Hitler will at any rate go down in history as the man who made the City of London laugh on the wrong side of its face. For the first time in their lives the comfortable were uncomfortable... It was a great step forward.Yes, like all other so-called progressive intellectuals, George Orwell hated his country so much that he praised the dictator trying to destroy it -- just as today's liberals never cease their idolatry of Osama Bin Laden.
I'm lying, of course.
George Orwell detested Hitler and risked his life in the fight against fascism. I yanked the above words out of context in order to demonstrate Oscar Wilde's observation:
Quotation can be slander
If you gerrymander.
The trick is easy and effective. That's why the right does it all the damn time.
I make this point as a response to the right-wing spin machine's attack on Senator Barbara Boxer. Her remarks to Condi Rice made perfect sense -- when viewed in context. Indeed, Boxer was downright eloquent. Yet sans context and rearranged, her words were made to seem heartless.
The best writing on the matter comes from Brad Friedman, here and here.
But the Rovian hordes are not the only ones at fault here: Even the New York Times has transfigured Boxer into a heartless harpy.
This sort of attack keeps Democrats and liberals tied up in mental knots. Why does Hillary Clinton seem to triple-think every word before allowing the emission of a single sentence? Because she knows that attackers will study every phoneme looking for a weak spot. Every Dem in the public eye must constantly asks himself or herself: "How can I phrase what I'm about to say in such a way that I cannot possibly be miscontrued?" Any idea forced through that strainer will end up sounding -- well, forced and strained.
This type of attack works. At least, it has worked in the past. Our dire current situation may have created a wiser public.
What kind of person routinely engages in such tactics? Who are these people? Twenty years ago, they did not exist within our major media; today, they are the media. How did they achieve their august positions? Those who sneer at the notion of conspiracy should explain how dozens of right-wing hacks can spout the same meme at the same time, often in the exact same words, cued by an unseen conductor. That chorus of calumny testifies to the existence of an arrangement -- of a conspiracy.
I'll let Orwell have the floor again. This time, the quote will reflect his actual views. These words appeared in his Notes on Nationalism:
Much of the propagandist writing of our time amounts to plain forgery. Material facts are suppressed, dates altered, quotations removed from their context and doctored so as to change their meaning.
8 comments:
-> What remedy ?
Remarks like Boxer made are innocent as you pointed out, Joseph. The recipient, in this case, Rice, must "pretend" she is emotionally wounded in order to get sympathy from other easily wounded, fragile weasels. It appears to me as if most of our politicians have the emotional scope of a spoiled 4-year-old.
I think you mean Boxer, not Pelosi.
I was originally inclined to agree that Boxer's comments were out of line. After putting her comments in context, though, I agree with you.
Rice is very good at playing the victim, which is what she did here.
Boxer is right, too. If you look closely at how Bush Administration officials have discussed the casualties incurred, you can detect a calculus which rarely addresses the loss of life either on the American or Iraqi side.
What you will commonly hear from White House is that the "investment" is worth it. Never do you hear any deliberation about the morality of killing innocents to reap the benefits of that investment.
Oy! That's why one should not post during insomniac moments. I am so sorry for the error, which arose after I re-read (with bleary, half-asleep eyes) some of this blog's older material on the new Speaker. I've made the correction.
i would add to your final orwell quote that it is essentially the definition of fraud, as per de la vega's instruction, with the intent to mislead. as emerged in that interview with de la vega, propaganda IS fraud.
but to more directly address your question of what has happened, i would submit that the horrific explosion of exploitation of the first amendment, geared directly toward this program of propaganda, came about with the abolition of the Fairness Doctrine in 1985.
http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/F/htmlF/fairnessdoct/fairnessdoct.htm
Bobby Kennedy Jr agrees. this should be a huge part of what we lobby our congressional reps to push for with regard to the free press issues, in addition to media ownership and net neutrality. that push should be solidly three-pronged.
recovering the fairness doctrine would force these flaming propagandists to some accountability, and would allow those who are so slimed to confront their accusers.
the article linked to above points out that the doctrine had some detractors in the journalism community, and understantably so. however, a recovery of the doctrine that also addresses those concerns is vitally necessary to rid ourselves of this slime machine joe is reminding us of here.
Make sure you have a double expresso before reading this post.
The Whitehouse necons have enlisted the media successfully to continue their war against political dissenters such as liberal Dems. I have no doubt that these verbal attacks on dissenters will escalate into other kinds of attacks on Dems, liberals, dissidents in the coming months as Bush/Cheney pushes this country into war with Iran and then uses the new nuclear war (and it will use nuclear weapons) as his reason for implementation of martial law that will coincide roughly with the begin of this new war with Iran (and syria). Allowing the Dems to "take back" the House and Senate only serves to give these folks to plan out the upcoming war which Seymour Hersh and others have already written is signed off and in play.
It won't matter the Dems have won the midterm elections because the neocons/Rethugs took control and fundamentally enabled the President to "take charge" as "commander in chief" should martial law be declared. so the midterm elections only served to buy these forces more time to plan out the new war in Iran and use this war as the reason to gut the US Constitution/bill of Rights and declare martial law. March/April is the timeframe, folks, my best guess and for the NSA/CIA censors reading this blog, I have no access to any of your classifed info/analysts, this is a calculated guess. We are in the last days of Rome before the fall of the US to the rightwingers who have been planning decades and chomping at the bit to transform this country into their vision as stated in the PNAC mission statement.
By Rice shifting the focus of the Iraqi "surge" of US forces to a petty personal fight between Boxer, she continues the vicious slander war on liberal Dems. Her scowl on her face,the frown, shows she is at war with Senators that express their disagreement with the Iraqi "surge". Gates' argument that troops will be withdrawn once the additional "surge" in troops in Iraq succeeds is ridiculous and meant to pacify the couch potatoes and the 25% of bush core supporters.
unfortunately, Sen Boxer is at the top of the neocon's "hit list" after Wellstone. Since the neocon's have failed to have some tragic accident like a Wellstone style plane crash happen to Sen Boxer, they continue their war of slander and verbal attacks via their friendly media which has been transformed over the past 30 years as a national asset by the CIA such that the national mainstream media is "CIA friendly" and presents the neocon/gov/conservative rightwing values/views/attacks/slant on news.
the media is used to continue the war on Dems and liberals, particularly Sen Boxer, Sen Feingold, Speaker Pelosi, Congressman Waxman, Berman and others.
Reagan's dismantling of the "Fairness Doctrine" ushered in a new era "unfair and unabalanced news" or legalized bias in the media. check out
"With Friends Like These: The Demonization Of Nancy Pelosi"
http://scootmandubious.blogspot.com/2007/01/with-friends-like-these-demonization-of.html
and
"Why Is The Media So Eager to Undermine The Democrats?"
http://scootmandubious.blogspot.com/2006/11/why-is-media-so-eager-to-undermine.html
It's a repeat of a variation of Goebbels' attacking the Jews as the source of Germany's problems and for causing Germany to lose WWI--the next step will be to strip away civil liberties and other rights as has been in progress over the past 6 years using 9/11 as the reason.
Those 800 detention camps located in this country (google Halliburton and detention camp will pull this up) will be used to "cleanse" this country of "traitors" who disagree with our great President and his cronies policies and war hobbies. Instead of playing with trainsets/lego sets, Bush/Cheney/Rice use the war on terror as carried out in Iraq/Iran as their personal hobbyhorse of sorts not caring if real human beings get blown to bits or maimed or how much suffering takes place. It's all theoretical to them anyway.
Hope this doesn't happen but it's been in play really since 9/11.
If the neocons have their way, the 2008 elections will be irrelevant.
By then, we will have started a war with Iran, personal privacy will be nothing but a fond memory, the National Guard will be expanded and used as a National Police Force (SS) to enforce martial law, and a military draft will be in place.
PNAC is their dream. They are not about to allow a silly little Presidential election to change it. In fact, I find it very likely that LIEberman will be installed as the VP and logical successor sometime this year. Any major Democrat who opposes him will be predictably labeled as a dissident and of course, an anti-semite.
anti-semite.
To the point of this thread, these thugs did not achieve their influence by being imaginative. No. They simply found the lowest common denominators of racism, bigotry, and fear and successfully shoved them down the throats of the American populace - about 49% of them, that is. We know what happened to the other 5-6% of the "vote."
I think this attack on Senator Boxer is a sign of increased movement to the next Stage. rhetoric. They are practically begging Iran to attack, thus justifying "retaliation" on our part. And they are doing it with with unparalleled arrogance - still. Yes, Still.
It's almost as if the script as already been written, but they're forced to maintain the charade of a Democracy for just a little while longer.
Kim in PA
Remember "Flipper?"
From the San Francisco Chronicle, September, 2004 ---
"Republicans have hit the flip-flop charge hard. The Republican National Committee produced an 11-minute video, widely distributed on the Internet, which features dozens of seemingly inconsistent Kerry statements and the soundtrack to the 1960s television show "Flipper.'' Bush supporters distributed Kerry flip-flop sandals to delegates at the GOP convention last month, the Bush campaign produced a Kerry flip-flop game for its Web site, and the president brings it up almost every day on the campaign trail."
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