It had been suggested that I transform some comments I left on Newsvine.com into a full fledged post, so here it is. The original story on which I left comments (and the comments themselves) can be seen here, as "Obama Furious with the Truth—again".
Prologue
Sher Zieve is a Newsvine user and conservative blogger for the New Media Alliance, an "issues site" based in Connecticut that was founded by Heritage New Media Partners, to "promote and defend traditional social, political and economic principles." In fewer words, she's a member of the conservative blogosphere and can be found in certain venues expressing opinions in service of her beliefs. As is typical with conservative media ventures, NMA's goal is not to report news with an eye towards neutrality or even to publish editorials with the intention of fostering useful debate, but exists expressly to push a conservative point of view to "balance" a perceived bias in the media without any regard for avoiding flawed arguments or adolescent behavior.
There are at least three NMA writers currently either syndicating their content on Newsvine -- some of which I have found on sites such as newsbusters.org, or contributing original material. Shar Zieve is one, Warner Todd Huston is another. In October of 2008, Frank Salvato -- the managing editor of NMA member The New Media Journal was reprimanded for violating the Newsvine Code of Honor for seeding NMA material for which he is associated with. Gary Schneider, "founder and director" of NMA said on a NMA blog that his organization ran into problems this year with "ad hominem attacks and regular threats of censorship." This is important as my comments which will be reproduced below in modified form (original material here) directly address the usage of other logical fallacies which run the full spectrum.
While Schneider claims that NMA "was Kicked off Newsvine with no explanation" in January of this year, there is ample evidence that NMJ editor Salvato has a record of ignoring warnings from Newsvine staff over usage policy violations and has been punished at least two separate occasions. This leads me to believe that either Schneider was simply unaware of what was really going on, or that he was deliberately misleading NMA readers with his blog simply because his writers were being held to a level of accountability that he himself is not used to, and does not apply to his staff. In fewer words, they broke the rules, didn't get their way, and Schneider obviously wasn't happy about it.
May 17th
On May 17th, Sher Zieve published a short editorial on Newsvine entitled "Obama Furious with the Truth—again." This story appears on therealitycheck.org, webcommentary.com, postchronicle.com, borderfirereport.net, isentinel.us, americannewsjournal.com, renewamerica.us, mightyright.com, newsbyus.com, americandaily.ws, newstin.co.uk, newstin.com, thenma.org, hillaryclintonforum.net, wava.com, ibelieve.com, conservativecrusader.com, and a handful of web forums. Apparently inspired by irresponsible statements made by president Bush while visiting Israel for the 60th anniversary of their declared independence. While poorly timed and misunderstood analogies like this aren't really worth discussing themselves, they help to illustrate a point in how many conservatives function today -- in that they aren't functioning so much as they are just repeating whatever they happen to hear on television.
Zieve got off to a rocky start in the very first sentence, stressing Senator Obama's middle name in a way that has become popular with conservatives wishing to infect the minds of ignorant voters by intimating that Obama was, is now, and always will be a Muslim. If you're at all rational or capable of critical thought, you may not understand why at all why that might be significant. Not until you consider that it plays into the other fears the GOP has been pushing of Muslims in general. Think of it like brainwashing voters to racially profile on the subconscious level, but substitute religion or ethnicity for race, and you're almost there.
Conservatives used the same pathetic tactics against Keith Ellison when he was running for the U.S. House of Representatives in 2006, criticizing him for wanting to be sworn into office with a Quran. Representative Virgil Goode said that using the Quran for the swearing-in ceremony was a threat to "the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America", where apparently only Christians are allowed to serve in Congress and that religious discrimination is only bad when it discriminates against Christians. According to Wikipedia, "That same day during his oath reenactment Ellison used a two volume Quran published in London in 1764 that was once owned by Thomas Jefferson and loaned to Ellison by 'the rare book and special collections division at the Library of Congress'. According to Ellison, 'It demonstrates that from the very beginning of our country, we had people who were visionary, who were religiously tolerant, who believed that knowledge and wisdom could be gleaned from any number of sources, including the Quran.'"
These incidents are anything but coincidental. They are intentional instances of religious fear mongering by demonizing people of different faiths than those with a majority following in America, not because of any perceived threat, but purely for partisan political gain. Obama, like Ellison, are intentionally associated with the Middle Eastern faith and values, whether based in fact or not, because Middle Eastern faith and values are considered a threat to American values, American faith, and apparently our national security as well. It doesn't matter that it's not true, nor does it allow a useful discussion over those thoughts to take place -- they exist only in service of political gain. If political enemies can be demonized, then they can be marginalized without having to really talk about anything at all.
When Sher Zieve repeated the president's indefensible remarks, I imagine most people simply rolled their eyes. Not many people listen to George Bush anymore, much less respect the man. Once you've said a certain number of crazy things, people tend to tune you out. But not always
The Echo Chamber
They call Washington D.C. an echo chamber, where politicians go to change the world, but only end up the ones being changed by their peers. Pressure to conform outweighs our better angels when we're insulated from real problems and our lives are reduced to giving speeches to empty chambers. The media has built itself an echo chamber, as has the conservative contingent online, and really the Republican party as a whole. Whatever the leader says is "the message", and must be repeated as often as possible no matter how silly it sounds or how bad you're getting trashed. Eventually people will begin to accept it just from the repetition, a quirk of psychology the GOP has learned to exploit very well over the past seven years.
From 2003 through 2006, right up until Republicans were removed from power in both houses of congress, "the message" was that anyone who wanted us out of Iraq wanted to "cut and run." You couldn't go five minutes during those three exceedingly painful years without hearing how Democrats wanted to "cut and run" while Republicans wanted to "stay the course." Running away sounds weak and pathetic, and will result in you being compared to little girls and gays -- two other favorite targets of conservatives who constantly wonder why they have no minority support in this country -- while sticking it out is tough and manly. The latter isn't just a message, it's literally ingrained in our society and taught to our children from birth. You can take your first steps, say your first words, ride that bike, and ace that test if you just stick with it -- just stay the course.
Sounds good, doesn't work so well in practice. It dumbs down the conversation, disallows any stray thought that kicking a mountain for the rest of your life probably isn't going to result it in going away. Wisdom and fortitude must be balanced for either to be very effective. Sticking with it is the answer sometimes, while realizing there are times to throw in the towel can save you a lot of grief and many times you life. If that weren't so, there wouldn't be such a thing as a "strategic retreat." If you sacrifice your intelligence to be just a little tougher than the other guy, you're just plain screwed.
When "the message" was written in stone by Rove and Bush, the echo chamber did its part to repeat it. On television, in print via op-ed pages and news reports repeating politicians who were dutifully repeating "the message", in blogs, and on the street. Voters played their part by buying into the message without questioning it, because questioning a message of strength signifies weakness. Or so the story goes. The echo chamber is still around today even though voters plainly rejected it in 2006. With only one exception, every Democrat that turned a red seat blue in 2006 ran against the war. They ran on a platform of "cut and run", and were rewarded for "staying the course" where it really matters: doing the right thing.
No where is the echo chamber more obvious than in the writing of Sher Zieve. In 989 words -- a total I've surpassed already -- there is nothing that can't be attributed to another right-wing blogger, a Republican politician, or a conservative pundit where virtually all smears of this nature begin their life cycle. If Senator Obama wants his administration to negotiate peacefully with countries that weren't even our enemies until this president unilaterally declared them to be, then he's an "appeaser" just like Nazi sympathizers were. Never mind that such a ridiculous statement can be shredded just by looking at the definition of these two words.
Diplomacy:
- Negotiation between nations
- Subtly skillful handling of a situation
- Wisdom in the management of public affairs
-
Appeasement:
- The act of appeasing (as by acceding to the demands of)
It goes almost without saying that the two are so far unrelated that to confusing them would signify border-line illiteracy. Although I fear drawing a parallel, I would note that the easiest way to exploit uneducated human beings is through fear. Fear of dying (terrorists), fear of change (different beliefs and religions), and fear of the unknown.
It rarely occurs to people who would act that dishonestly to think before they speak, and it often results in terrible embarrassment and shame. Ronald Reagan, hero of every Republican presidential candidate this year and the rallying cry for the conservatism of old, advocated peaceful negotiations with the Soviet Union during the cold war. Such negotiations typically result in longer lasting and better appreciated peace than conquest and nation building. Even elements within the current administration consistently advocate negotiations with Iran and North Korea over preemptive military assaults, from Colin Powel, to Rice, to current Secretary of Defense Gates.
Apparently the Bush administration, if you'd believe this line of garbage, is overflowing with traitorous appeasers and in need of some serious spring cleaning.
Living on the playground
I often wonder how it's possible to be so far apart not on the issues, but on the mentality that drives those issues. Democrats campaign on confrontation, saying things like "I welcome that debate" because they believe if a debate actually took place that only focused on the issues that voters say are the most important in polls, they'd almost win by default. Why is that, do you think? It's certainly not because Democrats have a monopoly on being right. Conservatives prefer to distract voters, and the media, from important issues because they don't have comprehensive plans to address problems. It's not because they can't create them, but because they simply don't think about it. It doesn't concern them, and why should it?
They want to talk about John Edwards' $400 haircut, and Obama's bowling, and Clinton's criminal fund raiser. The media happily complies by obsessing about those things which appeal more to our lust for entertainment than they do our interests in solving problem. The war in Iraq is pushed off the front page so that Republicans don't have to explain why we're still there, or how they plan to get us out, or why they were so sure there were WMD's in Iraq when we know there weren't. Democrats aren't allowed to challenge Republicans on those issues, where instead they are forced to defend themselves from the crazy actions of their supporters -- note I said supporters, not people who actually represent them in some meaningful way.
By being allowed to get away with that, conservative politicians will -- and consequently their echo chamber will repeat -- petty character based smears and petulant insults full of scary rhetoric that amounts to little more than playground fist-fights. In the world of Sher Zieve, there are only "leftist Democrats", "far left liberals", and "liberal elitist." Used with such frequency and intensity and in carefully calculated contexts that they have lost all meaning as philosophy descriptors. When used like this, they amount to little more than playground insults and epithets, like intentionally sounding like an illiterate moron by saying "Democrat party". Perhaps the answer is to start referring to the GOP as the Republic Party, and conservatives as far-right Republics.
Again, this is just another example of the echo chamber. It only became popular to use these kinds of slurs and petty epithets once Republicans on congress started using them in television interviews in which they would deliver "the message." And so it would go that the "Democrat party is the party of cut and run." The epithet, the adolescent behavior of scoring insult points, pounding home the message that really says "it pays off later in life to be dumb and not use your brain."
Furthermore this behavior leads to the inappropriate use descriptive labels as insults when it reaches a culturally acceptable level to degrade into 12-year-olds. We've heard more than a few times President Bush called the "worst president in history." This just rhetoric although it may not be entirely accurate, because the label is a conclusion based on facts. Facts such as a 28% approval rating that is testing the limits of historical polling. It's hard to argue that a president that is only approved of by 28% of the people is anything but one of the worst, if not the worst public servant in our short history. Perhaps that is debatable, but at least there is a valid debate there to be had. Those polls reflect badly on the president for good reason, which means there is more there than "far leftist liberals" just insulting the guy.
Contrast that with this second paragraph from Zieve's editorial from the 17th:
"Until the leftist Democrats again attempt a major rewrite of history, the documented facts are that current Democrat leaders, including but not limited to former US President Jimmy Carter, Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi and Barack Hussein Obama, have each advocated sitting down to talk with our enemies [...] Recently the arguably worst-US-president-in-history and noted anti-Semite Carter sat down "to talk" with the exiled leader of terrorist Hamas.."
There has been some justified debate over the actions of former President Carter, although no one of any integrity has ever insisted that it automatically makes Carter an anti-Semite. Quite the contrary, a majority of American Jews and Israeli's want peaceful negotiations and settlement between Israel and the Palestinians. What Carter did wasn't outside the mainstream, the actions of a anti-Semite, far-left liberal, or an extremist. His actions are actually favored by a majority of those whose opinions matter most (read: not American conservatives.)
That Zieve labels Carter in the same way Bush has been labeled shows the conservative child-like tendency to misappropriate offensive yet justified labels as weapons of insult and scorn detached from all meaning. Leftist liberals said Bush was the worst ever, so it's now fair game to pick whatever Democratic president may be most handy and throw it right back at 'em. That's living on the playground, even when such labels border on ludicrous.
It has been pointed out by myself and others once this "sitting down and talking with out enemies" message began reverberating in the echo chamber that former Republican Speaker Newt Gingrich took it upon himself to contradict current United States foreign policy on a trip to China during the Clinton administration. It had until then never been directly said that the U.S. would defend Taiwan militarily from China if they attacked. Not only did Gingrich attempt to dictate a huge change in foreign policy to China without permission against the express wishes and the sitting president, conservatives rallied around him as a hero rather than condemning him as a traitor, as they then did with Speaker Pelosi.
Glenn Greenwald wrote of this hypocrisy on wrote:
"Back then, the media treated Gingrich like he was the American Prime Minister, and his right-wing supporters had no problem with the House Speaker traveling and expressing his own foreign policy views which deviated from the Clinton administration's. Quite the contrary, many right-wing leaders -- including Grover Norquist, Ralph Reed, and Vin Weber -- went on PBS and praised Gingrich's "aggressive role in China.
To drive the ignorance and uneducated rant theme home, Zieve drops this gem in the middle of her screed: "Note: The leftist Democrats tradition is to talk with and attempt to appease enemies of the United States of America. Oddly, these same Democrats also seem to have an aversion toward meeting with supporters of the USA. Go figure."
During the Clinton administration, every military conflict enraged the Republican congress which tried to block funding for the troops in Somalia and other regions. Back then, the Democrats were the war mongers who acted without the consent of congress, that always interfered in the affairs of other nations instead of looking to our own problems first. Only now have the roles reversed and conveniently so, that Democrats now don't just want to sit down and "talk" to our "enemies" (some of whom weren't our enemies until the current administration lobbed them all together into an "axis of evil" -- anyone remember that tune?) Democrats want to "appease" them, by giving them what I do not know. Conservatives usually leave that part out once they realize they confused "appeasement" with "diplomacy."
Rhetoric vs. Reality
Another hindrance to the common conservative is understanding the difference between rhetoric and reality. When Hamas and Iran remind us that they will be satisfied with nothing less than the total destruction of Israel, it's convenient to take them at their word and use it to justify aggressive actions against them. Never mind the fact that Hamas doesn't have any particular hatred for the United States, and as a group only really has a single issue that they care about: Israel. Never mind that Iran wasn't threatening to "wipe us off the map" until the U.S. invaded, conquered, and occupied two of their neighbors and then pointed the gun squarely in their face.
There's no defending that kind of rhetoric and I don't think I've ever seen anyone who isn't sitting on the edge of a cliff argue otherwise. Demanding that conservatives recognize that there is a difference between what people say and what they really mean is always associated with defending that which is evil and wrong, though. If someone says that Iran is just puffing up their chests because the United States and Israel are puffing up theirs, that is some how defending Iran. That's what "the message" is today and what is repeated in the echo chamber.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has on numerous occasions called for the extermination of both Israel and all Western Civilization" Zieve writes, and is "also in the process of building nuclear bombs--in defiance of United Nations' mandates and the rest of the world.
It doesn't occur to war cheerleaders that the reason Iran is developing nuclear weapons is because they know the U.S. can't invade them if they have a deterrent capability, and also because they are reacting directly to the stockpile of nuclear weapons Israel has created. It's often said that Iran can never be allowed to have the bomb, because not only will it raise tensions between them and Israel, it will encourage all other Middle East nations to develop them as well. Never do you hear how none of that would be necessary or justified if Israel hadn't already started the world down that road by loading up on nukes first.
If you want to speak of UN mandates and treaties, consider that there are only four countries on the planet that have not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Iran isn't on that list because they don't actually have a functional nuclear weapon yet, but somebody else in the region (in fact there is more than one) does have nukes and refuses to sign the treaty: Israel and Pakistan.
The double standard is obvious, where the "West" sells weapons and technology to Israel, arming it against its neighbors, which cause their neighbors to arm in response (just as we would and did when confronted with a nuclear Soviet Union) but nobody in that equation accepts responsibility for the problem. The United States for that matter has violated dozens if not more U.N. mandates over the years, by the way, so it's not really reasonable to single out Iran for doing what Israel and the United States have been doing for decades themselves.
Ignorance
From the editorial:
Ahmadinejad has also stated—almost too many times to count—that his and Iran’s ultimate goal is to bring on an Armageddon scenario in order to bring back the 12th Imam (Ahmadinejad states: "Our revolution's main mission is to pave the way for the reappearance of the 12th Imam, the Mahdi") and to establish a worldwide Islamic caliphate. Islamists do not allow for compromise with infidels.
There are many Islamic societies on earth that are not threatening to wipe the United States and Israel off the map, in fact we happen to be allies with several of them and have cooperated with them in the past when it suited our needs. Statements like this can't be described as anything other than Islam-o-phobia -- pure hatred and fear of an entire religion and system of beliefs that isn't based on on reality I'm familiar with. Notice the misuse of the word "Islamists". An " Islamist" is a "scholar who knowledgeable in Islamic studies" or an orthodox Muslim, orthodox meaning "adhering to what is commonly accepted." Sound like a radical to you, or an extremist in any way? I know many orthodox Jews who would be surprised to find that simply being orthodox means you're an extremists and violent radical. To say that "Islamists do not allow for compromise with infidels" is like saying that Christians don't allow for compromise with infidels. That is a fine description for hardliner radicals like the Taliban, but it hardly describes every-day Iranians and Muslims. But it does make for good fear mongering. It opens every Muslim in the world to be hated and feared equally, kind of like Congressman Ellison.
Ahmadinejad may in fact be a radical psychotic, but a war with Iran would kill millions of Iranians who aren't, and it may in fact not even be what he really wants or thinks. But we'll never know if all we ever do is obsess over those scary Muslims wanting to be sworn in on Qurans and stuff.
More guilt-by-association
The attempted linking between Senator Obama and Ayers -- a loathsome person who has never been charged or convicted in a court of law with any wrong doing -- is of exactly the same ilk as the Wright association. But the process is really similar to what I've described above. It's not that conservatives really hate Ayers, that they fear him, think he's relevant in any way to the election. Because of what he's said, they've labeled him "evil" and by associating him with Obama, that makes Obama evil. Questioning that assertion makes the questioner evil as well, a theme that by now we should all be very familiar with.
No where do you find Senator Obama defending Ayers has McCain has defended Hege and Pat Roberts, where the latter's actions really are as indefensible as they are reprehensible. The links aren't much more than "they aren't mortal enemies therefore they must be friends." Being friends with evil, we now know, makes you evil. Defending evil also makes you evil. That's pretty much as deep as this "intellectual hole" goes.
Next comes the long-ago discredited attempts to paint Obama -- a well known and devout Christian -- as a Muslim, something Christian leaders I should think would find disturbing as it not only coops religion for political gain, but is in no small part a form of religious racism, as if being a Muslim is somehow bad all by itself. Smears and lies such as this are a large part of why Obama lost by such a large margin in poor, uneducated areas of West Virginia and other parts of the south and raises questions as to whether or not Zieve too is that ignorant, or is simply repeating information she knows to be in fact a lie.
Compare these two things and see what makes sense for you.
Glenn Greenwald, May 17th 2008:
Last week, The Financial Times highlighted some of the ugly sentiment in West Virginia against Barack Obama, including comments such as "I heard that Obama is a Muslim and his wife's an atheist." The article reported that "several people said they believed he was a Muslim." It ended by quoting West Virginian Josh Fry as saying "he would feel more comfortable with Mr. McCain" than Obama because: "I want someone who is a full-blooded American as president."
And Zieve, May 17th 2008:
"And, as usual, the dimwitted and power-elites (the "our personal power and money are worth any and all costs" crowd) are right there beside their secular Messiah Obama. And although no one else is supposed to bring it up, Obama has said his name and background--presumably his early Muslim training and upbringing--will help him to negotiate with Islamic countries. WHEW!
This is what caused Obama problems in West Virginia and is preview of what the right will do in the general election, only this is just a fraction, just a whiff of what is to come.
Finally we come to the end where Obama is declared not to "appear to be for America", something I find so baffling that there's just no way to approach it from a logical standpoint. Because Obama has been subjected to logical fallacies by conservatives unconcerned with substantiative issues -- something they can't ever win on -- he's "not for America." Being for America, as we have all learned just now, is being able to use logical fallacies and spreading character-based smears on your political opponents, because that's all there is in this editorial.
Not only is that not surprising, it's the blue print for conservative political victory. If we're talking about Ayers and Wright and lapel pins then we're not talking about the GOP keeping us in Iraq for another 100 years. We're not talking about how the conservative nominee's only plan for ending this recession is to just keep doing more of the same. There's no room for more common-sense regulation of Wall Street and the financial sector when all we talk about his John Edwards' hair and Senator Clinton's bad memory and Governor Dean's "scream" moment.
The GOP wins on these issues because these issues allow them to skate by without having to answer for their mistakes and their complete lack of foresight. Democrats don't just lose when the media and small minded pundits not just focus on, but amplify this garbage, the entire country suffers.
Republicans and Democrats alike.
If the public is presented with the facts, conservatives don't just lose in this fall election, they'll get wiped out just as they in the 2006 mid-terms. They are terrified of it, and will avoid having to answer the tough questions at all costs. They'll smile and be charming, because it's all they're good at. They equate being intelligent with being an elitist while the rest of us who have suffered under the leadership of fools beg for a visionary with a brain to get us the hell out of this mess. Maybe it's not Obama, but it's impossible to know if we allow these pathetic smears to go unchallenged. They can't be silenced with tit-far-that, but only if they are exposed for what they are.
Nothing, and I really do mean nothing will change in America from where we are today if we continue to allow our lives to be dominated by this type of garbage. The real threat to democracy isn't terrorists or economic collapse, it's our apathy towards stupidity and our treating the brightest amongst us as elitists and traitors instead of looking up to them as role models and heroes who fight with their minds instead of with weapons of death. Miley Cyrus is not a role model, a bright, well educated visionary who appreciates the power of the mind is where our future lies. Allowing this trash to exist and multiply and amplify is no different than embracing it at its core, agreeing that being smart is a character flaw and that unbounded hope is somehow a bad thing.
It's not even about the best candidate, not when we have things like this eroding our society and our hearts. Porn? Bull. Mindless zombies that repeat smears and lies and people that just don't care are what will be the undoing of us all.
I, for one, am not going to sit idly by while that happens.