RIGHTWING LIES PART DEUX

All people lie sometimes. That's part of being human. Democrats too.

But they don't have experts at "the big lie" and wordsmiths working full time on crafting language to frame news events or manufactured events to distort or hide or bury or overwhelm the truth, obviously, because they (the Dems) have proven and are continuing to prove themselves terrible at it. (In my Hollywood years I knew many successful Hollywood writers who were hired by various rightwing and Republican agencies and campaigns to help do this, while most of the Hollywood and New York wordsmiths who offered their help to the Dems, including to this administration, were turned down!)

And Democrats did not start this manufactured controversy nor did they frame it as being about "A Mosque" at "Ground Zero." They send notices to the mass media newsrooms etc. about their points of view, but they are almost always too nuanced, too long, too considerate of multiple points of view, too dependent on logic and reasoning and facts rather than easy slogans and emotional triggers (with the exception of the Obama campaign which finally managed to outdo the right in sloganeering "Change" etc. and emotional triggers "we can rise above our racist history by electing Obama") etc.

The right has the sway and has had for many years when it comes to the so-called mainstream media because they do it better are more disciplined at following the message of the day etc. and are more ruthless about ignoring the facts. And on top of all that they manage to get it both ways by condemning that same media as "liberal" or out of touch with "real Americans" and thus getting even more concessions out of that media as they bend over backwards to accommodate the right and accept "Joe the Plumber" as "real" even though he wasn't a plumber and his real name isn't Joe, etc.

It's obviously a very successful strategy. So successful when it works that it reframes the argument in a way that any Democrat who tries to fight against the right's set up ("Mosque" "Ground Zero" etc.) loses votes and support and so some of them line up behind the right's framing of the issue to keep from losing their office or positions etc. (i.e, Harry Ried's and Howard Dean's moves and Rahm Emmanuel's influence etc.)

The kind of Democrats who actually stand up for their principals no matter what and don't either fall in line behind the right's framing of the issues or refuse to take the bait almost always lose that battle (Carter, Mondale, Gore, Kerry, et. al.) while the right, especially their leaders, denigrate the Dems behind closed doors as liberal wusses who can't even fight ruthlessly and fellow Dems condemn their own for either not standing up for their principals and caving to the right or standing up for them and losing power to the right.

It's easy for us, or at least me, to take an idealistic stance, but as I've written before endlessly, my experience is that my idealism and people like me led to Nixon's first and second wins and all the damage that caused for our country that could have been avoided, as well as leading to Reagan and Bush/Cheney (many of the idealists of like mind with me voted for Nader but by then I'd learned my lesson) etc.

One of the many reasons I voted for Obama was to end the war in Iraq. Obviously the violence isn't over, but the last "combat troops" have left and the "American" troops remaining are not engaging in the kinds of forays that led to so much death and destruction in the past seven years etc. Another reason was to end the deluge of rightwing judges being appointed and regulations and regulators being weakened in favor of corporations, etc. etc. Obama has come through on many things I care about. Not perfectly, not completely, not always to my liking and not always successfully, but much more than he is getting credit for whether in the media or from many who voted for him.

Under any Republican administration, including any that might replace him, the damage created by Bush/Cheney would only increase. Aspects of that damage have increased under Obama (some of the Homeland Security crap for instance) and I am against that, but over all almost every government agency has been strengthened in favor of most of us rather than in favor of the one per cent that controls over 95% of the wealth of our country as was happening under Bush/Cheney. Et-endlessly-cetera.

[And PS: I'm all for pulling all our troops out of everywhere, an idealistic goal I fought a lot of years for and sacrificed many things for (as well as for other ideals) and so did my family unfortunately. But I refuse to abdicate my vote and my support for the better option when neither live up to my ideals.]