So, you're telling me that NPR, the station I listen to everyday -- the one with the stories major networks never bother to talk about anymore (world hunger; sober, incisive accounts of internationally important events; celebrations of the arts and artists, chronicler of America's ethnic diversity and stimulating, outside-the-box programming) is an evil organization?
And that The New York Times, despite its international prestige and history of excellence, its daily pastiche of almost all the human experiences fit to print is nothing but a biased, liberal bludgeon (Judith MIller's contribution to neo-con tumescence notwithstanding)?
That Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal policies which put unemployed Americans back to work, prevented the elderly from ending their lives in poverty and restored a sense of pride to the humbled and the humiliated were blights upon the national soul and paeans to Stalinist-brand socialism?
It's a brilliant, bold strategy, part of a greater one that patiently spends years studying human nature and gauging responses to deliberately provocative scenarios, then carefully sets explosive charges in the supporting struts of a cultural institution and, watching as each detonation frays a tendon which then unravels a bundle which then compromises a buttress which then buckles the foundations of a once solid structure, moves in and exploits the dislodged hopes in the resultant panic.
And while fear and confusion reign, what we think of as democracy becomes a thing of the past.
The Right's attack on all things "Liberal" (or on all things that "Just Aren't Them") is indeed an attack on the essential human ingredient that regulates over-indulgence and marginalizes conscience.
It is an attack on diversity, on progress, on science, on art, on all aspects of the modern civilized human being which has striven to make itself something more than a blindly aggressive force for profit and power.
It is an attack on sense and sanity. It decries charity and education. It views objectivity as weakness. It lauds the dumbed-down, unquestioning tribe and condemns the intellectually curious individual.
And it motivates exclusively through fear.
By editing reality and craftily using the bought-and-paid-for media to disseminate its message, the Right is steadily destroying the truth behind this nation's bulwarks of democracy, justifying its dangerous agenda. And all the blood spilled and tears shed trying to shave the rough edges from the human soul, to purge the instinct to trample rather than build and reach a loftier perch than that reserved for the terrorized, terrified brute that defined humanity's beginning...will have been for nothing.
To dismiss such a premise as conspiratorial muttering is all too easy. Yet, the appropriation of many an outlandish dystopic conceit has seemingly fueled the Right's actions for some time. Sales of Orwell and Machiavelli must be as high as those for Glenn Beck's "Sedition for Dummies" series.
They say history is written by the winners. But for the Right to triumph, they just need to be the ones holding the pen. And, for now, they are.
Follow Steven Weber on Twitter: www.twitter.com/TheStevenWeber
By editing reality and craftily using the bought-and-paid-for media to disseminate its message, the Right is steadily destroying the truth behind this nation's bulwarks of democracy, justifying its dangerous agenda.
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Very true. Look what our favorite magician has been up to:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/12/leaked-email-shows-fox-news-boss-slant-news/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/TomR/dumbo-is-an-elephant_b_717292_60711904.html
- Tom
fighting ignorance is often a thankless job.
your posts always make me aspire to do more.
LPS
"Poorly educated, terribly informed, intellectually deficient and downright stupid people need idols. They feel angry, frustrated, ignored, cheated and disillusioned by so much going on in American society. They find the emotional, political and philosophical rants by talk show, loud mouth celebrities matching and justifying their feelings. Of course, those celebrities work hard to fan the flames of all that unhappiness and discontent, and also perpetuate ignorance and hate. They sell stupidity to gullible dummies, teaching them who to blame for their misery.
Either they were born stupid (a harsh but true statistical reality) or the many ups and downs of life have robbed them of any critical thinking ability to see through the idiocy that these purveyors of poison peddle while making obscene millions of dollars."
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/joel-s-hirschhorn/31809/loud-talk-small-minds
very little was actually said in all of those words above.
Semper fi
Semper fi"
You a bigger f@@l than I initially thought. "Principle"? You mean like separate but equal? You spew BS about some nebulous "principal" while this country is dying, people loosing homes because of greed and sky-rocketing healthcare cost and the only answer the GOP has is tax breaks for billionaires? You're an idi@t and that why you see so much vitriol on this post. The st@pid have temporarily hijacked this nation and we ALL will pay the price. See what happened under 8 years of Bush? This time, it might be worse.
Didn't they tell you that you were serving to defend ALL Americans? Didn't they tell you that you were serving to protect All Our Rights? Didn't they tell you that you were serving to "preserve our Nation"?
Conservatives and Liberals SHOULD work together for the good of the Nation. They should be willing to COMPROMISE because that is the way to BEST SERVE the ENTIRE Nation.
Principled stands are not exclusive to the Right or the Left. It is WHICH Principles the People hold dear that should determine the direction the Government pursues.
Since "Roe v. Wade" there has been a great deal of "compromise" (by liberals) on the question of abortion and women's reproductive rights. There has been a great deal of "compromise" on Social Security and Medicare since their inception.
Perhaps the problem is "your definition" of compromise. It is not "exactly what I want, or no discussion".
There are parts of those programs that no Liberal, and no reasonable person, would want to see changed. That they will not "make abortion illegal" again, doesn't mean that there is nothing else that could be changed, just that it MUST be an option for specific circumstances. That they will not "abolish" S.S. or Medicare, isn't a sign that there is no "compromise" but that they will not inflict injury on those who it was designed to benefit.
"If by a 'Liberal' they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people -- their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties -- someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a 'Liberal,' then I'm proud to say I'm a 'Liberal.' "
Thank you for being our Diogenes, in speaking truth to power.
HOOAH!
Conservatism does NOT decry education or learning. We do decry the nonsense that is called education (feminist studies comes to mind), and the Dept of Education's dumbing down of the nation's curriculum.
We do not decry charity, being the more charitable of the two ideologies! We do decry what the government is doing while calling it charity. It is forced taxation and income redistribution!
Will that do?
Semper fi
Today instead of truth I would suggest the word bubble. Americans, all people surround themselves with what they know, support, like and dislike. Once these are set, very early for most, it becomes their shield against the world of non-truth, anything the do not agree with. Both political camps, most religions, even sex and race use the bubble to protect themselves from the truths they don't like.
So, dear reader, here are a few truths that you can swallow are ignore from the American party, an upstart, revolutionary party that will be in Control of the White House and Congress in 2013. The entire political and economic problems we are having were made, set up and thought threw by both parties and they like where America is politically, economically and divided by race, religion, sex and wealth. They like and will continue the non changes because it gives them power while nothing is done.
If you want a new truth think about the economic problem as a great chance for America. A way to rebuild, retool and reeducate this great land. Think we can, as a nation accept the challenge, or.....
Would that be the one no one can define so they make up nasty names for it? I'll bet it is.
The facts are the facts, and will remain the facts, no matter how much you or anyone else likes to pretend otherwise. People don't grow up in a 'bubble', some people just grow up being lied to, and being taught how to lie and a lot of them have gotten really good at it and joined the republican party!
Oops. The rats are abandoning ship.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40421918/ns/us_news/
- Tom