Creation Of A Bad Guy

This is one of the tackiest ,wackiest bunches of chest puffery and crap I have ever seen.
First here is the proposed purpose for this:

In late January, tens of thousands of protesters marched in a Washington anti-war demonstration.....
A small group of demonstrators managed to spray-paint the steps on the west side of the Capitol. Capitol Police said the writing was cleaned off quickly.

Now here is “the plan”:
WASHINGTON — Iraq war protesters are planning to converge on Washington next month and several organizations, including the POW-MIA group Rolling Thunder, are banding together to protect sacred ground for Vietnam War veterans.
The rally March 17 against the war, organizers say, is to get under way in a grassy park near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, known as the wall.
Two veterans' groups said Wednesday they fear protesters may deface the memorial, a claim dismissed by the demonstrating groups.
"We're going there to protect our memorial and show support for our troops," said Artie Muller, founder and executive director of Rolling Thunder.

Just who do they think they are fooling? This isn't at all about them protecting the memorial. It's about possibly 2 different things. 1. Jingoistic chest puffery to the point of sickness. 2. To make the protesters suspect/make them look bad.

Graffiti is a problem no matter what. Graffiti happens at 4th of July celebrations, county fairs, concerts and for no particular reason. To tar any of the groups that go to these things with the stain of the graffitier is stretching logic to it's farthest degree.The right has some groups that aren't beacons of virtue them selves; from the Tim McVeigh style militas to the KKK, Aryan groups, Anne Coulter, the list goes on. To pretend that the thousands or millions of average Americans that are marching would do anything other than take down any idiot they caught defacing the memorial shows a lack of respect for those people that is truly appalling.

How about this:
"We're going there to protect our memorial and show support for our troops," said Artie Muller, founder and executive director of Rolling Thunder.

OUR MEMORIAL?

Now I know how they would try to wiggle out of this in a debate because it certainly is their memorial. It is also the memorial of the people marching, so just who is he protecting it from? Though they would deny it if anybody bothered to pin them down, the whole purpose of this statement was to smear the protesters. You know it and I know it.

To support the troops one might try to make sure they are used efficiently and effectively. To put them is harms way for the most minimum of time possible. The “support the troops” battle is just a nonsensical, division creating scheme. How many people really don't want the best for our troops. Our fathers, brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles. How boneheaded do you have to be to say any more than a minuscule number of people want America to lose? The battle they ignore is the battle over the proper way to fight those that would harm us. Either you want to do it the neocon way or you hate America. That crap is just spiddle running down their chin.
Screw these people and their attempt to dumb down the debate to such a degree. I am becoming quite insulted with the whole line of reasoning. They are doing notable harm to our democracy by proffering such puffery.

Terms Of Debate

One thing I have noticed but hesitated to mention is that some of the radical rights biggest flaws are the ones they so vociferously point out in others. For example Rush Limbaugh's tough unrelenting attack on drug users. While at the very time he was using drugs to such an extreme that he destroyed his hearing. Of course he was rich from despising others so he had the money to fix it.

Then how do they get away with it? Being guilty of the very thing they detest in others and not held to account? The truth is in the joke of the “liberal media”. The wingnut memes start with a blog post or a report on an opinion talk show. With dozens of right wing talk shows dominating AM radio in every nook and cranny of America at 3 or 4 hours a piece a day, it gets more fully advertised and sold than any other product in America. What they have done is ingrained the mindset into the “accepted” standard. It is a coordinated attack. It then moves to Fox News and off we go. Wait for the newest bumper sticker since “cut and run”...the new one is “slow bleed”. Soon all the sheep will be baying “slow bleed” in unison turning it into the accepted frame. Wouldn't slow bleed be what we are doing now with a war that was suppose to last 6 months...maybe? Isn't that what is happening to our treasury and our men and women in uniform? Slow bleed my ass. THEY are the ones guilty of slowly bleeding this entire country of blood and treasure. .....

Why is that not at least as reasonable of an assumption as the one the wingnuts are selling?

It is fine to tar large swaths of America as terrorist “enablers” and “appeasers” etc. They even come right out and say that ones that oppose the Republicons want America to lose. Apparently the reason we want America to lose is because we really hate Bush. Yes ladies and gentlemen this is what passes as logical mainstream discourse in America today. This kind of stuff is even happening in the halls of congress!!!! Of course we have Anne Coulter who wrote a book claiming admiration and claiming the smearing of Joe McCarthy so I guess one shouldn't be suprized.

I hate to stain wingnuts with the narrowminded brand but they seem to fit the description so well. They claim our division shows weakness to our enemies and aids their efforts. No it doesn't. Not to freedom loving people. The enemy may see it as weakness but the rest of the world sees it as strength. We have an open, robust and nonviolent debate, division and election. Just what we claim to want for Iraq and the rest of the world. 99% of the planet has no intent, and the vast majority of them no desire, to carry out a terrorist attack on America. We are certainly doing more good to our reputation and our standing among the people in the world by having an open debate on something that many people all over the globe question.

I am all for winning the war, occupation, the whole kit and caboodle. They keep saying the Democrats have no plan. Mainly because they don't like any that have been put forth so they just pretend those don't count. I want to know their plan. Win the damned thing already! Why are we going backwards?! What do we get for those lives and treasure?

I think you are losing the whole deal on a large scale and we need to move off the bubble and start doing other stuff so we can push this deal over the hill. We have been standing still too long. That makes me a terrorist enabler or a defeatist? Hardly. Those who so fully, flag wavingly, beam in defeat waving the bloody shirt and pretending it is victory would be a more apt description of the defeatist. Let's move this thing forward. I'm all for it. The thing is the conversation has to include something different..truly different...than what we have been doing because no matter what you are seeing, it doesn't look success to me. Of course, the right can't win because the socialists and the liberal media won't let them. They are the only thing standing in the way of victory. Of course they got virtually all they asked for for many years now to fight this thing. No matter, if it wasn't for the socialists and the liberal media.......

On to another meme they have ingrained into the populace. That of Bush haters. The logic runs along the line of ; those that are opposed to the neo con agenda are only opposed because they don't like Bush or they HAVE to take an opinion opposite Bush just because they hate him so. OOOOOOHHHHHH it is blind hate!!!!

First of all it is fine for them to hate all day everyday on radio stations all across every knook and cranny in America but it is considered uncouth for anyone else to hate. More of the media ingraining an accepted into the culture. Second, yes there are Bush haters. Unlike Clinton haters most didn't start out that way. George Bush's and Dick Cheney's actions bear responsibility just like anybody else. When you find someone act in a way you believe to be dangerous and harmful to the country, the feeling goes beyond dislike. If you don't like the word hate(since most of us really don't know them) use the word disdain. When you find incompetence that you find harmful you wonder when in the hell are we gonna get a break from these guys? Will our country survive this? Surely the Clinton haters can understand the feeling? The Bush hate that exists by in large comes down to a fundamental disagreement over the country and what it stands for to Americans and to the rest of the world. It is far from blind hate.

As long as they are able to frame the debate and set the terms those of us that think in a more liberal way will aways be the enemy. Actually I'm fine with that, but when you suggest that I am an intentional enemy of America I must come to the conclusion that you are a narrow minded, unthinking bloviator whos opinion is a dime a dozen. BAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH.

Disinformation(continued)

Wow! I don't have boots tall enough to walk through this manure but we'll give it a try.
This sound bite from Fox noise channels Britt Hume suggest it's time some things be said about him.

HUME: That sound bite from John Murtha suggests that it’s time a few things be said about him. Even the “Washington Post” noted he didn’t seem particularly well informed about what’s going on over there, to say the least. Look, this man has tremendous cache among House Democrats, but he is not — this guy is long past the day when he had anything but the foggiest awareness of what the heck is going on in the world.
And that sound bite is naivete at large, and the man is an absolute fountain of such talk, and the fact that he has ascended to the position he has in the eyes of the Democrats in the House and perhaps Democrats around the country tells you a lot about how much they know or care about what’s really going on over there.

The response to this outrage from the so called liberal on the “panel” isn't even worth repeating. There is an indication of how serious they take a compelling alternative at fair and balanced.

Let's just take a look at what John Murtha may do on a day to day basis in his position. First he likely gets emails from thousands of constituents and non constituents daily. As a congressman, especially one with some seniority, he would talk to the leaders of government and policy on a regular basis. He is chairman of a defense appropriations committee. He undoubtedly speaks with defense and military people on a regular basis. He has recently been to Iraq. He spoke with the the leaders of the current government.

Brett Humes claim of naivete on the part of John Murtha is certainly that of Hume himself. How dumb does he think we are? Does he have the idea that we can not examine truth? That we are going to assume that he knows and can cognate at any higher level than we ourselves can? What kind of lazy brain or brainwashed would you have to be to even begin to think that Brett Hume could have any more insight as to what's happening in the world or Iraq than John Murtha? Now you may disagree with John Murtha but to say he is naive and has no understanding about what is going on in the world defies logic.
I could not myself defend every action or policy position of John Murtha. To dismiss what he says with a screed like Humes is propaganda in its purest form. This is intentional propaganda. The aim is to create doubt in the mind. Even when those that oppose Murthas plan face the fact that it was a ridiculous thing to say there is still a bit of the stain that won't go away. They beat on this fallacy for a while and then move on to the next one. Even though they turn out to be largely or all fallacy's the stains have gotten deeper each successive time. Now they have given permission for people who can't cognitively dislike or argue with him to dislike and distrust him. The fact that it is all cognitively dissident worries them not a whit.

Cognitive dissonance is the perception of incompatibility between two cognitions, which can be defined as any element of knowledge, including attitude, emotion, belief, or behavior; in other words, it is the uncomfortable tension that comes from holding two conflicting thoughts at the same time. The theory of cognitive dissonance states that contradicting cognitions serve as a driving force that compels the mind to acquire or invent new thoughts or beliefs, or to modify existing beliefs, so as to reduce the amount of dissonance (conflict) between cognitions. Experiments have attempted to quantify this hypothetical drive.

The theory of cognitive dissonance was first proposed by the psychologist Leon Festinger in 1956 after observing the counterintuitive belief persistence of members of a UFO doomsday cult and their increased proselytization after the leader's prophecy failed. The failed message of earth's destruction, sent by aliens to a woman in 1956, became a disconfirmed expectancy that increased dissonance between cognitions, thereby causing most members of the impromptu cult to lessen the dissonance by accepting a new prophecy; that the aliens had instead spared the planet for their sake.[1]


As one of the commenter's most aptly summed it up:
Liberalism or Conservatism are absolutely meaningless. The only useful scale for measuring Government is whether it gives it’s citizens Liberty or Tyranny.
Are we more free than before 911 or has the government usurped that liberty and replaced it with restrictions on our lives? I think the answer is self-evident. You think nothing of surrendering your liberty for the illusion of safety but, I implore you to look at history and see, that it has never been for the benefit of the People. It only benefits Tyrannical governments.

The fact that these people seem to value freedom and democracy so much yet are so willing to had it over out of fear is astounding. The fact that they think they can militarily impose American style governments, culture, society, values on the people of the mideast and call that freedom creates no dissonance in their mind at all.

Fox News perpetuates misinformation.