Friday, April 30, 2010

The man with the loudest voice...

...surely must have the most to say, right?



This was quite a thing to see on the tube last night. Yeah, if you just keep talking and keep that smug look on your face, you're sure to win the argument, aren't you? I mean, it works on Fox, doesn't it? Kudos to Rachel for not letting go of the reins and letting this fool hang himself with his own words. "The Southern Poverty Law Center has no credibility"??? This is what happens when you forget there is a difference between an assertion and an argument and get too used to everyone around you taking your words at face value. The guy got out 50 words for every one of Maddow's, but all he did was dig a deeper hole for himself and his own foul beliefs.

Most of the mainstream media are so in love with any loudmouthed bully that comes along that it's easy to think their vicious rants represent the views of the whole country, but it ain't necessarily so, folks. The world is heading for another shift, and we are living in interesting times indeed.

The real struggle is between those who understand language and those who labor to twist words until they mean the opposite of what they once meant. This is how good people get caught up in evil schemes. For instance, one quote Rachel pulled out basically stated that society is in danger because stupid people breed faster than intelligent ones. Now, on a surface level, I happen to believe this myself! Mike Judge made a brilliant movie based on this premise. However, the catch is that for this particular crowd, the word "intelligence" itself has been turned into a racist code word, thanks to books like The Bell Curve. (Note also, how the acronym FAIR has been stolen from the media critics in the link above by these odious Arizona racists.) I mean, we're all in favor of "intelligence", right? But when we have prominent people who do things like defining "intelligent" as "white", our language is degraded to the point where we cannot even have a conversation anymore. This is a feature, not a bug. It's intentional, and designed to divide us while the oligarchs scoop up all our resources and money with no regard for any sustainable future. And they made a lot of progress in the first 8 years of this century. But I think there is change afoot, and change is not just to be found in the form of one handsome, powerful black guy in the White House who has already made way too many compromises. Obama is just riding the wave as far as I'm concerned. It's up to us to be the rain.

The sane people of the world see serious problems and demand well thought out solutions that will not backfire in the long term. We are up against an opposition that is relentless, tireless, and has no qualms about lying through their teeth and stirring up livid, confused passions to enact their agenda. But we have integrity and a better sense of humor, which are more powerful things than they may appear to be. We are alive!

Anyway, here's part two of Rachel's interview with Dan Stein. Note how she never cuts his mike, instead she persistently and politely keeps coming back with simple questions. Bill O'Reilly is notorious for making his targets look bad by cutting them off and talking over them. Rachel Maddow doesn't need to resort to such transparent tactics; in fact, the more she lets Stein talk on and ignore her every time she asks a direct question, the worse he looks. The more these people are exposed outside of their own cozy right wing echo chamber, the better.

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