What's the meanest, nastiest, most hateful, greediest lie you have heard from a Republican? Who is the most outrageous Republican liar and panderer (poll below)? Where does this stuff come from? What's the point?
In order to answer such questions, I have been making a collection of Republican code language and Orwellian Newspeak, and their shameful and bizarre lies, on dKosopedia, but I can't keep up with them all. The pace of lying has accelerated greatly since the Health Care Town Halls in August, in accordance with the Bill Kristol Imperative to kill Health Care at any cost.
I almost hate to say this, but by bringing all of this together, I find that it is starting to make sense to me. No, I'm not in any danger of buying into any of it, but it makes my mind feel slimy just thinking about how evil people can be.
Would anybody like to help? (Yes, I know that I am asking you to get your mind slimy, too.)
- Do you know how bad this has become?
Do you know how bad it has been since Jackie Robinson said of the 1964 Republican National Convention that he "had a better understanding of how it must have felt to be a Jew in Hitler’s Germany"? If not, please take a look at the Code Words and Lies and Lying Liars pages (links above). Don't try to read them straight through. That's too much. Dip in here and there, or skim. You can come back for more after you recover from the first dose.
OK, if you did that, we all understand what we are talking about. We have some idea of how pervasive and evil the Republican Southern Strategy is, and has been for nearly half a century.
- Did you know it was that bad?
I know that you have heard some of these lies, but did you know how many there were? How evil? How organized and intentional?
How about your friends? Do they know?
- Would you help collect and document this stuff?
We can use this collection to demonstrate to others the nature and severity of the problem, and use the collection to motivate allies (actual or potential).
If you are working on Health Care or Global Warming, don't stop that to do this. If these lies motivate you to work more on the issues, or donate to others doing such work, thank you.
- Why aren't the MainStream Media calling out this nonsense?
DKos is, and MSNBC, Comedy Central, and some other sites, shows, and publications, but most pundits treat this is a non-story, something We Don't Talk About.
What I am asking for is not just help with a pet project, but help changing our entire political discourse. There are many ways to help.
- Tell your friends.
- Tell the media, and demand honest coverage.
- Learn more yourself, and apply it to issue campaigns.
- Write Diary Entries on new lies and emerging liars.
- Collect examples and add them to the pages.
Adding new entries yourself is the best way to contribute to these pages and to dKosopedia in general, but you can just send me links to articles and videos with the most egregious examples, or put them on the Talk pages.
But collecting this stuff isn't the goal. Using it against the liars and for the people is.