Know Your Sources, and Use More Than One!Are Our Truths True?There are some truths we hold to be self-evident: Democrats are fiscally irresponsible. Conservatives are patriots, liberals are anti-American. The mainstream media has a liberal bias. These are three biggies, three obvious truths that I have always known, what about you? These truths have been told and retold to me, in so many different ways throughout my life that I just assumed they were as true as “you can’t trust the government.” But if we examine this critically, and think about who would profit from these truths, then the evident question comes up, are our truths true? The problem is none of these truths are true. I explore each of these topics in greater depth if you want to see what I mean: "Truth" #1 - Democrats are fiscally irresponsible - NOT TRUE "Truth" #2 - Conservatives are patriots, liberals are anti-American - NOT TRUE "Truth" #3 - The mainstream media has a liberal bias - NOT TRUE So, suppose what I've said is true? How can the right get away with distorting the truth so easily?There is one thing I really admire about the right, they are really genius when it comes to public perception. I don't mean this in a backhanded way at all, they really have totally trumped liberal leaners everywhere by using three very good techniques to consistently promote their viewpoint: 1. Muddy the Waters: The right understands that you don't have to win an argument to win an argument. You just have to muddy the waters. What this means is that your facts don't have to ultimately check out, because if you can just make an argument confusing enough, the public gets disgusted with the issue altogether. The Swift Boat ads against John Kerry is a fine example of this. More and more reports are coming out proving that the Swift Boat veterans were financed by Bush backers, involve no veterans that actually served with John Kerry, that some of the veterans speaking out against him now, actually spoke of his heroism in earlier elections, involve no medical files that are actually on record, and that there is tons of evidence from the vets that were actually on the boat and in military files that John Kerry was heroic and earned his medals honorably. By the time Bush's dubious National Guard record start to get critically looked at, the attitude of the American people (including myself) is "Shut up about Vietnam already!) Even though there were never any definitive answers on either side, the Bush side won by negating the entire issue of military service, and also got to skate by a few weeks on the campaign trail without having to talk about domestic policy or their plans for the future. and that is how the "muddy the waters" technique works. 2. Gaslighting: This one truly takes the big brass ones to pull off. The right has consistently taken the very flaws about it's own party, and before they can be brought up by the other side, they pin these flaws on the "enemy". The three things I dissected above and showed, that it is actually the Republicans who are fiscally irresponsible, give patriotism a bad name, and who have a right-wing controlled media network, are labled as Democratic traits so often that everyone believes and repeats them. Worse, if a Democrat actually tries to challenge the charge, such as Hillary Rodham Clinton did when she tried to unveil the "vast right wing conspiracy," this counter charge is labled a "conspiracy theory" or just plain "nuts" so quickly by the right, no further investigation is ever made. Nobody wants to be associated with nutcases. It's a lot like the old movie "Gaslight," Republicans say Democrats are going crazy so much we start to believe it instead of thinking about it critically and unearthing the facts. 3. Stay on Message: This is the one I most wish the Democrats could do. You will hear, from all different areas of leadership, on every different TV show, from every different pundit, and in every op-ed column, the same repeated phrases and the same telling of the "story" if you will, that represents the republican party. Rich money has funneled into right-wing think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation and the Scaife Foundation, to fund right-leaning research that is then actually printed on handy cards so that pundits can bring the same message to tv shows. The Bush White House feeds 'talking point' memos that are followed so closely that you will hear the exact same phrases come out of Rice, Rumsfeld, the White House Press Secretary, and even the President, if he can remember them correctly. Wash, rinse, repeat, repeat and repeat. Staying on message is a good thing in that it shows a party that is unified and confident. But taken to this extreme, it bullies out any room for dissenting views, effectively destroying the ability of any member of the GOP to have an honest debate of policy. My suspicion that this has got to be frustrating for some Republicans is now being confirmed with the amount of Republican Senators and columnists finally questioning Bush Administration policies and the direction of the entire Republican Policy. True Republicans, the kind of that I feel most Republican voters are, have been hijacked by the far-right Christian coalition and they are finally starting to fight to get their party back. These are brave souls, and a very much hope they can win. The Poetry of Donald Rumsfeld“As we know, there are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns. That is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don't know we don't know.” - Donald Rumsfeld—Feb. 12, 2002, Department of Defense news briefing |
