A World of Lies
I'm back at the Why Box, as I think of it. I always return there. Why, why, why. I need to know. Here I am again, trying to figure stuff out. Today's concern: why do Republicans do what they do? I know, it's a big question. This could be like climbing Mt. Everest. But I still want to know why.
I don't usually behave like such a masochist, but one does need to be informed and considering the opinions and beliefs and activities of your political opponents is part of that. You can't strategize against them if you don't know what they're thinking, how they're thinking. So I surfed some right wing online publications. (Pass me the bromide, will you? I feel ill from this.)
What the stuff I read in these has in common is a distinct lack of reason. Conclusions are proclaimed triumphantly to follow from premises that don't add up. When challenged, no facts are offered as backup -- only angry defenses that still make no sense. The hyperbole is stunning. People who disagree are pronounced traitors. Reading their stuff made me very sad because the degree of distortion is so profound. I know that it goes into the not-very-well-educated minds of the "rubes," or who liberals think of as people easily conned (convinced) by these tricks, tactics of the right wing power structure to maintain its domination. They use an ancient political strategy: divide and conquer. You would think we would be sophisticated enough by now to recognize it and neutralize it, but human beings, uneducated, often do not realize what is in their own best interest and can be easily manipulated by more sophisticated people. Political people are very sophisticated. Educated people (the professional class), with valid concerns about the environment and the economy, are attacked as not being respectful of "ordinary Americans" (rubes) -- this is the premise of Laura Ingraham's new book. These constant attacks in the form of books and TV personalities saturate the media with disingenuous anti-liberal messages and the right wing succeeds in dividing us. In reality, working-class conservatives and educated liberals have more interests in common than the working classes have with the right wing power elite that they so foolishly trust. But the hyperbolic rhetoric of the right is designed to get the working-class guys to believe that other working, tax-paying people who care about their communities are the enemy, not the power elites waging the white collar crime spree, who also need to conceal that they are paying government to let them continue to do it. The bulk of the working-class Republicans who don't see this are just keeping the country from solving this white collar crime wave problem. Their ignorance is hurting us all. It is not the concerns of the educated people that are hurting this damned country. We need more educated people, not less. Educated people should be respected for their thoughtful caring. As opposed to the emotional posturing of the unsophisticated conservative, and more harmful, the maniuplative efforts of the right wing power structure, whose lies and distortions cause him to behave and believe as he does.
Our people are not taught to think critically. They are not taught reason and logic. They are taught revisionist history and sports. They are taught to compete in very crass ways, girls too. We are not educating our citizenry properly to create a more enlightened and equal society. That would be harmful to the right wing power structure's profits. They need cheap labor, and cheap labor is possible with a large number of uneducated people. Educated workers know how to bargain collectively to get higher, fairer wages. This is bad for the right wing power elite. We need to increase money to schools a hundredfold. Build new universities. Bring the price down to attend them. Cultivate an educated citizenry. We need a 21st century Enlightenment, here. One thing that could enable it is the internet. Why do you think that they are so anxious to consolidate media ownership again in DC? So that they can stop the use of the internet as a tool to educate citizens about how they're being ripped off. I think it's one of the main reasons. It used to be harder to get the proof. Now all you have to do is surf the web a little bit. The power elite can't control the flow of information on the internet and it scares them. They are working on getting control. This issue will not go away because there is so much money and power at stake, like so many other issues that seem so clear-cut when you look at them from the ethical viewpoint. When you instead "follow the money" or analyze them from an economic point of view, they make sense. You begin to see how the prospect of profit can wear down a poor businessman or congressman's ethics. Yes, it all makes sense. But what about the people who get screwed over? The power elite will distort their ideology (and ours) to justify whatever outrages they commit. Mostly in nonsensical arguments.
One hateful person I read was David Horowitz. After having participated in an event at Harvard with Al Franken, he complained bitterly that Harvard had given Franken preferential treatment (because of course Franken is a liberal and Harvard, alma mater of our distinguished president, is a hotbed of liberalism and a danger to the country. I'll say, if it produces people like GWB). A Harvard student, Noah McCormack, tries to use reason on Horowitz in an email exchange (scroll down to 'Harvard replies to our remarks on Franken') but elicits only a nasty anti-higher-education propaganda tirade, condemning our universities for being too liberal. Horowitz uses this headline to promote the exchange in his web site: "More intolerant college-educated dummies respond" -- an elementary school taunt. Here's an example of the kind of really persuasive reasoning he uses to respond to the student's carefully considered opinion about why Al Franken was offered a Harvard fellowship but Ann Coulter was not:
Noah: As to Mr. Horowitz's complaint that Harvard would not offer a similar fellowship to Ann Coulter, any reader of Mr. Franken's book would find the abundantly documented lies, fabrications, fantasies and libels of Ms. Coulter abundant justification for her lack of an invitation.
David: Noah, you have a lot to learn.
The conservative movement needs to spread this kind of propaganda to keep the rubes suspicious of higher education and educated people. And the powerful people hate the press. The press corps is full of educated people. The right wing has to keep a constant noise going on about the "liberal media", which is a blatant lie, in order to make their puppet working-class conservative vote bringer-inners mistrust the press. I know that other liberals out there understand this. I'm not repeating it to convince them. I am repeating it because I have to keep doing that in order to maintain my sanity. Back at the Why Box -- it's got to make sense somehow in order for me to deal with it... Why would so many people act against their own best interests? There must be some EXPLANATION!
Speaking of Ann Coulter, whose picture I was looking for because I want to draw a caricature of her, she is possibly one of the worst enemies of reason that ever walked the planet. A professional liar, is all we can say about her, discredited by her own. I stumbled on this letter (hit link in left column, 'Coulter Gets Fired.') from the editor of the National Review Online at a now inactive but still very informative web site called anticoulter.com. It's from back when Ann got fired, or rather quit in a huff, for writing that column about invading and converting Muslims to Christianity after 9/11. I wasn't really paying attention at the time, because I think the less attention paid to this shrill shill the better. But this is good. Here we have the editor of a very conservative publication saying things about Ann Coulter like:
She's a smart and funny person, but this was Ann at her worst -- emoting rather than thinking, and badly needing editing and some self-censorship, or what is commonly referred to as "judgment."
Listening to Ann legalistically dodge around trying to explain all this would have made Bill Clinton blush.
Now as far as Ann's charges go, I must say it's hard to defend against them, because they either constitute publicity-minded name-calling, like calling us "girly-boys" -- or they're so much absurd bombast.
The only difference between what we've run and what Ann considers so bravely iconoclastic on her part, is that we've run articles that accord persuasion higher value than shock value. It's true: Ann is fearless, in person and in her writing. But fearlessness isn't an excuse for crappy writing or crappier behavior.
and best of all
To be honest, even though there's a lot more that could be said, I have no desire to get any deeper into this because, like with a Fellini movie, the deeper you get, the less sense Ann makes.
And I didn't even start about the California debate last night. Just want to tell you that as a political junkie, I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was more exciting than the fights, better than any crappy football game. I think in the current atmosphere of punishing anyone who tries to speak out against the federal government, and all the secrecy in the administration, people are absolutely ravenous for legitimate debate. And tonight is the Democratic presidential debate. I'll have more to say about these later. I sense that the public is really passionate about getting the information they need to make the best decisions for their own well-being and survival right now, and that they will not have patience for candidates who do not disclose their positions on issues. As it should be.
Furthermore, I want to congratulate the American people because it appears that they are finally catching on that we have a phony liar for a president and that his policies are hurting us all tremendously. It's about time, America, that you woke up. This downslide in GWB's performance ratings seems to be sticking, not a temporary thing. Can this mean that the rubes are getting conscious? Somebody is getting a brain, or firing up one that hasn't been used in a while. People are beginning to see through the lies. Bravo, brava. Maybe there is a chance that we can end this madness and clean up the mess, if we ignore the lies and work together against our real enemies. I'll be praying for that, and nobody can stop me.
Keep hope alive. And have a beautiful day.
6:56:45 AM 
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