It’s deluded to imagine that human beings are rational creatures. Fearmongering works, which is why every election season campaign strategists immerse us in negative ads. You can’t reason with people in a 30-second spot, but you can scare the hell out of a significant and susceptible segment of them, altering election outcomes. The Enemy at Home, the newest tract from… return to article
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Reader Comments (10)Page 1 of 1 pagesAs it comes to light that what has been disparaged as “leftist” since Reagan rescinded the Fairness Doctrine is truly centrist despite media efforts, DiSouza finds himself competing for the attention of an ever-dwindling number of hateophiles. The good news is now that the damage they’ve wrought is undeniable, even mainstream media consumers find it increasingly uncomfortable to tolerate this fascist fringe, and are starting to abandon these polemics.
The bad news is that while the ratings at Faux continue to plummet, even a mere 30% of Americans still supporting the Administration means that the likes of DiSouza will have plenty of potential customers for the forseeable future. Our duty as patriots is to put them deeply in check and keep them there where they can do no harm. Clear, hold, and build, as it were. We must meet their every contrived syllable with truth, and never ever falter.
Posted by trippin on Jan 30, 2007 at 11:32 AM “...the folks cognitive scientist George Lakoff describes as “biconceptuals,” who lean liberal in one regard and conservative in another—uncomfortable with the war, perhaps, but equally daunted by what they view as immorality at home.”
Hmmm, I guess that could be a description of me. Very conservative fiscally, only somewhat socially. I am disgusted at much of what passes for entertainment on TV and other venues, and by the political correctness which encourages people to be offended at what could be a good laugh at ourselves. (I’m against the banning of nearly anything.)
I’m increasingly uncomfortable with the handling of the war on terror (including the name) and the mixed messages we get from D.C.
I suppose some Muslims in the U.S. are extremely bothered by the value changes regarding family, religion and morality, but so are people of other religions (and agnostics like me).
Publications and “think tanks” (misnomer) of both right and left are IMO, just creating job security with outlandish propaganda like his. (And so is the ITT writer.)
Bad news sells more books.
Posted by whattheheck on Jan 30, 2007 at 2:02 PM Lying good news like the “holy” beeble sells pretty good too. How is the writer above lying ? She nailed this little hindu neoconman faker. I heard him yesterday on NPR and he is pure Bushite garbage. What
“good news” is the media censoring ?
Posted by blondemike on Jan 30, 2007 at 4:26 PM BM,
I didn’t say anyone is lying.
My point is that so much of what’s presented as news (24/7), as a problem (Y2K, bird flu) as a scam, (War on Terror) is really manufactured to sell magazines, papers, or TV commercials.
At least this article’s headline doesn’t start with a question. I hate that!
“Will actress so-and-so have his baby?” (Oh, so much to worry about.)
Posted by whattheheck on Jan 31, 2007 at 8:17 AM Yes, I hate sentences that end with questions, don’t you ?
Posted by blondemike on Jan 31, 2007 at 4:20 PM The writer might have tossed out Russell’s one-liner about Aristotle:
“It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this.”
Anyway . . . Yes. Many of America’s right-wing propagandists do seem to be disguising their less endearing opinions. I read one Tim Wilkinon recently describe Alan Dershowitz as ‘camouflaging’ his messages. A few months ago I pointed out Sam Harris’s book The End of Faith is less about atheism than a nasty argument to justify torture. So I am unsurprised to learn D’Souza is doing something similar.
Posted by TheoPapathanasis on Feb 5, 2007 at 8:37 AM “Open discussion of many major public questions has for some time now been taboo. We can’t open our mouths without being denounced as racists, misogynists, supremacists, imperialists or fascists. As for the media, they stand ready to trash anyone so designated.”
Saul Bellow
Posted by texasindependent on Feb 8, 2007 at 11:18 AM D’Souza is so cute blaming liberals for his fears of “degeneracy” as if the right doesn’t dabble in D’Souza’s fears. Let’s see, how many religious right leaders have been caught with their pants down in awkward circumstances over the last few decades? Jimmy Swaggert, Ted Haggerd, Jim Baker, come to mind quickly.
Here’s a website listing Republican pedophiles, politicians that are (or were) in D’Souza’s party.
http://www.armchairsubversive.com/
And oh those damn feminists, Condi Rice, get married and quit your job, have a bunch of babies, do the dishes and don’t forget to kiss your husbands buttocks before he goes to work. Why did Bush ever hire her? He must be a champion of feminism, he even nominated a female Supreme Court judge.
And fornicators? Give me a break!!! Gulliani, Gingrich, are both going to run for president as Republicans and both had affairs. Gays? Plenty of them in the Republican Party, they call themselves Log Cabin Republicans. Of course most gay righties won’t come out of the closet unless exposed. And some then get “cured” ala Haggert.
But of course it’s the liberals fault that all these right wingers are gay, pedophiles, feminists, fornicators, porn lovers, these leaders of their party and ideology. Somehow liberals twisted their minds or arms or some such thing and made them do it.
Oh wait, it’s not the liberals,,,it’s the liberal media!!! Which is why when channel surfing recently I settled on FoxNews, because their coverage of Anna Nicole Smith was soooo much more conservative than those other news channels (note my tongue in cheek).
And D’Souza blames commercialism. I’m no fan of commercialism, but that’s a conservative value...they love capitalism.
It’s the same old story, blame others (in this case the liberals) for what goes wrong in your own house.
And D’Souza’s solution? Become more like Muslims? Is that what he is really advocating? It seems that’s what it boils down to. So he wants to give up (or radically alter) capitalism in order to be more “moral.” Capitalism would have to be changed with many more government regulations against everything D’Souza fears in order to mollify moderate Muslims, to get them to admire our society to hopefully then change radical Islamists. What a long stretch of fantasy conclusion for his stupid solution.
D’Souza I believe, doesn’t give a rat’s tush about Islamists. He just is trying an end around to his religious right agenda for America. An agenda his own party can’t follow.
I think all conservatives like D’Souza should just live in isolation rooms, that way they can’t see or hear all those things in the world that are to be feared. That way those fearsome things won’t be something they desire to do. The D’Souza types are basically weak and afraid, they are afraid of their own weaknesses.
Posted by Jon B on Feb 17, 2007 at 11:01 AM Like everybody, I receive forwarded letters, petitions, news articles from my friends and family. 50 percent of these forwards are right-wing, bigoted, hate-mongering pieces of garbage from people complaining about what the liberals are up to. Usually the information they pass on reveals that they barely understood, or are purposely misrepresenting the news they purport to have read. The latest went like this: An email complains that illegal aliens who get paid in cash will now be allowed to tap into our (let us bow our heads and pray to our almighty birthright) Social Security. Added to the letter was a petition requesting 1,000 names. I scanned the list of petitioners and some of the names were my family members and their friends. I decided to respond to clear up the misconception that someone who never put a dime into SS will be allowed to collect it. So I clicked the “reply all” button and told the last 25 or so people who read this trash the truth: most illegals are paying into Social Security with each paycheck, albeit, into a fake number. The point is, money is going to the government from their paychecks. The proposed law, which was not passed, would deny those folks from ever having access to that money, even if they one day became legal citizens.
Oh my gosh, you’d think I had threatened to remove the tax breaks from their megachurches! Two people who received my reply wrote in huge, colored fonts about how the Mexicans in their town won’t work for less cash than $100 a day, while their own white eighty-year-old parents can’t afford groceries on their social security. How dare the Mexicans exist in this country and who the hell do you think you are, Mitcherino, to support them? You bleeding heart liberal.
But what surprised me was this line. “You do not speak for me. Remove me from your mailing list.”
I’ve been getting their junk for years and the one time I disagree with them, they go postal and insist I stop sending them stuff.
Well, the lessons learned are very important: one...these people do not consider anyone else’s viewpoint but their own. And two… they only get their news from their e-friends, and that news is easily manipulated. There wasn’t even a reference to the news article they were citing.
These folks tell each other what they want to hear. They also all own and practice firing their guns. Some of them are out and out wackos. Whoever is elected, if he isn’t liked by the religious right, he’d better hire extra security.
Mitch
Posted by Mitcherino on Mar 1, 2007 at 12:58 PM Page 1 of 1 pages -
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