Perverting Reality - Digby

[Mass]

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_11_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116278777424008117

Sunday, November 05, 2006

Perverting Reality

by digby

I have long written that the right has retired the concept of hypocrisy . But until I read this piece by David Frum over at alicublog I didn't realize that they had actually formulated a moral philosophy to justify it. It is truly astonishing:

...


The pressure in the media is slightly different, but the result is the same. The real point of this total disregard for reality is to force others to be complicit in their falsehoods.

They succeeded in getting everyone to agree that John Kerry should have immediately apologized for something he never said and they managed to at least partially spin what should have been a public relations disaster --- Bush personally ordering a project that resulted in arabic language nuclear plans winding up on the internet at the behest of their political fringe --- into a positive story that proved the Bush administration case for war.

These are bold, in-your-face challenges to what we all commonly perceive as reality. Frum's perverse moral view of Haggard's hypocrisy and dishonesty is the same thing. It's where the faith-based, the Limbaugh nation and the neocons come together in a Straussian orgy of lies and myths and pure brute force.

Winning this election will not change this. The political establishment has been trained in this method for almost two decades now and the Republicans are actually better at wielding this power as the opposition. I have no answers about how to deal with it. It's one of the most difficult challenges we face.

[acmejack]

1. They told us up front-"We create our own reality"

They told us they would and they have! 'That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''-Ron Suskind

http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/sloth/2004-10-16b.html

[malaise]

2. The truth is that Bushco has presented

a complete inversion of reality. Evil is now good.

[blm]

6. Well media should just realize that the lies aren't working anymore. Backlash

against Bush from last week's liefest - his approvals dropped AGAIN.

[malaise]

7. The backlash is coming

TOMORROW

[karynnj]

3. God, how do you fight and win in a world where lies are rewarded

Every time they do this, it likely makes it that much less likely that public people will speak out against them. But, if people accomodate them, do we become them, hiding from reality ourselves?

The Susskind quote fits this so well.

[blm]

4. They couldn't get away with it as much if Dems would stick together and FIGHT BACK

to EXPOSE The LIARS instead of JOINING the liars to manipulate the public sentiment in some perverse delusion that it will help their future plans.

[Canuckistanian]

5. Amen to that

It's truly sickening to see otherwise intelligent people parroting RW talking points for short-term political gain (and long-term political idiocy).