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Watching Alan Grayson defend himself against the likes of Alex Castellanos, Wolf Blitzer, Joe Johns, and Gloria Borger, with only an occasional assist from James Carville, who can’t exactly call his wife “a nut job,” I was struck by how Alan defended himself from the false equivalence attack of the punditocracy. When these folks tried to establish a false equivalence narrative and attempted to characterize Alan as a “nut job” behaving the same way as Joe Wilson and the birther and death panel types, Alan defended himself by saying that unlike these folks he was telling the truth and “truth is an absolute defense.” And every time that attack came up he just wrapped himself in the truth again, and refused to give an inch to the media mavens.
I really loved Alan’s way of answering the false equivalence. And I think it should become standard with Democrats. Answering this way is terribly important because it breaks the MSM’s framing of these issues. The MSM has ceased to believe in the truth or to pursue it. They find it easier to maintain a false objectivity and to talk about process and the back-and-forth of two conflicting sides of any question. They never talk about more than two sides, and they can never abide a situation where there is only one side, because from their point of view, there is no truth, so there cannot be only one side.
What Alan did is to oppose this embrace of relativism by saying, no, I’m not the same as they are. “The Republican Health Plan is don’t get sick. And, if you do, die quickly.” This isn’t the same as Joe Wilson and nut jobs like him, because I’m not a liar. I’m not an ignoramus, I’m not deluded. I’m not fantasizing. I’m telling the truth, and truth is an absolute defense.
And, so it is!
(Also posted at the Alllifeisproblemsolving blog where there may be more comments)
5 Comments
lets, yes, appreciate your calling out the sly corporate kool-aid distributing media.
When I saw Netanyahu on Charlie Rose neatly dismiss the “fringes” of the citizenries of both US and Israel as if the moralists for peace and empathy on the left were remotely worth being equated with the liars and bloodlusters on the right. As if “centrism” … geometrically speaking … was fair and balanced justice and morality. But when you spin, and get the media drum beat going amazing how hypnotic it all gets. Group think prevails, led by slick pr propagandists.
As I watched David Gregory dig into Obama and Dem decisionmaking on Meet the Press with a haughty, supercilious zest that Tim Russert also used, which always gave me pause, like what is that “gotcha” relish about, a nasty older sibling that just knee-jerks contempt for whatever the younger sib says, just out of chronic I’m okay/you’re not role playing … and changes tone so clearly … such respect or emotional detachment for the amoralists on the right? It is about the “game” of politics and government and military destruction … and not about morality. I was so glad to hear Rachel remind Gregory that the horrifying chaos and easy target of a messy and amorally run government was not invented by Obama, but had a history of Repub greed and destruction. Gregory could only say, “But you complain about him, too.” Yes, we certainly do. But as a journalist, David, you might want to fight your own amnesia.
So the media puts a big fat corporate thumb on the scale as they relay their all so unfair and unbalanced reporting. Not just Fox, sadly. And pointing at Fox makes the other media outlets feel superior by comparison, which is dangerous. The way Dems point at the poster children of Repubs., the most greedy and amoral and jingoistic of Repubs, and congratulate themselves on being “better”. As the progressives need to call out the horrifying creepiness and double standards on the right, but there is a danger in letting the centrists and supposed left slide on their crimes, out of the same team spirit cronyism that has corrupted this country. Made us all accountable for the crimes perpetrated with our tax dollars. And the inevitable hybrids now of progressive hawks and progressive “pragmatists/apologists” maybe to be called … beginning to find strong voices.
When MSNBC touted itself for being about politics all the time — Yeah, not about the real news — I felt saddened. This is our PRIORITY … isnt’ that great? No. It is primarily about the game.
Just once I would have liked to see Jim Lehrer do a “jack benny take” at the camera when a rep from the left position was spouting creepy lies and say, “What an a**hole!!!”
Thank God we do get the moral indignation of Olbermann and Rachel and Aaron Brown and Bill Moyers. Truth to power sayers. But there is a corporate electric fence …. with everyone. Media costs. Money dilutes morality.
I have been listening to the talk about how unregulated our ports are. About how China exports to us toxic toys with poisonous paint for one example. How hamburg from Sam’s Club and God knows whee before that can paralyze you from its E-coli. And remembering how the ports and trade oversight was such an issue in John Edwards campaign and as media was voting him off the race as it had done worthy others like Kucinich and Nader all along, and yes, I see, John’s affair is a grave disappointment to his followers on a moral and emotional level, but yet again…. no one died with his personal decisionmaking …. but the moral glass house of the Repubs who are geniuses at throwing stones at others and would have made his calling out American leadership in terms of morality hollow and hypocritical and besides the issue they exploit to avoid the bigger crimes of their own …., anyway …. before we all knew Edward’s secet but saw him sinking I prayed that Obama would take the best ideas of Edwards and Hillary, Edwards had a brilliant blueprint for America on his website with pages and pages on how to protect consumers re oversight for the vast amounts being brought in to the country that were and are a danger. Maybe I should send the hard copy to BO. I am sure Axelrod has a copy, since he worked with Edwards before he went to go off to build a “brand” for others for the big win.
Enough for now. Thanks for assertions, lets. Got me thinking.
Thank you lib. The MSM gets me going too, every day. Here I’ve gone after Ceci Connolly, David Broder, and others at WaPo and sometimes people from the NYT. I usually don’t go after Fox people cause no one thinks they ever tell the truth. I was for Edwards at first. I preferred Dennis actually, but thought he had too little chance to win, so I supported Edwards until he dropped out. I never really trusted him though, don’t know why. Maybe it was his haircut. This piece was only a short drive-by for me, but I thought the central point was worth making. I’d like to see a lot more of Grayson.
Any MSM mention this? The American dollar will be so screwed.
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“In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning – along with China, Russia, Japan and France – to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar.
Secret meetings have already been held by finance ministers and central bank governors in Russia, China, Japan and Brazil to work on the scheme, which will mean that oil will no longer be priced in dollars.
The plans, confirmed to The Independent by both Gulf Arab and Chinese banking sources in Hong Kong, may help to explain the sudden rise in gold prices, but it also augurs an extraordinary transition from dollar markets within nine years.
The US discussed the trend briefly at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh; the Chinese Central Bank governor and other officials have been worrying aloud about the dollar for years. Their problem is that much of their national wealth is tied up in dollar assets.
“These plans will change the face of international financial transactions,” one Chinese banker said. “America and Britain must be very worried. You will know how worried by the thunder of denials this news will generate.”
Iran announced late last month that its foreign currency reserves would henceforth be held in euros rather than dollars. Bankers remember, of course, what happened to the last Middle East oil producer to sell its oil in euros rather than dollars. A few months after Saddam Hussein trumpeted his decision, the Americans and British invaded Iraq. “
http://www.independent.co.uk/n…..98175.html
From 2004. Iran had already announced plans for an Euro dominated oil bourse. It is not about nuclear bombs; it is about oil. There’s a surprise..’g’.
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“The Iranians are about to commit an “offense” far greater than Saddam Hussein’s conversion to the euro of Iraq’s oil exports in the fall of 2000. Numerous articles have revealed Pentagon planning for operations against Iran as early as 2005. While the publicly stated reasons will be over Iran’s nuclear ambitions, there are unspoken macroeconomic drivers explaining the Real Reasons regarding the 2nd stage of petrodollar warfare – Iran’s upcoming euro-based oil Bourse. “
http://www.informationclearing…..le9698.htm
The anti Iran rhetoric has been escalating over the past year. Here’s why.
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The Iranian Oil Bourse is a commodity exchange which opened on February 17, 2008.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_oil_bourse