1. From an article entitled Glenn Beck is obsessed with Hitler and Woodrow Wilson. (I'm just saying.):
Once you liken your opponent to the Nazis, any form of rational discussion becomes impossible. But Beck, it seems, has a Nazi fetish. In his first 18 months on Fox News, from early 2009 through the middle of this year, he and his guests invoked Hitler 147 times. Nazis, an additional 202 times. Fascism or fascists, 193 times. The Holocaust got 76 mentions, and Joseph Goebbels got 24.
The lady doth protest too much, methinks....? Blackboard Jungle!
2. "....any form of rational discussion becomes impossible."
Once you liken your opponent to the Nazis, any form of rational discussion becomes impossible. But Beck, it seems, has a Nazi fetish. In his first 18 months on Fox News, from early 2009 through the middle of this year, he and his guests invoked Hitler 147 times. Nazis, an additional 202 times. Fascism or fascists, 193 times. The Holocaust got 76 mentions, and Joseph Goebbels got 24.
The lady doth protest too much, methinks....? Blackboard Jungle!
2. "....any form of rational discussion becomes impossible."
You may remember we pretty much said the same thing back in Februrary (Two for Two: American Years of Lead).
3. Next up: Sabrina the Teenage Witch. "I am not a
4. Followed by: Hogan's Heroes, guest starring Tea Party favorite Rich Iott as the lovable Reinhard Pferdmann of the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking....
5. Saw a thing on the Washington Post where some guy from Slate talked with Todd Gitlin and whined about the Right attacking Christ Coons for his article entitled "The Making of a Bearded Marxist." He's got a point. Coons never called himself a Marxist--it was joke by friends remarking on the future divinity school student's humanitarian outlook upon his return from-- gasp--conspiracy alert--Kenya!! Maybe Beck is on to something....
Anyway, what a pussy. The Right is making hay with this because they know nobody will actually read the article and it helps them develop their narrative that America is being eaten alive from within by Socialists. Or Nazis. Catholics, Freemasons, Jews, Muslims. Whatever works.
Same reason why the Left is hammering Iott for dressing up as a member of the SS and mocking Christine O'Donnell for her confession that she had a first date on a blood-spattered Satanic altar. One spouting off about a love of freedom and the other the evils of having a wank.
Hey, one good slander deserves another!
6. Holy shit, politicians exploiting an opponent's gaffes, indiscretions and "weird" hobbies! Political partisans attacking other people with the same means they decry in their political adversaries. Hypocrisy! Distortions! Half-truths! Outright lies! Say it ain't so!
I think there is a real problem here, though.
ReplyDeleteThe U.S. is at war, and I think that ocuntries at war tend to move toward fascism. That's part of the problem with declaring wars that can't be won: wars on drugs or wars on terrorism, for example. A nation that's always at war is always under the umbrella of temptation, tempted to sacrifice liberty for freedom.
Crap, I'm right on the edge of some good metaphor here, but I can't quite get it. Something along the lines of a country's energy can only go so many directions at once: we can expand our acceptance, we can expand our geography, we can expand our economy, we can expand our might, we can expand our creativity, we can expand our understanding, we can expand our love ... but not all at once, it seems.
That wasn't a metaphor, but my almost metaphor involves this vision of a tree and a panther stretched out on a big limb that the storms can't touch.
Doesn't make any sense, but is still what comes to mind. Perhaps I'm visualizing danger protected within and waiting to strike out from the stolidness of a nation that has grown great enough to weather storms.
Or more likely, I'm full of sh^t.
Anyhows, thinks for getting me thinking, Daurade...
You're a curious dude, Gid.
ReplyDeleteI've been called worse, Daurade, even by myself :)
ReplyDeleteBTW, did you ever get my response to your Pynchon thesis? I'd forgotten about that until now....lemme know if need be and I'll send it again.
ReplyDelete