seen and heard more from John McCain’s running mate, it is increasingly clear that Palin is a problem. Quick study or not, she doesn’t know enough about economics and foreign policy to make Americans comfortable with a President Palin should conditions warrant her promotion.

...Finally, Palin’s narrative is fun, inspiring and all-American in that frontier way we seem to admire.

When Palin first emerged as John McCain’s running mate, I confess I was delighted. She was the antithesis and nemesis of the hirsute, Birkenstock-wearing sisterhood — a refreshing feminist of a different order who personified the modern successful working mother...

...Palin’s recent interviews with Charles Gibson, Sean Hannity, and now Katie Couric have all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate. Who Is Clearly Out Of Her League.

No one hates saying that more than I do. Like so many women, I’ve been
pulling for Palin, wishing her the best, hoping she will perform brilliantly.
I’ve also noticed that I watch her interviews with the held breath of an anxious
parent, my finger poised over the mute button in case it gets too painful. Unfortunately, it often does. My cringe reflex is exhausted.

Palin filibusters. She repeats words, filling space with deadwood. Cut the verbiage and there’s not much content there. Here’s but one example of many from her interview with Hannity: “Well, there is a danger in allowing some obsessive partisanship to get into the issue that we’re talking about today. And that’s something that John McCain, too, his track record, proving that he can work both sides of the aisle, he can surpass the partisanship that must be surpassed to deal with an issue like this.”

When Couric pointed to polls showing that the financial crisis had boosted Obama’s numbers, Palin blustered wordily: “I’m not looking at poll numbers. What I think Americans at the end of the day are going to be able to go back and look at track records and see who’s more apt to be talking about solutions and wishing for and hoping for solutions for some opportunity to change, and who’s actually done it?”

Kathleen Parker's article is a must read! Continue reading the entire article entitled "Palin Problem" here.

Palin Propaganda Edward Bernays-style

Governor Sarah Palin is to American women's freedoms and liberties, what breaking the gender taboo on cigarette and tobacco usage to women's health. Equally as deadly and deathly marketed. In the sweet name of Jesus during the Easter Parade commemorating the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, Edward Bernays persuaded women to smoke. George Hill, the president of the American Tobacco Company, to gain half of the market share to sell cigarette smoking to women. Much like the Republican Party's selling of Sarah Palin, the myth and the narrative. She gets women excited and gins up support amongst the Republican base. Beware, Mrs. Palin is just as toxic and deadly as the cigarettes that the manufacturers sold American women for decades. They dressed-up tobacco in a pretty package with lipstick and pretty face. Behind the facade, however, lies the biggest health risk of tobacco addiction and the loss of millions of women's lives, slowly over time. It's all about packaging and marketing, substance and consequences be dammed.

Edward Bernays even called cigarettes as "torches of freedom" for women. They symbolized little penises and now with smoking, women could control and have their own. This image and symbolism sold to women for years, Virginia Slims devised a cleaver campaign to coincide with the Women's Movement by saying "You've got Virginia Slims now baby, you've come a long long way." They even used vintage photos of oppressed women juxtaposed with glamorous models.

Unfortunately, American women are gullible and will fall for this marketing prestidigitation..........and poof! Up pops Sarah Palin, moose hunter and hockey mom. Like the debutantes that Bernays brazenly displayed smoking cigarettes, Palin supports teenage pregnancy, no time off with a special needs infant, no health care for mothers and infants......Sarah Palin is against EVERYTHING that the Women's Movement worked so hard for.

According to Noam Chomsky, Edward Bernays was one of the early founders, gurus, of the public relations industry...It was understood, both in Britain and the U.S., that people have won too much freedom for the state to repress them by violence, and therefore, both in Britain and the U.S., the two most democratic countries, there was a growth of the public relations industry, to try to control attitudes and beliefs, since you can’t control people by force. And Bernays was a leading figure.

Bernays' first great achievement: A public relations campaign trying to get women to smoke. So he had models walking down Fifth Avenue smoking cigarettes and showing how it makes you beautiful and slim. We can’t estimate how many tens of millions of people he managed to kill by that, but a substantial number. And that put him on the map.

From Smokey Imagery and the 7 Deadly Myths by Liz Jones: For as long as any of us can remember, the deep-pocketed tobacco industry has bought and sold the imagery of cigarette smoking. Image one: the independent, tough, leather-skinned cowboy. Image two: the thin, liberated woman enjoying an active, love-filled life. In fact, the tobacco and public relations industries have been instrumental in defining how females perceive smoking and how society perceives women who smoke.

The 1929 Easter Parade in New York City marked a magnificent triumph for the tobacco industry in its ability to manipulate women and foster their addiction to a deadly habit. Promoted as a publicity stunt for "female emancipation" in these post-suffrage days, the parade featured a contingent of New York debutantes marching down Fifth Avenue while openly lighting and smoking cigarettes. It was the first time most Americans had witnessed any woman who wasn't a prostitute smoking in public.

What the bold debutantes didn't know was that their expression of "freedom and equality" was orchestrated by George Washington Hill of American Tobacco and Edward L. Bernays, public relations mastermind and nephew of Sigmund Freud. In addition to boosting sales for American Tobacco's Lucky Strikes, the demonstration succeeded in breaking the taboo of women's smoking.

Often cited as one of the most ingenious and effective PR stunts of all time, the parade is viewed by some as a coup that launched a distinctly new American industry and further reinforced the deceptive power of PR flackery.

Mass Media Propaganda

QUESTION: You write in Manufacturing Consent [(Pantheon, 1988)] that it's the primary function of the mass media in the United States to mobilize public support for the special interests that dominate the government and the private sector. What are those interests?

CHOMSKY: Well, if you want to understand the way any society works, ours or any other, the first place to look is who is in a position to make the decisions that determine the way the society functions. Societies differ, but in ours, the major decisions over what happens in the society -- decisions over investment and production and distribution and so on -- are in the hands of a relatively concentrated network of major corporations and conglomerates and investment firms. They are also the ones who staff the major executive positions in the government. They're the ones who own the media and they're the ones who have to be in a position to make the decisions. They have an overwhelmingly dominant role in the way life happens. You know, what's done in the society. Within the economic system, by law and in principle, they dominate. The control over resources and the need to satisfy their interests imposes very sharp constraints on the political system and on the ideological system.

QUESTION: When we talk about manufacturing of consent, whose consent is being manufactured?

CHOMSKY: To start with, there are two different groups, we can get into more detail, but at the first level of approximation, there's two targets for propaganda. One is what's sometimes called the political class. There's maybe twenty percent of the population which is relatively educated, more or less articulate, plays some kind of role in decision-making. They're supposed to sort of participate in social life -- either as managers, or cultural managers like teachers and writers and so on. They're supposed to vote, they're supposed to play some role in the way economic and political and cultural life goes on. Now their consent is crucial. So that's one group that has to be deeply indoctrinated. Then there's maybe eighty percent of the population whose main function is to follow orders and not think, and not to pay attention to anything -- and they're the ones who usually pay the costs.

Source: Excerpts from Manufacturing Consent; Noam Chomsky interviewed by various interviewers; Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media, 1992

GOP Attack Machine

As he bids to be president, Barack Obama is feeling the force of the mighty Republican propaganda machine. TV and radio hosts, authors and well-funded lobby groups have joined forces in a sophisticated and aggressive smear campaign. Paul Harris, from across the pond at the UK Guardian reports on the attack dogs

The Republican war room in Denver looked harmless. It was on a busy road in a neighbourhood of modest motels and petrol stations. Only a handmade sign, emblazoned with an arrow and the words 'John McCain', pointed the way.

But looks can be deceiving. More than two dozen Republican staffers were camped in Denver last week, spearheading the latest assaults on Barack Obama who was addressing the Democratic convention nearby. 'We came here to piss the Democrats off,' said one Republican aide with a grin.

They have largely succeeded. Each day new adverts have hammered a relentless drumbeat of negativity, painting Obama as too liberal, too inexperienced and practically a danger to America's future. Leading lights of the Republican universe have paraded in front of the cameras in a disciplined display of party message-making. A typical performance came from former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani. 'There are still a lot of serious questions about Barack Obama's preparedness to lead the country,' Giuliani said, before stepping aside to showcase the latest ad on a huge flat-screen TV.

The ad attacked Obama as being so ignorant of foreign affairs that he was virtually a security threat himself. It touched on scare issues such as Islamic terrorism and Iranian nukes. Then it represented Obama's positions on national security as naive and weak. 'These are contrast ads,' Giuliani said afterwards. 'And both sides do them.'

That is only half-true. Democrats do launch attack ads and campaign negatively but no one does it like the Republican party. Under a succession of dark geniuses, the party has perfected the black art of negative campaigning. It has created the most effective attack machine in the Western world, with the sole purpose of destroying opponents and winning elections. For opponents it is a source of shock, misery and more than a little envy. Its tentacles stretch from the McCain campaign into the murky corners of talk radio, the internet and shadowy groups willing to use any outlandish smear.

Now that machine is focused with laser-like intensity on Obama. The clamour is loud and shrill: Obama is vain, inexperienced, liberal and dangerous. It is backed by a clandestine chorus whispering that he has a secretive Islamic past and it uses racially loaded language. It is also only going to get louder. This week, as McCain and the Republicans gather for their party convention in the Minnesota city of St Paul, the noise will become deafening. It has one purpose - to keep the White House in Republican hands at all costs and against the odds.

Read the full article, by Paul Harris, here.

Book of the Week

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The Republican Noise Machine: Right-Wing Media and How It Corrupts Democracy By David Brock

Scared4America strongly advocates reading, researching, and critical thinking. David Brock over at Media Matters for America use to be one of the rightwing mouthpieces. Today, however, Mr. Brock is an advocate for the truth. The truth, according to Nazi Propaganda Minister Joesph Goebbels “ is the greatest enemy of the State.” In other words, if the truth is the only antidote to the Republican big lies. It's like throwing a bucket of cold water on the Wicked Witch in the Land of Oz. The truth melts the big lie.

The big lie is spun an propagated through the media. The lie becomes perceived as true, while the truth is threatened by the fiction. The big lie theory, according to Joseph Goebbels simply states, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” Guess what, the big lie works. It worked in Nazi Germany, it worked during the Red Scare of 1919 in the USA, it worked during the run-up to the war in Iraq. Plain and simple the big lie works, until the cold bucket of truth water exposes the big lie for what it is.

David Brock's website Media Matters and his books Blinded by the Right and the Republican Noise Machine offer a a cold bucket of truth to the rightwingnut windbags of propaganda and fear mongering.

In David Brock's article entitled “The Mighty Windbags,” published in Salon Magazine in 2004, he describes the “powerful propaganda organs of the Republican Party.” Brock asserts that “the important sectors of the political media -- most of cable TV news, the majority of popular op-ed columns, almost all of talk radio, a substantial chunk of the book market, and many of the most highly trafficked Web sites -- reflect more closely the political and journalistic values of the Washington Times than those of the New York Times.” The “journalistic values” of the Washington Times, according to Brock, are “governed by a calculatedly unfair political bias [rightwing] and that its journalistic ethics were close to nil.”

Scared4America likens this politically motivated bias and the lack of journalistic integrity to that of Edward Bernays or Joseph Goebbels propaganda.

David Brock wrote, ... People ask me, a former insider, how the Republican Right has won political and ideological power with such seeming ease and why Democrats, despite winning the most votes in the last three presidential elections, seem to be caught in a downward spiral, still able to win at the ballot box but steadily losing the battle for hearts and minds. While it is not the only answer, my answer is: It's the media, stupid.

When I say this, in a more respectful way, to folks outside the right wing, I usually get either of two responses. Those who receive their news from the New York Times and National Public Radio give me blank stares. They are living in a rarefied media culture -- one that prizes accuracy, fairness, and civility -- that is no longer representative of the media as a whole. Those who have heard snippets of Rush Limbaugh's radio show, have caught a glimpse of Bill O'Reilly's temper tantrums on the FOX News Channel, or occasionally peruse the editorials in the Wall Street Journal think I'm a Cassandra. They view this media as self-discrediting and therefore irrelevant. They are living in a vacuum of denial.

Those who understand what I mean are either members of the media itself, have read media-criticism books or Internet sites devoted to the subject, or are in the political trenches every day dealing with the media. The gap between those who recognize right-wing media power for what it is and those who don't is wide and deep, as if they inhabit parallel universes. The gap is dangerous to democracy and needs to be closed.

We at Scared4America say, pay attention and stay alert to the lies and media deceptions.

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