From the New York Times:
If the historical record runs counter to what powerful interests want you to believe, well, history will just have to be rewritten. And constant repetition, especially in captive media, keeps this imaginary history in circulation no matter how often it is shown to be false.
This is the Conservative way. After every Conservative debacle -- foreign or domestic, military or economic -- there is an brief period during which the story of that debacle is still molten and malleable. Without an agreed-upon fairy tale and a Liberal villain to blame, for a moment both the Beltway media and the Wingnut Hive Mind are in chaos. This is when the cogs and gears of the Mighty Wurlitzer are most in evidence: the interregnum during which you can actually watch the Right invent, test and discard various bullshit cover stories before settling on one that the Pig People will swallow:
- The Clinton's assassinated Vince Foster.
- Trayvon was a thug who had it coming.
- The ACA Website was Obama's Katrina.
- etc x 1 million
Of cource, since it cost trillions of dollars and got thousands of Americans killed, George W. Bush's Iraqi Debacle required a series of series of fire-and-forget alibis --
Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden are in league together and just weeks away from leveling New York City with an A-bomb
-- each of which was utterly false --
The war will pay for itself, we will be greeted as liberators and we'll be home before Christmas.
-- each of which was embraced enthusiastically --
Dubya is the greatest Murrican preznit in history and Liberal Iraq war opponents are terrorist-loving surrender monkeys who hate Murrica. Also Murrica!
-- and then discarded unceremoniously once it was used up --
The Surge worked!
-- until, inevitably, the most transparently ridiculous placeholder of all was put in play --
Who the fuck are you calling "Republican"? I'm a Constitutional Independent Libertarian Conservative Teabagger who has never even heard of George Bush.
-- long enough for a proper Liberal Villain could be framed for their disaster --
We won in Iraq until Obama stabbed us in the back and invented ISIS.
so that it can pass into the wingnut pantheon of perfidy where it will be remembered forever more as the Undisputed Truth...
...enabled every step along the way by our compliant Beltway media who are more than willing to hold out chair for the liars and lend their tattered credibility to the lies they tell.
Via Media Matters:
National Review's Lowry: Obama "Abandoned The War In Iraq." On the August 10 edition of NBC's Meet The Press, National Review editor Rich Lowry blamed President Obama for ISIS' uprising in Iraq and not leaving residual troops after the U.S. ended military action in the country. Lowry clamed "Obama never ended the war in Iraq as he said, he abandoned the war in Iraq." [NBC, Meet The Press, 8/10/14]Weekly Standard's McCormack: Obama "Didn't Want To Leave Troops In Iraq." In an August 9 blog for the Weekly Standard, John McCormack argued that Obama wasn't successful at attaining a SOFA because he "wasn't seriously pushing for one":National Review's Goldberg: "Obama Chose To Pull Troops Out Of Iraq As Quickly As Possible." National Review editor-at-large Jonah Goldberg accused Obama of presiding over the chaos in Iraq because of his decisions "directly or indirectly," which have negatively impacted the region...
Repetition is the key.
While the Left throws nickles around like manhole covers and watches one of its few, clear, national platforms slowly being gutted right before its eyes...
...the Right continues to be willing to spend whatever it takes to build the infrastructure and hire the armies necessary to buy, build, infiltrate or corrupt every major microphone in America in order to pound their square pegs into round holes on every issue that matters to them all day long, every day. for however long it takes to finally kill this country and build the unfettered capitalist theocracy of their dreams on its grave.
7 comments:
Re: that last paragraph...
Sheldon Adelson buying the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Rupert Murdoch owning half of cable news and print-online news organizations. Owners of every other major news outlet traceable to conservative voting records, donations to conservative candidates, conservative editorials.
This is your "liberal media".
It's the "stabbed in the back" narrative all over again.
"....the Right continues to be willing to spend whatever it takes to build the infrastructure and hire the armies necessary to buy, build, infiltrate or corrupt every major microphone in America..."
Maybe I'm being naïve but the fact they have to spend so much money to do this, not want to, but HAVE to keep a finger hold on power (and it is only a finger hold) is a positive thing for progressives. They can deny, re-write, shift, whatever with reality, but reality has consistently and routinely devastated conservative policy, hence the need for all their media infrastructure.
As Romney proved in 2012, most of their poison doesn't leave the buddle anymore and as it concentrates, it hurts them more than it hurts us.
So please, foreign policy-wise, keep blaming Iraq and ISIS on Obama and convince yourself that anyone NOT already 100% on your side agrees and wants boots back on the ground in central Asia. Please keep ignoring the lessons of the 2006 and 2008 elections regarding the results of Neocon Foreign Policy.
Our esteemed host does remember that the Right has almost infinitely more money to throw around than the Left (well, what passes for a Left in the USA), does he not?
"Unfettered capitalist theocracy" indeed, though of course, the actual theos of the Reactionary Brain Caste is Mammon, and always has been Mammon.
The Reactionary Brain Caste just pretends to worship the God of the Abrahamic faiths, in order to win the loyalty of the Reactionary Worker Caste.
As for the loyal, pious Reactionary Worker Caste, the kindest thing one can say for them is "Father, forgive them; they know not what they do."
The pious faction of the Worker Caste needs to heed this warning from Jesus:
"Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves."--Matthew 7:15 (NRSV)
Sorry for the multiple posts. I wish this commenting system had an edit feature, so I could condense them.
This piece stirred much thought for me.
Listening to the right media, the GOP has no chance against the Buffet and Soros. who enslave Americans.
Keith Olbermann nailed it with his show on Citizens United decision. As inflammatory as it was factual and true, down to the killing of Unions and their influence.
What we are seeing in the media began from the change of "News" not being for public good" but as a profit entertainment arena. Which brings the snake oil sales people. With the long list of Kochs, Adelsons, Langones and on and on.
the networks profit from elections. Which ever side provides the most money.
Thank you swing Justice Kennedy. And NO, the disclosure you and the other four Justices claimed would ease corruption was never to occur.
It is all about wealth "rule" no matter how horribly harmful.
Free speech has become me blogging here or perhaps writing into the local paper opinion Under 100 words. If selected by the paper and it may be edited if selected for print. I can address something they chose to let me.
*This is what serves as free speech today.
Then there is "Paid Speech" which the SCOTUS never seemed to consider.
So money is speech and corporations are people. The call for wealthy and corporations to have more than one vote is actual thought in the Conservative Christmas wish lists.
Let me end with :
The Spencer Tracy clip from Inherit the Wind movie. That movie is one of my classic favorites. My (now) adult sons were required to watch and discuss with me in their senior year of High School.
The movie also had Gene Kelly, who played a big news paper Journalist.
One of the lines Kelly had was in reply to a derogatory comment in greeting from a prosecutor.
" yes I have read some of your columns and disapprove" (para close)
Where Kelly (newshound) reply,
"it is my duty to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable"
How I admire that line in regards to a media I can only dream of?
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