If we know anything it's that we are still losing. We are losing the battle to control the MSM and the meme that they push. Two conflicting memes that have been forcefed to us are
#1. America is a Center-Right Nation
and
#2. Barack Obama is the most liberal candidate for POTUS
The contradiction screams out. One or both of these statements cannot be true simultaneously. The truth is that both of these statements are misleading. Words like Center, Left and Right are done. Their meanings have long been lost. John W. Dean highlights this shift in a wonderful chart.
This is how political views should be mapped if need be, on a XY graph not some line.
A main reason you know this country isn't center-right and that these labels are imperfect is that Republicans don't even know what they stand for (though they sure know what they're against). Using Dean's graph many would camp out under the Libertarian square while others would flood the Conservative box. Some might hang out in between.
So what Exactly is Conservatism? From Dean's great work Conservatives without Conscience:
Cut through all the smoke of conservatism and what is really left? David Horowitz...has described it as...an attitude about the lessons of the actual past. By contrast, the attention of progressives is directed toward an imagined future...In his response to the question being addressed by the Heritage Foundation conference--whether contemporary conservatism was truly conservative---Horowitz candidly answered, 'No,' acknowledging that today's conservatives are 'rebels against the dominant liberal culture'
I love comparing this to economics. Because the EXACT same thing happens over in econ that is happening with our politics. Left and Right are Supply and Demand. These big broad terms are used to categorize in a word what could be argued about for a millennium. These simplified terms cheapen the science that is economics, and the massive field of study that is politics. You'll often hear people say,
It's Econ 101: Supply and Demand
But that's not Econ 101, that's Econ 101, week 1. There's at least 12 more weeks there, and that's just your micro introduction. Don't forget macroeconomics, statistics, regression analysis, and mid level and more advanced and specialized classes of micro and macro.
In the same way, A political POV isn't a GPS location on a map. Because I write at DKos, in O'Reilly's mind I'm that guy that camped out in a tree on the Berkeley campus. I rally to ban guns and school prayer. I shepherd illegal immigrants across borders and smoke pot like a fiend. Only one of those is true. Legalize it!
I really feel almost hopeless on this one. I really don't think it will be possible for us to take the meme. We can win the election, we can affect governmental change. I doubt know if we'll be able to fight the meme war that is boxing us in.
#1 is the hot new meme. Before Obama had even won, this was being launched in the minds of a thousand pundalists. This Center Right Nation myth is an absolute crock of shit. Cenk Uygar
in his HuffPo article on Oct 23rd, America is a Liberal Country, takes a good wack at this meme...
This is an enormous story and yet hardly a peep has been heard from the press about this. In fact, quite to the contrary Newsweek just wrote a cover story on how this is still fundamentally a center-right country. On which planet? Could you have imagined the press declaring after the 1994 Republican "revolution" that it meant nothing because this was still a fundamentally liberal country?
He goes on...
You see, every member of the traditional press that just read that last sentence will rebel. "Come on, how can you say the country is not conservative? That's outrageous." Watch, I'll outrage you even more -- the United States of America is a liberal country.
Compared to some Western European countries, we could be a little more liberal. But compared to the rest of the world, it's not even close. We are one of the bastions of liberalism. In fact, the United States has almost always led the world in being progressive. We created the United Nations, we rebuilt our enemies through the Marshall Plan, we pushed for human rights throughout the world, we established the idea of freedom of speech and of the press, and the list goes on and on. We are a liberal country and proud.
Unfortunately Cenk hasn't defeated the CR Meme, as it continues to be reheated and rehashed.
Mitch McConnell uses it as a basic theme in his letter he writes to the Democratic Majority.
McConnell urged Reid to adopt a more conciliatory tone and warned him that Republicans will unite against Democrats if he does not. The letter was signed by all 40 GOP senators and two Republican incumbents who are awaiting the results of elections in Georgia and Minnesota.
"As a caucus, Republicans will insist on our basic right to participate in the legislative process," McConnell wrote to Reid. "The Republican Conference intends to protect the Senate’s history of full and open consideration of major legislation, which includes a fair amendment process and the opportunity for debate."
Boy that's strange. Checks and balances are important for a minority to have. Are you serious? What land of shared power do you live in? I seem to remember less than equitable treatment of Democrat members when DeLay ruled with an iron fist. From Robert Wexler's Fire Breathing Liberal
The Republican leadership routinely denied the Democrats access to rooms in which to hold meetings and hearings. At one point Minority Leader Dick Gebhardt was actually forced to hold a meeting out on the front lawn.
The rancorous attitude got much worse in the 109th Congress, when Republican Ways and Means chairman Bill Thomas actually called the Capitol Police to forcibly remove Democratic members of that committee from a room. Thomas, who had been elevated over a more senior Republican, introduced a revised version of a pension bill at midnight and tried to push it through the commitee the following morning. Democrats demanded time to read the ninety-page bill, but Thomas refused to delay the vote. To protest, Democratic members marched out of the room into a nearby library. Thomas then proceeded to call the police and asked them to clear the library.
It's laughable to have this Republican party talking about equity. I say, tell it to Don Siegelman.
Cenk continues to fight this myth in video and in another article... The Center-Right Myth
On HuffPo just a day ago..
There is a reason for this talking point that America is center-right -- it is a way for the Republicans to control the agenda even though they have been voted out of power. It is a warning to Democrats by the DC establishment -- you better not actually be Democrats.
They would have to be foolish to fall into this trap. So, it is likely that they will fall into this trap. You know how the Democrats are; they never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. The right time to buckle is always now. They're already doing it. After huffing and puffing, it looks like they are going to let Joe Lieberman keep his chairmanship of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee.
Someone needs to send the Democrats a memo that they won the election. But the media is sending them the exact opposite one -- you better behave like Republicans because... this is a center-right country.
I actually do have SOME hope that we can both defeat these toxic memes, and get the media sheeple and their clientele to understand they are being played. We did it with Bachmann. She was completely shunned and embarassed. But we have a long way to go, as evidenced by her re-election. Let's play a little game with the comments shall we.. can we see who can guess the next pervasive meme?
One possibility that has sprouted up is about this card check business. The expansion of the rights to unionize. Republicans including McConnell have lined up to oppose this. The new meme they are pushing is that the
average UAW worker makes $70 per Hour
That's just not true (as detailed by Brownsox)
What's the next meme, or is their another nasty one out there that I didn't discuss?
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