Establishment writers, liberal and conservative, in careering or faith-based defiance of reality, continue to frame mainstream political processes as oppositional. The ‘huh?’ head scratching over Aditya Chakrabortty’s new Guardian article starts with the sub-head:

The economic abyss is a distortion peddled by the US right and Obama’s Democrats – just like Britain’s left – need to counter the myth

Wait … wh-at? You’re beseeching “Obama’s Democrats” to what? COUNTER the myth? But, aren’t they, I mean …

Obama demands fast action on fiscal cliff
Election behind him, Obama to talk “fiscal cliff”
Obama to Discuss ‘Fiscal Cliff’ with Labor Leaders

So can it be any more obvious who is leading the campaign to over-hype a fiscal slope into a cliff? Obama! Obama’s Democrats! I can’t believe you haven’t noticed this, so I ask why the perverse denial of reality? Are you just afraid of the career consequences of ditching the liberal/conservative oppositional frame? Have you looked at the main campaign contributors (Big Finance! Wall Street!) to Obama, the Obama Democrats, and to the Republicans, both this year and in 2008? Why hasn’t that blown up your oppositional fantasy world?

What agenda are you selling, Mr. Chakrabortty? The myth that we have two parties, one of which is ‘for us’ and the other ‘right wing’? Sorry, but a President-Obama-led ‘fiscal cliff’ scare campaign is not the place to push that. The evidence emphatically contradicts your thesis. (Helpful hint: peddle that stuff over abortion or gay marriage.)

If you want the details of what the Obama Democrats have planned regarding the slope, listen to former Senate Majority Leader and Obama Democrat Tom Daschle:

“I don’t think there’s any question that entitlement reform will be a part of whatever new agreement is reached,” former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) said at an event here Thursday sponsored by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. “I do think cost containment for Medicare and Medicaid will be a very important part of the discussion.”

And when it gets to the final minutes, Obama’s Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner will be ready to clang the debt limit alarm bells:

“Geithner’s role is going to be to ride shotgun on the debt limit and make sure that everybody is sufficiently alarmed about that,” said Robert Bixby, director of the Concord Coalition, a nonpartisan advocate for responsible fiscal policy. “And that would help bring a negotiation to a conclusion.”

Or, just read Glenn Greenwald.

Like you say, we’ve all been here before, this cliff b.s. is the same as the preceding — and wildly successful for big finance and the right — bipartisan/multipartisan scare campaigns, the ones we saw in fall 2008 in the U.S. and in the spring 2010 in Britain, when

Democratic debate was railroaded; the wrong economic policy was followed – and it was all done to avert a wildly inflated threat.

Though in all three cases, a “wrong” economic policy for almost all of society was and is right, great, from the perspective of the rich, Big Finance, big banks, and the neoliberal ideologues who control the major parties in both Britain and the U.S.

Finally, Aditya, another example, your incoherent conclusion:

I can only hope that America’s Democrats learn their lesson from the British experience. Because the right here owned the language and framed the debate.

Again, uh, the opposition between the Democrats and “the right.” What agenda are you serving with that lie?

Rep. Louie Gohmert, like just about everyone else, calls the Aurora, Colorado massacre, in which at least 12 have died, “a senseless, crazy act of terror.”

However, the Huffington Post headlines Gohmert’s statements like this: Louie Gohmert: Aurora Shootings Result Of ‘Ongoing Attacks On Judeo-Christian Beliefs’. That lie is now widely echoed across the nets. For example, Steve Benen piles on at MaddowBlog: “So, in the mind of this strange Republican congressman, a madman killed 12 people because of … the separation of church and State? The First Amendment is to blame for a shooting spree in a movie theater?”

Gohmert makes no cause-and-effect statement about the Aurora incident, but does say that he believes an increase in all such senseless acts of mass murder is a result of a general decline in Judeo-Christian values here in the U.S. I personally don’t think of this as a weird, unreasonable or ridiculous point of view. I disagree with Gohmert, but think we could have a reasonable and respectful discussion on the issue.

Lying about what Gohmert said, as HuffPost and MaddowBlog and others have done, replaces that potential discussion with ridicule. Of course, if you believe Gohmert supporters — who were likely nodding their heads ‘yes’ while he spoke about the harmful effects of a decline in Judeo-Christian values — are hopeless racist lunatics, respectful engagement doesn’t matter and you can ignore this diary.

By the way, Gohmert also suggests in the interview that a conceal-and-carry law might have helped prevent the Aurora massacre, and he is surprised when his host tells him that Colorado already has such a law. So, on that issue, maybe ridicule would’ve been a sensible response, because you don’t have to bend the facts at all to get to the laugh line.

Anyway, most of us here agree that Gohmert is generally wrong and mixed-up about what’s wrong with the U.S. However, many potential allies and members of a populist left agree with his main point, about the damaging effects of a ‘decline in Judeo-Christian values,’ whatever that means (it can of course mean almost anything). Lying about what he said in that regard and then ridiculing him for what he ‘said’ is not the way to connect with those folks, in my humble opinion.

Meanwhile, New York mayor Bloomberg raises the right issue, probably the only thing we should be discussing related to the killings right this minute:

“No matter where you stand on the Second Amendment… we have a right to hear from both of them concretely… what are they going to do about guns.”

Sorry mayor, nothing from  either of them. (Those Obama and Romney press releases, by the way, generated this header from Salon: Romney ducks gun control.)

P.S. — On second thought, I think it is also useful to bring up that, based on the recent history of utterly senseless killings in the U.S. (where the alleged assailant apparently has no history of violent or disruptive mental illness, and there are no political or religious overtones to the acts), that this tragedy likely involves antidepressants, specifically the delicate and dangerous task of withdrawal. Dr. David Healy’s blog is the best place to begin exploring the antidepressant story in detail.